Prelude To Sanity

A Ranking of my 172 Favorite Films

2012-01-20T02:27:00.000-08:00

1. Unforgiven ~ proselytizing for two hours how inglorious the old west really was before finishing with the most glorious ending ever.

2. Gone With The Wind ~ Scarlett O'Hara was my first love. Hard to believe this film was made 70 years ago. Gorgeous soundtrack.

3. Life is Beautiful ~ The miraculously perfect fusion of comedy with sadness. Soundtrack is must-have.

4. Forrest Gump ~ Intellectually challenged character who becomes a football star, ping pong champion, war hero, chivalrous lover, and noble father leaving me with no excuse for dreams unrealized.

5. There Will Be Blood ~ Daniel Day Lewis in one of the greatest performances ever. Lost Best Picture Award to a movie appearing on this list at #142.

6. Cinderella Man ~My favorite sports movie.

7. Star Trek II, III, and IV ~ When I was a child, I'm afraid my reverence for Spock eclipsed my reverence for anything else.

8. Blade Runner ~ My favorite Sci-Fi movie. Rich with symbolism. What if you could meet your maker? Vangelis soundtrack makes it unforgettable.

9. The Book of Eli ~ Dystopian ambience at its best… stark cruel future… Denzel is bad in a good way and the girl is utterly gorgeous.

10. Unbreakable ~ My favorite super hero movie. Bruce Willis must be convinced of his unique abilities and destiny.

11. True Romance ~ Watch it for the showdown between Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper, but the rest of the movie is superb too.

12. Gladiator ~ Gripping story of revenge waged in ancient times against a twisted tyrant.

13. Godfather Trilogy ~ Notice the way the appearance of fruit consistently precedes death. The music will linger with you long after the closing credits ascend the screen.

14. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ~ Saw it on VHS when I was about 12 and the phone rang just before final showdown. While movie was on pause my brothers and I argued for nearly an hour about who would kill who. Incredible music by Morricone.

15. To Kill a Mockingbird ~ The inspiring integrity of Atticus. A movie unlike any other for the mood it creates and sustains.

16. Casablanca ~ Replete with majestic dialogue and beautiful musical score.

17. Truman Show ~ Another parable on what you might say if you ever bumped into your maker.

18. Enchanted ~ Fairytale Princess reminds us it's okay to have faith.... in people, in dreams, in love, in life.

19. Sideways ~ Made me feel smart just watching it. Working at several levels and ultimately suggesting you should be true to yourself and while you're at it, go ahead and conquer your fear.

20. Appaloosa ~ My second favorite western. Great chemistry and writing.

21. Rounders ~ The movie about Texas Holdem. Matt Damon's character is a card playing genius.

22. Groundhog Day ~ Lesson to be learned on how sweet life can be when you stop being an impatient self~centered jerk.

23. Far and Away ~ My favorite Tom Cruise movie. A great adventure transcending continents and feelings.

24. Goodwill Hunting ~ Matt Damon's character is a genius (again). This time he's tough as nails too and doesn't give a shit about anything or anyone. He's simply unimpressed.

25. Life of Brian ~ Easily the funniest movie ever made. And it scores a few points too about how ridiculous religion can be.

26. Princess Bride ~ When you're a kid you love stories and this is the best one.

27. Love Actually ~ Tons of laughs that leave you appreciating how boring life would be without that warm mushy stuff we tend to classify as love.

28. Braveheart ~ Beautiful how he humiliates the bad guys for killing his sweetheart. They pay with blood. Lots of it.

29. Equilibrium ~ This guy can (and, more to the point, does) kick ass.

30. Rocky I, II, III, V, VI ~ Had to omit the fourth installment because of the goofy speech Rocky makes to the Russian audience after defeating their champion.

31. Avatar ~ A big beautiful movie!

32. Blood of Heroes ~ Little known but perfectly produced dystopian portrayal of underdog athletes who won't quit.

33. Sling Blade ~ Carl?

34. Long Hot Summer ~ Don Johnson, Cybill Sheperd, Jason Robards. This 1980’s made for TV movie still hasn't been released on DVD.

35. Napoleon Dynamite ~ One of a handful of comedies on this list. Utterly unique. Makes you thank God you're not in high school anymore. Makes you sad that some people never outgrow those years.

36. Ivanhoe ~ Referring to the 1982 TV movie starring Sam Neil as the primary villain. A gorgeous depiction of heraldry and chivalry.

37. Yes Man ~ In which we are playfully reminded that we’re not doing quite enough living with our lives.

38. Year One ~ Funnier every time you watch it and it will make you more knowledgeably.

39. Girl in a Cafe ~ In which life is too damned precious to keep your mouth shut.

40. Troy ~ Very cool battle scenes and an inspired translation of Homer's Iliad to film without too much silliness with the pantheon of gods. Unfortunately there is a scene early in the movie in which Brad Pitt seems to have borrowed an outfit from the women’s wardrobe.

41. Untamed Heart ~ Illustrating how it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved.

42. Pulp Fiction ~ Not one unquotable line in the entire script.

43. Desperado ~ Full throttle entertainment greatly accentuated with Salma Hayek's personal contribution to global warming.

44. Scarface ~ Al Pacino is riveting as the bad ass Cuban. Wicked soundtrack.

45. Last Samurai ~ My second favorite Tom Cruise movie. There's a great great great action sequence in which the hero replays what he just did in his head... killing three assassins in about three seconds without a weapon.

46. Dodge Ball ~ Clever and creative comedy. Ben Stiller wants so much to be tough and somehow fails to realize that he is consistently the precise antithesis of coolness.

47. The Black Stallion ~ Inspiring and artistic. The main character, Alex, seems so quiet and introverted as though at his young age, he's learned already to live on a more enlightened plane where articulation is rendered primitive.

48. Shenandoah ~ Watch it for the advice James Steward gives his future son-in-law about how sometimes women will cry and you won't know why they're crying but it doesn't matter. Just hold them.

49. Malena

50. Leon - The Professional ~ This hero is tough as nails, but somehow a little girl finds a place in his heart.

51. At Play in the Fields of the Lord ~ Not yet on DVD. Sweeping South American epic in which pretty much every pretension is stripped naked.

52. It's a Wonderful Life ~ James Stewart at his best. Nothing wrong with movies that make you strive to be a better person.

53. Arsenic and Old Lace ~ Cary Grant at his unrivaled best. The look on his face will crack you up several moments before he opens his mouth to say something.

54. Harvey ~ Watch this movie every New Year's Eve with a couple of your dearest friends and plenty of White Russians. Takes a few years but eventually you'll find out how it ends.

55. Regarding Henry ~ Warms your heart to see an asshole accidentally learning how to be a person again.

56. Scent of a Woman ~ Should be watched on Thanksgiving Day. Pacino's character is blind in a couple of ways. Doesn't stop him from smacking people down... and sometimes they deserve it.

57. Lord of the Rings Trilogy ~ Well done adaptation of the classic fantasy series. Could do without all the hobbit frolicking toward the end.

58. Philadelphia Story ~ Watch if for the dialogue between Cary Grant and a drunk James Stewart.

59. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ~ A showdown between one good man and an entire government of greed and corruption. Not based on a true story, but who knows... maybe someday.

60. Mask ~ Exciting and hilarious. The first movie I ever saw Cameron Diaz in and it was love at first sight.

61. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ~ The sixth film on this list featuring James Stewart. Also John Wayne.

62. High Noon ~ The most classic of all westerns. Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and an Academy Award winning soundtrack.

63. Underworld Trilogy ~ Sexy gothic vampire movies with irresistible dark wet sinister ambience and thrilling action. The third and best is set in medieval times.

64. The Graduate ~ I know it's not a comedy, but sometimes I have to laugh at the way the characters are so incapable of connecting with each other. Soundtrack = Greatest Hits by Simon and Garfunkel.

65. Apocalypto ~ This is the kind of movie that grabs you and takes you for a ride at an accelerated velocity and never sets you down until you see the end credits.

66. Shane ~ Pretty deep story in which a gun slinger tries to retire while the bad guys won't let him. It doesn't hurt my appreciation for this movie that I was named after the main character.

67. Planet of the Apes ~ Perhaps the greatest cinematic surprise ending of all time. Watch for thunder in the sky when the astronauts are first exploring the planet... I swear you can see the face of an angry ape illuminated in the clouds.

68. True Grit ~ (2010) Amazing dialogue.

69. The Crucible ~ A cautionary tale against hysteria based on my favorite play.

70. Moonstruck ~ I watch the scene over and over again where Nicholas Cage demands of Cher "What am I, a monument to justice? I lost my hand! I lost my hand!" Riveting hilarity.

71. Pride and Prejudice ~ One of Hollywood's most successful adaptations of a classic.

72. Searching for Bobby Fischer ~ As you support this little boy's quest to dominate the chess world, he's busy cultivating something far more important, his soul.

73. A Knight's Tale ~ A fun movie with some surprisingly touching moments.

74. A Few Good Men ~ You know how sometimes you're flipping through channels and you come to a movie and you just can't flip to another channel no matter how many times you've seen it?

75. Lean on Me ~ In which Morgan Freeman endears himself to movie audiences forever.

76. Batman Begins ~ Better than the more highly acclaimed sequel Dark Knight which is poorly written. Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman all in one film!

77. Immortals

78. Cousins ~ Unforgettable moment as an altercation escalates in the movie's climax when Ted Danson explains "I'm trying to make some chicken salad out of some chicken shit."

79. Training Day ~ Possibly Denzel Washington's greatest performance. As close as you can get to L.A. without actually going to L.A.

80. Count of Monte Cristo ~ Hollywood took this immense classic and said Alexandre Dumas wrote a good story, but we can do better.

81. Somewhere in Time ~ A little silly... a little sappy... but when I first saw it more than twenty years ago... I didn't want it to ever end. Did I fall for Jane Seymour? Of course. Heart melting soundtrack.

82. Frankie and Johnny ~ In which a cook and a waitress remind us that you don't have to be a prince and a princess to create your own hot steamy passionate romance.

83. Titanic ~ No one compares it to Gone With the Wind anymore, thank God, but still a good movie.

84. Patriot ~ During which I realized I had already seen every facial expression Mel Gibson is capable of (and there are only two), but still a gripping story and well produced.

85. Legends of the Fall ~ In which Brad Pitt superbly portrays a man with a wild savage restlessness raging inside.

86. Superman Returns ~ In which I realized that I myself have what it takes to be a superhero minus the looks and the physique and the ability to fly and the incredible strength and the dedication to all that is good, but at least I know how to lose the girl I love. I can do that.

87. Independence Day ~ Exciting fun and patriotic!

88. Last of the Mohicans ~ I like the very old black and white version too, but this one is perfect and beautiful.

89. Never Let Me Go ~ An alternate reality in which we depend on exploited clones for our extended life expectancy.

90. Bambi ~ Sweetest animation ever made. Watch it for Thumper's charming perspective on life. Outstanding music.

91. Up

92. El Cid ~ In which I fell in love with Sophia Loren at the moment when her character relinquishes her quest for vengeance against the man who killed her father. An epic film.

93. The Ten Commandments ~ In which every line is delivered as though it were going to be the final line in the movie, and yet somehow it works. Majestic soundtrack.

94. Ben Hur ~ Apparently this is the Charlton Heston part of my list.

95. A Time to Kill ~ Not sure how realistic it was to have KKK in hand to hand combat with good guys outside the courthouse, but otherwise a great movie with great performances.

96. Gettysburg ~ A movie about one battle. You'll feel like you were there except you won't have three hundred bullets in you.

97. Davy Crockett ~ This movie instilled in me a dream of ending my life gloriously while killing incredible numbers of enemy soldiers with a couple of pistols and a Bowie knife.

98. The Jack Bull ~ Where unwavering principle meets a tragic fate.

99. Bourne Trilogy ~ Exceptional fighting sequences. Bourne is about as cool as an action figure can get.

100. Masada ~ Epic showdown between zealots and the entire Roman empire. Peter O'Toole is amazing.

101. I, Robot ~ One of those rare instances in which the film is at least twenty times better than the book.

102. Taken ~ Liam Neeson is the wrong vigilante to provoke.

103. Karate Kid I & II ~ The first film features one of the greatest kicks to the head in all of film history. The second takes us to Japan where Daniel falls in love with an unforgettably sweet innocent beautiful girl. Third and fourth installments were painfully stupid.

104. Saving Private Ryan ~ Opening assault on D-Day brought to life... giving my generation a glimpse of why their generation is so revered.

105. All the King’s Men

106. Children of Men ~ Has a tendency to make you jump out of your seat at the least expected moments.

107. District 9 ~ Amazingly realistic style of sci~fi

108. The Invention of Lying

109. Thor

110. A Simple Plan ~ The lady in the seat in front of me got up and left the theater in disgust. But I like movies that make you ask yourself what you would do.

111. 10,000 B.C. ~ Similar to Apocalypto, but with magic and fantastic beasts.

112. Matrix ~ Could have been so much better, but Laurence Fishburn's corny speech meant to inspire the good guys before the climactic battle made me gag. And the plot got so convoluted... no one can honestly say they knew what was going on.

113. King Kong ~ Newest version seems like three different movies. First they find Kong. Then there's the Jurassic Park adventure with Kong versus Dinosaurs. Then there's Kong in NY.

114. Idiocracy

115. Liar, Liar ~ Jim Carey's best comedy.

116. My Cousin Vinny ~ Marisa Tomei is delectable and the scene in the cell when Vinny is mistaken for a horny inmate will slay you with laughter.

117. Dream a Little Dream ~ Almost forgotten movie from the 80's with Jason Robards, an adorable Meredith Salinger, and the two Cory's. Winning soundtrack.

118. Kick Ass ~ Extremely R-rated action film. Don’t miss Nicholas Cage’s tribute to Adam West.

119. Edge of Darkness ~ The grimmest Mel Gibson performance to date.

120. Proof ~ Sophisticated and complex exploration of genius and the fragility of our emotions.

121. The Fighter

122. The Town

123. The Straight Story

124. Hurt Locker ~ Igniting as nothing has before my sympathy for soldiers who risk their lives every day.

125. 300 ~ Enjoy the action and the story, but not the silliness of everyone growling every time they speak.

126. Maltese Falcon

127. Hancock

128. Daybreakers

129. And Justice For All

130. Incredible Hulk ~ In which a helicopter crashes to Earth without bothering to blow up.

131. Centurion

132. Battle of the Bulge

133. Crash

134. Mongol ~ The Rise of Genghis Khan

135. Revolution

136. Finding Forrester ~ Farfetched how the student faces off against the frustrated professor in front of the class… every pupil’s fantasy.

137. Talladega Nights ~ The Ballad of Ricky Bobby ~ I could watch this just for the prayer at the dinner table.

138. Moneyball

139. The Reading Room ~ An inspiration for the fine art of being kind and good to the human race.

140. Chariots of Fire ~ Listed more for the Vangelis soundtrack than for great performances or scenery or plot.

141. Excalibur ~ The best Arthurian movie so far, but one day they’ll make one with a decent budget.

142. Pathfinder

143. Sin City

144. American History X

145. Dream Team

146. Monsters Ball

147. Phantom of the Opera

148. Absolute Power

149. Kill Bill I&II

150. Tristan and Isolde

151. Fargo

152. No Country for Old Men

153. Cowboys

154. The Departed

155. Anonymous ~ Entertaining treatment of the conspiracy theory that the works of Shakespeare belong to someone else.

156. Kingdom of Heaven ~ Disappointing how every chapter of his life begins with him meeting someone new and ends with that someone disappearing.

157. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Keanu Reeves)

158. Gangs of New York ~ The main reason to see this movie is the brilliance of Daniel Day Lewis.

159. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

160. Tombstone

161. Vanity Fair

162. Oliver Twist

163. Click

164. Rio Bravo

165. Pale Rider

166. Ride the High Country

167. Donnie Darko

168. Harry Potter

169. Double Indemnity

170. Miracle

171. Memento

172. The Contender

My Last Blog of 2011

2011-12-31T14:32:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the first day of a new week.
Tomorrow is the first day of a new month.
Tomorrow is the first day of a new year.

In other words the stars are lining up for a new beginning.

This last year has served to remind me how stupid I can be.

2012 is about doing better.

Just Watched Melancholia

2011-12-15T21:30:00.000-08:00

Very interesting movie... starts off slow with slow music and slow motion pictures that almost look like stills.

Melancholia is the name of a planet that's been hiding behind the sun and finally initiates an orbital journey that will bring it into perilously close proximity with Earth, but as the film begins you don't really know anything about that context... you're just watching Justine and her newlywed husband as they arrive for their reception at a mansion owned by Justine's brother inlaw... played by Keifer Sutherland (turning into Donald right before your eyes).

As the incredibly expensive and seemingly unending reception progresses you watch Jusine fade in and out of depression so that there seems to be a two-fold significance to the film's title... the melancholia of the bride as well as the name of the approaching planet.

Enough about the story... now about symbolism. I'm not smart enough to explain it, but I can at least detect some of it when I see it.

There is Biblical symbolism in the name of the horse that only Justine can ride... his name is Abraham... and twice she rides him and both times he balks at crossing a bridge on the way to the village... and when the movie concludes after more than two hours... you will perhaps observe that at no time do you see any scene anywhere except on the golf course estate where the mansion is located. Later Justine's sister tries to escape doom by riding a golf cart to the village and... oddly enough... it dies at the bridge precisely where Abraham consistently refuses to go further.

Also the movie is split into two parts... the first titled Justine and the second titled Claire after her sister. Justine and Claire.... Their initials are strikingly similar to those of Jesus and Christ... am I stretching here? Very likely.

Claire's little boy is Leo. I think an obvious reference to a constellation which seems relevant as much of the movie includes star-gazing.

Then there are numbers... at one point Claire's husband is trying to impress Justine with how much money he has spent on the reception party and demands of her if she knows how many holes there are on the golf course. Answer 18.

Also guests are required to guess how many beans are in a crystal receptacle... eventually we learn the answer is 678 supposedly trivial, but Justine uses her knowledge of this as evidence that she knows things others don't... like there is no life on other planets. But two things about the number itself... first if you add the number of the tribes of Israel (12) to the number of the mark of the beast of Revelation (666) you get 678. That's the first thing... the second... if you observe that 6, 7, and 8 are sequential cardinal numbers... I think it's interesting that the very next number we hear about is when Justine sarcastically suggests that during the end of the world they ought to listen to Beethoven's 9th,,, coincidence? Makes me wonder if I could have found a 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 had I been looking for them from the beginning.

That's all I came up with on my own... now to research the supposed critics and experts.

Thanks for reading.

PS: Came up with a couple more things... The reference to the 18th hole is delivered by Claire's husband, John. In the Bible, John is the writer of the Book of Revelation so I took a peak at chapter 18 and like most of the book... it's about the wickedness and destruction of Babylon... but in the 23rd verse we get:

And the voice of the bridegroom

and of the bride

shall be heard no more

at all in thee

Also... back to the horse Abraham not being able to cross the bridge... during her depression Justine is similarly unable to get into the bathtub... this could be one of those movies in which water plays a great role in the symbolism.

The Silent Treatment

2011-12-13T16:59:00.000-08:00

This past weekend in the poker room where I work a player was collecting a large pot he'd just won and someone exclaimed how lucky he was. His explanation, "clean living!" I thought that was pretty amusing. Today I feel I've enjoyed clean living based on the fact that it's now been one month since I've gambled.

But something else has emerged in my lifestyle as well... I call it my quiet time. I feel as though I have spent the past 29 years navigating a raging storm of disappointment in matters of the heart. And just recently it has subsided and I spend day after day not really thinking of anyone in particular but just happily keeping myself to myself.

This is one reason why I do not long for my youth as others seem to. I remember my youth and it was chaos.

Now I keep myself busy with things I enjoy.

Reading Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy and Stephanie Meyers' Twilight Series... which while I'm intrigued with the storyline... wondering how Bella will resolve her interest in Jacob and Edward satisfactorily and whether or not she will ever become a vampire herself... the writing horrifies me. Someone reminded me she's writing for a teenage girl audience... to which I observe it's one thing to write for a teenaged girl and another to write like a teenaged girl. I guess what sickens me is the verbal fondling between the lovers. This is true in real life, isn't it? That when you are around lovers who are saying sticky sweet things to each other it provokes all kinds of vomiting urges... right? Bella answers the door and there stands her human dream! Yuck!

Also about to commence reading the oldest novel in the history of literature... The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki. I really hope it's good because it's about 1000 pages.

Tonight before work I will visit Chili Thai and enjoy their classic fried rice with tofu.

Tomorrow night is volleyball.

Thursday I'll be seeing a movie that some people walk out on because it's so tedious and some people continue to think about days later... and they are sometimes the same people... Melancholia.

Saturday I have my online draft for the fantasy basketball season. I'm a Knicks fan, but far far more than that I am a Miami Heat hater... my favorite team this year will be the team that knocks the Heat out of the playoffs.

Assembling material for my fourth open mic comedy routine... as yet unscheduled.

12 days til Christmas.

Life is quiet.. and calm... uneventful... but perfect.

Accomplice to Serial Killing

2011-12-08T20:52:00.000-08:00

When I moved into this apartment complex, I didn't know they were planning to make it a gated community. The nice thing about this arrangement is that when a serial killer gets the urge to kill some people they will drive right past and do their dirty work at the apartments down the street at the end of the block.

But every once in a while a serial killer will be determined not just to kill apartment residents, but more specifically to kill apartment residents who think they are safe... and here is how he will do it. He drives up to the gate and parks right next to the access panel. If he lived in this complex he would have in his car with him a drivers~license~sized card containing an electronic device which, when held up to the panel, will activate the gate and cause it to open. But because the serial killer is just a visitor he has no such card and simply parks his car there and waits. Eventually some actual resident will drive up behind the killer's automobile and wait patiently... assuming the killer is a resident who just needs a moment to find his access card. This would be annoying to the resident most likely... because if you live here.. you have to use that card every day and so wouldn't you, a rational person, be mindful not to misplace an item so integral to your return home? The actual resident will pretty quickly make a new assumption... perhaps the killer is not a resident but a visitor... perhaps he has just dialed a code and someone already home in their apartment is going to answer their phone and press the number 9 thereby activating the gate... but several more moments elapse... finally the actual resident realizes that whoever is supposed to be granting admittance to the killer must be in the shower or not even home. By this time four or five cars have lined up behind the killer's car... so many cars in fact that they are now lining up out on the street and backing up traffic for the folks that just want to drive on down to the end of the block and return to their easy to access but woefully dangerous ungated community just down the road.

Then the actual resident parked just behind the killer has to make a decision... he doesn't know who this killer is... what if he's a dangerous sort? What if he's obsessed with an ex~girlfriend and wants to smash in the windows on her car? What if he's a sick pervert who wants to urinate in the swimming pool? What if he's a poacher come to deprive the pond of its delicate swans?

But in the end... who cares? It's not like the actual resident can turn around or back up and go another way, is it? I mean by this time there is a continental drift of traffic jammed up in both directions behind him... so he does what he really knows he should have done three or for minutes earlier... he gets out of his car and walks up next to the killer's card and without any salutation whatsoever he reaches his card out in front of the access panel and the gate begins its arthritic opening sequence.

And everyone is happy... you know... except obviously the eventual victims... but that was bound to happen anyway sooner or later.

For the most part everyone loves living in a safe and protected environment.

Then one time last summer I had a friend come visit me from back east. We had a great time climbing mountains and taking pictures and singing and playing darts... it was the beginning of July when she left and it was then I realized that... what with all the tons of fun we'd been having... I had forgot to pay the rent... so I hurried into the office check in hand only to be told that after the 2nd of the month checks were not permitted but only a money order totaling the month's rent plus $50 for being late. I argued my case but the lady in charge was in full~militant~if~you~think~you~can~charm~me~because~I'm~a~woman~I~will~ castrate~you~with~an~automatic~pencil~sharpener~mode. So meekly I left the office bummed out about the damned inconvenience and fiscal penalty.

Next day I went to the bank and purchased the money order and returned to the office, but because now another day had expired they needed an additional $5. "I didn't know about this" I pleaded "or I would have taken care of it yesterday." But the lady in charge, whose name must have been Harold or Chester, was not to be assuaged. Finally I saw there was no compromise to be negotiated and I pulled out a five dollar bill to consummate the violation of myself, but the lady with her Herculean femininity was not interested. No, I had to return once more to the bank and procure yet another money order... this time in the amount of $5. No cash, no check, no gold bullion would suffice... a money order or an eviction... that was my choice.

Yes, I thought about moving out. Had nowhere to go, it's true, but surely living homeless on the street would be better than submitting to this power hungry lady who made Hulk Hogan look like a Barbie Doll.

