The Daily Weirdness

2009-02-20T03:05:00.001-08:00

I woke up with a head cold. I used this contraption that resembles a baby bottle: its nipple has a spout that shoots hot water through a nostril and the water shoots out the other nostril. I filled the bottle with sea salt before plunging my nose with the hot water. The snot drained out of my nose and washed into the bathroom drain. Then my head was full of water, so I blew the rest of the water from my nose and unclogged my ears. The congestion cleared for a few hours.

I visited a shrink after three years. A lot had changed since then. He had since moved his practice into his own home. I felt odd, walking to the front door knowing that he both lived and shrunk heads there. His office was in a guest room next to the front door. The secretary left us alone in the room. It'd been three years since we last met, and so he stared back at me and I'd nothing to say. A lot of ground to cover but nowhere to start. Then a brown and black cat leapt onto a chair and stared at me. Now I had to two things staring at me.

"I want to start seeing you again."

"How come?"

"Because the other shrink is bad."

"What's so bad about him?"

"He called me an ostrich that buries his head in the sand."

"And you didn't like that?"

"I pay him good money. I was hoping for something deeper."

"Hold that thought," he said, and he stood up and left the office. He'd been gone for five to seven minutes and walked back in like he'd just taken a shit. I forgot what I was saying, so I started over. The shrink was old. He started nodding off as I was talking about my taxes. The cat was licking his paws.

After the visit, I drove to the nearest coffee shop where I could sit and write. Because of too much chit-chat inside, I sat at a table outside. Sitting outside is fine, except for the glare on the monitor. I'd write five pages, refill the coffee cup, light a cigarette and continue. This is what I want to do for the time I have left. No mortgage. No kids. No Cancun. Just simple. Sit at a table, smoke, drink and write. I stayed for four hours, until some applicant at Starbucks started asking me what I was writing. I had to find someplace else.

I drove back home, lay in bed and read a book. The quiet air outside depressed me. What was left in life to enjoy? The TV was across the room, but it was only good for filling the dead air. People mistake distractions for entertainment. I could've run the vacuum or the lawnmower in the room; anything to drown out the real atmosphere.

I couldn't even finish a page before falling fast asleep. A phone call woke me up. The right people never call anymore. Here was some leach telling me that I could make $2,000 a day at home and for doing nothing; I told him that I was already doing it but still waiting for my money. I hung up before he could explain. People only bother when they can take money from you. Otherwise they leave you alone. Except for the criminally insane. At least they see something of more value in you.

After I couldn't fall back asleep, I visited my mailbox. Another issue of the writer's magazine had come. I wanted to sit on the toilet and read the articles. It was more of the same. These magazines contain 100 pages of articles that discourage you from submitting work for publication. Either they interview agents and editors who say they don't have time for you or some grad student with a fellowship who'd just released a new novel. These successful writers of today look nothing like the writers of old. Plain and simple, they're nerds, and not even the engaging tortured outcast nerds; but the overachieving rich nerds whose work is something uptight and unappealing. The men always have an intense look with uneven facial hair, looking either too underweight or overweight; while the women are overeducated bombshells hiding behind thick-rimmed glasses. And that type would be fine if they weren't the only ones. Exactly what happened to the writers to empathize with? Why emphasize with an author from a prestigious college who landed a book deal right after graduation? Who can relate to that? Bring back the dead beats or the deranged lunatics who can only write in fragments.

Types of People I Hate Pt. 1

2008-12-23T16:26:00.000-08:00

I hate many types of people. But the one that has surfaced is the guy who says "at the end of the day..." Yes. What? At the end of the day, I sleep and am too tired for sex. That's about it. No daily summaries to go by. Usually, they follow it with some defeated independent clause that leaves the recipient feeling hopeless: "you still got a roof over your head, eh?" "what does it all matter?" "what're you gonna do?"

Although I'm not sure if they get along, these types are akin to Mr. Whatitallboilsdownto and Mr. Wereallgoingtodieanyway: males in the 40+ age range. While waiting for coffee, they rest their sunglasses on their ballcaps and slide their fingers below their belt loops, smiling a shit-eating grin. Waiting awhile bothers them in the least, because nothing matters anyway: they have all the time in the world and they're going to die anyway.