But in the end I took my punishment as much like a man as I could while cowering and whimpering in her Paul Bunyanesque shadow.

The only revenge I exacted, I admit, was a bit immature. But that night from 10pm until 4am I stood by the access panel with my access card in front of the gate and admitted dozens and dozens of serial killers as soon as they drove up. They're a shy lot about their chosen professions, I learned. Not more than three in 20 will even admit to having ever murdered anyone.

Double Digits

2011-11-23T03:32:00.000-08:00

As of six minutes ago I reached 10 days of gambling abstinence. It's nice getting into double digits. It's progress.

Yesterday while napping I dreamed I capitulated and sat down to play poker and won a few dollars but felt shitty for succumbing to temptation so soon when I have felt confident I could hold out for much longer. But the nice thing about a rotten dream like that is the euphoric realization afterward that it was only a dream. And ultimately it motivates me more.

When I quit ten days ago I said to myself... I'm not just trying to break my record this time. I'm not merely attempting to go an entire year gambling free... this time is forever... I want to look back at 2011 as the year I quit for good. But already I'm finding this a difficult resolve to embrace.

I wonder how much better I could be as a gambler if I could get my tilt under control. Tilting is.. basically when you are unhappy with your luck and you let your emotions dictate your decisions rather than controlling yourself with impersonal logic and proven principles. I have entertained notions of how I could practice subduing my emotional responses so that after a year or so I can return to gambling... and be better at it.

Additionally I recently met a beautiful young woman and learned she works at a local casino and so there's the temptation of wandering in there one day and playing cards and... you know... putting myself in a situation where I can get to know her. Easy enough to put it off for now... but forever?

Tricky.

Just being honest with myself... if I'm slaying this dragon... I like to acknowledge it's one fat son of a bitch dragon I'm slaying.

Prelapsarian Peregrinations

2011-11-16T10:31:00.000-08:00

I've made it three days (and 6.5 hours) without gambling and doing well. Life does not suck... which almost puzzles me. I should wake up sick each day about how much money I wasted so recently... but the pitiful actuality is that I've done this so many times I'm nearly immune to it. Desensitized.

When I was attending MTSU I bought a beautiful Bible with the Scofield Study System published by Oxford. Even though I'm a skeptic of religion, I wanted a superior text with which to do my research. I knew I would be marking it up with notes and underlining and so I commenced a search for a pen that would serve this purpose effectually. What I found was the uni-ball gel pen and I've been using them fanatically ever since... about twelve years now. I use them for everything. I don't even want to make a bank deposit unless I have one with me. I don't want to use the pen they provide with my check at a restaurant or barista... I want to use my pen. It just flows smoother... and my handwriting comes out more confident. Anyway on Sunday... less than one day into my current effort at gambling abstinence... while I walked around the poker room half monitoring customers who might need more chips and half monitoring the demolition of my NY Jets at the hands of their hated rivals, the Patriots, as it was broadcast on five flat screen televisions, the cap to my pen snapped off... Only I didn't realize it for a few moments and by the time I discovered the caplessness of said pen... I didn't know where I might have been when the decapitation occurred... so I retraced my steps. This is by no means the first time this has happened... and I liken it to the sensation you might endure if you were to show up at work one day and suddenly realize you were naked. Very disconcerting and it's hard to concentrate on anything work-related until your personal dilemma is resolved. Well.. a few minutes later when I'd almost given up I did spot the cap laying unharmed near table 4 Seat 6 at the front of the room... And relieved at its reunion with pen I realized that indeed... my life would continue and there would be happiness once more. That's all it took.

And I'm demonstrating greater self-control with my dieting... Saying things to myself like... on my next break I'm only going to eat one banana and one other fruit... and then following through on it... to the letter. This is unusual to me. I lost three pounds in three days... that was before last night when I accidentally ate a banana with peanut butter, two waffles, half a can of Blue Diamond BBQ roasted almonds, and a bowl of pears just minutes before going to bed. But still.. in general... doing better... like yesterday at my favorite restaurant... Chili Thai... I ate half of my dinner and boxed up the other half for later. How difficult is that to do when you're eating something delicious? For me it's a challenge.

And I'm doing housework each day... it's so easy for me to say I'm going to wash dishes or vacume or clean the sink... but when I actually follow through... I become ridiculously proud of myself.

But most importantly... I've been writing in my novel frequently... not a lot... but often. The working title is Lilith's Lament, but a repetitious tendency in the writing has occurred to me. Near the beginning a character named Lance is relating to a young student named Ryan the events that occurred in Eden before the creation of Adam and Eve. One thing that happens is that Lucifer is banished for a while and with there being nothing much better to do... he goes walking across the face of the Earth and back. Then after Adam is created Lucifer and Gabriel go searching for him... so I felt compelled to decorate their search with dialogue. Then they found him and are escorting him back to Eden... and once more I must relate what they talk about on the way... but to interrupt the monotony... I decide to have the present day narrators... Lance and Ryan... consider how late it is getting... so Lance offers to accompany Ryan on the way back to his neighborhood... ughh... more walking! Anyway... that's when I jokingly came up with a new title for my novel... Prelapsarian Peregrinations. Wich means walking on foot before the fall of mankind.

One Forever at a Time

2011-11-13T16:44:00.000-08:00

November 13th I sat down to play Texas Holdem to kill some time before the end of my shift. I work in a poker room and am allowed to play on the clock if in the estimation of management, my playing will contribute to sustaining the game. I bought in for $500 and won my first hand, but then began losing and had to buy another $400 in chips... and then another $400... in less than two hours I dropped $1600 and realized this whole gambling thing needs to stop. Problem is it's addictive.

I have plenty of horror stories about losing money to this vice. One time I had won about $250 while playing Spanish 21 with my girlfriend... we enjoyed a free dinner in the restaurant and were going home when she persuaded me it would be fun to play the slot machines for a little while... we were positively losing back all the money we'd won and unable to accept this... found a roulette wheel where I lost the remainder of my winnings along with another $1000. I told my girlfriend I was going to the restroom but instead went and processed a cash advance on my credit card for $2000 thinking this way my girlfriend wouldn't have to realize I'd lost all my money... but then before rejoining her I found another roulette wheel and lost the entire $2000 too.

Eventually I was forced to file for bankruptcy and saved up about $800 for the lawyer... but the day before my appointment I stopped at a casino and lost it all. Had to beg my girlfriend to loan me the money. Admitting how stupid I'd been was becoming painfully familiar.

I've found that I'm capable of staying away from it for long periods of time... always keeping track and trying to eclipse previous records... 86 days of abstinence... 142 days, 152 days, 172 days, and most recently 243 days....

I've tried everything to motivate myself... I've written a daily blog, I've attended one Gamblers Anonymous meeting... I've set up a savings account that deducts $10 automatically from my checking account each day that I don't gamble. I've designed a timetable for rewards... things I can buy if I make it a predetermined number of days without straying.... I've written time~stamped assurances that I would not transgress. I've tried telling everyone about my struggles... I've tried telling no one...

All I know to do is to keep trying.

The Gospel According to Gotchya

2011-06-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

Last night at work I petitioned Glen, the bartender, to make a list of his five favorite comedy films of all time. This is a game we play to pass the time during the slow hours of the early morning; we take turns naming categories and then after a few minutes compare our respective selections. In this case my list looked like this:

Monty Python’s Life of Brian

Year One

Idiocracy

Dodge Ball

Napolean Dynamite

But when I approached Glen with my results I saw he was conversing with a customer and in the briefest of moments realized the topic had to do with the Son of God. The customer used the expression, “his only begotten son.” And unable as I was to restrain myself, I blurted out the text in which that phrase appears , John 3:16. The fellow acknowledged this but then emphasized the difference between this reference and the one in Genesis that mentions the pluralized “sons of God.”

“Oh, you mean in chapter 6 where it says that the sons of God knew the daughters of men!” I exclaimed. This chapter fascinates me personally inasmuch as mythology has dubbed the offspring of these copulations as the nephilim. Interpretations vary regarding all of these characters… some have the sons of God being angels… some have the offspring being giants… and in my own epic novel (a work in progress) I have the daughters of men being vampiresses.

The fellow seemed slightly unsure about what I was saying… possibly disconcerted that I had twice cited the texts he was borrowing from… but I was just getting started… I went on to contribute a third scripture in which a son of God was mentioned… this time having to do with the story of Daniel in which his three appellatively famous friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were unharmed in the fiery furnace and the Babylonian King descried a fourth person resembling the Son of God.

Then I asked our customer if he was a Trinitarian. He said no, he was just a Christian. Not a Baptist or a Methodist or anything like that. I explained that Trinitarianism is not a denomination, but rather a theological philosophy. “Do you believe in the Trinity?” I asked and he confirmed that he certainly did. “Most Christians do” I reassured him.

This is a topic with which I am somewhat familiar mostly because my father is of the radical persuasion that the concept of the Trinity is an invention of Satan to corrupt the faithful into believing in a confused version of God. Whereas there is only one true God, Trinitarians, the argument goes, kind of believe that the Holy Spirit is God too and that Jesus is God along with God the Father. It occurred to me that this customer may have been pondering just such a debate with his attention to the Son and/or sons of God.

Having shown off that much I was obliged to attend to some of the responsibilities in the poker room for which I am employed, but when I came back to the bar where the conversationalists were still engaged, Glen said the gentleman had a question for me which turned out to be this, “Why did you read the Bible if you don’t believe in it?” Apparently Glen had apprised the customer in my absence of my skepticism toward religion. And I was happy to answer, “I believed in it when I read it. I began when I was seven years old and finished when I was 14. I didn’t quit believing until I was 17.

And this is where the discussion became blog~worthy in my opinion. Usually a person would have followed up by asking what happened when I was 17 to influence such a drastic change. But instead this fellow inquired if I had read Nietzsche which I hadn’t, but of course I blurted out what little I did know about him… something about the super man and something about “Thus spake Zarathustra.” But my audience was not impressed in the least and exhorted me to read Nietzsche, “He was an atheist, you know.”

“Was he a Nihilist?” I asked innocently.

“No, he was a German philosopher” I was told. “Of course, he went insane.”

This is when it became clear to me why our customer had no interest in why I’d become an atheist myself. He already had a perfect conclusion to our argument… the only point he wished to make was that a famous atheist had gone insane. By extension I imagine it’s fairly safe to assume I shall meet with a similar fate. I wouldn’t be surprised if studies support the notion that nearly every case of insanity on record probably began with someone questioning God’s existence (sarcasm).

This fellow upon learning of my deficiency in faith, had pretty much no inclination to witness to me with Christian love or kindness. The prospect of dialogically ambushing me with this loaded feint of recommending a notorious atheist was far more tempting for him than any sincere demonstration of Christianity could ever have been.

His final parting shot was the remark that “they love Nietzsche in all those atheist colleges.” What atheist colleges? What constitutes an atheist college? Is it a college for atheists? A college run by atheists? A college featuring a board of trustees the majority of which profess atheism? Is it at all possible that there really isn’t any such thing as an atheist college in the United States?

Any way… the communication between us, while amusing, was not especially worthwhile. Here he was supposing… almost hoping that I’d based my skepticism upon Nietzshe whose writings I am basically unacquainted with, while I think I had provided a far more relevant indication that my doubts about God have more to do with the Bible than any other literary feat.

Related links:

Does God Have Hormones?

How I became an Atheist

Destination: Life

2011-04-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I watched A Few Good Men again and it kind of caught me by surprise to realize it is now 19 years since the movie was first released. It got me to thinking about the way life passes by seemingly with increasing velocity.

My reflection took me back to a summer afternoon in North Carolina 1983. We had been to the beach with the Skeltons, close family friends. On the way back we kids rode in the back of a pickup truck and enjoyed the thrill of warm wind rushing past us as we sped along the roads and highways. And for some reason my mind latched onto the concern that it was taking me entirely too long to grow up. When you're twelve years old it takes forever to become thirteen.

So today I did a little math. If you dismiss the first three years of my life as being irrelevant because I can hardly remember them... then at age twelve, a year constituted about 11% of my life. But now at age 40 a year constitutes about 3% of my life. That's why a year seems so long when you're a kid and so short when you're an adult. In 1983 I could remember celebrating eight birthdays.... now I've forgotten about 20 or 25 of them.

How many times has someone told me they've been married for 40 years and I've exclaimed, "Wow, I haven't even been alive that long!" Not so anymore. Now I have been alive that long. I now have a fairly decent grasp on how much time must elapse for 40 years of life to be recorded.
So on I walked pondering life and the rapidity of its consumption, as it were. And I asked myself... should I be driving instead? I mean if life is so short... I could get where I'm going much sooner if I drove. But that begs the question what is more important... my destination? Or the manner in which I get there? Because today I was going to my favorite Thai restaurant in order to devour some tasty fried rice with tofu and to read from a couple books, Ulysses and Outlander, but it was a nice day and I wanted to enjoy it... so I went on foot.

I wonder if I'll eventually reach the point where I panic so much about the limitations to life, that I'll actually drive more often and walk less so as to save time. Preserving more time to do whatever I plan to do when I get wherever I'm going. And it occurs to me I might ought to upgrade the things I'm planning to do at the other end of my traversings. Beftter to write a book when I get there than to read one.

Should Anyone Ever Wonder

2011-01-29T13:26:00.000-08:00

Sandwich in hand I went outdoors and around the corner of the house, heading for a big stack of lumber recently deposited in the driveway. While the purpose for this lumber eludes memory, it certainly promised an excellent location for eating sandwiches, but then something effectively changed my mind. A buzzing bee spastically harassed me and threatened the tenuous balance of the precious sandwich I meant to protect. I deftly executed an about face and returned hastily to the safety of the indoors.

Why do I remember the bee? How many bees have lived and died since that day in 1974 when I was little more than three years old? And yet this one is immortalized, though nameless, in these opening lines of my autobiblography (how carefully that word was just invented). I was infant. I’m guessing the bee was even younger. But today I turn 40. Bear with me while, for the sake of acclimation, I say that again. Today I turn 40. Almost one third of the way to my goal, January 29^th, 2092 at which time I would have broken the record for the oldest man to ever live according to the Guinness Book of World Records, except that they recently decided that Shigechiyo Izumi had been using an older brother’s birth certificate and name and that he died when he was a scant 105 years old rather than the 120 he professed. So the true record for a man is 115 years held by Christian Mortensen (1882-1998), but I digress (something I hope you see a lot of as you read on). Anyway… so my original plan was to break the record in 2092, but apparently I will have to break it five years earlier than that, but I’m still going to go on kicking and breathing (no necessarily in that order) until 2092 because in all of my morbid artwork depicting my eventual grave marker, that is the year inscribed… what can I do? It’s set in stone.

I met the bee in Norridgewock, Maine, home of my earliest memories. I had a dream while living there in which I was pulling my cousin Melanie up a hill in a red wagon and stopped at a service station for gas, but once I’d paid inside the attendant motioned me to leave through a different door designated for the exit. This second door was not made of shiny glass like the first, this other door was dark and ominous… very much what you expect to see in a haunted house and just as I pushed it open I realized there were, stuck in the door, long bony fingers with claws protruding where fingernails might ought to have , and when it was opened they belonged to the Devil who grasped me by the throat and pulled me into a dungeon-like room and threw me onto an altar where there roared a savage lion… I scrambled to the edge of this sinister construction and dove headfirst off the side and into a barrel of orange goo in which I would surely have suffocated were it not for the discovery of my beloved pillow in the bottom of this receptacle signifying a return to consciousness.

I don’t mind remarking as humbly as possible that it’s a rare case for someone to remember so vividly the details of a dream from infancy. But there’s a reason for it. I was lying awake one night a couple years later and was troubled because I couldn’t remember the house we lived in when I was born. Couldn’t remember the one my little brother was born in either. So I initiated the practice at bedtime of reminiscing about everything I could still remember from my earliest years including the bee and the dream. And Easter when my dad hid jelly beans all over the house and then carried me piggyback to find them. To my older siblings this represented an unfair advantage because my transportation knew exactly where they were hidden, but I didn’t seem to mind. My dad made Easter magically fun for me that Sunday morning just as my mother has always had an incredible talent for making Christmas feel magical. Remembering such moments makes me wish to have children of my own.

To celebrate my 40^th birthday I am submitting a timeline of my life so far:

1971 Born in Jamestown, New York

1974 Earliest memories of Norridgewock, Maine

1975 Moved into the basement of my Uncle Bob’s house in Blue Mountain Lake, New York where my cousin Becky became my first best friend.

1976 Parents divorced. Mother remarried and moved to Clinton, North Carolina with her two youngest (including me).

1978 Began reading the Bible and was baptized a Seventh Day Adventist. Also watched Gone With the Wind for the first time which became my favorite movie until 1992.

1979 Moved to West Virginia to live with my father and older siblings and new mother and sister (Connie). My first girlfriend was Julie Jacobson.

1980 Moved back to Garland, North Carolina and went to school in Clarkton.

1981 Developed an obsessive crush on 8^th grader Julia Kinlaw and wrote on the inside of my Bible that I would love her forever. My mother removed the oath explaining it had no place in God’s Word.

See how the left page is slanted at the top?

1982 Became an avid stamp collector. Took home school.

1983 Moved to West Alexander, Pennsylvania and on the last day of school before Spring Break got lost and had to walk home about twelve miles. Before the week was over I had also survived a tornado and developed chicken pox. Also developed fanatic enthusiasm for NFL football.

1984 Fell into a deep case of puppy love with Tammy (Kitty Cat Eyes) Coon in Fletcher, North Carolina.

1985 Back in Garland again taking school at home. Got a kitten that I meant to name Touchdown, but all the way home he kept falling off the seat so his name quickly became Fumble instead.

1986 Moved to Nashville, Tennessee so my mother could be closer to her high school sweetheart who resided in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. Pet Shop Boys become my favorite music act.

1987 Obsessed with Song Baek at Madison Academy.

1988 Became an atheist on March 12^th while praying. Dropped out of high school.

1989 Went to the movies for the first time and saw Rain Man. Passed my GED. Moved to Elmhurst Illinois and began journaling the next day which practice I have maintained ever since.

1990 Convicted of a misdemeanor while working for Blockbuster Video and assumed it was the end of my life.

1991 Living in Addison, Illinois and fell helplessly in love with Maggie Bashqawi while working at Ken’s World of Video. Went to school at EIU for two semesters in Charleston, Illinois.

1992 Moved to Madison, Tennessee and became infatuated with dear friend from high school, Ivy Dawn Farler. Platonic friendship with Tricey (she is to friendship what cheesecake is to food) officially commenced on April 11^th. Unforgiven becomes my new favorite movie.

1995 Moved to Murfreesboro and went to school at MTSU where I met Mercedes and Pauli (My best and most devout friend).

1998 Procured a bachelors degree in English and Literature with a GPA of 3.86 which I think is respectable for a high school dropout. While studying for the GRE I begin compiling what I refer to as $5 words (prestidigitation, ubiquitous, floccinaucinihilipilification). Also decided to read every classic and to assemble them in the order that I read them.

1999 Returned to United States from vacation in Europe and developed obsession with chat rooms for atheists.

2000 Arrived in Washington on the first day of the new millennium without a job or a home or any acquaintances. Began dating Carolyn Marbas in November.

2001 Developing a movie project which prescribes watching movies in the order in which they are set… so for example you would begin with movies like Ice Age and 10,000BC and end with movies like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek.

2002 Become commissioner of the End of the World fantasy baseball league which is still thriving.

2003 Problem gambling. Began working at Muckleshoot Indian Casino.

2005 Coldplay becomes my new favorite music act. Perform my first amateur comedy routine. Perfect first date with Wendy.

2006 Wendy and I break up which takes several years to recover from because there’s simply no one else like her. But I don’t think everyone is meant to be in a relationship and I’m determined to prove I can be happy on my own. Well not completely on my own... there are amazing friends like Lindsay to help me along.

2007 Broke up a fight in the Poker Room between two drunks by throwing one of them over a side table. Found an enchanting friend on MySpace. She uses the alias Alyssa Shane.

Nocturnal Desperado and Alyssa Shane Halloween 2008

2010 Completed 243 days of gambling abstinence and, thanks to the world's awesomest brother, have a cool TV mounted on my wall.

2011 Working slowly but surely on a novel about Lilith and the origin of vampires. 40^th birthday.

It's happening again...

2011-01-27T03:58:00.001-08:00

If you've followed my blogs at all.. you know I have an uncanny way of talking about famous people just hours before they die. Today my mother asked me if I've seen Invictus and made me promise I would watch it in the next week or so. It's about time to call it a night so I logged onto Amazon and found the movie which is on sale for just under $11 and added it to my shopping cart... then I thought... what the heck... might just as well check msnbc.com to see what the stock market finished at today... while there what do you think I found... Nelson Mandella hospitalized. Here's hoping he makes a full recovery, but no matter what... they can't touch his soul.

The Perfect Girl (if there is any such thing)

2010-12-02T21:50:00.000-08:00

I thought I would try to straighten out in my own head what it is that I'm looking for in my next romantic companion. Insofar as I have a tendency to dream of a girl that is so virtually perfect that she could only be found in a distant land far beyond the river we call reality... I thought I would make an effort to prioritize as well as I can what is essential to me and what is merely preferrable...

Essential

Niceness/Kindness ~ Not just toward me. I will be proud to claim her partly because she impresses everyone with the beauty in her heart.

Intellectually Provocative ~ One couple I know brags about the way they will cook dinner together and get so engrossed in a conversation that they forget to eat the dinner they're preparing. I want that too.

Adoration ~ She loves pretty much every thing about me... my face, my kisses, the way I talk... the way my nose moves while I'm talking... my sense of humor... my imagination... the way I sing... she likes for me to read to her... she hungrily awaits the next product of my creativity.

Creativity ~ I want to love her and encourage her for what she creates... Whether it's photography or poetry or painting or prose or even something that doesn't begin with "P" so long as it hasn't been done before and she loves doing it.

Reading ~ I'm not looking for someone who wishes she had time to read. She finds the time.

Movies ~ She gets lost in the movie she's watching... and it's easy to persuade her to watch one almost every day (and she still has time to read)(this is my fantasy... don't opress me).

Tolerance ~ She is not a racist or bigot... and even though she's very likely a Liberal... she tries to understand opposing points of view without judging anyone to the point that she begins foaming at the mouth.

Affection ~ She loves to hug me... to feel my face against hers... and she doesn't necessarily care if we happen to be in public at such times.

Active ~ I'm not into skiing or fog~boarding or sky~cycling personally... I'm not talking about that... I just mean it's relatively easy to convince her to go for a walk or a hike. Maybe she likes tennis and ping~pong and bowling and darts and jogging and dancing and karaoke and racquetball and volleyball... or at least a few of these.

Self Confident ~ She's not worried that I might cheat on her because she knows I'd be a fool to take her for granted. And she knows I'm not a fool. And she can say thank you when someone compliments her instead of manufacturing tedious explanations for why and how the compliment is not valid.

Voice ~ Soft and sweet and delicious.

Sense of Humor ~ She makes me laugh and I make her laugh.

Preferrable

Perfume ~ she wears enough so that I notice it... I'm highly susceptible to sweet fragrances.

Jewelry ~ I think some jewelry looks really nice. And by God if I give her a necklace or a ring or a watch... it is sacred to her and she wears it sometimes. It does not reside perpetually within the confines of some silly storage device awaiting a perpetually elusive special occasion.

Makeup ~ Some girls wear it and some don't... I'm in favor of a little makeup (as opposed to tons).

Animals ~ I'm not looking for a girl who doesn't like animals...

Disney Movies ~ She loves them.

Kids ~ she wants them... pretty much as many as possible... even though she's also concerned about the population explosion on Planet Earth... so we might opt for moderation eventually.

Finally

I reserve the right to enjoy my own company and the company of my friends and to remain single until I find someone like this. So what if I don't quite deserve her! I'll worry about that when the time comes.

A Spoonful of Morphine Helps the Reminiscing Go Down

2010-12-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

I recommend another glass of wine
Before you open up that old valentine
And wade into obsequious mendacity
For only about the billionth time.

Happily Never After

2010-11-22T17:46:00.000-08:00

No music sad enough to serenade our sad farewell
You gave me love
For which I have no use
The warmth we shared
We exchange for a freezing winter of isolation
In the end I feel things I should have felt before
No one anywhere cares at all...
And so adroitly I keep it to myself...
Almost...

My Equanimity Meter

2010-11-21T16:19:00.000-08:00

How best to describe it? I have a young relationship (not sure what kind of relationship it is... which is part of what makes it so incredibly special) with someone and she's very important to me and a couple nights ago I think I had a psychotic episode wherein I panicked because I hadn't been hearing from her quite so often as usual. I was talking about the incident with my mother and she said something along the lines of... whatever you do... don't be needy. And I said... it's one of the most puzzling characteristics of my life that there are several behaviors everyone knows I should avoid like neediness and codependency and insecurity and yet in all of these I have been blessed with unrivaled proficiency. What useless gifts.

But I maintain... one mistake ought not be too harmful so long as I learn from it and do better... so the next day I determined to do better and not only that but to measure my progress with the implementation of an equanimity meter which amounts to a scale from 1 to 10 designed to register how satisfied I am with life on any given day.

Today has been a perfect 10! Messages from my young lady of interest are back to their normal prolificacy and the Jets miraculously won in the last 40 seconds of their game (for the third week in a row) and my blood pressure is down and I used the exercise bike at the Y for 40 minutes and it's snowing and I just ate a yummy pizza... and I have procured my turkey for Thanksgiving... for the kittens... of course.

How My Friend Helped Me Kill Charlton Heston

2010-11-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

Originally Written in 2008

I guess it all began in 1986. It was January. January 27th and I was trying to do schoolwork at home. I was doing homeschool that year and while I tried to focus on the work in front of me I was listening to the radio and there was coverage of the space shuttle launch that had been postponed yet again. I thought to myself that all the consternation over the seemingly endless precautions was shallow. I thought one day something disastrous is going to happen and those people will wish they'd been a little more understanding about precautions. The next day seven astronauts died.

Then in 2003 I got a new job and came to work on my first day wearing the bow tie I'd been presented with along with the rest of my uniform. I was intent on learning and remembering my responsibilities and failed to notice I was the only one wearing this silly looking accessory until a pugnacious young lady named Jackie asked me about it and bluntly told me to take it off. I ruefully complied. This incident was fun to reminisce about and always provoked amusement from my coworkers when retold. One day I asked if they'd seen the skit on Saturday Night Live about Senator Paul Simon explaining why he wore a bow tie after every question during his campaign to be nominated as a presidential candidate about 20 years ago. None of them had ever heard of this Senator. Just as well. He died the next day.

Then earlier this year while playing chess I asked my opponent if he'd ever seen the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. We talked about what a strange fellow Fischer had become... anti~semetic and eccentric. Refusing to engage in any chess tournament without all manner of variations until the game of chess is hardly recognizable. On the day following this conversation he died.

Then last Friday one of my dearest friends was over and while making dinner she asked what movie I had in mind and I told her The Bible and she asked who was in it and I mentioned George C. Scott. She was guessing maybe it was Charlton Heston, but I told her she was probably thinking of The Ten Commandments. Mr. Heston passed away on the following evening.

I'm not doing it on purpose.

My Black Friday Blog

2010-11-11T23:55:00.000-08:00

I'm the kind of vegetarian that makes sure my kitten has gourmet sliced turkey on Thanksgiving day.

Other than that I was not likely to have much of a holiday this year, but then a friend from work invited me to her house. She knows I don't have any family in this area. She reassured me that my diet would not be inconvenient and that the kids in the family would not have their Turkey Day spoiled by the presence of a stranger.

So I arrived in the afternoon at Kelly's house and was hooked up with a White Russian in a matter of moments. Which was excellent. But I am a lightweight. And I was properly buzzed in no time. And the second White Russian contained at least twice as much alcohol as the first... with the result that it took me right around five hours to sober up once I'd finished drinking. Kelly had long since gone to work and so I was playing poker with her family... and doing quite well... which is probably inadvisable when you don't really know anyone. So I went all in and lost all my chips so I could go sit on the couch and watch TV until I was okay to drive.

Once I'd gotten out on the road I called a friend that I had never met in person who happens to live in that area and either she graciously invited me to come see the work she's doing on her home or I somehow coerced her into inviting me to come see the work she's doing on her home. Anyway... I'm glad that happened because if it hadn't I would not yet realize how tiny she is. I had imagined previously that she was maybe 5 ft. 9 inches tall, but it turns out she's more around 5'6 which is perfect for her and somehow makes her seem more delicate in a way that makes me feel protective... though I'm probably the only person that was in any serious danger insofar as her dog has manifested in the past a far more aggressive inclination to protect her than any situation I can imagine would require me to demonstrate. Now I have to put the last sentence in bold font just to illustrate how I'm not quite so good a writer as I pretend to be.
Anyway... that visit... unplanned and unexpected... was both innocent and restorative. What do I mean? It's hard to explain. Difficult to share, for it deserves to be hidden away within... too sacred for common consideration... and yet there is nothing common about those who read my blogs... and I really want to commit this memory to writing... to capture the spirit of it if I can into words and phrases.

She showed me the work she's doing on her house. Would have been educational for a more astute visitor, but I feel no more capable of caulking or plastering now than I did before. I think the important thing was to comprehend how extensive her projects are... and how demanding. I asked questions, but was interrupting too often though she was quick to remind me we were likely a little nervous. She showed me an invention she'd designed and I was highly impressed as much by the work involved as by the usefulness of the device. When one suffocates as much in a quagmire of procrastination as I do... it's inspiring to see what others can do when focused and determined.

She has a beautiful collection of swords but no Excalibur... no sword in the stone... wherefore I mentioned I would have to wait until some other time to reveal my real identity.

We watched a movie. She let me choose and it was an easy selection to make. "Pieces of April" about a radical girl who tries like crazy to make a Thanksgiving dinner that will redeem herself in the eyes of her family while this same family is nearly petrified with the prospect of what disaster awaits them as they make the eventful journey to her home.

It's the first time I've ever met someone in person through MySpace. I had this feeling that I knew her pretty well and that mostly what remained was to meet her, but then once we met I realized it surely doesn't work that way at all. You can correspond for months and then meet however spontaneously and that's when you're reminded that a person, an interesting person, is far far too fascinating to understand so easily. Although isn't it true that the degree to which you get to know someone does not depend exclusively upon how interesting that person is, but partially upon how much interest you take in that person? The first hug and the last were splendid, but they could not compare with the hugs in between.

She was thoughtful in many ways. Including the gesture of messaging me to be sure I'd arrived home safely.

But I did not go to sleep last night. I stayed awake watching movies on cable until it was time to venture back out into the night and to see for myself what this Black Friday business is all about. At about 4:30 I found myself in the parking lot, filled to capacity with cars, at Best Buy. But the store was not open. The line of people waiting for business to commence extended all the way from the front door and across two parking lots. Discarded Starbucks cups were strewn without interruption all the way along the curb. I would venture to guess I was in line with between 500 and 800 people but I really had no way to make an accurate count without losing my place. People were not nearly as bad as you would think from stories you've heard. It was annoying to be so crowded once we got inside, but there were no outbreaks of shoving or fighting that I noticed.

That happens a lot... that stories are told in such a way and with such frequency that I fear an inaccurate perception is developed. I notice this with people's idea of New Yorkers, supposedly the rudest people in the United States. How do you think that reputation originated? Here's one possibility. Let's say in 1975 that a North Carolina carpenter named Brian takes his family to Manhatten for a summer vacation and so they're trying to find their way to the Statue of Liberty and they ask a pedestrian named Abdul "How do we get to the Statue of Liberty?" and Abdul just keeps walking. Because he's rude... or maybe because he doesn't speak English... or let's say instead of Abdul... it's Richard that's walking past them and they solicit information from him, while he speaks English... he's never been exposed before to a southern drawl. People... unless you've heard it, you won't appreciate how impossible it is to understand certain varieties of the southern drawl. After repeating their inquiry for directions six times Richard says "Okay, I'm sorry, but I really can't understand what you're asking and I can't be late for this appointment. Good luck." That could seem rude for the simple reason that it implies that Brian and his family from North Carolina do not speak coherent English... and they would be insulted.

All I'm saying is that when you're in line on Black Friday you can probably talk with and joke with the other people in line. I did. And when you're in New York City and you ask for directions... don't be surprised if you get the information you're asking for in exactly the same fashion that you would anywhere else in the English speaking world. I've seen it happen. But you don't hear about that, do you? Who wants to hear about the normal people you interacted with on your vacation?

And then after shopping, I went home and fell asleep. Upon waking I began making spaghetti when there was a knock on the door. Elder Maughan of the Church of Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ. He and Elder Shultz invited me to come to their church down the street so I went with them and they talked to me about how I was feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit in my heart and they asked me if I wanted to be baptized and because I wanted to hurry things up, I went along with it. I think it's unfair to take advantage of a skeptic when he's separated from his spaghetti.

Happiness, Holidays, Hiccups, and Hugs

2010-11-11T23:33:00.000-08:00

Originally Written in 2008

I once kept track of how many happy days I could enjoy consecutively without a bad day interrupting my bliss. Funny that my determination to extend the streak motivated me to dismiss setbacks that would otherwise have devastated me. Oh my new car is totaled and my insurance is cancelled? Oh well... I'm not going to let a little thing like that ruin my day!

More practically the secret to happiness comes from recognizing what happiness is and learning how to enjoy it more fully. Recently I allowed myself to get lazy with this. I had a wonderful Halloween and then a day later I experienced a beautiful but sad emotional baptism which inspired me to write my last blog "Dyscombobulated Blues."

In an effort to redo the past, I'm writing a blog I should have written when I was still cheerful prior to the onset of melancholia Sunday morning:

It's No Coincidence

But I happened to be living in New England when she was born in Massachusetts. And we both moved south as children. Then in 2000 we both moved to Washington. So far we were unaware of each other.

In 2007 I discovered her profile on MySpace and she was kind enough to exchange several messages with me and there was something deeply special about her. How she expressed herself and how she nurtured the expressions of others.

Spontaneously we met in person on Thanksgiving Day and the unforgettable magic of that evening is described in My Black Friday Blog which doesn't sound like it would be wonderful from the title, but it truly was.

Because on Thanksgiving we watched a movie about Thanksgiving I had the idea that as close to Christmas as possible we should watch a Christmas movie together and so that's what we did. And then around Easter we were going to watch a Biblical film called The Bible ~ In the Beginning. At first she thought it starred Charlton Heston and. . .

It's No Coincidence

But one day after my explanation that she was probably thinking of The Ten Commandments... Charlton Heston died as described in my blog:

How My Friend Helped Me Kill Charlton Heston

Eventually I imagined we were ready to go out in the world and do something together in public. And she agreed to accompany me on a karaoke adventure, and although we didn't do so on purpose... we settled on a day that happened to be another holiday... this time Halloween wherefore it was incumbent on me to dress up as Elvis. Not surprisingly a festive spirit possessed her as well and she came up with a gorgeous... stunning... 1920's flapper costume.
When I picked her up we compared our cameras and. . .

It's No Coincidence

But we both have Sony Cyber-shots albeit slightly different versions AND we each purchased our cameras approximately if not precisely on the day after Thanksgiving albeit one year apart.
So just as we're arriving at Performance Grill for our karaoke adventure we find ourselves discussing how you can read a book and then be disappointed in the film or you can enjoy the film and be disappointed in the book. One example we used I think was Pet Sematary and another was The Da Vinci Code and of course. . .

It's No Coincidence

But upon entering the club I observed the TV over the bar was tuned into TNT which just happened to be broadcasting the 2006 film The Da Vinci Code.

Her name is Jenny. For a long while I addressed her as Alyssa which is the name she uses online. But gradually our relationship evolves from an online correspondence into a multi-dimensional friendship where her first name seems to fit perfectly. And I never use it without proper deference to the reverential connotation implemented by Forrest Gump.

On Halloween Jenny danced with me. And she showed me the apartment where she used to live. And she told me how confrontational she could be with people who parked in her designated spot. And she asked me sweetly if I wouldn't mind stopping at a specific food mart where she could purchase a favorite sinful beverage during the acquisition of which she manifested a most adorable spirit of mischief. A variety of mischief so poignant that it could only be inspired by the sweet nefarious taste of peach flavored Sysco.

About this time we agreed that we should, for the first time in our lives, visit a drive in theater before the last ones are extinct. I imagine it's already too late. But you see how it was not a boring kind of conversification between us. You see why we've become friends? Am I revealing at least a glimpse?

I brought her to the casino where I work and assured her no one would recognize me. And then the first person we saw, the security officer checking ID's at the door addressed me by name despite my Elvis wig and my gigantic sunglasses and my black leather jacket. And likewise nearly every other person spoke to me in familiar terms... customers and staff alike. People I'd never even seen before were hellbent on illustrating just how infinitely and utterly wrong I was in my supposition that I would go unnoticed.

Back in the car again we hadn't descended more than a couple levels of the parking garage when Jenny detected a bee on the dashboard. This was no harmless crisis either. Jenny has cause to suspect that being stung could be seriously compromising to her health and so on her recommendation we parked the car until this bee... the only one I've seen in about two years... could be extricated... and... don't overlook this... as I was performing my gallant responsibility, Jenny implored me not to kill it. She might as well have said I dare you to resist me... if you think you can. But really... as charming as her various personas are... I cannot be sure she knows positively how endearing she is... just herself. Even when she reads this it's unlikely she'll understand how lucky I know I am to befriend her.

Once more in her home she found herself contending with hiccups which I endeavored to cure her of by having her inflate a paper bag with oxygen which I then forced to collapse by clapping it between my hands. She's not gotten back to me on the degree to which this prescription was or was not successful.

One of the best things about going out with Jenny is that she tells you when she's having fun or even "tons of fun." When you're hanging out with such a beautiful person it makes you feel on top of the world to know she's having a good time.

But the best part of this holiday... as was the case with the holiday during which we first met face to face... was of course the innocent hugging at the end. The hugs that say I like you and I like being close to you.

I already knew a perfect evening could be spent with Jenny making dinner together and watching a movie. But. . .

It's No Coincidence

that now I know a perfect evening could be spent with Jenny anywhere and doing anything on any day.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Coincidence

2010-11-11T23:12:00.000-08:00

Once again I begin a blog with a disclaimer that I don't believe in much of anything... but... just the same... one thing that's REALLY getting to me is all these inexplicable coincidences some of which I have faithfully recorded here:

Analyzing This Coincidence

and here:

How My Friend Helped Me Kill Charlton Heston

and here:

Happiness, Holidays, Hiccups, and Hugs

Well here's the latest. I am interested in a young lady who works in the same casino I do. Recently she sent me a text lamenting the bygone practice of creating a mix tape or CD to show someone your affection. It's been replaced it seems with the practice of buying things... putting a price on love and perverting love into pimpery. Or something like that. I definitely took some poetic license there... but that was the gist all the same. Later she texted me again to say I needed to visit a mutual acquaintance at work when I arrived in order to receive something a description of which she did not offer. This intrigued me and I decided to make a mix CD for my young lady and have it delivered in return. And that's what I did.

Now it happens that my young lady and I disagree completely upon the subject of Christmas. Whereas I refuse adamently to discuss Christmas in any way except during the month of December, she feels every day is a good day to let Christmas influence you with its magical spirit. So as a concession to her philosophy... the first song on the CD is my favorite Christmas song... namely Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Coldplay. The other 16 tracks are all dance songs or Disney songs. The first one is the only Christmas tune. Okay so I go to work and I find the mutual acquaintance and she gives me an envelope and I give her the CD entitled Subtle Happy Tunes ~ Replete With Erotic Subliminal Messages (this last bit being a joke of course) and she agrees to deliver it to my lady of interest. So I go to the Employee Dining Room and open the envelope and find a card upon the front of which are the words (are you ready for this?):

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

And though I'm reeling with amazement at the coincidences life relentlessly inundates me with... I don't see the harm in taking this most recent one as a gigantic recommendation (from that department of the universe that happens to concern itself with yours truly) to fully enjoy the upcoming Holiday season. And that's just what I intend to do.

The Eventual Lovers

2010-10-23T16:01:00.001-07:00

We tease each other because we know we are okay and that we can take it and it feels good to be happy and healthy and strong. And then we temper the teasing with thoughtful kindness because we know we are not really okay at all. We know we are in hell and worse... that hell is in us.

The Coolest Atheist

2010-09-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday there was a knock at my door. Two instantly identifiable Mormons. I explained I was on my way to play volleyball and the more talkative of the two enthused that he loves the sport himself. Then he admitted they were obviously from the Church of Latter Day Saints and I admitted I had been over to their church with two of their missionaries a couple years ago, but couldn't remember their names.

The most interesting thing about that earlier experience was that the tour of their church prominently featured several paintings depicting God and Jesus and various angels and prophets. I asked them how they could reconcile the importance of these works of art with the commandment in Exodus 20 that says, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." The reflexive argument that these are paintings and not graven images doesn't work nor does it matter that they feature and glorify the one true God. I'm constantly in awe of the theological accrobats people can demonstrate, always with a straight face, in order to manipulate their scriptures into servility. They no longer practice burnt offerings because the old covenant was nailed to the cross, but part of the old covenant included the commandment not to kill. They kept that one... for the most part... unless you question them about supporting the wars in the Middle East or about supporting capital punishment in which case... what God meant to say is that you shouldn't murder someone in cold blood. God could have saved everyone a lot of time if he'd shortened the entire Bible down to these very few words: Homosexuals are disgusting. That's all anyone really wants to use the Bible for lately... they just need some good solid excuse for bigotry... the rest is only so much old English. But I digress... incessantly.

This time I only mentioned the tour of their church and didn't delve into the whole graven image conundrum. They wanted to know if my visit had made an impression on me and I revealed that I am an atheist. This, in itself, has a little bit of a story behind it. On any given day I may choose instead to call myself an agnostic. I personally do not find the two to be contradictory at all. The former indicates a lack of belief in God while the latter... a lack of knowledge of God's existence. Agnosticism is usually more palatable for believers to tolerate. Agnostics, it seems, are just simple and spineless and stupid... they are to be pitied while atheists, on the other hand, are far more threatening and offensive and just plain wrong! I'm both, and will mention one or the other of these philosophies depending on my attitude toward believers at any given moment. Yesterday my attitude was one of exasperation and I'll tell you why.

Earlier I'd been shopping at Fred Meyer and happened to pick up this month's Vanity Fair to see whether or not I should buy it. I came across an article about a prominent atheist, Christopher Hitchens, who happens to be dying from a tumor in his esophagus. The name of the article is Unanswerable Prayers and the part that irritated me was a comment made on a Christian website: Who else feels Christopher Hitchens getting terminal throat cancer [sic] was God’s revenge for him using his voice to blaspheme him? Atheists like to ignore FACTS. They like to act like everything is a “coincidence”. Really? It’s just a “coincidence” [that] out of any part of his body, Christopher Hitchens got cancer in the one part of his body he used for blasphemy? Yea, keep believing that Atheists. He’s going to writhe in agony and pain and wither away to nothing and then die a horrible agonizing death, and THEN comes the real fun, when he’s sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire.

I know when I see something like this, it is not representative of how all Christians feel, but it has the effect on me that I don't want to be subtle in my skepticism... yes I'm an atheist... I've read the Bible... the whole book before I was 15 years old and yes I know more about the Bible than 90% of the Christians who believe in it... yes I went to church for my entire childhood and went to private church schools too and I prayed and studied and believed and and was elected class pastor in 1986 and 1988 at Madison Academy and I'm an atheist without reservation. I don't believe in heaven or hell or angels or demons or spirits of any kind... certainly not spirits that impregnate virgins.

I didn't get into all that with the missionaries, though. It was enough yesterday just to say I am an atheist. When they asked why I mentioned my opinion of where the idea of God came from which I have explored in a previous blog, Solar Powered Theism. The more talkative fellow then proceeded to proselytize about the feeling you have when you love someone but you can't prove that you love them... that's how it is when the Lord is speaking to you. They asked me how do I explain the big events in life and I said that I don't. I used to speculate on what would cause someone to make up a story in which their child was miraculously healed. A person may not seem like the type to invent a story like that. But I don't believe in miracles. So I have no opinion about such things. I had to rush all of this along. They gave me a little card with a picture of Jesus on it. It's around here somewhere... though it resembles a likeness of something that may or may not be in heaven... it's not really bothering anyone.

As they were leaving the less talkative one said, "You're the coolest atheist that we've ever talked to." To which I replied, "I know a lot of them can be jerks. I've talked to them too and sometimes I'm like (in my sarcastic voice)... Wow... I'm one of you... wonderful!"

So I felt good about that. Then I went and played volleyball and lost my temper with some psychopathic idiot. I stormed off the court and he called out "Stop being a baby!" And I said without thinking at all, "Fuck you, bitch!"

So I didn't feel good about that.

Hypnotic Enigma

2010-09-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'm fond of asserting that I'm the most skeptical person you'll ever meet. One of the things I don't believe in is hypnosis. My dad used to tell a story about a U.S. soldier who'd been hypnotized as a prisoner of war. Back in this country after his release he happened to glimpse the Washington Monument while touring D.C. and immediately opened the door to his vehicle and jumped out of the car in traffic. Stories like this are too fantastic for me, but I wanted to get a closer examination so yesterday I went to the Puyallup Fair and watched, for the first time, a hypnosis show. The Hypno~Chick selected about 14 volunteers from the audience and chanted them to sleep. One young guy in the middle of the group seemed especially eager to relax and we worried he might sprawl out on the floor. Throughout the show he demonstrated the most enthusiasm for jumping through the hoops prescribed by the host... and if there were a planted participant I would suspect him, but I don't see how plants would be a successful ploy inasmuch as there's nothing to stop me from going to all 28 or so presentations to see if he's on the stage on a regular basis in which case the scam would too easily be exposed. More likely he merely craves attention and has discovered that he can be a star for a few minutes if he makes more of a fool of himself than anyone else.

One thing that made me even more incredulous than usual was when she told this elderly fellow that when he looked at the audience he would see that none of us were wearing clothes... I guess he pretended to be shocked or enamored depending on who he was looking at, but I really can't imagine that hypnosis can make you visualize things that aren't really there (or in this case... things aren't there that really are). Could he be induced to see something specific like the Holy Grail even though no one really knows what it looks like?

The Hypno~Chick ostensibly convinced the guys on the stage that they were wearing nothing but Star Wars underwear and the girls that their belly buttons were falling off. She had one fellow run into the audience to passionately and romantically make out with his wife. She had them all shaking as though there were an earthquake and then later performing like bodybuilding contestants at which time all the guys (except the elderly fellow) obeyed her instructions to remove their shirts.

Perhaps the most interesting trick was when she removed the number 7 from their minds and then told them they could win a Lamborghini by correctly filling in the blank of the movie title, Snow White and the ______ Dwarfs. The old fellow said Snow White and the Little People Dwarfs. Hypno~Chick tried to make it easier and asked, "What is four plus three?" Immediately one volunteer insisted the answer is four to three. Others adamently pushed for 12 or 13 even while counting on their fingers. I guess what makes this part so intriguing to me is that it seems like it would be easy during their clamoring to accidentally blurt out the actual number 7, but no one did.

I had a great time and felt lucky to hang out with an exceptionally fun young lady from work, but in the end my research on hypnosis remains inconclusive. I believe the only way to figure out if there's anything to it, is to be one of the volunteers. Needless to say I'll win the bodybuilding contest.

An Atheist Refutes Evolution

2010-08-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

It’s usually safe to assume that an atheist subscribes to the theory of evolution, but I’m different. Granted, I don’t happen to have much in the way of credentials where science is concerned. It’s my least favorite subject dating back to a project in the third grade during which time in my life I assumed I could invent anything I wanted to right up until the night before the deadline when I tried to create a functioning automobile out of a shoebox.

But here’s my argument just the same. It seems evolutionary theory is self-contradictory. On the one hand you have life evolving from a single organism and on the other you have the survival of the fittest. Fish incur mutations that make them superior to the other fish, right? A fish with feet gains access to a greater supply of food. He can swim like other fish… or if that’s not bringing home the bacon he can go waltzing up onto the beach to rummage around for any dinner that may have washed up on the shore. But we’re reminded how very gradual are these mutations. Mr. Joe Fish isn’t just suddenly born with feet out of nowhere. More likely his dad had the semblance of feet… maybe without so many toes… and his granddad had a couple of rather undedeveloped stubs whereby feet were apparently thinking about sprouting and his great granddad… definitely had a couple of bumps from whence appendages seemed at least tempted to emerge. But during these almost-feet generations it seems these fish would be seriously encumbered during the act of swimming while their less evolved relatives swam rudimentary circles around them. In this case, the fittest fish would be the ones not evolving.

I liken this to our species. I’m told I am on the cutting edge of evolution because I have only one pair of wisdom teeth instead of two. Humans used to need both pairs but now we require none and eventually we shall produce none. But another aspect of survival for our species is intelligence and inasmuch as I’m smart enough to realize that there are already too many humans inhabiting our planet and that there will not be enough resources to support them all, I have intelligently declined to procreate (this magnanimous sacrifice has been greatly assisted by dozens of equally intelligent ladies who have unanimously refused to have sexual relations with me). So here I am, a living evolutionary link between four wisdom teeth and none… but also too enlightened to pass down the less-teeth gene. What a Darwinian paradox! The humans most likely to reproduce are the ones with too many wisdom teeth and not enough wisdom… next thing we’ll have fish riding bicycles.