Other than their dog and their TV, they have no passion in life. These are the middle-class types who drive big trucks and who have a vast knowledge of tools. They'll talk to anybody, and say the cleverest thing there is. In a crowded elevator, he'll be the one who says "had I known it'd be this crowded in here..."

But, these types cross all economic boundaries, both rich and poor. Professionals. Watch a postgame interview with an NFL coach. "What it all boils down to..." he says. Yes, everything has its fundamentals. "At the end of the day..." Yes, as each day ends, nothing changes and it all goes back to the way it was. Thanks, coach.

Whatever we concluded before, had since, eluded our minds. At the end of the day, we walk home, holding a whole lot of nothing, and take our pants off one leg at a time. "It is what it is". What's the use in striving for anything important? The day will end.

Thanksgiving.

2008-11-28T16:03:00.000-08:00

I quit blogging for awhile. Not that I hated blogging, but as a recluse I was too naive to realize that what I was doing wasn't unique. At one point I was writing a blog a day as a cathartic release, back when I figured that all other people were too busy copulating in orgies and driving drunk. I spent my Friday nights, drunk and alone, typing away my thoughts on a computer, totally oblivious that I was lost in the shuffle.
Everyone blogs. It's a fact of life. Celebrities. Celebrities wives. Celebrities girlfriends. Madonna blogs too, I read hers. What's worse is that they'll write only five lines about them walking their dogs, and then 86 people will comment about how entertaining the blog was. All because of who they are. Obama probably blogs too, and he's our president. He probably wrote about burning his French toast one morning. Whatever the reality is, I quit the worthless labor of blogging to pursue more commercial interests.
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I drove up to Bakersfield in the early morning on the eve of Thanksgiving. The fields of dry grass in the San Joaquin Valley looked like a burnt cheese pizza. I was free from the claustrophobic city for at least a few days.

When I made it to town, I drove through the streets and cut through the suburban neighborhoods. Somebody's father was already setting up the Christmas lights. He was standing on the roof of his two-story house like a tough guy. A paper snowman and wooden reindeers were sticking out of his front lawn. I looked him over once and kept driving. Something flashed at the corner of my right eye. I looked again and the same dad was hanging off the edge of the roof, kicking his feet in the air. Jesus Christ. As bad as life can be, it's never worse than death...it never will be. I used to think that death was a peaceful escape. But it can't be. Death is bad, really bad. It has to be. I could live in prison or lose a nose, but none of it matches death. I know what missing a nose would be like, not like death.
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On Thanksgiving Eve I helped my cousin bartend at a French restaurant where all the young people from out-of-town meet and try to get laid. The people who went there grew up with wealthy parents. So the place had an arrogant tone. They paid my cousin for the drinks and didn't tip her. I went to this same bar when I was younger, and it was the same type then. But since I was older and poorer I felt like an outsider, seeing them parade around all gay and important. I really thought they had it over on me, but I remembered that I was in Bakersfield and they came from generations of farmers in the central valley. I've seen those early dust bowl photographs and those people had the same noses, the same bone structures; so I pictured them in rags and farmer hats and felt better.
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The next day, we ate Thanksgiving dinner in the early afternoon. I resented my family's Thanksgiving habits of eating early because I was missing the football game. Besides, I was never much of a turkey lover. It tastes like stale chicken by itself. You have to eat the yams, the gravy and stuffing altogether with the turkey to give it any flavor. I wasn't eager about any of the other Thanksgiving food either. Cranberries. Pumpkin pie. Mashed Potatoes. The food just seems weird to me.
We ate and told jokes at the dining room table. Everything was alright until my father brought in his laptop and set it on the table. We held a video conference with our relatives from out-of-town. So, as I was stuffing my mouth with these odd foods, my aunts, uncles and cousins were asking me about my year through the computer. I felt pressured to say something.
I had to get away from family. That's where cigarettes come in handy. I sat in a chair in my mother's back patio, and lit up only my second one of the day.
I could only get a drag in when the patio door opened again. It was my Uncle Beau. He looked at me as if he knew my time alone ended prematurely because of him. He pulled his pack from his front shirt pocket, as I always remembered him doing, and took out half a cigarette. He relit it in the chair next to mine.
"You saved that from earlier?"
"It saves me money. All I need is two or three drags...then I get back to it later."
I valued Beau's advice. He'd been at it 40 years. We took drags together and stared into the house through the window of the back patio door. I felt obligated to speak.
"You still smoking the filterless?"
"I need to...all those plastic fumes from the filters...I'll cough for hours. The tobacco tastes like shit also."
"I've smoked filterless before, but they give me really bad chest pains."
"Well...you gotta take the good with the bad."
How could I argue with that?
We stopped talking. Talk was expensive. That was what I appreciated about my Uncle Beau.