Cinementalic Disorder

2010-06-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

I had been dating Carolyn for only a few months and we were looking forward to seeing the new WWII film, Windtalkers. I thought she would enjoy the experience more fully if she had a better understanding of the historical context and so I casually engaged her in conversation. Her questions revealed some disconcerting defects in her education; If there was a WWII why wasn't there a WWI? And was there a WWIII? For some reason I wanted her to share my passionate fascination with history, but realized that just telling her everything I know would be pointless. Too much information too quickly and without enough appeal. My idea was to rent a couple of videos that could make the two world wars come alive for her... maybe Legends of the Fall followed by Pearl Harbor, but then I remembered watching Winds of War the mini~series in the early 80's and I thought that would be perfectly informative while sufficiently dramatic and entertaining. Carolyn pointed out the one thing she did know about WWII was that General MacArthur was a key figure. This she was acquainted with from childhood inasmuch as she grew up in the Philippines where he is still considered a hero. So we agreed to watch the movie about his exploits starring Gregory Peck and then I felt our movie marathon wouldn't be complete without John Wayne's Sands of Iwo Jima. So much of what I had learned about the world around me I have learned from watching movies, I wanted Carolyn to have this same appreciation. The more you know about your world, I reasoned, the greater capacity you gain for loving it.

But it spun out of control. I became obsessed with my movie project. It wasn't enough to see a few films about two specific wars. I wanted her to see movies about my favorite, the American Civil War, but how helpful would that be if she didn't know anything about the American Revolution? And I began quizzing her; What is another name for The War Between the States? What is another name for The War of Independence? And on and on.

I had to include The Crucible because it depicts colonial America so well and also Last of the Mohicans because it's the only significant movie addressing the French and Indian War. These two boasted the advantage of being significant to literature as well! And what about European history? I added The Messenger to the project so she would know about Joan of Arc and Shakespeare in Love and then I began hunting for movies about Henry VIII and Elizabeth.

I was just warming up. By God, why not go all the way back to the beginning? I had her watch John Huston's epic film, The Bible which starts with Adam and Eve and ends with George C. Scott playing an almost demented Abraham. Augmenting the biblical aspects of the project, I began searching online for good movies about Joseph and Samson and David and Jesus.

At first I was happy to rent these movies but soon it occurred to me we might have kids one day and this project would benefit them as well, so I began to collect the films and VHS wouldn't be around forever so I converted to DVD's. I was so focused on this project that my eagerness became problematic. I was virtually begging Carolyn to watch whatever the next film in the project might be and sometimes it got on her nerves. I resorted occasionally to bargaining with her. I would go to the mall with her only if she would agree to watch a movie with me when we got home. I would always have the next one cued up in the DVD player and and I wouldn't tell her which one it was either. My opinion being that the best way to enjoy a movie is for all its suspense to be fanatically protected and that included not knowing what the movie was about beforehand. Sometimes she would tease me that I couldn't ever break up with her because then there would be no more film project. And what's interesting is that this really was a concern for me. But we did break up and I went right on compiling this list of movies and researching them and arranging them in just the right order even though there was no longer anyone for me to edify and enlighten.

And I'm still working on it today with a list 14 pages long and a DVD collection in the neighborhood of 900 movies beginning with One Million Years B.C. and ending with the Star Trek films. Currently I'm perfecting the Westerns which are particularly tricky to place so while I'm watching them I'm on a vigilant lookout for newspaper headlines or telegraphs which might allow a glimpse of a date. Otherwise I must resort to analyzing what kinds of pistols they're using or researching what year such and such a western town first gained railroad accessibility. Recently I watched Jubal in which a cowboy is worried about his Sears and Roebuck fiddle and because Sears didn't add Roebuck until 1893 I felt this was a good clue, but the characters kept referring to Wyoming as a territory which puzzled me because they became a state in 1890. Now, I ask you, who else in this world do you think has ever struggled with this contradiction? Clearly this cowboy could not have guessed in 1889 that four years later Sears would be come Sears and Roebuck, but why in 1893 would people still be referring to Wyoming as a territory?

So this is my Cinementalic Disorder. Just as a dentist cannot look at a smile without analyzing how it could be orthodontically corrected, likewise I cannot watch a movie without deconstructing it for a chronological setting. Avatar, for example, takes place in August of 2154. See what I mean?

Solar Powered Theism

2010-04-09T03:33:00.000-07:00

It's the chicken egg thing with a decidedly blasphemous twist: Did God create man or did man create God? One reason I cannot believe in the God formerly inculcated upon me is that I have discovered the conspicuously unmagical wizard behind the curtain. Which is to say once you understand the origin of God, you can pretty much eliminate him from your candidates for Godness.

And here's where God came from.

Long ago when mankind was in its earliest stages and was embarrassingly dumb by modern standards, there was such a thing as ignorance. He didn't know why summer turned gradually to winter, but when it did... warmth vaporized into horrific cold. Freezing temperatures not only reduced his comfort, but also brought a recess to the growth of crops... winter chased away whatever meat he might have hunted whether lost to migration or hybernation. And he didn't know why day turned to night, but when it did his vision was debilitated until dawn. The sun meant warmth and light and growth and food and health. The absence of the sun meant shivering and darkness and weakness and hunger and sickness and death.

I submit that the first worship in the history of our species was the worship of the sun. It was our irresistible inclination to anthropomorphize that gradually decorated our sun with attributes and traits such as ominscience and omnipotence and omnipresence and justice and wisdom and love and forbearance or in more austere capacities... the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy characteristics of vengeance and wrath and jealousy and damnation.

So while a number of skeptics dismiss any challenge to disprove God by blithely insisting it is up to the believer to provide evidence to support a positive claim, I have no such scruples. I don't have proof there is no God, but I have what I think is a reasonable theory of how belief in God developed. He is the very important orb at the center of our solar system around which our planet and several of her siblings revolve on a consistent basis. Take away several thousand years of imaginative embellishment and he has no more personality than... let's say... a mustard seed.

Don't Believe it's Hype

2009-09-24T00:17:00.000-07:00

A couple years ago while enjoying one of the Harry Potter novels at Bertonlino's Espresso Bar, a lady condescended to submit her opinion to me that I was only reading the book because of all the hype. And then again this week a coworker incredulously expressed, "Not you too" when she saw me going to break with the first volume of the Twilight series, and when I asked her to clarify her objection to my reading selection it boiled down to all the accompanying hype. In neither case had either lady read the books they were denigrating.

So here's my point and it will only take a moment as I'm not feeling particularly diatribal or haranguish. Hype may cause everyone to listen to the same music or to watch the same TV show, but when it comes to everyone reading the same books... hype can't do that so easily and I'll tell you why. It takes five minutes to listen to a song. It takes less than an hour to watch a TV episode. But when it comes to reading a book it takes about twenty hours. If you break that up into 45 minutes sessions with three sessions every two days... well it would take roughly three weeks to read a book unless you were engrossed in a "page-turner" in which case you could finish it off much sooner. But still the far greater investment of time should be obvious. Add to that the disinclination of many people to read anything at all. Maybe they're too busy or maybe too distracted or maybe too lazy, but whatever the reason, you don't have to look far before you find someone who will admit unequivocally they do not read.

In order for a book to be widely circulated and widely read, the author has to produce something irresistible. It may not be on par with Faulkner or Joyce for literary genius (thank God), but they can tell a story in such a way that the overwhelming majority of readers will be undeniably riveted. Otherwise all the marketing and hoopla and gushing critical reviews in the world will provoke about as much attention as you pay to your neighborhood philharmonic that you didn't even know exists. When it comes to successful fiction, hype is not enough.

Martyrdom in the Garden of Eden

2009-09-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

My scars have the prettiest names

The softest smiles

The sweetest lilting laughter

The loveliest dreams

Though broken and shattered

The Abomination of Nonconformity

2009-09-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of the presupposition that I must be unhappy because I'm not in a relationship. I was talking to a female friend who's excited about her wedding coming up next year and I told her she's lucky to have someone with whom she can be happy because in general I don't think people really belong in relationships. Is that a crazy thing to say? Humor me for a moment and see how many couples you can think of off the top of your head whose relationships you can actually admire. I can think of about four. On the other hand I notice dozens of people cheating on each other, lying to each other, and otherwise attempting to project an impression upon the world of contentedness that I find tragically dubious. I've spent most of my life being single and yes I am always keeping an eye out for a lady that would make a good companion for me, but I seriously appreciate that I'm probably happier alone than most people who have someone. Today I spent about 19 minutes on the phone with a friend, but other than that I was completely free by which I mean that no one who knows me had any idea where I was or what I was doing... and very likely tomorrow will be the same. It may sound terrifying to be so isolated, but sometimes it's preferrable to checking in with a significant other hundreds of times each week especially the two constituents of the couple are no longer mutually fascinated.

And then I think, okay... but if two people really love each other... they would enjoy that constant link between each other of knowing what the other is doing at any given moment even with miles between them. But again... I'm not so sure I can suspend my skepticism in this matter. Of course infatuated lovers can't get enough of each other, but that stage doesn't last forever. Except for a very few lucky star-crossed sweethearts that love each other effortlessly for their whole lives. Those are so rare. I'd sure love to follow their example, but I just don't believe wishing for that kind of magic makes it come to fruition.

First how am I going to find a girl that I find irresistible when my standards are so insanely unrealistic. Briefly, she needs to be gorgeous and genius and creative and hilarious and kind and passionate about me. So how often do I run into someone like that? Okay, honestly? Never. I mean I'm probably always going to be in love with about four girls from past. I'll always be enchanted with them, but aside from them having almost completely forgotten about ever having known me... they really didn't have the first idea of what true love is about.

And secondly... even if I found her... that doesn't automatically transform me into the kind of person that can handle a relationship. I'm morose and lazy and jaded and goofy and exhausting. And I have an utterly dismal history when it comes to not being single.

But that's kind of my point. I'm probably not relationship material, but that's okay because I'm not in a relationship. I only wish more people would experiment with being single so that it could be perceived as a more acceptable approach to life instead of an unfortunate destiny to be avoideed at any expense. Why should miserable victims of societal conformity feel sorry for me because I'm alone?

Wendy O'Brion

2009-08-22T00:27:00.000-07:00

buttercup
little flower
the softest and sweetest voice ever.

FBI Most Wanted (Someone told me I'm funny)

2009-07-25T04:46:00.000-07:00

Last night this girl got close to me and started undressing and I was like... Hey... I want to be honest with you... it's been a long time since I've done this and I'm basically nervous. She said, don't worry honey, it's like riding a bicycle. And I was like... You see what I mean? I definitely don't remember that. Do I need to do some peddling or something?

They say hindsight is 20/20. Seems to me it's when you're looking at someone's ass.

A fun thing to say on a first date with a girl is how much you enjoy getting to that point in a relationship when you're so comfortable with each other that you can enjoy silence.... when neither one of you has to be saying anything. Then when she starts to agree, go... shhh... quiet time!

I've been shopping online for an Audi. My last five girlfriends were all innies.

If I have twins... a girl and a boy, I'm naming them Cinderella and Cindefella.

Someone offered me a Werthers Original, I was like you could save money with Werther's Unoriginals. They taste the same.

I wasted a month of my life in Egypt looking for a town called Bumfuck.

Do you think kids teased Dick Van Dyke when he was a kid?

Have you ever noticed that usually when someone begins a statement by saying, "There's no question about that" they immediately proceed to answer a question about that?

I'm driving. You're in the backseat. You know where I'm going. I don't. I say, Which way do I turn? You say Left. I want to make sure so I say Left? And you say Right.

I love it when I tell someone my birthday is in January and they're like Really!! Oh my God, my sister's birthday is in January too and her boyfriend and his mother were both born in February! And his dad and I are both March babies! And my grandfather and my mother were both born in November. But my Uncle Tobias is the only one in the family that was born in August. Everyone else was born in a cold month... either Winter or Fall or way early Spring!

God forbid we be born on the same day. There are like 365 days in a year, typically... and only 6.75 billion people so the odds against two people being born on the same day... TWO people!!! It just boggles the mind... it really really does.

I fucking hate cheating. No way I would ever cheat on anyone. Most number of girlfriends I've ever had at one time is ONE! Maybe two... at the most.... okay usually two but that doesn't count because they never know about each other. And honestly even if they did it still wouldn't count because I never have any real feelings for them. Like I tell them I have feelings for them because you have to do that to get them to spread their legs, right, but it's never true... so that doesn't count, you see what I mean?

Seriously, my idea of the perfect romantic evening is me and a girl.... okay.... I haven't worked out the details yet, but I think that's a pretty good start.

Masturbating is kind of like going to church. I mean in either case I'm practicing for something that's probably never going to happen.

I have this cologne by Gucci. It's called Gucci. They're working on a fragrance for infants called Gucci Gucci Goo.

I'm writing a self help book. It's called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and it's all Starting to Piss me Off!

I was born on the 29th day of the month and at the time my dad was 29. So 29 years later when I turned 29 on the 29th I bet $29 on a horse wearing the number 29 and you know what? It would have been cool if I'd won.

I wonder how Christmas got its name. I wonder if maybe in the Nativity ~ Mary was having a hard time during labor and if Joseph maybe tried to encourage her by saying hold on there Mary, I can see its head... it's coming... and then she said sarcastically, So's Christmas!

I prefer saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. That way I don't offend anyone who hasn't accepted Jesus as their savior. You and I both know they're going to hell, why rub salt in their wounds.? You know... this time tomorrow Satan will be snacking on their scrawny deep fried little heathen ass, so where do I get off alluding to like the only chance they have of avoiding the perpetual blistering incinerator of scorching white nuclear annihilation that yawns before them?

I have a bumper sticker that says WTFWJD?

I have a photogenic memory. Can't remember shit, but looks nice in a frame.

I love when I'm looking for a movie at Blockbuster and I can't find it so I ask for help and the clerk comes and looks in the same place I just fucking looked. I'm like... what are the chances that I forgot that D comes after C in the alphabet?

Not saying I'm a genius but I went to a few schools that Einstein never even heard of.

I read in a scientific journal that you can tell about a person's sexuality according to their chocolate preferences. Like if a guy is into white chocolate, he will be attracted to women with fair complexions. Or if he's into dark chocolate... darker women. Personally I love milk chocolate... uhhh so.... Lactating women I guess?

Chocolate, incidentally, influenced me to be an atheist. I said hi to my friend, Mae, one evening and she was eating chocolate and when she smiled at me I thought... would a loving God make chocolate and poop look the same? Reiminds me of that Disney Movie where Winnie the Pooh finds the Honey Bucket at the concert... not a pretty sight.

Does jelly come from a jelly bean?

When I'm drawing a blank it doesn't take long.

Sometimes I'll take two pieces of bread and put them together and eat them. It's like a sloppy joe without all the mess.

For a long time I thought I might be a superhero, but I couldn't identify my weakness. You know how Superman has his kryptonite and then I figured it out... for me it's porn.

I have three prosthetics. One on each arm and then... well I can't tell you about the other one.

Bi-polar people shouldn't bitch. You know how they go through these drastic swings up and down? Well I've been diagnosed as south polar... just one long drawn out down.

I was going to cancel cable, but really couldn't live without my Oxygen Network.

The elements irritate me... obviously C is for Cookie, but how do you get K for Potassium?

I have another bumber sticker. It says If you can read this, whoopdie freakin' do!

I think it's nice when you're all smiles, but you can't go anywhere without legs.

I tried to breed a horse with a lizard, but customs won't let you into the country with a mare~iguana.

I always thought paintballing sounded like a weird fetish...I didn't even know they were using guns.

I bought one of those books on tape, but it was a coloring book... so kind of boring.

They test me at work for drug abuse... which is dumb... everyone knows I'm nothing but kind to drugs... always giving them a place to stay when they're on the run or whatever.

I hate when a step ladder tries to take the place of your real ladder.

I think it's great when you're at work and you're sweeping the floor or shining the windows and some lady says, You can come clean my house. When is that ever realistic?

Prolific Contempt

2009-06-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

There can be no doubt I'm writing fewer blogs lately. One problem with that is that when I finally get around to writing a new one, I have way too much to say, so I want to write more of a book right now than a blog, but I haven't the time. I want to rush it so I can take a shower and drop into my favorite restaurant for some Thai dinner before heading to work.What got me thinking about this newest blog is a movie based on Silas Marner, a short classic by George Elliot. I read the book some time in the past year, but only got around to watching the movie yesterday.

A Synopsis Which Will Spoil the Ending For You

Silas is a lonely weaver who prefers to be left alone. Through hard work he gradually collects a fortune but one day a rich man's son, having squandered a lot of money entrusted to him, wanders into Marner's cottage while the weaver is away and discovers the lonely man's fortune and steals it. The thief disappears, so his brother inherits their father's fortune... but this brother is not without blemish either, for he has a daughter he doesn't want anyone to know about because the mother is an opium addict of poor reputation. He's relieved when the mother dies from illness which frees him up to marry the woman he longs for. The little girl is then discovered by Marner the weaver and he adopts her. She becomes to him more precious than the fortune he lost. At the end of the book the body of the thief brother is discovered in a swamp less than a mile from Marner's cottage along with the gold he'd stolen. The money is given back to the weaver. By this time the little girl has blossomed into a happy beautiful young woman and her true father wishes to assume the role that biologically has been his all along. So he comes to visit Marner trying to persuade him to relinquish the daughter.So I watched the movie and I'm thinking how insane is it that this rich man would come over to the cottage and begin by apologizing on behalf of his brother for the theft of the weaver's fortune many years prior and then promptly endeavors to steal a much greater fortune, the lovely daughter!

But despicable as it was, I had to admit it didn't seem unrealistic. That's because lately I find myself particularly aware of how despicable people, in general, can be. Just an example, yesterday while approaching the parking garage where I work I stopped for two pedestrians crossing the street, a man and a woman. It seemed to me they were intentionally walking as slow as humanly possible. This kind of thing makes my vision go red and even white hot... for all the world like the planet belonged to them and it was my special privilege to have the pleasure of waiting for them to get the bloody fuck out of my way.

Now, there was a time when I could overlook anyone's faults just by reminding myself of the hell it seems each person has to endure at one point or another in their lives. Life isn't easy for any of us, I used to think, and so I would feel a brotherly compassion for virtually everyone. Shall I blame it on the aging process that I am no longer so understanding? Is that a part of growing older that I reach this point where I think, no, it hasn't got anything to do with your rotten childhood that you treat people the way you do, it's merely that you utterly suck!

I know people that seem to maintain a more even keel... like this one fellow, Chris that I play volleyball with at the YMCA. I don't know him real well, but I'm so irritable when I play because the egos out there exacerbate my equanimity righteously. I hate how people will critique my performance after every play. I mean in volleyball you make mistakes all the time... everyone does... I mean one team or the other is going to come up on the short end of every play so I'm like do we really want to articulate whose fault it is each and every time? To put this in perspective... I'm going on about 200 hours of volleyball with these people and I still haven't critiqued anyone after any single play. Certainly I've thought to myself on countless occasions "Gee, would it kill you to take at least one step toward making a play there?" but I don't say anything because... what the hell good does it do? Anyway... Chris plays with the same stupid cast of characters just about as frequently as I do and I notice how it doesn't seem to get to him. He has a way of shrugging it off... you know... not sweating the small stuff... and you know... I admire his style and maybe I'm learning from it too... hopefully.

But still I wonder if others have noticed this about growing older... that you lose a little of your inclination to give people a little slack and you begin to see assholes as assholes instead of people who are probably having a bad day.I'm opposed to making the aging process any easier than it already is. Like Sophia Loren, I believe if you feel aches and pains and soreness in your joints when you get up out of your seat, you have to just spring up like a kid anyway because once you surrender to that feeling of getting old, that's precisely when you get old. So... carrying that to my attitude... I think I'm going to have to fight that disgust with people that I've been cultivating. I'm going to have to.... groan.... be nice to people I can't stand.

Celebrty Cluster Death

2009-06-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

There's a saying that celebrities die in three's. This week it was Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. Pondering death. Pondering life. When we were kids, we didn't have TV so I never watched Charlie's Angels and didn't really know much about Farrah Fawcett, but my older brother was in love with her. Likewise when Michael Jackson took over the music scene in the early 80's I didn't have access to MTV and didn't know anything about his music. I understood that kids were dressing like him (including the wearing of only one glove). Ed McMahon I was a little more acquainted with in the mid 80's as I was secretly confiscating a miniature black and white TV each night and bringing it into my room and watching late night programming as deep into the morning as I could manage to stay awake. Can't say that I ever found him very entertaining, but there he was every night chatting with Johnny Carson.

Not only have they all left us in the time it takes to recover from last weekend's decadence, but I notice I'm getting used to this sort of thing. When you're a kid most of the celebrities that are old enough to pass away are too old for you to have ever heard of; not so when you grow up. When Jimmy Stewart died one day after Robert Mitchum in 1997, I was devastated. And when Princess Diana and Mother Theresa checked died only five days apart, I was shocked, but after a while you get a little desensitized. This is kind of what people do eventually... you know... when it's not living that they're doing anymore... when it's the alternative.

Yesterday at work I referred to one of my co-workers as Ms. Brinkley. I was just teasing her because her first name is Christy, but the joke was lost inasmuch as she'd never heard of the world famous pioneer of super-modeling, and she began questioning our other co-workers in pursuit of an explanation. A minute later she pounced on me with the discovery that Christy Brinkley is old! How could I have referred to her as an old person? In my signature smartass fashion I reasoned with her, "By far most of the people that have ever been born are dead now - compared to them, Christy is still a baby."

I just wanted to write a blog tonight, you know, during this blink of an eye during which, amazingly, I happen to share Christy Brinkley's statistically defiant status among the living.

Letterman Larger Than Life

2009-06-12T23:49:00.000-07:00

This week a feud has developed between David Letterman and Sarah Palin because of jokes he made on his show about her and her family's visit to NY. One of the jokes disparaged her by indicating that she's trying to look like a slutty airline attendant, but the real transgression was when he said that the Yankees 3rd baseman, Alex Rodriguez, got her daughter knocked up during the 7th inning of a game. Not very funny. He didn't say which daughter but Piper was the one that went to the game with Sarah and she's only 14 years old, so the Palin family and their supporters were indignant and have attempted to rake Letterman over the coals for his perverted sense of humor.

So I'm a little torn here because I really like David Letterman's sense of humor. I think he's the king of sarcastic hilarity. He can make me laugh with just a facial expression. Hell, I boycotted Jay Leno for his entire tenure on the Tonight Show exclusively because he was given the throne vacated by Johnny Carson when I felt Letterman was more deserving. Leno was never in the same universe with Letterman when it comes to being funny.

And I don't like Sarah Palin. For all the accolades she collects as an accomplished governor in Alaska, all I saw from her on the campaign trail last year was a rabid little attack dog foaming at the mouth with derision for Barrack Obama, and it seemed to me that if I looked at her for more than two consecutive seconds, I could actually watch her head expanding with all the national popularity.

No excuses, though. Letterman should say he's sorry.

Confessions of a Hardcore Bibliophile

2009-05-02T05:26:00.000-07:00

For me the mere sight of an old leatherbound book connotes inspiring appreciation for knowledge. When I'm watching a scene in a movie that has a personal library in the background with antique books on the shelves, I find I suddenly can't wait for the movie to end so I can rush home and start reading books and hopefully furthering my ambition to one day become a literary genius.

When I was a younger and (hard to believe) lazier fellow, I would sometimes acquire books with the intention to read them, but easily grew weary if the narration dragged for a page too many. And the book would find its way onto a shelf there to reside perpetually with anywhere from 20 to 400 pages forever unread. Then another book would catch my eye and the process would commence once more until little mountains of unfinished readings piled up around me. Occasionally, in the course of straightening up my living quarters, I would relocate one such book or another and a dull pang of guilt would reverbrate through me as I recalled how I'd always meant to get back to it and complete the reading I'd begun however many months previous.

I guess it was during my college years that I developed a stronger resolve about such things and determined to finish reading books I'd begun no matter how unsatisfying. And happily I pounce on every opportunity to show off to people the bookcases in my living room in which I have arranged, however neurotically, collectible editions of all the books I've ever read in the very sequence in which I read them.

Nevertheless, it still happens sometimes that my literary appetite gets unrealistic and I try to read more than one book at a time. And some of them, while I know they are not eternally abandoned, do get neglected for tragically extended durations with the result that I can now profess to be reading all of the following somewhat simultaneously (numbers in parentheses indicate how many pages I've read so far):

There Will Be Dragons ~ John Ringo (80 pages)
The Idiot ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky (10 pages)
The Stupidest Angel ~ Christopher Moore (130 pages)
Walden ~ Henry David Thoreau (125 pages)
Tobacco Road ~ Erskine Caldwell (7 pages)
Ghost Writer ~ John Harwood (212 pages)
The Spear ~ Luis De Wohl (18 pages)
Xenocide ~ Orson Scott Card (98 pages)
The Acts of King Arthur ~ John Steinbeck (216 pages)

Frankly, I didn't realize the list was getting so formidable until I compiled it here for the purpose of writing this blog, and it occurs to me blatantly how necessary it is for me now to buckle down and do some marathon reading. Which is a good thing because I've been babying myself with inmoderate intellectual idleness lately and it's really time to fulfill the promise of supreme nerdiness that I have always been blessed with as my destiny.

Does God Have Hormones?

2009-05-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

I guess it began at prayer meeting when I was only four years old. My father would condescend to keep the kids in the church entertained while the adults discussed more sobering nuances of the scriptures. He would conduct Bible quizzes and he got a little repetitious from one week to the next so that I began to memorize the answers. He would ask "Who was the first younger brother?" and I would think... gee... seems like every time he asks that one, the answer is Abel. So I would blurt out the correct response and I liked the expressions on people's faces as they turned to look at the little four year old Bible whiz.

So at the early age of seven, I opened my Bible to the first page and began reading. I was determined to read the whole thing and enjoyed plenty of encouragement along the way from older people who seemed to approve of my youthful dedication to God's word. I finished the Old Testament while recovering from Chicken Pox when I was 12. Sometimes I would petition my father for permission to visit the neighbors so that I could watch NFL games on their TV. He would gravely observe that if I would spend as much time reading the Bible as watching football, I would have a better understanding of God's will than many adults. Dutifully I would follow his advice and read for three hours before kickoff.

The next year I lived with my mother in the Smoky Mountains and would often wander up into the hills after school and sit down and read and pray with the breeze whipping through the grass serving to represent the Holy Spirit. It was as close to God as I could get. I finally finished reading the Bible from cover to cover when I was 14.

The next year my older brother pronounced a disturbing opinion to me. He suggested that the Song of Solomon was not necessarily inspired by God. If you've read this portion of the Bible you know it's basically a romantic poem in which Solomon gets pretty mushy about how delicious he finds every curve and contour of his lover (forgetting I presume the other 2000 women whose responsibility it was to sexually pleasure him and make as many children as possible).But I refused and resented this notion of my brother's.

You can't just arbitrarily point to one part of the Bible and say this part isn't inspired by God. If you do that, I argued, someone else can come along and point to another part that they don't happen to relish, and say the same thing. Hey... you know the verse in Exodus that says thou shalt not commit adultery? Well, I think maybe that was added by some scribe who was worried about the way his wife had been ogling the plumber. See how that could spin out of control?

Yeah... maybe God didn't have anything to do with that passage about turning the other cheek. I think maybe that was just some pansy inserting his own ideology in there because he was tired of people ridiculing him for his lack of gonads.I reminded my brother how it says in II Timothy 3:16 that

All scripture is given by inspiration of God,

and is profitable for doctrine,

for reproof, for correction,

for instruction in righteousness.

And I was thoroughly perplexed when this failed to pesuade him. My stance was that you have to accept the entire word of God as being literal and infallible or you may as well discard the entire volume inasmuch as it would defy credulity to ascribe to any man the wisdom to go through the book and sort out what God agrees with and what is irrelevant. No, I persisted, God would not let anything imperfect into a book upon which rested mankind's best hope of getting to know his maker and his salvation. If God wants us to understand vividly just how hot Solomon was for his concubine of the moment 2995 years ago, then it must be of the utmost spiritual significance. And trust me, somewhere someone is making the most earnest argument to this effect, replete with symbolism about how Solomon represents Christ and the concubine represents the Church and her twin breasts signify the alpha and the omega while the erection is obvious code for the resurrection.

Ah... how black and white the world was then. I reminisce rather often back to that fraternal discussion because you see, it was a different time for me. Since then my older sister became an atheist. And then my little brother. And then I did too. The older brother who was able to hold onto the Biblical baby while simultaneously throwing out the bath water was the last holdout, but four years after our conversation about Solomon's virility, he too acknowledged a lack of faith in God's existence. But beyond a rejection of religion, I've relinquished my proclivity for seeing the world and its issues with such rigid perception.

By which I mean that I rather frequently shrug my shoulders with the realization that there are not so many good guys and bad guys as I used to think. There's just a whole lot of people. And it always comes back to how you look at a thing.

Hitler. What if he'd frozen to death because of his nurse's negligence when he was only an infant? Is there anyone, who having learned of such an incident, would not view it as a pitiable tragedy?

Or consider the plot in the movie Crash where a cop, infused with racist bigotry, is sexually and spitefully molesting a black suspect in front of her husband. At that point you're just sick with the despicability of what you're watching, but then later this same cop is the first on the scene of a car accident and heroically saves the life of the same woman he'd violated earlier. Hmm... what to make of that! My inclination to rip his fucking head off had I been witness to his earlier transgression, wouldn't have done the woman much good, had it deprived her eventual rescuer of his life.

Politically I look at the wars we wage against terrorism. How much propaganda is our support based upon? How much corruption. Does torture save lives? Is it really torture? How much torture do we not know about? Are we really the good guys? Which side has killed the most innocent lives? And how many of those innocent lives were destined to grow up and become the next Hitler?

Yes I sometimes miss my simple childhood when it was all crystal clear black and white.

153 Days

2009-04-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

In November I wrote a blog about my determination to quit gambling. That was 153 day ago which breaks my old record (set last summer) for abstinence by one day! Economically I have benefitted immensely from putting my money into my checking accounts instead of into the bottomless pit of my habit.

But it would be dishonest of me to say I'm out of the woods. In fact breaking this record may be the single most motivating factor to my achievement. I know at any given moment that I can set a new mark. The first very successful effort was when I was dating my last girlfriend. When she found out how serious my addiction is, she cried, and because I so much wanted to make her happy, I managed to stay away from casinos for 86 days and could possibly have extended that quite a lot if our relationship had not imploded and subsequently launched me into escape mode. Then the next year, much more for myself and in an effort to improve my life (with the help of some incredible encouragement from my friend Alyssa) I set the mark at 142 days.

So my best efforts at breaking the habit look like this:

2006 86 days
2007 142 days
2008 152 days
2009 153 days

Which to look at, causes me a great deal of pride because I know so many people that suffer from the same affliction and they can't really go a week without it, nor do they very often bother to try.

It's not the same as breaking the habit. Let me not fool myself on that point, but what makes me happy is to see an indication here of something quite like self~discipline.

I believe a person's character has to change in order to really conquer gambling and I'm not much closer to this than I was 153 days ago. But I am richer.

My Pathetic Fantasy

2009-04-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

I seem to remember reading a comic book once about a couple guys who survived a nuclear apocalypse by confining themselves to an underground shelter with about a dozen gorgeous babes. How convenient, I thought, while rolling my eyes.

But my imagination isn't much better. Not much more sophisticated, I'm afraid. It's occurred to me recently that there's a 20 year class reunion coming up not long from now. Forever I've assumed I would skip it, but now that it's on the horizon, I'm having the most pathetic daydreams of how I will impress everyone I went to high school with.

Oh I will show them how much they underestimated me! That's why I'll be doing pushups today and running a few miles... you know so that I can finally add the 15 pounds of muscle I've been anticipating since I was eight years old.

Oh and I'm finally going to get published. Yeah... I just figured it out in a lovely moment's epiphany... see... I'll write something every day... Just anything. I'm sure it will be great stuff and ummm... everyone that went to Madison Academy in the late 80's will read every word and have nothing else to talk about at the reunion.

And about the wet dream that will be holding my arm... wait... maybe there should be two wet dreams... one on each arm... well I could easily hire a couple escorts with all the money I'll be making from my breakthrough writings. And I'll hire them a few days prior to the big event so I can coach them on how to appear as though they've known me and loved me for several months already.

I might have to create a band so that everyone will be looking for me and then suddenly realize I'm the lead vocalist in the night's entertainment. . . performing all my favorite songs that, coincidentally, will suddenly be everyone else's favorite songs too!

Then there's that one special girl that rejected me. Ummm... I need her husband to be especially boring that night... maybe he can get drunk and throw up on himself. That would be so thoughtful of him. Hmmm... how ethical would it be to lace his beverages with ascerbic acids?

And of course I can just rent the Ferrari. That's the easy part.

God in Heaven, it takes a long time to grow up.

A Treatise on Kindness

2009-04-17T23:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I opened my journal to write about the kindest people I know. I sat there brainstorming a for a while. I thought of my older brother. He's always been capable of remarkable selflessness. I have seen him command immense popularity by showing interest in the least popular of the people he meets. I think of my mother who relentlessly instilled in her children the habit of thinking of others. There was no greater transgression than that of being inconsiderate. Whenever she found us feeling sorry for ourselves she would say the best way to feel better is to find someone else who is unhappy and do something to cheer them up. This was a lesson that took me many many years to learn and even now too many days and weeks go by at a time without me pondering it as much as I should, but I thank my mother for teaching us this divine wisdom even if I was slow to grasp it. I think of Con Arnold, a friend of our family that passed away a few years ago. When my mother had to move to a new house in 1996, while her husband was incarcerated, it was a monumental task, but out of nowhere Con showed up with nearly a dozen fellows from our church and several trucks and the moving was finished almost quicker than you could blink. And he was that way with everyone. Always working behind the scenes to help people out in an almost magical way without ever the least interest in taking credit for anything. I think of Marianne where I've worked for nearly six years now. When I was still a very new employee, she was the first person to talk to me and ask me about myself. I'll never forget the gratitude that swept over me as I felt like a real person instead of just the newest idiot that didn't know what he was doing. And often I've tried to follow her example with many of the several hundred new workers that have been hired since then.

When measuring kindness, it seems to me there are about four different classifications. There is the kindness you show your dearest friends. This variety I practically dismiss because it's so basic and natural. But the other three intigue me.

The kindness you show to people you know but are not close to. The next time you hear someone at work talking about their father being sick or their sister getting divorced, try this. Ask for names. Find out their father's name or their sister's name. Then the next time you see them ask about their loved ones by name. It can really amaze people. If you say "Did Laura get the information she needed from her lawyer?" it will make them feel as though you have really taken a genuine interest. You will have automatically separated yourself from all the uncaring masses of people that otherwise surround us.

The kindness you show to people you really don't know. One time my former fiancee and I had just arrived in the parking lot of a shopping mall and a foreign man approached us asking for directions. We knew the street he was talking about, but when we tried to advise him how to get there, it was obvious he was becoming hopelessly confused. We decided to go there ourselves with him following in his car behind us. It only took maybe 25 minutes of our day, but it made us feel like angels to have helped someone out that we didn't know. I'm sorry to say that's nearly the last example I can think of for having done something like that, and it was just about five years ago so I really need to brush up on such things.

Then there is the kindness you show to people you can't stand. This one gets a little biblical and I advise caution with this one. I used to think it was a great experiment to make a project out of someone you dislike intensely and to see what positive effect you can have on them by being very nice. The problem is you might still despise them anyway and when you eventually cease your experiment, it kind of makes you look flaky and disingenuous.

Maybe you've noticed this too, that even the kindest people can get pissed off sometimes. I guess I don't really know anyone who's a perfect saint. But you never know when someone might be sitting down to write in their journal and brainstorming about the kindest people they know... how would you like to be on their list?

How I Became an Atheist

2009-03-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

Twenty~one years ago today I became an atheist. Ironically, I was praying. Walking back and forth in the yard behind the condominium in which my family lived, I offering silent supplications to God and attempting to evaluate my faith in him when (not for the first time) it occurred to me he may not exist. For some few moments I resisted contemplation of this nefarious notion, and that was the clincher. For whatever reason, I am not the sort of person that can suppress my own thoughts. If I feel like contemplating something, I'm going to allow myself the freedom to contemplate it. And all the training and conditioning and schooling and indoctrinating and inculcating of my childhood could not withstand or endure the impulse to ponder the possibility that there is no God. To the contrary, I resented what I perceived as a brainwashing environment condusive to bypassing rational thought. Had I been a better behaved sheep, I would instinctively have put my wandering mind on hold and placed my faith blindly and resolutely in God.

The Old Testament Abraham is honored for doing just that. Tradition says God told him to sacrifice the life of his beloved son, Isaac. And the venerated patriarch was going to do it. He had his son bound with rope and set upon an altar and was prepared to personally execute him with a knife when God announced that his faith was sufficiently proven and the sacrifice would be not be necessary after all.

Compared to Abraham, I have no faith at all. But (and here's a point I can only hope to make), I declare myself morally superior to him anyway. Of all the ridiculous stupid disgusting and pathetic things I've ever done, nothing comes close to weighing on my conscience as heavily as would the shame of knowing I had tried to kill my son just because God asked me to. That variety of faith is not something to be proud of.

And neither would I sacrifice the potential of my intellect. I would not constrict my own cognitive ability to evaluate the likelihood of God's existence. The very reflex of feeling guilty because I was entertaining forbidden thoughts motivated me to rebel that much more. There dawned on me an intoxicating hunger for thinking on my own and rejecting anything I was expected to swallow like a good little boy just because I was baptized under deluge upon deluge of religious stories and sermons and songs for as far back as I could remember.That was March 12th, 1988. I decided I'd rather go to hell for doubting God's existence than go to heaven and endorse a God that uses hell as a punishment against those who have doubts.

Today I believe God was created by man and not the other way around. And that this is the only life we have... very nearly the only world we have... Wherefore I sense a tremendous pressure to accomplish as much as possible in the short time allocated. Pressure to do more than I feel like doing... to do more than I'm very likely to do and I often berate myself for personal failures and relentless procrastinations. But I have this one consolation... that 21 years ago I made a decision to rely more upon the integrity of my own mind than upon the regurgitated presuppositional proselytizing of an ageless superstition. I might not ever write the book I dream of writing. And I may never find the right woman with whom to enjoy a romantic relationship... but I know my mind is free to think according to its inclinations and so shall it remain as long as it's able to think at all.

Cracking the 100 ~ Phase One

2009-02-19T20:37:00.000-08:00

Recently while shopping at Borders I picked up The Greatest Movies Ever, a book that ranks the top 101 films of all time. Now I'd like to say I'm a huge movie fanatic, but that would mean different things to different people, so I'll try to be more specific: my library features 637 films sequenced in chronological order according to subject matter. So it came as a bit of a shock to me that the fourth film listed in the book was one I had never seen before, namely Sunset Boulevard. There were so many films I hadn't seen, in fact, that my revulsion for ignorance motivated a project. First I made my own list of the best movies. That took about two weeks to accomplish because I wanted to get it right. Now begins the second part which is to watch about twenty movies that appear often on such lists, but that I have not yet seen. After completing this task I will commence the third and final step in the project which consists of revising my list and incorporating whatsoever discoveries I may chance to make in the second phase.

I've made comments next to each entry and in several instances alluded to significant soundtracks because I think they are often integral to the greatness of a film. Here is my list as it stands now:

Unforgiven ~ proselytizing for two hours how unglorious westerns really are before finishing with the most glorious ending ever.
Gone With The Wind ~ Scarlett O'Hara was my first love. Hard to believe this film was made 70 years ago. Gorgeous soundtrack.
Blade Runner ~ My favorite Sci-Fi movie. Rich with symbolism. What if you could meet your maker? What if you could assassinate your maker? Vangelis soundtrack makes it unforgettable.
Life is Beautiful ~ The miraculously perfect fusion of comedy with sadness. Soundtrack is must-have.
Forrest Gump ~ Intellectually challenged character who becomes a football star, ping pong champion, war hero, chivalrous lover, and noble father leaving me with no excuse for dreams unrealized.
There Will Be Blood ~ Daniel Day Lewis in one of the greatest performances ever. Lost Best Picture Award to a movie you won't see on this list.
Cinderella Man ~My favorite sports movie.
Unbreakable ~ My favorite super hero movie in which Bruce Willis must be convinced of his unique abilities and destiny.
Gladiator ~ A gripping story of revenge waged in ancient times against a twisted tyrant.
True Romance ~ Watch it for the showdown between Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper, but the rest of the movie is superb too.
Groundhog Day ~ Lesson to be learned on how sweet life can be when you stop being a jerk.
Star Trek II, III, and IV ~ When I was a child, I'm afraid my reverence for Spock utterly eclipsed my reverence for God.
To Kill a Mockingbird ~ The inspiring integrity of Atticus. A movie unlike any other for the mood it creates and sustains.
Godfather Trilogy ~ Notice the way the appearance of fruit consistently precedes death. The music will linger with you long after the closing credits ascend the screen.
Casablanca ~ Replete with majestic dialogue and beautiful mucical score.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ~ Saw it on VHS when I was about 12 and the phone rang just before final showdown. While movie was on pause my brothers and I argued for nearly an hour about who would kill who. Incredible music by Morricone.
Enchanted ~ Fairytale Princess reminds us it's okay to have faith.... in people, in dreams, in love, in life.
Troy ~ Very cool battle scenes and an inspired translation of Homer's Iliad to film without too much silliness with the pantheon of gods.
Truman Show ~ Another parable on what you might say if you ever bumped into your maker.
Sideways ~ Made me feel smart just watching it. Working at several levels and ultimately suggesting you should be true to yourself and while you're at it, you may as well go ahead and conquer your fears.
Braveheart ~ Beautiful how he humiliates the bad guys pay for killing his love. They pay with blood. Lots of it.
Rounders ~ The movie about Texas Holdem. Matt Damon's character is a card playing genius.
Far and Away ~ My favorite Tom Cruise movie. A great adventure transcending continents and feelings.
Blood of Heroes ~ Little known but perfectly produced dystopian portrayal of underdogs who won't quit.
Goodwill Hunting ~ Matt Damon's character is a genius (again). This time he's tough as nails too and doesn't give a shit about anything or anyone. He's simply unimpressed.
Life of Brian ~ Easily the funniest movie ever made. And it scores a few points too about how ridiculous religion can be.
Princess Bride ~ When you're a kid you love stories and this is the best one.
Love Actually ~ Tons of laughs that leave you appreciating how boring life would be without that warm mushy stuff we tend to classify as love.
Equilibrium ~ This guy can (and, more to the point, does) kick ass.
Girl in a Cafe ~ In which life is too damned precious to keep your mouth shut.
Sling Blade ~ Carl?
Long Hot Summer ~ Don Johnson, Cybill Sheperd, Jason Robards. This 1980-something made for TV movie still hasn't been released on DVD.
Last Samurai ~ My second favorite Tom Cruise movie. There's a great great great action sequence in which the hero replays what he just did in his head... killing three assassins in about three seconds without having a weapon.
Untamed Heart ~ Illustrating how it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved.
Scarface ~ Al Pacino is riveting as the bad ass Cuban. Wicked soundtrack.
Pulp Fiction ~ Not one unquotable line in the entire script.
Napoleon Dynamite ~ One of a handful of comedies on this list. Utterly unique. Makes you thank God you're not in high school anymore. Makes you sad that some people never outgrow those years.
Dodge Ball ~ Clever and creative comedy. Ben Stiller wants so much to be tough and somehow fails to realize that's he's consistently about three galaxies away from success.
Regarding Henry ~ Warms your heart to see an asshole accidentally learning how to be a person again.
Scent of a Woman ~ Should be watched on Thanksgiving Day. Pacino's character is blind in a couple of ways. Doesn't stop him from smacking people down... and sometimes they deserve it.
Underworld Trilogy ~ Sexy gothic vampire movies with irresistible dark wet sinister ambience and thrilling action. The third and best is set in medieval times.
Rocky I, II, III, V, VI ~ Had to omit the fourth installment because of the goofy speech Rocky makes to the Russian audience after defeating their champion.
Ivanhoe ~ Referring to the 1982 TV movie starring Sam Neil as the primary villain. A gorgeous depiction of heraldry and chivalry.
Desperado ~ Full throttle entertainment greatly accentuated with Salma Hayek's global warming.
The Black Stallion ~ Inspiringly and artistically done. The main character, Alex, seems so quiet and introverted as though at his young age, he's learned already to live on a more enlightened plane where articulation is rendered primitive.
Shenandoah ~ Watch it for the advice James Steward gives his future son-in-law about how sometimes women will cry and you won't know why they're crying but it doesn't matter. Just hold them.
Leon - The Professional ~ This hero is tough as nails, but somehow a little girl finds a place in his heart.
It's a Wonderful Life ~ James Stewart at his best. Nothing wrong with movies that make you strive to be a better person.
Arsenic and Old Lace ~ Cary Grant at his unrivaled best. The look on his face will crack you up several moments before he opens his mouth to say something.
Harvey ~ Watch this movie every New Year's Eve with a couple of your dearest friends and plenty of White Russians. Takes a few years but eventually you'll find out how it ends.
Lord of the Rings Trilogy ~ Well done adaptation of the classic fantasy series. Could do without all the hobbit frolicking toward the end.
Philadelphia Story ~ Watch if for the dialogue between Cary Grant and a drunk James Stewart.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ~ A showdown between one good man and an entire government of greed and corruption. Not based on a true story, but who knows... maybe someday.
Mask ~ Exciting and hilarious. The first movie I ever saw Cameron Diaz in and it was love at first sight.
At Play in the Fields of the Lord ~ Not yet on DVD. Sweeping South American epic in which pretty much every pretension is stripped naked.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ~ The sixth film on this list featuring James Stewart. Plus John Wayne.
High Noon ~ The most classic of all westerns. Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and an Academy Award winning soundtrack.
Apocalypto ~ This is the kind of movie that grabs you and takes you for a ride at an accelerated velocity and never sets you down until you see the end credits.
The Graduate ~ I know it's not a comedy, but sometimes I have to laugh at the way the characters are so incapable of connecting with each other. Soundtrack = Greatest Hits by Simon and Garfunkel.
A Knight's Tale ~ A fun movie with some surprisingly touching moments.
Shane ~ Pretty deep story in which a gun slinger tries to retire while the bad guys won't let him. It doesn't hurt my appreciation for this movie that I was named after the main character.
Planet of the Apes ~ Possilby the greatest cinematic surprise ending of all time. Watch for thunder in the sky when the astronauts are first exploring the planet... I swear you can see the face of an angry ape illuminated in the clouds.
The Crucible ~ A cautionary tale against hysteria based on my favorite play.
Moonstruck ~ I watch the scene over and over again where Nicholas Cage demands of Cher "What am I, a monument to justice? I lost my hand! I lost my hand!" Riveting hilarity.
Pride and Prejudice ~ One of Hollywood's most successful adaptations of a classic.
Lean on Me ~ In which Morgan Freeman endears himself to movie audiences forever.
Cousins ~ Unforgettable moment as an altercation escalates in the movie's climax when Ted Danson explains "I'm trying to make some chicken salad out of some chicken shit."
Training Day ~ Possibly Denzel Washington's greatest performance. As close as you can get to L.A. without actually going to L.A.
Count of Monte Cristo ~ Hollywood took this immense classic and said Alexandre Dumas wrote a good story, but we can do better.
Frankie and Johnny ~ In which a cook and a waitress remind us that you don't have to be a prince and a princess to create your own hot steamy passionate romance.
Titanic ~ No one compares it to Gone With the Wind anymore, thank God, but still a good movie.
Patriot ~ During which I realized I had already seen every facial expression Mel Gibson is capable of (and there are only two), but still a gripping story and well produced.
Searching for Bobby Fischer ~ As you support this little boy's quest to dominate the chess world, he's busy cultivating something far more important, his soul.
Somewhere in Time ~ A little silly... a little sappy... but when I first saw it more than twenty years ago... I didn't want it to ever end. Was I madly in love with Jane Seymour? Yes. Heart melting soundtrack.
El Cid ~ In which I fell in love with Sophia Loren at the moment when her character relinquishes her quest for vengeance against the man who killed her father. An epic film.
The Ten Commandments ~ In which every line is delivered as though it were going to be the final line in the movie, and yet somehow it works. Majestic soundtrack.
Ben Hur ~ Apparently this is the Charlton Heston part of my list.
Legends of the Fall ~ In which Brad Pitt defines himself as a man with a wild savage beast raging inside.
Batman Begins ~ Better than the more highly acclaimed Dark Knight which is poorly written. Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman all in one film!
Superman Returns ~ In which I realized that I myself have what it takes to be a superhero minus the looks and the physique and the ability to fly and the incredible strength and the dedication to all that is good, but at least I know how to lose the girl I love. I can do that.
10,000 B.C. ~ Similar to Apocalypto, but with magic and fantastic beasts.
Independence Day ~ Exciting fun and patriotic!
A Time to Kill ~ Not sure how realistic it was to have KKK in hand to hand combat with good guys outside the courthouse, but otherwise a great movie with great performances.
A Few Good Men ~ You know how sometimes you're flipping through channels and you come to a movie and you just can't flip to another channel no matter how many times you've seen it?
Bourne Trilogy ~ Exceptional fighting sequences. Bourne is about as cool as an action figure can get.
Last of the Mohicans ~ I like the very old black and white version too, but this one is superb and beautiful.
Gettysburg ~ A movie about one battle. You'll feel like you were there except you won't have three hundred bullets in you.
Davy Crockett ~ This movie instilled in me a dream of ending my life gloriously while killing incredible numbers of enemy soldiers with a couple of pistols and a Bowie knife.
Masada ~ Epic showdown between zealots and the entire Roman empire. Peter O'Toole is amazing.
Matrix ~ Could have been so much better, but Laurence Fishburn's corny speech meant to inspire the good guys before the climactic battle made me gag. And the plot got so convoluted... no one can honestly say they knew what was going on.
King Kong ~ Newest version seems like three different movies. First they find Kong. Then there's the Jurassic Park adventure with Kong versus Dinosaurs. Then there's Kong in NY.
Liar, Liar ~ Jim Carey's best comedy.
My Cousin Vinny ~ Marisa Tomei is delectable and the scene in the cell when Vinny is mistaken for a horny inmate will slay you with laughter.
Karate Kid I & II ~ The first film features one of the greatest kicks to the head in all of film history. The second takes us to Japan where Daniel falls in love with an unforgettably sweet innocent beautiful girl. Third and fourth installments were painfully stupid.
Dream a Little Dream ~ Almost forgotten movie from the 80's with Jason Robards, an adorable Meredith Salinger, and the two Cory's. Winning soundtrack.
Saving Private Ryan ~ Opening assault on D-Day brought to life... giving my generation a glimpse of why their generation is so revered.
Children of Men ~ Has a tendency to make you jump out of your seat at the least expected moments.
A Simple Plan ~ The lady in the seat in front of me got up and left the theater in disgust. But I like movies that make you ask yourself what you would do.
Bambi ~ Sweetest animation ever made. Watch it for Thumper's charming perspective on life. Outstanding music.
I, Robot ~ One of those rare instances in which the film is at least twenty times better than the book.