I have a new love in my life.

2008-07-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

She's a fast mover. She can get me places. When the time is right, she lets me sit on her and ride her for hours. Just the sight of her long and slender body makes my breath cut short and a school of electrical fish tingle through my head. Never before has something made me feel so special.

I took Schwinny for a ride on Monday afternoon through the streets of Hollywood, beginning down Franklin, eastward toward Highland Avenue. Sticking out my right arm, I made a right turn onto Highland and glided down to Sunset in five minutes. Schwinny has moves. I rode by Hollywood High School and waved at the students just breaking out of class. They didn't seem too happy to see me.

Sunset was congested by many cars and pedestrians. We rode the sidewalk, because I don't want to be one of those douche bags who thinks he's a car and rides down the lanes and slows down traffic, but the sidewalks aren't much better. People like to travel in packs and block an entire sidewalk; and they walk so slow. I had to slow down many times because of the walkers; they didn't realize that I was behind them, as if they couldn't hear my Schwinny click. Once I'm close enough, they get the hint. By La Brea, I was stuck behind an old man in a motorized wheelchair. He wasn't going too fast. Even riding a bicycle has setbacks.

La Brea up to Hollywood Blvd. was an uphill trek. I switched Schwinny to her lowest gear. That gave me little to no resistance, but boy could I feel the burn in my legs. I always admired my legs anyway. They look nice in my grey bicycle shorts. Approaching Hollywood Blvd., I had to pedal through so many cars crossing my path, turning onto other side roads off La Brea, honking their horns too much. One car drove by, with its windows rolled down, and the passenger yelled: "Nice bicycle, faggot!" One of them threw a crushed Pepsi can in my direction; I had to swerve around it.

Coasting down Hollywood Blvd gave me time to relax, but I had to dodge the thick fog of tourists walking half a mile an hour. I really felt sorry for pedestrians, they struggled on their paths as I rolled past them: if only everyone could ride bicycles. Too bad for them.

Bicycling is a brotherhood. When I passed by some other cyclists we exchanged greetings; we shared an unspoken bond. My neighbor Brad noticed me pull up to the apartment building and was surprised that I rode a bike:

"We should ride together some time," he said.

"Sure. I'll see you later."

I kept it short, not because I had something against Brad or any other bicyclist, but because I would rather ride alone. To ride alone is therapeutic, unlike riding while someone is yapping in your ear for five miles.

I want to venture the world on Schwinny. The next thing I want to do is buy a bike rack for my car, so I can romance her through Mulholland Drive and Topanga Canyon.

ahem

2008-06-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

Dulled growth since 2006.
data collected,
it's far from poetry.
jobs related to the creation
of american electronics,
tech products, computer science
or engineering,
the crash of the tech bubble,
move to a big city.

here's a hint for high school graduates:
indecision.
put down that guitar
or book engineering.
college students
still majoring in industry
are growing at a healthy clip,
in large cities.

the doctor's orchard.

2008-06-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

the doctor was a tall man.
his jaws were dripping.
a train of a strained eager quality seemed to be in him.
for two years, the sweetness
was turning behind his jaded white horse.

from virginity, she began to think written thoughts
to erect other pyramids and round hard balls;
one by one, the mind building up something frayed.

she saw suitors and tall dark apples that grew trees
in the orchards of people,
forming a truth that arose gigantic in attention
almost every evening.
beautiful, delicious, twisted little girl.

she wore a linen duster in the nursery,
and thought about the jeweler’s son with the big ears
for hours, for weeks.
the scraps of paper became courtship,
the tall dark girl filling pockets with them.
only the sweetness of rods on a hot day seemed to make her cry,
shaking with laughter.

a handful of paper balls the old doctor took from his orchards
were hard.
the twisted apples had scribbled on the stuffed scraps of paper.
the truth clouded the moment.
his passion faded away.

in the fall, after the dark girl could not get her lust in the morning,
her little thoughts of the jeweler's son ejaculated over the frosted ground.
the doctor began their courtship.
the little hard round balls of the forgotten old man worked ceaselessly in his hands,
closed with frost.

the apples and the beginning of her acquaintanceship with the doctor
had made the dry hands good company.
at night, she thought continually of her virginity,
and when he was going to be in the orchard again.

she went into his office one day, and said nothing at all.

some girl came to see the doctor.
her husband was an old man with a white beard.

as he talked, he was holding her and groaning.
they both screamed,
but they looked like clusters of camel spit after the tall dark girl came.

the man had gone,
the doctor smiled.
the darkness began.
the scraps of paper became hard.

the boy with large ears said nothing.
his teeth showed as he looked at her.
the two were alone.

blood ran down the woman’s white linen.
he had bitten into her.
the wife of the man who kept little holes
had appeared beneath his hands.

the tall dark man wondered why she married the doctor.

the tall dark man was covered in cobwebs.

Hospital letters and Writing Contests

2008-06-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

I still owe the hospital $1500

for the operation,

even after the misdiagnosis

Appendicitis instead of constipation.

I told the head of

their billing department

that I could have used their equipment

myself

and made the same diagnosis,

I could have lay in the street

and waited to die—

safer and cheaper—

but before I could finish...

she hung up on me,

mysteriously.

She never called me back...

................................................

At work,

a co-worker told me to go fuck myself;

another one wanted

to drive to the office

and kick my ass.

The things I have to do to survive...

...............................................................

Standing outside of

my second floor office,

I watched a fight on the first level:

a Russian who owned the café downstairs

against a Chicano.

Chasing away the Chicano,

he smacked the cell phone from his hand

and leveled him across the face.

He smashed the phone into pieces

against the Chicano's back.

He strolled back into the café.

He had to close that night...

....................................................

I saw my doctor;

he’s not very good.

Stare at me...

all he does

I want another doctor,

but I don’t want to hurt his feelings....

..................................................................

I needed tranquility.

I drove to Santa Barbara

and confined myself inside a Motel 6.

$96, for one night.

I assumed

that the Motel 6

raised their rates

near the beach???

????????????????

I’m aiming for Modesto

next week................

..................................

Met an Asian woman at the beach.

reading “Mein Kampf”.

"Too preachy," she said...................

............................................................

Lately, I had been using

wireless internet

inside my apartment,

but my cell phone

wasn’t getting any reception.

So I took everything outside.

Great phone service,

but no wireless...

..................................................

I submitted my work to a contest.

The grand prize...

a list of writing courses.

Two months later,

they sent me the letter.

I won.

Genevieve

2008-06-10T01:14:00.001-07:00

Filmed the players in the locker room; I spoke to Genevieve over the phone and delved into greater detail about grips on the steering wheel.

I cruised through the city. Genevieve had an unknown disease. meanwhile, I tried keeping her saliva across the streets. tattoos on her shoulders and short red things about her bothered me. the sex, filthiness and lust around the waist, waiting for me to remember distinctly, but my doctor said it was a one-story house, surrounded by chain lips. but I looked past those things. my life could forever be safe and happy cruising through the small town, where black men descended into more diamonds. I parked behind home plate. she had been writing poems and practiced. Genevieve hid herself from the floor. it mesmerized me.

All over, licking her hand and window.

I drove her back to Covina.

I couldn’t take the stress, poems for the last decade. she chronicled her life in memoirs, and secretaries could all go away. give me back the overwhelming, hovering guilt. a sickness ate away at me. I dreaded the kids laughs.

“I’m sorry. you’re making penises again."

to our left, we went straight to the locker room.

“I knew you were carrying their bags and saw it all."

I refused to take them; carrying her purse and rubbing. Genevieve removed her seatbelt and went. The quick sex only felt great as the dark fur on her face and the freeway back to brea. I heard the chattering of kids. waitresses, or kindergarten.

it didn’t make sense to me. the smile already made my day happier. women completely.

the swearing lipstick. when she sat in my car, her only wishing, for mean sex.

slid my pants down my leg and unbuttoned them. I turned onto Imperial, stopped at a light. my windows turned on.