Fallen

2008-12-12T21:30:00.001-08:00

Rain falls cold and wet

On sad days we'd rather forget

Most melancholy of all

The days when teardrops fall

And just down the calendar's hall

Dying Leaves fall
From stoic trees tall

In a blustery Fall

Or a child makes a snowball
When sufficient flakes fall
We cannot forestall
Once temperatures fall
If angels resent their maker's call
They wage war in heaven and fall
And I can fall too
Though we're strictly friends, it's true

Sometimes there's nothing else to do

But reminisce... and miss you.

This is not a Blog

2008-12-09T22:02:00.000-08:00

So whenever you give to the poor, don't blow a trumpet before you like the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they will be praised by people. I tell you with certainty, they have their full reward!

But when you give to the poor, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

so that your giving may be done in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Matthew 6:2-4

Recently as I left a Fred Meyer grocery store I noticed this fellow ringing his bell for the Salvation Army and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas even though no one was contributing to his collection receptacle. I thought his greetings sounded sincere and I felt some sympathy for him. When it comes right down to it, I felt more compassion for him than I did for the faceless and needful folks he was endeavoring to assist. I got it in my head that I would do something for him to brighten his day as it were and finally put a plan into action this evening.

On my way I was driving along Mildred Avenue when about four pedestrians decided to cross the street where there was no crosswalk or intersection or anything and they did so in the leisurely fashion of those upon whom mere mortals are expected to wait vigilantly lest they should ever have any want or need unmet. I was sufficiently provoked enough to continue driving as though I didn't see them until the last possible second when I finally took advantage of my brakes. Hopefully, I said to myself, they were scared that I might hit them which would serve them right after all.

I'm afraid it took me a moment or two after this interruption to resume the proper attitude of goodness and generosity vital to the mission upon I was undertaking, but soon I arrived in the McDonalds drive~thru where I explained to the cashier I wasn't getting the Big Mac Meal for myself, but for the guy across the street working for the Salvation Army. The cashier acknowledged that was a great thing for me to do and generously wished me a Merry Christmas. Somewhere between there and the actual delivery I realized the Coke was probably too cold for the occasion and made a mental note to substitute coffee next time.

As I placed the meal on the base of a nearby pillar, the Salvation Army soldier looked up and I said "For the person doing the good work." And he thanked me both verbally and with a smile.

Once inside the store I told Julie, my favorite self~checkout attendant, what I'd just done and she agreed with the McDonalds cashier that it was a great thing to do. It's not uncommon for me to find myself in the awkward attempt of being humble when I've just finished bragging about something. So I told her it was probably the first nice thing I'd done for anyone in about two years. We had a discussion about how much the Salvation Army soldiers were making and she supposed it was less than minimum wage. As I left the store I hoped the guy would be devouring his meal, but it seemed as yet untouched. He wished me another heartfelt Merry Christmas, but it was certainly not clear to me whether he recognized me as the recent distributor of his hot fastfood and freezing cold soft drink.

It's not as though I regret my good deed. But I must admit I wish I could have seen myself what good it did. I mean the idea behind a random act of kindness is that it will operate according to a snowball effect so that the salvation army guy will give the fries to some lady who's had her purse stolen and then she'll give the fries to some homeless guy and he'll be the one who stole her purse and he'll give it back to her and then she'll be able to afford her busfare to the hospital where she works as a translator who helps a surgeon avoid using a medication that a pregnant Hungarian is allergic to so the woman's child is delivered alive and healthy and grows up to cure cancer all because of my Big Mac Meal.

So I find myself thinking of the text at the top of this not~blog and my skepticism wages brutal philosophical warfare against the notion that if I had kept my good deed a secret and not mentioned it to the McDonalds cashier maybe I would feel more satisified with my act of kindness. And then I think... perhaps I ought not to have been so tempted to commit four counts of vehicular homicide a few minutes earlier with the brain~drips crossing the street. Maybe if my mind had been in the right place to begin with, it would still be in the right place now.

Along the same lines, I've noticed this about myself too: at work it's customary to do quite a bit of tipping of your various co~workers. We tip the cage cashiers and the baristas and we tip the kitchen staff in the employee dining room. And there are different ways of doing this. Some people will drop the money into a toke box and they'll do it when the beneficiary of their donation has his or her back turned. So in a sense it's like they're doing a good deed and they don't care if anyone knows it or not. I'm different. Instead of putting the tips in the box, I place them on the counter so the cashier or barista or line~cook or whomever will have to pick them up and deposit them personally... that way they know I've tipped them. They know, in other words, who to appreciate for appreciating them.

But the gospel of Matthew tells me I'm handling these things wrong. I should be able to do what's good and right without anyone knowing. So the reward is not in having people pat me on the back. The reward is, presumably, to have so much confidential goodness bottled up inside of you... anonymous goodness... that eventually you'll feel it there inside. Goodness instead of emptiness.

And that's why this not a blog. Because if it were then I would be telling everyone about these things instead of keeping them to myself.

A Vicious and Stupid Cycle

2008-11-23T05:43:00.001-08:00

I was enjoying a winning streak in both poker and blackjack. In two weeks I’d won well over $1000 and then one morning at Chips Casino in Lakewood I hit a royal flush jackpot worth more than $800! I was stunned! The first words out of my mouth were “I’ll be damned.” Another $400 was to be paid to me if my hand held up until noon as the highest hand and since there is no hand higher than a royal flush, the waiting was pretty much ceremonial, but to kill the time I wandered over to the blackjack tables where I quickly got myself into trouble… losing a little and then a little more and then a lot. At one point I started winning several hands and came back up almost to where I started. If I could win $90 more I would break even on the blackjack tables. I probably should have walked away then and enjoyed my $1200 prize money from the royal flush, but something took control of me. Something sinister inside of me that determined I would win back my $90. A few minutes later I was reeling with huge loss after huge loss. When I finally left Chips I only had $300 left of the prize money. On my way home I resolved to give up gambling. I told myself I was still a winner for the day. At least I hadn’t lost any of the cash I’d walked in with. But before midnight I was at Freddie’s Casino in Fife losing at poker. I wasn’t playing my best game either. I mean at first I was playing smart, but when that didn’t work I was playing with a desperate need to win a hand and consequently losing much more than I should have been. I left the table down $500 and tried to win it back on blackjack where I quickly lost another $200. Despite my unprecedented royal flush I ended the day $400 poorer than when I woke up. On the way home I once again made up my mind to quit gambling. And this time I stuck to it. For one day. But then two days later I was at the Emerald Queen where I went on tilt and lost $1200. That’s when I made up my mind for real that I would never gamble again, but as usual it only took so many hours before I devised a new plan for gambling that would be far more successful. It involved the idea of playing smart and not playing crazy just because of a little bad luck. And it worked. In one week I won about $1200 including about $470 in a single day. Then yesterday I went on tilt again and lost $1100 and now I’m determined that I will never gamble again.

Have you ever seen a more vicious or a more stupid cycle? Even while typing the above paragraph a part of my mind was busy sorting out my strategy mistakes and attempting to perfect my approach so that I could be sure to win perpetually from now on. The sinister part of my mind is regrouping for another assault on the good part of me that just wants to be happy with what I have. I know it won’t be easy so I always try to find a new method for quitting, but sometimes I feel I’ve tried everything already. Once I posted on MySpace daily updates of how long it had been since my last regression. Another time I attempted to quit simultaneously to a friend giving up alcohol so we could compete for the bragging rights (he’s still not drinking). I even went to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting once and thought I would continue going forever, but then the next week I inadvertently went to a casino instead and lost some amount of money the total of which has dropped off the edge of my memory. If I had to guess how much money I’ve lost in casinos since moving to Washington nine years ago, I would estimate about $60,000. And you know what? A lot of people will read that total and not believe their eyes, but a lot of other people will say they’ve lost that much gambling in the past nine months. And some have lost much more than that. Regular people.

One fellow at that GA meeting made a huge impression on me. He had been trying to quit for more than 40 years and he said he wasn’t sure if he was going to talk that night because it was so hard. And he left early. Had you been there you would have supposed he left because he was so upset and distraught. But there was a more powerful motive. I know without anyone having to confirm it for me that he left early to go play poker. I said to myself I didn’t want to be that fellow in 40 years and still wishing I could quit.

I’m better off than lots of folks. I’ve demonstrated some abstinence. In 2006 I went 86 consecutive days without gambling. In 2007 it was 142 days and earlier this year I made it to 152 days. I’m interested in breaking that record beginning now, but first I have to withstand the relentless desire to win it all back.

The new twist I’m implementing this time is to contact a different person each day to report on my progress. These are the folks who can expect to hear from me:

Day 1: Mother
Day 2: Tricey
Day 3: Travis
Day 4: Jason Wilson
Day 5: Jenny Alyssa
Day 6: Father
Day 7: Ivy
Day 8: Rasmey
Day 9: Lindsay
Day 10: Joel
Day 11: Ricky
Day 12: Julie Nastri
Day 13: Joey Rositani
Day 14: Ken Lonseth
Day 15: Paulina Soria
Day 16: Jack York
Day 17: Noelle
Day 18: Verity
Day 19: Brian
Day 20: Papa Ken
Day 21: Jeris
Day 22: Kellisima
Day 23: Marianne
Day 24: Tamara
Day 25: Sarigo San

That’s the new part of the plan which will help me to keep in touch with people that care about me, but at the same time I won’t overburden any one person with too much information about my quest for freedom from this insatiable vice. Once I’ve gone through the list I will begin again with the first person with the result that each one can expect to hear from me every 25 days.

The second part of my plan has to do with routine. Routines tend to break down when we lack sufficient energy. I know regular exercise will enhance my self-discipline, but all it takes is one night of restless sleep for me to abandon my plans for a strenuous workout, but in order to get better sleep I think I have to dismiss caffeine and excessive sweets from my diet.

No sweets + No Caffeine = Adequate Sleep = Regular Exercise & Sufficient Energy

When I’m successful at gambling I can win hundreds and thousands of dollars and there is an undeniable high that comes from this! So even though it’s a habit that renders me utterly miserable at times, it’s also something that I enjoy and it does leave a void which must be filled. Therefore I’m going to watch more movies and dine at restaurants more often and visit new places and do new things.

Furthermore I’m going to become religious about my expenses. I will certainly be spending money, but I want to be more meticulous in keeping track of exactly how much I’m spending on what. What happens when I’m gambling is that so much cash piles up in my wallet it becomes disorganized. I try to get rid of smaller bills by converting them into larger. This tendency desensitizes me to the value of a dollar. My goal is to relearn the appreciation for smaller amounts of money thereby sabotaging the appeal of a recreation that will potentially (absolutely) be financially wasteful. I need to be at the bank all the time depositing money as quickly as it’s earned so it hasn’t time to accumulate into a decent gambling investment. During spans of abstinence in the past I’ve really enjoyed how much more money I’ve been able to save than I really know what to do with. I have the potential to lead a life very nearly free of financial stress.

I want to be more meditative and more in touch with my own attitude toward gambling. I am familiar with the phases. Right now I’m in the baptism phase where I want a new and sinless beginning. Eventually I will merge into the liberation phase whereby I can honestly say that I’m not gambling and will go home after work each day and not even think about stopping at a casino. But one day I will have so much money sitting around that I’ll descend into the speculation phase and begin thinking about how much I could probably win if I tried my luck and (more dubiously) skill. When the temptation returns I want to confront it valiantly whereas in the past my guard has slipped too much to put up much of a fight. It’s a hell of a thing to resist something you desperately want. In order to emerge from this dungeon I have to communicate with myself frankly about what’s going to happen if I start gambling again. Not that I might forfeit my happiness… but that I will forfeit my happiness.

There is an anguish that comes from losing hundreds of dollars and having no one to blame but yourself; an anguish that comes from inflicting that upon yourself and feeling helpless about it, as though you were literally incapable of making a better choice when there were dozens of better choices all around you. My objective is to leave that kind of unhappiness forever behind.

My Light Will Still Burn

2008-11-15T01:24:00.000-08:00

My weekend draws to a close. Tammy Coon found me. I went to school with her for one year in 1984-85 and fell for her completely. I was 13 when I met her and 14 the last time I ever saw her. This is the second time we've communicated with each other since the 7th gade; this latest courtesy of Facebook. She posted a comment today asking what I've been up to for the past two days. I answered I've been busy with picking up Mason at the airport. Mason is a magnificent longhaired black cat. He has belonged to my brother Travis in Alaska, but the situation became complicated as his voluminous demands for attention detracted from the tranquility required for sleeping in that household, especially critical because my brother and his wife are the proud parents of a beautiful son only four months old. Mason arrived in a little portable kennel and I brought him into my apartment where he patiently ignores the hissing of my other cat, Senorita Magdalena Marseilles.

My friend, Jenny Alyssa, having learned of this upcoming expansion to my feline family helpfully advised me to keep them in adjacent rooms where they could gradually get used to each other without risking any violent animosity. I followed this method for a couple hours, but learned eventually that Mason is a hider. He hides inside the recliner in the living room or under the bed in my room. I don't think he's the least bit afraid of Senorita. Rather it seems he simply prefers to avoid confrontation with her. Ideally within the next ten days or so they will be cuddling up with each other and forging an intimate and longlasting companionship.

Meanwhile Jenny has been battling a tenacious flu and it's given me the opportunity to remind her often that she's important to me. When I'm sick I always appreciate immensely the attention others invest in me. Any little concern for my misery benefits my soul in just the same way antibiotics do the body. Keeping this in mind, I tried to show Jenny that I care about her by bringing her flowers and checking up on her each day to see how she feels and she's indicated this manifestation of compassion has accentuated her recovery as well. I wouldn't do this for just anyone, but sometimes I think of Jenny as being a little like me in her solitude. We both live alone and neither of us have family anywhere nearby so I find myself sometimes endeavoring to supplement elements of her life that might otherwise be deficient... in other words I don't want her to be alone during holidays or neglected when she's sick. We could be well on our way to establishing one of the greatest friendships ever conceived on the internet.

My weekend was also accentuated with a book discussion at Borders featuring The Winter of Our Discontent by Steinbeck. It's a story about a good man who feels pressure from his family and community to reclaim the prestige that his heritage dictates should be his. Unfortunately the only way to do this effectively compels him to use unethical methods resulting in one person drinking himself to death and another being deported out of the country. In the end he finds he can no longer demand his children live by higher standards and principles. In other words he's betrayed his own soul. Steinbeck drives home the tragedy with these words in the final chapter:

"My light is out. There's nothing blacker than a wick. Inward I said, I want to go home--no not home, to the other side of home where the lights are given. It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone."

My Christmas Manifesto

2008-11-08T14:07:00.000-08:00

I've said it before. When I was a child my favorite food was my mother's lasagna. My favorite place was Disney World. And my favorite day was Christmas. Not much has changed.

What makes these things so sacred is not just their quality, but their infrequency. I haven't been to Disney World since 1985. Christmas comes "but once a year." And my mother traditionally makes lasagna on Christmas, but I've not been home for that holiday since my big brother spotted me the airfare to do so eight years ago.

The sanctity of Disney World and my mother's lasagna are currently unassailable. They require no manifesto. But Christmas is being flayed alive.

Not many winters ago I was a passenger in the back seat of someone's car and I was looking out the window at a neighborhood in Tacoma. Someone's front yard featured an evergreen tree that had been carefully sculpted and groomed and decorated with white christmas lights. Somehow it made almost no impression on me. What's wrong with me I wondered. When I was a child a scene like that would have inspired my most mesmerized awe. I supposed perhaps it was just a result of growing up. Perhaps when I have children of my own, the enchantment of Christmas will be restored.

We had an unofficial holiday tradition in my family. Several days before Christmas my mother would always gather us kids together for a solemn announcement, "We can't afford a lot of presents this year" she would say. "We wish that we could get everything on your lists, but we simply don't have the money. So each of you will get one big present and one small present." She would tell us in advance so we wouldn't be crushed with disappointment. But somehow my mother could never follow through on that plan. I'd go to bed on Christmas Eve and toss and turn fitfully the entire night. Sure that it must be light outside at last I would get out of bed at approximately 1 A.M. and wander downstairs through the deserted areas of the house and come into the livingroom to discover dozens and dozens of presents spilling out from under that beautiful tree and my heart would leap with the thrill of it.

We used to leave a stereo playing soft Christmas music around the clock. There are so many good Christmas tunes and for as far back as I can remember I've designated a different one each holiday season to be my favorite. While typing the above paragraph the lyrics of Why Can't Every Day Be Like Christmas drifted through my consciousness and without objection I will accept it as my song of choice this year.

When you're a kid your mother knows what you want for Christmas. You put it at the top of your wish list and it's in big huge capital letters and you underline it and scrawl out countless bold exclamation marks after it along with a repetitious refrain of please please please. And then when you're at the department store you find that precious toy and you hold it in much the same way you would hold your mother's hand if you thought you may never see her again. And your eyes water ever so conspicuously as you set it back down on the shelf when it's time to go and you basically look down at the floor as you leave the store to confirm that without that toy life will certainly not be worthwhile henceforth. And in my case the toy was always the Lone Ranger.

Every Christmas my dream would come true and my stepfather would spend the afternoon assembling the intricate saddle gear for the Lone Ranger's horse, Silver. Typically my younger brother, Cheyenne, would be equally thrilled with his brand new Tonto and we would engage our heroes in the most action demanding adventures our young imaginations could conceive of with the inevitable result that we were in need of replacements long before the following Christmas had even approached the calendar's horizon.

But when you grow up, presumably, you have a job. You earn an income and if you want a new Lone Ranger you don't have to wait until Christmas. You can order one off EBay like now. Instantaneously. And if your mother still requires a wish list (as mine does) you have to remember not to aquire on your own any of the items you've listed.

So the first part of my manifesto dictates that for the last two months of each year I will abstain from purchasing any unnecessary and/or cool things for myself.

But this reminds me of another holiday concern that demands desperate measures. One of the two months at the end of each year is November and it has a holiday all its own. Thanksgiving is basically the redheaded stepchild of holidays. You don't get presents on Thanksgiving. You get a fine meal, but no better than the one on Christmas, and any child born and raised in a capitalist nation will be happy to explain how useless food is compared to toys. The food is gone in a matter of minutes whereas the toys may stay with you for years if you're a girl and until you've utterly destroyed them if you're a boy which, on average, takes longer than a few minutes.

But as if Thanksgiving were not already sufficiently debased, you have department stores and malls marketing for Christmas before Thanksgiving has even been celebrated. And the pathetic truth is that Halloween is being infringed upon too. We all agree that the salivating greed of retailers is offensive the way they begin earlier each year to tempt you with Christmas shopping so now the second part of my manifesto stipulates that I will not commence Christmas shopping until December.

Finally because I want to guard the infrequency of Christmas I will not even talk about it until December. If someone asks me today or tomorrow if I'm ready for Christmas I will look at them as though they've grown horns out of their head and then disregard them until such time as they ask me a more pertinent question. I won't talk about Christmas, I won't listen to Christmas music, and I won't put up my Christmas Tree until December!

Why can't every day be like Christmas? Because if it were, then Christmas would cease to be special. I want to wake up on the 26th of December and feel overwhelmed with the impossibility of waiting 364 days for the magic to return. Hopefully the implementation of the precepts of this manifesto will systematically undesensitize me.

Dyscombobulated Blues

2008-11-02T02:47:00.000-08:00

The elevator opened and I stepped out onto the seventh floor of the parking garage. This top floor is actually on the roof and it's difficult to say what time it was. Usually it would have been 3 A.M. but we just set the clocks back so I guess it was 2 A.M. Either way the sky was dark and the air was extremely fresh. So fresh it made me stop. I stood there on the roof and allowed myself to bask in the freshness and the silence, but then I noticed there was a certain smoky fragrance as though a chimney were at work somewhere not so distant and there was the sound of traffic on wet pavement issuing forth from Auburn Way only seven floors down and a thousand feet to my right. Nostalgia enveloped me... something about this fragrance in the air... not that of Spring. And not that of wet muddy summers in New England. But the crisp fresh nostalgia of November... a romantic nostalgia. For some reason romance begins in November. But not this year. This year it's only the nostalgia of Novembers past. I look down at the pavement under my feet and it glistens with last night's rain. Glistens so brightly it makes my squinting eyes water. Will I text her today? Will I send her a message? It could say, "After the election maybe we'll begin talking again." But I won't. For six months she's not had my number. So that, instead of dying a little more with each moment she neglects me, there is a part of me that can fantasize she's trying desperately to reach me and she's wishing I would finally relent and call her. And I tell myself I won't send a message. Still I'm standing there my feet planted on the wet pavement staring into the bright reflection of the street lamps towering above me. And I know I will write this blog. I hear a far off train whistle and hope I won't forget to include that detail in my writing. I would begin writing as soon as I got to my car if only I'd brought my book bag. Usually it's sitting in my trunk with tons of books and comics and my memoirs. I could have begun recording these musings instantly, but the book bag was left at home. So when I start my car I turn off the stereo and all the way home I focus on this nostalgia so I'll remember what to write. I'll remember that denying myself the permission to contact her during this romantic season leaves me empty. There are superficial concerns that help me forget how alone I am. The election just two days away. Or the football games later this morning. Or my palpable disgust with my job. Or the varying degrees of success or failure associated with a seemingly endless parade of opportunities to flatter the pretty girls I encounter every day. Such things seem important until you're forced to stop and endure the waves of fresh air and silence and tear duct agitating brilliance of wet pavement at two and/or three o'clock in the morning. Then I'm reminded that I am lonely and hollow. And there is not the love of Christ to save me. No, that is not my lifeline. And I have no children to dedicate my life unto and to live through vicariously. No, there is still just me. Me to make happy or me to be sad. It occurs to me that I drank the night before. And I subscribe to the notion that alcohol is a depressant and so maybe these blues can be blamed on drink. And tomorrow I'll be fine. It helps to remember: such sentiments can and do pass. I'm not anywhere near the zenith of my contentment with life, but then too I'm safely several thousand leagues above the darkest chasms of my past. And yet this is not meant at all to be a feel good happy ending look on the bright side blog. It's a cautionary blog. If you have your Christ in your heart. Or if you have your family which means everything to you... then do not let go. Otherwise I fear daylight savings time shall never find quite enough daylight to save.

This Can't Be Good

2008-10-17T03:11:00.000-07:00

As an alert conversationalist I brace myself when people address me with any of the following dialogical openings:

Do these jeans make me look fat?

This is a question usually posed by a woman and nothing good can come from it. No matter what you think might be the right answer, you're in trouble. The question wouldn't have been voiced in the first place if someone wasn't already feeling self~conscious and there's something decidedly sinister about a person framing questions under this influence. Obviously you can't say: maybe a little chunky around the waist. But the truth is you probably won't have much success with: No, baby, those jeans make you look incredible! for the simple reason... she will without exception conclude you're lying. The next two to three weeks will be inevitably unbearable. The most honest answer to such questions is: May day! May day! Translated from the french m'aidez meaning help me!

Would you like to see an easier way to do that?

I usually hear this question when I'm learning something new. Could be snowboarding (The first time I went snowboarding I discovered that I'm a natural skydiver. As I recall that was also the last time I went snowboarding. When it occurred to me months later, I mentioned to my sadistic mentor that I'd been surprised at how vast the bunny slopes had been. At which time he condescended to mention that we had actually skipped the bunny slopes completely. Especially thoughtful of him considering that he had taken me to a bar earlier that morning and treated me to a certifiably insane quantity of Alabama Slammers, but, predictably, I digress). So yes I could be learning a new recreation like snowboarding or a new kind of software or a cullinary technique for a cuisine I've never previously prepared. Eventually some dogooder will happen along and ask: Would you like to see an easier way to do that? The problem is, more than helping you, they are capitalizing on an opportunity to show off how much more proficient they are than you at the task in question. The reason their skills are superior has nothing to do with a revolutionary approach, and everything to do with essential hours and years of practice which you would yourself would be embarking upon at this very moment were it not for their insatiable propensity for exasperating interference. I find there are usually three or four different ways to do the same thing and what they define as "an easier way" is really just the specific style they are most comfortable with. Almost any other method will be just as good if only you could be left alone long enough to work it out.

I'm not racist, but. . .

The problem with a conversation beginning this way (and for some reason it must be articulated in a whisper as though perhaps it would provoke a scandal were it overheard) is that what follows registers as undeniably racist approximately 98.9% of the time. It amounts to a disclaimer designed to justify the unjustifiable attitude about to be espoused. You should always contradict the speaker before another syllable is pronounced by saying "Yes you are." This is not necessarily endorsed in the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, but say it anyway. People should be reminded as often as possible that ignorance is not universally tolerated.

I don't mean to offend you, but. . .

Just like the racism disclaimer, what follows will be offensive. This happened to me a couple days ago. I was telling a story (however fictitious) about accidentally dismembering a fellow's arm for touching my girlfriend. And this lady that I've worked with for two years is visibly startled with my story. "I don't mean to offend you," she says, "but I thought you swung the other way." I have to be careful with this because I don't think there's anything at all wrong with being gay so it's inconsistent to say I was offended, but I'd prefer to be perceived as masculine and manly and studly and so forth. It didn't help that her remark prompted sniggering and tittering from several folks standing around. My delicate pride was absolutely injured though I struggled to conceal it. She went on to say her assumption was based on how nice I am and how I walk as though I have weightless feet. Maybe twenty or thirty other people have confessed similar suspicions to me over the past decade or so. Sometimes they base it on the way I talk or how smart I am or my artistic interests or my taste in music or effeminate gestures or even just my vegetarian diet. Thus far I have no clever retort for this humiliation. I've thought about just saying I would be gay except I'm too busy fornicating with your mother. Perhaps the solution is to focus on how it makes me feel and to modify my psychological reaction. To accept myself unconditionally and to remind myself that most people are dumber than petrified mud puddles.

Twenty Years Ago Today

2008-10-07T06:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not much for growing older. I shave my head bald for the precise reason that I can't stand to pay any attention whatsoever to the recession and inevitable extinction of its hair follicles. And you won't ever hear the words "now I feel old" pronounced by me. I have rules against saying or even suggesting such things. To me the confession of such pitiful sentiment can only exacerbate the aging process. When young punks think it's the ultimate manifestation of hilarity to denounce me as being old when they learn my age, I always say the same thing:

You know how I got to be older than you? I was born first. Other than that... there's really nothing I could have done different.

Then I discreetly imagine what it would be like to step on their faces.

Nevertheless I'm going to transgress just this once and exclaim with righteous incredulity: I can't believe it was twenty years ago today that my high school class embarked on Madison Academy's inaugural History Trip!

It was early in the morning. Not even light out when my mother dropped me off at the campus as the bus was being loaded up with luggage. One suitcase for each boy and five for each girl. And then we were on our way with three of the faculty as our guides; the enigmatic principal Dean Hunt, the eccentric History Instructor Robert Dubose, and the perpetually blushing teacher of English, Debbie McBroom.

There are little things I remember like the sister SDA academy gymnasium in Virginia that we converted into one night's hostel. Seems like we slept in a church one night too. And someone made a joke about gayness and everyone cracked up, but just to be witty I said, "Hey, Charlie didn't laugh!" and everyone cracked up even more which made me feel good because, I reveal at last, I was hellbent on securing for myself as much attention as possible. But while Charlie was a good sport he did give me this look that seemed to say, "Umm... why did you have to pick on me?"

I remember on that trip Travis Claybrooks had this dramatic and animated way of saying "Yes!" any time he agreed seriously with anything being said and it fascinated me to the extent that I began to mimic him which he correctly accepted as flattery. Subsequently I continued to emulate him by developing enormous biceps and triceps and quadriceps and octaceps... okay... perhaps not literally.

I recall that Mr. Dubose impersonated a fiend from the depths of Dante's Inferno each morning with his relentless insistance that we could not accomplish anything if we did not first wake up and get moving.

I vaguely remember famous churches and a ship and a rock and a plantation and Salem where John Proctor refused to sign his name. There was Mark Twain's house and Harriet Beecher Stowe's house and the House of the Seven Gables and I remember jogging around Walden's Pond while listening to the Thompson Twins on my walkman.

There was a trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains clearly marked with blue flags so that no one could get lost or go in the wrong direction. And yet 14 hours later we arrived sporadically back at the bus in groups of two or three... some of us on foot... some of us on horseback... some of us by plane and train and lawn mower.

I remember the friendships. Pam and Deena were best friends and impressed all of us with their fashionable sunglasses designed it seems to convey how young and free and fun and spirited were their hearts. Dawn Farler and Latonia (the only Sophomore impetuous enough to accompany our class) were inseparable.

More than anything I remember how truly terrified I was of life. Pulverized with anxiety that someone might not like me. That I might say something stupid or look like a dork (which, upon photographically assisted reflection, it turns out I did).

I tell people I have a photogenic memory. I can't remember squat but if you were to frame my memory and mount it on the wall above your sofa it would be easy on the eye.

The truth is I am blessed with a pretty decent memory and this is my gift to my beloved classmates on this twentieth anniversary. While I assume I'm not the only one tempted to ponder how we're mostly closer to 40 now than we are to 20, I would have you consider how wonderfully blessed we are to have survived the brutal insecurities of youth. Hopefully we no longer face daily the life and death torture of finding our respective place in this world... The world is probably bigger than we realized then. We're probably smaller, but gradually we've learned that we needn't be in the spotlight quite so incessantly. That everything turns out pretty well usually should we let someone else shine for a moment here and there. Maybe popularity is a little overrated... indeed more of a burden or a curse than anything to be jealous of. Somehow, as we toured the historical landmarks of the eastern seaboard of America, we probably discovered paths and journeys far more ethereal and introspective in nature so that the conclusion of that educational trip may have represented a commencement of something profounder... the future. That and the necessity of remembering what we did on which days so we could fill up those damned journal assignments and turn them in.

Analyzing This Coincidence

2008-10-05T06:28:00.000-07:00

Thursday evening I stopped in at Fred Meyer and bought a new DVD of the movie Alien. I have never seen this movie but as I cued it up later that night and began watching the first few moments I thought of a girl named Lisa Silva that I went to school with more than twenty years ago. You see, Lisa was my biology partner and she insisted on an almost daily basis that I needed to watch this movie and I always said I would.

I have to say a couple things about her. She was gorgeous. One of her parents is Peruvian wherefore she has this incredibly flawless skin. I'm not much for physical descriptions... I'll just say everything about her was attractive and what really impressed me the most was how sweet she was to me especially when most of the popular kids were either picking on me or what's worse... ignoring me.

At one time it seemed my mother was going to be working with hers at the hospital sharing the same campus as our Madison Academy and Lisa asseverated to me how much fun we would have getting to know each other while we waited for our parents to get off work. Which was kind of a convenient concept for me because in my imagination she was destined to fall in love with me. For some reason I couldn't imagine the slightest impediment to my dream of the hottest girl in our school getting married to and having children with the biggest goofiest geek.

She had an irresistibly zany side to her as well. While I was trying to keep my breakfast down during our dissection of a frog, she literally proclaimed with eyes wide open, "I want to see its brains!"

Every time I've thought about finally watching Alien over these past two decades, I remember Lisa almost apologetically because of the ridiculous dimensions to which my proclivity for procrastinating has exponentially perpetuated. Heh heh... that was fun to say.

Anyway... I started the movie Thursday night and the next morning I'm chatting online with Ivy Dawn, my very best friend from high school, and I explain how I'm complying at last with Lisa's instructions, and Ivy says that it's Lisa's birthday. At first I think she's just joking and I say, "Ivy, how could you possibly know that?" But she's not joking. Apparently both of them have just recently subscribed to Facebook along with nearly a dozen of our other classmates and Ivy received an automatic notification that it was Lisa's birthday. So I think it's a significant coincidence that I was having this conversation about her on her birthday fully 21 years after she made me promise I would watch this film which, by the way, has turned out to be every bit as fantastic as she assured me it would be.

A Device Called Friendship

2008-09-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

When offering my opinions on relationships it may interest my readers to consider my credibility in this field which consists of approximately no success whatsoever. Having said that I obstreperously maintain that the best way to achieve a valuable romantic relationship is to begin with friendship. There are at least two arguments against this philosophy.

1). If you're pretending to be a friend when you really want to be a lover then you're being dishonest about your true objectives.

As for the first argument, I don't see it as pretending. You should truly apply yourself to being a friend with the understanding that it may never develop into anything more. The importance of valuable friendships in life cannot be overemphasized. So you dedicate yourself to being someone's friend which means you listen to them carefully and convey how interested you are in pretty much everything they say or think and you offer them honest insightful supportive feedback. And they will most likely come gradually to appreciate you immensely. And if that's as far as it goes what have you lost? But I imagine as they grow tired of the more typical antics of the other people vying for their attention they will one day experience an epiphany whereby you stand alone as someone they would like to spend most of their life with. You've been there. You've cared about them. You make them feel important like no one else ever has.

2.) Certain things can happen under these circumstances that may cause you discomfort and unhappiness.

As for the second argument... Part of being a friend to someone is that you listen to them talk about the people they are romantically and/or passionately interested in. Over and over again you have to suppress your ego and listen patiently and attentively as they say things you wish they would only say about you. During these times I try to project myself as more of a family member than a friend. For example if a girl shows me messages on her phone that were sent to her by a guy that she likes and while examining her phone I notice that all the messages I've sent to her have been deleted, it's better if I just think of myself as her brother. This helps me detach myself from being too sensitive and demanding consideration that isn't quite reasonable just yet. While I wouldn't want the girl of my dreams to dismiss my messages so easily, it wouldn't bother me at all if my sister deleted them.

To some extent all of the above constitutes a game and there is a natural prejudice against playing games in relationships. Also it's fair to say that I'm recommending manipulation as well. But I justify these things by insisting that the friendship is genuine... that there is always the acceptance of the possibility that nothing more than friendship may ever develop and there's never anything wrong with that. Furthermore if you know yourself to care about someone and to have someone's welfare and happiness as extremely high priorities then I think it's permissable to be discreet with your deeper feelings. The first time I see a pretty girl I don't walk up to her and say "I'm thinking about what kind of girlfriend you might be and I think you would look great in a bikini." Does that mean I'm playing games when instead I ask her about her day? Does that mean I'm manipulating her when I refrain from announcing how sexually appealing I find her to be? I'm not against expressing your feelings. I'm just promoting the idea of timing. Confess your feelings eventually, but first give the other person a chance to cultivate some feelings of their own.

My Insulted Intelligence

2008-09-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

The voice of the narrator sounds sad. . . emotionally pulverized by the depravity he's been subjected to. The nefarious images are slammed down upon your conciousness in black and white. . . mostly black. . . lurking in dusty shadows. There's the tired emaciated face of a villainous politician. He looks confused and morally bankrupt as thunder echoes in the background. I think I've heard this music before in a movie. . . maybe when Darth Vador appears on the screen or is it when Hannibal Lechtor is about to get his munch on? Suddenly the picture changes to a colorful field vivid with blue and gold flowers waving gracefully in a warm summer breeze as the other candidate strolls along smiling at the beautiful laughing child holding his hand. The sunlight rests upon him illuminating the edge of his profile and creating an almost celestial effect. The music changes to something played on a piano sweet and melodious and the narrator's voice softens too. . . evoking optimism and security and courageous pride. The bold words on the screen ameliorate from stark condemnations to red, white, and blue happy words like trust and prosperity and success. It makes me wish I could vote right now. Not for the good guy in the commercial. Not for the bad guy. I just want to vote for someone who doesn't think I'm stupid. Any suggestions?

Mr. Shabo and Captain Gilmer

2008-09-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

It was my first day at a new school when I met him in the parking lot of Captain Gilmer Elementary in North Carolina. Mr. Shabo was going to be my 7th grade teacher. He was very business like and serious as he introduced himself to my mother. My first impression was that my life for the next nine months would be the exact opposite of fun. But in some ways that school year was perhaps the most formative. Mr. Shabo was a great story teller. Sometimes he would stop in the middle of a lesson and have us write down a reminder in our notes for him to tell us about such and such a story. He was from Seattle and represented the only Seahawks fan in our school. One project he assigned to us was to make miniature cabins out of balsa wood. I also recall the day he taught us how to argue. He showed us how senseless arguing gets us nowhere, but if you organize the advantages and disadvantages of any proposition then you can utilize and address the facts more effectively. He cared about us. It wasn't just math and history. He wanted us to grow up to be good husbands and wives and fathers and mothers. He wanted us to be good citizens and responsible members of our communities. He took us on a field trip in which we brought along trash bags to fill up with trash we found along the side of the road. And he had local politicians come in and talk to us about the pending elections. He split our class in two and had one side bring in signs for the Republican party and the other side for Democrats.

He had us keep our own grade books too. We were on the honor system. It was definitely the trend for the more competitive students to doctor up their grades and I was caught up in this as well... except it weighed on my conscience and one day when I couldn't take it anymore I confessed to Mr. Shabo that I had cheated on my grades. Without making a big deal about it he answered, "I already knew. Don't do it anymore." Which humbled me and inspired me at the same time.

I became friends with four other students that school year. They were all girls. Heidi Possinger was the graceful, delicate, angelic one. She wore these plastic slippers that looked like something Cinderella might have worn. It seems like she didn't belong in our class which was dominated by crude adolescent boys, but I don't remember her ever expressing any contempt for them. She was quiet, but not noticeably judgemental or stuck up. I was in puppy love with her, but she probably never knew. I guess I was already developing some kind of class consciousness inasmuch as her father was a doctor while my mother worked for him as a receptionist. Somehow I felt she could see right through me.

Her best friend was Melissa Johnson, another good girl who seemed out of place. She would grow up to learn sign language and to marry a gentleman who was deaf.

Tammy Coon and Karen Duncan were my other two friends. Twice a week they would leave for a couple hours and attend a class at Fletcher Academy just over the hill where they practiced playing their clarinets. Karen is the one I was probably closest to, but I developed a serious crush on Tammy. My nickname for her was KCE (Kitty Cat Eyes). Tammy had straight black hair and wore very attractive skirts that I would tease her about mercilessly. I remember writing a rather melancholy poem for her. Something about the warfare of love. I figured I must be the next literary genius when I made "sorrow" rhyme with "tomorrow." Unfortunately she was infatuated with some guy at the academy named Kenny.

At recess the five of us would often find ourselves bored with soccer or football or softball and we'd wander off into the nearby mountain trails that bordered our little Seventh Day Adventist school. I was egotistical enough to enjoy the sensation of being the only guy to hang out with four girls at the same time. But I was going through some kind of crisis. Not an easy one to explain either. Walking along those trails I would extend my hands out into the briers and collect scratches with the intention of causing scars. Also at times I wouldn't want to talk to anyone. And classmates were worried about me... which was nice because I've always... always... loved attention. Mr. Shabo was a little concerned too and he persuaded my mother to let me stay with his family for a couple weeks.

I guess I pretty much loathed my own family at the time and it was a real treat to see how a "normal" family did things for a while. I was given a bedroom in the newly renovated downstairs and Mr. Shabo hooked me up with a radio. As though it were yesterday I remember falling asleep to the dulcet tones of Barry Manilow singing "Can't Smile Without You" or Albert Morris singing "Feelings."

Controversy rocked the school before the year was out. Mr. Shabo was accused of harrassing some of the girls in our class and he was informed that he would not be invited back the following year. I was furious. I always believed the charges were fabricated. My mother saw how upset I was and when she came to talk to me about it I read to her from Ellen G. White's religious classic, The Desire of Ages, a graphic description of how Jesus was persecuted. My mother didn't much care for my implication that Mr. Shabo was Jesus, but of course I only meant to compare their innocence and tranquil attitudes in the face of unfair accusations.

Heidi, Karen, and Russell

Summer 1985

No less than 24 years have elapsed since then. Karen lived for one or two of them before she was killed in a drunk driving accident. Heidi died about ten years later of leukemia. It breaks my heart to wonder how their parents survived these tragic events. In my mind they live on forever as 7th graders. Beautiful girls that would go hiking with me at recess and express concern when I was too quiet and morose. Tammy and I exchanged a few letters and phone calls in the early 90's. She became the proud mother of an adorable little girl, but we eventually lost touch. Melissa and I enjoyed a short~lived correspondence as well and she was generous to invite me to her wedding, but I wasn't able to attend.

Recently I was pondering all these characters and discovered with a little research that Mr. Shabo moved back to Seattle. It's possible that he is the principal of a little school about 40 miles north of where I live now also I think maybe his wife teaches in Puyallup maybe ten minutes from here though the information I've found could be outdated. Sometimes I think I should try to get in touch with Mr. Shabo. I'm trying to imagine the surprise it would cause if I just walked into his school unannounced. He hasn't seen me since 1985 when I was 14 years old.

The Artichoke Heart is a Lonely Hunter

2008-09-05T00:41:00.000-07:00

I paid off the entire balances of two credit cards last month and felt like celebrating… so I went to Borders. On the sidewalk they had displayed dozens of books at bargain prices and one that caught my eye was 501 Must~See Movies. I picked it up and entered the store. My traditional procedure for spending the day at Borders is to collect several books and periodicals until my arms are full and then to sit down at one of the convenient tables and to pore through the contents which ordinarily will prompt additional forays into the aisles and shelves hunting for whatsoever materials have been thus cited or promoted. Such was the case on this day and in the movie book I found a description of a French/German film called Amélie starring Audrey Tautou who later played the leading lady in The Da Vinci Code. The review intrigued me and off I went in search of the DVD which I found and bought and watched. One quote that amused me is delivered by the main character when she sees a produce merchant belittling an employee by calling him a vegetable. Amélie chimes in by saying: "At least you'll never be a vegetable - even artichokes have hearts."

Now… don’t get the wrong idea… the impression this made on me was not that I should be kinder to cretins or anything so philanthropic as that. Sooner or later I will be inspired with an enlightenment of that sort and will faithfully share my findings with my adoring subscribers, but on this more pedestrian occasion I was impressed instead with a contemplation of artichokes. It happens that one of the tastiest items you can ever order from a menu is the Spinach and Artichoke Dip listed as an appetizer at the Olive Garden.

So there I am at home watching this foreign film and it occurs to me I’ve not enjoyed that culinary favorite of mine in a long time. And I’ll tell you why. It’s the same reason why I haven’t gone to see The Dark Knight yet. It just feels like the sort of thing you would do with a date and I’m not currently dating anyone. Interesting… now that I think about it because that was Amélie’s dilemma too. She was extraordinarily creative and interesting… but basically too cowardly to pursue a relationship. Meanwhile… until my cowardice dissipates a little I decided I could pay a visit to the Olive Garden with only my own company to enjoy.

That was the plan, but as the time drew near I had all kinds of inclinations to contact my beautiful and most recent ex~girlfriend and invite her to join me. It was always one of her favorite places to dine and she was amazed at how many breadsticks we were able to consume in a single meal. The temptation was formidable and even leaving my phone at home did not completely diffuse the potential for breaking a silence imposed last April when she discharged me from our friendship, for as I drew closer to my destination I considered taking a detour to her house and inviting her in person.

Sometimes I will catalog the several occurrences that have nearly provoked my capitulation in this abstinence.

I wanted to wish her a happy Mother’s Day in May.
I wanted to invite her to a retirement party for an older gentleman that she and I both admire very much.
One morning after work I watched the film Enchanted on cable and the fairytale princess reminds me relentlessly of my ex. I thought about ordering the DVD on Amazon and having it delivered to her address.
One time her son came into the poker room where I work and afterward it seemed like a plausible excuse for me to call her and say “Hey, guess who I ran into today!”
Another time I believe I saw her in traffic turning into her place of employment and I was tempted to give her a call.
I wish I could discuss the election campaigns with her. We used to have the most passionate conversations about the differences between liberals and conservatives. The galactic emergence of Governor Palin only magnifies this inasmuch as they have so much in common and I can almost guarantee that my ex would be extolling this candidate's virtues.

With each temptation I think if I can just stay strong… the next challenge will be easier to endure and I guess that has proven to be the case. I successfully arrived at the Olive Garden without bothering anyone to join me.

It happens that the manager of the restaurant is an acquaintance of mine and she welcomed me in the most delightful fashion. I glutinously devoured the appetizer that had inspired my visit and did some damage to an order of cheese raviolis as well. I wrote a little in my memoirs and read a chapter from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter which is about a mute that seems to have a Jesus Christ effect on everyone around him. He’s much beloved simply because he seems to be listening to what people are saying. It probably doesn’t matter much if he really is listening… simply his inability to interrupt rather automatically secures for him an unrivaled popularity. Any self~help book worth its weight in confetti will tell you the secret to cultivating better friendships is to become a good listener. And it is my supreme goal to work on this just as soon as I discover someone on the other side of the table for me to listen to.

The Birds and the B~Words

2008-08-16T04:28:00.000-07:00

There I was once more testing the limits of my physical abilities on the track around the Tacoma Community College soccer field. I had just timed myself walking a mile in 13 minutes and 25 seconds. I was about to time myself running the same distance, but was sitting on the bleachers for a minute allowing myself to rest and regain a little energy before doing so. That's when I noticed all the Canadian Geese. So many, in fact, that I found myself counting them and learned there were 36. And it so happens that by counting them my perspicacity for observation was slightly enhanced and I further noticed that the geese were gathered in several groups... usually comprised of two or three creatures each. So I watched them for several more moments than I initially expected to and pondered these smaller groups... wondering if they consisted of couples. If two geese were together maybe a few yards away from any other birds, was it reasonable to suppose they were in a relationship together? And if so what kinds of issues did they engage? What dominates the mentality of a fowl when choosing a mate?

The Romantics wrote poetry about how they longed to be as the birds flying about between heaven and earth with nothing stressing them out. But this has never seemed so terribly inviting to me. Whatever criteria they use in pairing up... (I'm speaking of the geese here... not the Romantics)... I'm sure it's not nearly so sophisticated as my own. Quite probably that helps to explain why they're about 75,000 times more successful when it comes to finding someone compatible. But what do they really think about? What do they really do? Besides hunting and pecking for something palatable to nibble on and gulp down... Besides migrating... Besides crapping huge gobs all over creation... what really fascinates them?

I mean the one thing that kind of tires me out the most is also the one thing I would probably miss the most were I to trade places with a member of any other species. I daresay I would miss the drama which lately seems to feature a neat trick perfected by the gentler sex of being in relationships that they don't tell anyone about. You see if you have a boyfriend and you don't tell me about it, there's a good chance that I'll make a hopeless fool of myself lavishing you with all kinds of flattery and attention. Not that you really wish to date me or even talk to me about anything interesting... but hey... all that attention makes you feel so gorgeous and special... why should you risk losing that merely for the sake of some goddamned integrity?