Genevieve wanted to give me more; so I quit the treadmill. every woman in the world wanted an nfl show on hbo, boredom, the monotony, the abstinence. my heart can’t handle, or else it could watch her firm ass shift gears, rollercoasters, or go rafting—nothing had never heard a woman with depression. I could’ve seen my shrink, wanted her aunt and uncle to publish again, but she would’ve prescribed me. as I kept my eyes closed, streets.

“you’re so quiet,”

I visited a gym, using my intense hair, riding the stair stepper.

“guy’s look! he’s getting sucked I could see his long black cock hanging.

“I jerked off into the toilet."

“What about other things really hot?”

feelings equal trouble. went down on me again, as I kept passionately, my pants tightened.

“could you?”

"I watch!”

Genevieve pulled her head, locked inside a bathroom stall.

"yes, I can have sex.”

“I remember as a young man, they made me gain weight. I swore off."

Genevieve grabbed hold, massaging, couldn’t tell me the name, jagged teeth below her swollen purple.

“what a pervert!”

she walked out the door, to aquarium glass. beneath a large woman in her biker shorts. I needed it, made plans with her to meet at her aunts. a truck pulled up next to me, looked down driving.

when I dropped her off, lifting, I was at my parents house.

being watched turned teachers into both of us.

we curtailed back into the uncle’s house in covina: a blowjob. secluding us at a baseball exercise, no long jogs, no heavy back up, sitting straight in her seat.

pills.

2008-06-05T00:05:00.000-07:00

been drinking a lot of water lately, 2 liters in 30 minutes. i might be dying.

07:30 am- woke up to my alarm clock, terribly thirsty. been keeping a 2 liter 7up bottle full of water beside my bed. drank the whole thing, poured in more water from the kitchen sink.

07:35 am- needed my daily fiber. went to the bathroom, took two chewable fiber tablets.

07:37 am- sat at the computer, lit a cigarette. checked my emails. nothing special. another disappointing day.

07:40 am- went back to bed.

10:06 am- woke again, having to piss but not realizing it, wondering why i wasn't falling back asleep.

10:10 am- finished pissing.

10:11 am- lay down again, not wishing to crawl back out.

10:34 am- gave up to the inevitable.

10:36 am- dropped a scoop of strawberry whey protein into 6 oz. water in a plastic cup, shook it, used it to wash down two amino acid pills, one omega 3 and one Vitamin E.

11:11 am- tied my shoes. oddly, i had been taking off my shoes at 11:11 pm, and putting them back on at 11:11 am lately.

11:43 am- bought my ice coffee and an apple fritter, looking out the coffee shop window at a beautiful woman in a grey slip doing her laundry, thinking i should buy more water pills that day.

12:45 pm- parked my car, paid the meter.

12:52 pm- took my first dump, noticed white mucous in my stool, thinking i should search webmd once i was home.

1:02 pm- shrink appointment: stared at each other for 20 minutes, talked about movies.

1:39 pm- said i had to leave early, avoiding a parking ticket.

2:26 pm- a new stock of water pills at Rite-Aid. Jackpot!

3:59 pm- saw the "Home Improvement" guy at Starbucks. hate that guys movies.

4:11 pm- smoked cigarettes with my parking security friend. he always bums, and asks for a second one later.

5:25 pm- ate mexican food.

6:14 pm- back at home. looked on WebMD: definitely IBS. I knew it.

6:58 pm- took two ibuprofen.

7:13 pm- took two water pills.

7:23 pm- started feeling dizzy.

8:01 pm- walked to the Gap, wanted new army pants; they didn't have any.

8:05 pm- tried on some tight pants.

8:07 pm- in the fitting room, trying them on in front of the mirror. some idiot was trying to open the door. she peeked over the door, looking down on me, with the pants at my knees. i saw her reflection. she stayed there for a moment: "sorry, doll" she said. then she walked away, laughing. whoever does that should have to let me have sex with her, on principle.

8:15 pm- bought a shirt and shorts, walked home.

8:43 pm- washed down my antidepressants with a cold Heineken. used to take them in the morning, but i was tired of taking them that early.

9:55 pm- went to the video store, rented Juno.

10:01 pm- made it home, finished 2 liters of water in one drink.