Several times in your life you will be inspired by the music you're listening to at any given moment and such was the case for me in 1989 when I was futiley attempting to wash the dough out of the pots in a bakery in Madison, Tennessee. Suddenly a song named "Dream On" by Aerosmith blared over the radio including this verse:

I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin;
You got to lose to know how to win.

It's these last words that help make drama indispensable. Because no matter what kind of emotional hell you go through and no matter how empty it leaves you feeling... when you finally meet someone who loves you and makes love seem rather simple and natural... you'll have that wacky drama you survived to thank... because without it... you wouldn't know how lucky you are to finally discover relationship nirvana.

Jarin Faine Holt

2008-07-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

I didn't know what his name would be. You know how some couples when they're expecting a baby, they don't want to know until it's born if it's a boy or a girl? Well my brother and his wife brought their first child into the world yesterday and I knew it was going to be a boy, but I didn't know what his name would be and I kind of enjoyed the suspense. First he's born and then you find out his name. Only this fellow had to make quite a big deal out of being born. He left his due date (July 12th) way behind. Arriving at last on July 26th and turning his nose up on the way to his Father's first wife's birthday and his stepgrandfather's crazy second wife's birthday and his uncle's best friend's wedding anniversary and who knows how many other dates of varrying significance. And then of course once the whole being born process commenced... this kiddo (who is adorable by all accounts though I have not yet had a glimpse of him myself) rather dramatically prolonged his emergence from the wee hours of Friday morning when his mother's water broke up to Friday afternoon when she went into labor and then finally until late Saturday night when he was actually delivered... so that I expect everyone is thoroughly exhausted right now and probably immersed rather deeply into slumberland.

But today thanks to the communicative omnipotence of MySpace I've discovered his name is Jarin Faine Holt. And I like the sound of it. I wonder how my brother and his wife (who shares my birthday with me so that I'm fond of calling her my twin sister~in~law)... I say I wonder how they decided on this name and what its various inspirations may have been. And while I didn't wish to interrupt their well deserved naptime I took the initiative to google the name "Jarin Faine" and you know what I found? I found nothing.

And that's as it should be isn't? For he's completely original. Just as he wouldn't be born on anyone else's special day... So too will he answer to no one else's appellation. And I knew he would be original. You can have one look at his parents and you know he'll be a thoughtful fellow and incredibly smart. And he'll be an original.

Welcome to a relatively interesting world, Jarin Faine Holt. You'll find it's a virtually ideal playground for originality.

I've written this blog for you and the next time someone googles your name... they won't come up empty. This is just for starters.

Much Love,

Uncle Shannon.

A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

2008-07-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Washington on the first day of the first month of the first year of the first decade of the first century of this millenium. I moved here because I had spent my whole life living in places because of other people. I was born in New York because that's where my parents lived. I lived in Maine because my father got a job there. I lived in North Carolina because my parents wanted a home with mild winters. I lived in West Virginia because my father bought a farm there. I lived in Tennessee because my mother moved there to be closer to my eventual stepfather who was incarcerated in Nashville. I moved to Illinois because my big brother invited me to come up there and share his apartment. But I moved to Washington because I looked at a map of the United States and said, "that's where I'm going next."

When you move by yourself to a new region of the country where you don't know anyone at all there are basically three things you can do to combat the inevitable onslaught of homesickness:

You can go shopping and buy new stuff for your empty apartment.
You can establish traditions that make you feel closer to home like making spaghetti every Friday.
And you can find ways to meet new people.

In my attempt to accomplish this last, I sought out what's called a chess scene (a place where people gather to play chess). And so I found Bertolino's. Bertonlino's is a coffee bar open 24 hours. Its ambience is enhanced with old wooden tables and chairs that have seen their better day. And in one of the bookcases there are stored several chess boards with pieces probably conglomerated together from nearly ten different sets. Over the years this has become my favorite place to hang out. It's especially perfect for reading inasmuch as reading at home is too easily compromised with the accessibility of the internet and cable television. Also I'm in the habit of taking my journal for writing and my sketchpad for drawing.

Dave is the graveyard barista at Bertolino's and we've gotten to know each other. He hates me for being a Yankee fan. We both have horror stories about ex~girlfriends. It makes him batty that I can read the first six Harry Potter books and then postpone the seventh one for several weeks until I've finished various other reading projects.

Last year when I was setting my record for abstinence from gambling he was very supportive. And then when I relapsed he offered me an incentive to do better. He began asking me if I was up to 100 days and hinted that when I reached that milestone he would have something for me. It took a few crash~landings, but last week I reached the elusive 100 days and last night I went to my coffee bar to claim my prize. I still don't know what it is because Dave was unable to locate it in the stores about town and ended up ordering it online. But when he came to work... his wonderful (and basically genius) girlfriend, Carol, sauntered in with him carrying an apple pie that she had baked so recently that it was still hot. The aluminum foil covering the pie was inscribed with the words:

For Shannon

Congratulations!

From Dave and Carol

We convivially discussed book collecting and monster illustrations. Carol explained to me what an abracadrium is and we argued about which of all the Bonds we like the best.

I don't know how else to say this. It was a hell of a nice thing for them to do to make an event out of my own personal dragon~slaying quest.

And I don't want to turn a nice thing like that into a lecture on the irrelevancy of church (but I'm going to anyway). I think it was kind of a Christian thing for them to do. And Dave is an atheist.

Birds Are Migratory?

2008-07-19T14:57:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Las Vegas in December to see twin sisters, Paulina and Mercedes, competing in dance competitions. For some reason it's never quite slipped off the edge of my memory that Mercedes was once my girlfriend... living proof of my conviction that there is such a thing as love at first sight. Thanks to the balmy medicinal magic of time we find ourselves friends. Mildly sweet to each other after nearly a decade's estrangement. So while there is none of the feverish passion and drama remaining from our college years, there is an unmistakable determination on my part to look good when I arrive in Las Vegas. I mean I am motivated to manufacture lean sculpted muscle anatomically wide... biceps... triceps... pectorals... quads... pentaceps... hectoceps.... whatever.

Imagine my disappointment this past week, then, when I developed a little cold. No one wants to challenge themselves physically when they are sick, do they? So from Tuesday until Friday I did nothing but stay in bed , take medicine, and watch as all my physical fitness drained away. Today I woke up feeling a little more capable, consumed a dark chocolate Acess nutrition drink (distributed by Melaleuca), and headed out to the track across the street. On my way I saw this little bird... so little... and I stopped to watch him only a few feet away as he was hunting and pecking at every little speck of potential food within a ten foot expanse of embankment. I watched him for nearly a minute imagining that I was James Audobon or Charles Darwin and intensely fascinated by every little characteristic of this bird. I noticed how slender were the legs upon which his entire weight was balanced and at what angles they were supporting him. I noticed how these legs were not used at all to hop from one spot to another... nor were the wings perceptibly employed... but that apparently the body of the bird simply willed itself to flit about sporadically. This is all foreshadowing... done most artfully except that in really stellar literature this particular asseveration mentioning the foreshadowing itself in a none too subtle fashion would be omitted.

So I arrived at the track and surprised myself with running two miles in just under 17.5 minutes... my best time since February... perhaps I've not suffered so bad from being sick as I feared.

And while I'm bragging I might mention that at midnight I will have abstained from gambling for 100 days (42 short of the record).

So when I get home I hear this fantastic tumult up in the ceiling somewhere. My apartment has a vaulted ceiling with windows in it all the way across its apex. At first I imagined some large and menacing wasp or hornet, but really it generated too much noise for that. And upon further investigation I confirmed it was a small bird. See how that foreshadowing thing works? Really useless literary device if you ask me. What's wonderful in literature is when you don't know what to expect. So why, unless you wanted to be intellectually irrelevant, would you go around all the time giving hints about what's goig to happen at the end of your story?

So pretty quickly I gave up on diplomatically persuading this frantic creature to depart from my home. I realized my best chance was to invite the feline half of my apartment's residents to take a rare excursion into the outdoors inasmuch as her incessant inarticulate announcements that she would like nothing better than to use her jaws as a makeshift guillotine with which to decapitate the little bird were not helping. That being done... the bird commenced to make a little less noise, but still seems ridiculously certain that the only way to vacate my humble abode is through one of the window panes in the ceiling.

And that's how I came to ask myself, "birds are migratory, aren't they?" I mean seriously... how is it they fly back and forth each year from Alberta to Peru and yet the one chirping away in my ceiling right now can't remember that he flew in through the goddamned sliding glass door which is even more open now than when he entered it approximately 45 minutes ago?

The Smiles Are Real

2008-07-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

I just ran two miles in less than 19 minutes. Didn't set any records, but I can feel myself getting stronger out there. And it was raining. Something kind of exhilarating about that and apparently Gatorade knows what it is because when I got home and opened the refrigerator to replenish liquids the first bottle I picked up was called Gatorade Rain.

I thought about Wendy as I came home and felt like sending her a text message saying "are you okay?" The way our friendship ended is that in April we were having dinner and she was showing me text messages her most recent ex had sent her. She was obsessed with trying to figure out what his messages meant. I was obsessed with noticing that the few messages I had sent her were deleted. I didn't say anything then, but a couple days later she asked me if I was ignoring her messages and I replied that I wished she weren't deleting mine. She didn't respond to that for about a week and then came the message when she said. . .

She only wanted a friend.

She went on to say the message thing was just too much for her and that she was going to take some time to take care of herself. And that she wanted me to take the Mariners tickets I'd given to her for her birthday and go with someone else.
That's how our friendship ended with her thinking I wasn't a very good friend and with me thinking I was the best friend she'll ever have and that it's unfortunate she couldn't appreciate that.

But today I asked myself was it the right thing to confront the issue of my messages being deleted? Or was I demanding something from her for selfish reasons. She was careless with my feelings and it would only have gotten worse for me. I believe she was hurting because of losing her ex and that in a subconscious way she was releasing that pain by inflicting it on me... so I kind of decided to remove myself from that role.

Today I want to be her friend again. And yesterday I wanted that too. I'm the person in her life that she could talk to about anything at any time. I would never judge her and I was always in love with her. Very constant that way and I usually think she was a fool to dispense with me so recklessly. All I wanted was for her to say she was sorry for deleting my messages and that she wouldn't do it anymore. But lately I've been thinking I was the fool. Apparently I was more addicted to her leaning on me than she was.

It's been two years since we broke up. Two nightmarish years wherein I often grope about desperately and blindly for some fragments of my soul, but it's getting better. On the 4th of July I was at Fred Meyer shopping for all kinds of things like DVD's and basketball shorts and Gatorade Rain. And I smiled at some person. A bigger smile than usual. A fearless smile. The kind of smile that is completely independent from the assurance that it may or may not be reciprocated. The kind of smile in point of fact that knows it has just completely brightened your day to the extent that if you fail to smile back it's not because you are immune to my charm... no.. .rather you are so much overwhelmed with the warmth that it pretty much renders you responseless for just a brief moment or so. And I kept right on flashing that smile at people... almost every person I saw and I wasn't really doing it on purpose either. It just kept happening and I myself wasn't sure why.

The cashier asked me how my day was going and I told her honestly that I seemed to be in a really good mood which is rare for me. I told her I'm usually quite grumpy. And she said at least I have a good sense of humor about it and I said... yes... I'm a grumpy person with a good sense of humor.... which must be ostensibly plausible because it made her laugh.

And at midnight I'll be at 86 consecutive days without gambling. There's still a long way to go before I reach my goal of 142, but it happens that 86 was the previous record... a record I set when I was with Wendy and believed I had found at last the girl I'd been hoping for throughout the first 34 years of my life.

I don't blame myself for falling for her the way I did. It made perfect sense. There was no reason to doubt the magic of our infatuation together. And I don't blame myself for succumbing to the nightmare of learning that it wasn't real. That whatever she felt for me... it was not love... not any kind of love you would ever want to rely on. It was the most immense disappointment and it's understandable how it submerged me into a listless depression.

And yet I never completely capitulated to the darkness. I held on. I knew that I was basically a happy person and that no disappointment could deprive me of that forever. I knew about my smile. I didn't know where it had gone or how to get it back. But on the 4th of July it just kind of revived on its own without ceremony or explication. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's back for good.

The Days You Forget

2008-06-13T03:20:00.000-07:00

It's Friday the 13th.

I have been keeping a journal since 1989. I probably average about one entry in my journal every five days. I was thinking it would be interesting to write a blog in which I compared an entry from five years ago with an entry from ten years ago.
Oh what a pitiful endeavor!

Apparently my main concern in 2003 was to quit gambling. I wrote the words, "As far as I'm concerned, I'm completely free now. Free of the casino vice. Completely free!" Then I go on to delineate how I'm going to purify my mind by censoring what kind of things I watch on TV. Finally I record that I'm going to "Read Doctor Faustus until I fall asleep."

I have it in good confidence that I was not so particularly free from gambling at that time as I wishfully asserted. Last year I remember setting a record for abstinence by going 142 days without gambling. Currently I'm on a quest to break that record, but I still have 80 days to go... oh... now it's only 79!

But in 1998 I had not even begun to struggle with that vice. I was in my last year at MTSU and it so happens that there are no casinos in Tennessee... heck... I didn't even know what an Indian Casino was in 1998. Instead I was celebrating my 10,000th day. You see, I had an assignment in my history class requiring me to visit a cemetery and to study the inscriptions on the stones. I spent a couple hours there and recorded my thoughts onto a hand held tape recorder. I guess I had some kind of second class epiphany because I was contemplating how strange it is that our lives once they're over are summed up in how many years a person lives. Decades is too vague a statistic. To say I was born between three and four decades ago would be annoying. More helpful to know it was 37 years ago. But no one really wishes to know that it was specifically 13,650 days ago, do they?

And that puzzled me a little. It seemed to suggest that not necessarily every one of those individual days was very important, but would you be willing to take any day from next week and negate it before it happens? Hopefully you balk at such a notion. Who would want to say... I'll skip Monday (easily my first choice if I were forced to pick one)? Even though, historically, Mondays are the day in which I will look like hell and get a traffic ticket and sustain a sore throat and say something stupid to the girl I most want to make a good impression on! Still... what little optimist there is in me cries out that next Monday could be the greatest day of my life. It could be the day that I finally start writing my novel in earnest. Could be the day I meet the girl I get married to. Could be the day I save someone's life. Could be the day I quit my job. Which doesn't sound like a good day at first, but you never know what could come from it.

But in 1998 while doing that report in the cemetery I realized I would be celebrating my 10,000th day that June. And I mentioned it in my journal. But, as luck would have it, the day was a bad one. The girl I was interested in, Carla, was unhappy... an achievement for which she demonstrated a prevalence. I worked in the kitchen of Tennessee Christian Medical Center and burned the cornbread. I left the lights of my car on all day and thus killed the battery. The journal mentions the only bright part of my day were my dear friends Kenny and Patrice but it doesn't say how or why. Still... it's easy enough to imagine that they were just there for me inasmuch as that was always the case since first I befriended them... Ahh... Patrice... always more an angel than a person to me. And when she reads this... it's not just because her steps barely touch the earth when she walks... I'm thinking more of an afternoon on the phone when I broke down and she was at the other end listening with all her heart even when I could no longer articulate coherently. But I'm waxing cryptic now.

The 1998 entry goes on to say: "You know, I don't hate anyone. My life has been charming. I haven't met the perfect one for me yet, but I've loved many imperfect people and after all ~ I'm somewhat imperfect myself. We all want desperately to be happy. I myself persevere, but with what chance of success? Are the chemicals not against me?"
By which I suppose I meant to address the possibility that I might have a chemical imbalance in my brain causing me to be unhappy.

It's a strange thing indeed to share only two days from a collection of so many... I write differently for an online audience than I do for an audience of myself. Though I suppose in either case I am likely to manifest loquacious ostentation rather frequently.

Friday with Fur Puddle

2008-06-07T02:25:00.000-07:00

Fur Puddle is my most recent nickname for my kitten (21 months old). Tonight I had two things to do. First I wanted to finish reading Of Human Bondage. It's one of the best books I've ever read. One of my favorites. Deeply philosophical and yet easily read. Delving deep into the psychology of humans. Reading this book reminds me of Roberta Flack's song Killing Me Softly. What does she say?

I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd,
I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud.
I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on ...
Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song ...
He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair.

Of Human Bondage talks to me relentlessly about my journey. About the futility of loving the heartless. About the struggle to survive in a society too busy to give a flying fuck. About regret. About insecurity. Off and on today I have plopped myself down unceremoniously in my recliner with a lamp nearby and have pored through the pages... about ninety of them. I was aiming to read 30 per day, but that's when I found out my dear mother had passed me. Previously I had been nearly a hundred pages ahead of her, but then today I read an e~mail indicating she had only 100 left to go... while I still had 130. Later in the day another e~mail revealed she was down to fifty! So it's a mad dash to the finish.

But the other thing I had to do was to watch The Great Debaters directed by and starring Denzel Washington and based on the true story of a Black college debating Harvard in the mid 1930's.

Now for whatever reason, I cannot read a book for a great duration without becoming unbearably restless. Likewise I have a difficult time sitting through an entire movie without interruption. Therefore I alternated between reading the book and watching the film. And here's what kind of makes the whole thing rather amusing. It seems I don't really notice it at first, but while I'm reading I'll suddenly realize that there is a kitten curled up on my lap. Occasionally I will read an extra chapter more than I would otherwise just because she seems so comfy and cozy... Disrupting her repose is not a thing to do lightly. But then when I'm watching the movie guess what happens. I'll get to a good stopping point and reach for the remote control wherewith to push pause when I realize that once more I have a kitten in my lap or, more accurately, on my belly.

Anyway, she's the sweetest though her meowing is far too incessant and irrational. And even though her purring is almost undiscernable. This blog is my tribute to her. The best kitten in the world.

My Completely Original Ten Commandments

2008-05-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

I.
Thou shalt not be lazy, for while there is no devil, idle hands are yet the devil's workshop.

II.
Thou shalt not abuse, either physically or sexually, any innocent living thing.

III.
There shall be no war.

IV.
There shall be no death penalty. The severest crimes shall be punished with perpetual imprisonment upon an island inhabited and governed by others who demonstrate a psychotic disregard for their fellow man.

V.
Thou shalt not touch another person's car.

VI.
Thou shalt not drive in excess of 16,000 cubits per hour (40mph).

Thereby compelling people to live closer to work.
And closer to their families.
Thus reducing gas consumption.
Also reducing vehicular accidents.

VII.
Thou shalt not make, distribute, purchase, possess, or consume alcohol, for though I am a liberal maker of commandments, I cannot reconcile the harmful effects of alcohol with the idealistic value we rightfully place upon freedom.

VIII.
Thou shalt not sleep with anyone unless you are in love with that person.

IX.
Thou shalt read at least three books per year (comic books don't count) beginning with How To Win Friends and Influence People and The Little Prince.

X.
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Literary Blasphemy

2008-04-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I've known for a while that I enjoyed reading Harry Potter more than The Lord of the Rings. Having finally finished the more modern series, I think it's time to explain my preference:

I cannot identify with Hobbits so well as I can with humans. Tolkien's main characters were supposed to be cute... perhaps adorable... though grotesque enough not to be cuddly whereas J.K. Rowling's lead character endures and struggles with all the insecurities that come with being a teenage boy... something I can still remember doing myself once.

Also there is the sinister relationship between Harry and Voldemort. Harry does not remember his parents because Voldemort killed them. You don't have any history like that between Frodo and Sauron. And if you think about it... after reading the LOTR trilogy, you probably have no idea what Sauron looks like. Not a lot of character development going on there for the bad guy.

Also there is the romantic tensions for Harry as you wonder initially if he and Hermione will develop feelings for each other. Later he's utterly infatuated with Cho Chang before finally settling on Ginny Weasley as the love of his life. There is no romance for the Hobbits really. And then the affair with Aragorn is so otherworldly and melodramatic... all life and death and the end of the world and so forth that it lacks anything you can relate to very easily... It lacks the charm of Ginny insisting that someone besides Cho escort Harry to the Hall he needs to go to at the end of The Deathly Hallows.

Finally there is the sophisticated conundrum of Snape. The pervasive question... is he a good guy? Is Dumbledore correct in trusting him? I always believed he would turn out a good guy and I was right, but I did not realize until the end how potent were his feelings for Harry's mother. This was an outstanding component of the series and as well as anything else supports the notion that J.K. Rowlings is a genius.

My Harmless Digression Into Morbidity

2008-04-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

I've always known that I would die in the year 2092, Why? For two reasons. One is because the Bible says otherwise. Probably the most mysterious passage of the Bible is found in the sixth chapter of Genesis. Shortly before the flood there is mention of the sons of God making wives of the daughters of men. Some say these sons of God were angels and the children they produced with human women were giants... also known as Nephilim. In the same chapter God is described as repenting for making mankind. There are not many occasions in the Bible where God is represented as having second thoughts, but in this exception he determines that there will be a limit henceforth to the age of a man. Previously the patriarchs such as Adam and Methuselah would live to be more than 900 years old, but in this fascinating chapter God says the age of a man will be 120 years. And you know what? He stuck to his word. Which leads me to my second motivation to live until 2092. If you research the internet for the oldest authenticated age of a man (not to be confused with a woman) what do you think you will find? How about 120 years! If I survive until 2092 I'll break the world record for the oldest man since antediluvian times and I'll prove the Bible should not be taken quite so seriously.

So what are my chances? I've discovered today that there are only 75 people alive that are aged 110 or older. Out of a population of nearly 7 billion people... that's not too encouraging. What's more daunting is that of those 75 only ten are men. Apparently it comes down to three things. Genetics, diet, and low stress. Can't do much about the first one, but lucky for me I've been a vegetarian my whole life... with a brief deviation into the McChicken sandwich subculture from about 2001 to 2007 (I doubt Methuselah could easily have abstained from this version of gluttony had he been tempted with it). And I don't drink often or smoke ever. Now about this stress thing. In some ways I would say I have about the least stressful life of anyone I know. I don't push myself very much to accomplish anything. But oddly enough... this leads to a lack of accomplishment... which can be kind of stressful in a way. So I'll work on that.

Where to Begin?

2008-04-17T17:52:00.000-07:00

The kid in me that likes to be told a story is alive and well. I read books and watch movies voraciously and always will. I've noticed there are two different ways to tell a story. You can begin at the beginning and move forward directly to the end. Or you can begin at the end and then go to the beginning and then jump back to the end again and then address the middle of the narrative for a while and then lurch into somewhere undefined that ends up being a dream and then back and forth perpetually until your audience feels cognitively violated.

It's a literary device that probably has a name of which I am ignorant.

Mary Shelley uses it in Frankenstein. It begins with a ship captain who harbors the tortured Victor Frankenstein. The Captain is writing letters to his sister relating the events that Frankenstein is telling him while lying on his deathbed. So the story goes back and forth between the end...on the ship... and the beginning... Frankenstein's life and experiences.

Pulp Fiction does it too... There's a part in the film where John Travolta comes out of the bathroom and Bruce Willis blows him away with a sawed off shotgun. But the film ends with Samuel Jackson and Travolta (alive and well) walking out of a diner after a hold up perpetrated by Tim Roth initiated in the first few moments of the film...

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind may be the most blatant offender. It begins with two people meeting each other, seemingly for the first time. Eventually, if you're really smart, you'll realize that they've met before and had their memories of each other removed from their minds and the movie tells the story about how and why this was done.

I'm kind of linear in my taste for a good story. None of this back and forth for me. Begin at the beginning and tell the story as events unfold. That's how I live my life and so that's how stories will have the best chance of making sense to me.

Where Credit is Due

2008-04-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

Every time I shave I remember when I learned to shave. My older brother taught me. And for the next fifteen years I religiously used the micro gillette disposable shavers that he used that day.

And about the same time my stepfather taught me how to tie a tie. And I have never put on a tie since without remembering that first lesson.

And my older brother's first wife taught me how to drive. And I think about that experience almost every time I drive and especially when I'm teaching someone else how to drive.

What's really intriguing is how I learned the word "aversion." I had just moved to Chicago and was working as a bag boy in a grocery store named Dominicks. The nice guy who hired me was transferred and a new store manager took over... a jerk with an attitude. One day he told me to take my lunch break and to clean the bathrooms when I got back. I lived close enough to take my lunch at home, a fourth story apartment in Elmhurst, and took the opportunity to complain to Travis (the same older brother that taught me how to shave). I explained that I didn't think a bag boy should have to clean bathrooms. Evidently Travis believed in the power of a strong vocabulary. He advised me to tell the jerk~store~manager that "I have a personal aversion to cleaning up after other people's digestive waste" and could he please find someone else to do that chore. And it worked. It was almost like magic. The manager basically said "okay." And that was the end of it. Except I can never use the word "aversion" without remembering.