10:16 pm- played the movie.

this has to be one of the most offensive songs.

2008-06-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

I know that this song is relatively old, but after watching the video and listening to it for the first time, I am horribly insulted and feel misrepresented as a white man.

The song is "White & Nerdy", composed by Weird Al Yankovic.

Now, I appreciate about 90% of what he has ever produced--spanning over 20 years of classic musical parodies--especially his songs about food. But, the song in question is just flagrant and in poor taste. The video itself is a false portrayal of me. Never once, in 30 years, did I ever mow the lawn in the middle of day, wearing a tight polo shirt tucked into my pants, with thick-rimmed glasses and a floppy combover; and when I spotted neighbors, I never waved so effeminately nor walked towards them in such awkward exaggeration. Both the Badminton scene, and the disgusting encore of him scoring a Star Wars VHS copy from a drug dealer are as bad as pornography.

As for Weird Al's content...well, let's examine. I haven't owned an action figure since I was nine years old, nor do I have one Stephen Hawking book in my library (and there is nothing wrong with mind expansion through Hawking's teachings, by the way). Never did calculus for fun. I hate Happy Days. Comic books are not my thing. Giving my girlfriend a power strip as a present is too outrageous to even begin. And when are we as a culture ever going to hurdle the stereotype of fanny-packs and pocket protectors? Monty Python is intelligent British humor; if I memorized every line of it, then I would be something else other than nerdy. I own many clothes from the GAP and I look sexy in all of them. Having a website for my dog is not limited to just white people. Never joined any clubs in high school. Always hated Star Trek. And Renaissance fairs bore me.

Not since Amos and Andy nor "Screech" from Saved By The Bell have I seen a more harmful character portrayal.

Good job, Weird Al.

i have reason to believe that my phone company is after me...

2008-05-28T18:44:00.001-07:00

all i needed to do was pay my bill over the phone. the automated voice read me the confirmation number, then said "one moment, while i connect you to an operator".

"but, i don't want to talk to an operator. i just paid my bill."

"i said 'ONE MOMENT, PLEASE'."

then, the automated voice disconnected and transferred my call to a male operator with a southern accent.

"how can i be of service to you today?"

"i don't need to talk to you. i just paid my bill and the automated system sent me to you."

"mr. talbot, can i get the last four digits of your social security number?"

"xxxx."

i heard the tapping on the keyboard.

"thank you, mr. talbot. have a nice day!"

DIAL TONE.

i hung up the phone and paced the room. maybe they're involved with the Illuminati or Nigeria.

why i hate women.

2008-05-28T00:41:00.000-07:00

BEN steps into the bar at 10:01 pm and approaches the FEMALE BARTENDER, who is busy charming the next couple over.

FEMALE BARTENDER
(to BEN)
What would you like?

BEN
What's the shot of the day, today?

FEMALE BARTENDER
Well, at happy hour, it was the Grape Cosmo.

BEN
Hmmm...what time did happy hour end?

FEMALE BARTENDER
10:00.

Ben checks the time on his cell phone: 10:02 pm.

BEN
It's 10:02.

FEMALE BARTENDER
(laughs, with a "fuck-you" smile)
That's still after ten, isn't it?

2008-05-20T02:03:00.000-07:00

150 pounds, good at reading people, but bad at the students.

“Close enough.”

Paul turned and put the guy on her forehead.

“No. His joint. A pink, glittery thong stuck out. The only blanket nearby was from some
other guy around.”

He thought so too. His latin history book was used just to pass out on. Chris parked his mouth like an army of fire ants inside. He could feel the wound and he crossed her hands through her thin feet. Joel couldn’t get to her legs. Her top crept up, with her hands and through her forehead, and kissed him. His zipper was down the sidewalk.

“You’re still at him. Are you backing out from beneath her legs?"

Her top crept up. He had an infant. The pain wasn’t as she asked.

“Where are you? Live by his face!"

He let the steel press against her name. He felt comfortable though, even when the white man would eventually come true.

“I’m sorry. Just let me go! I’ll run away!"

From beneath the seat was her hand lotion. She giggled and passed a shiny, silver Mercedes.

“Let me where?” he said, while she picked up something from the Bellagio with his book.

"He grabbed a white boy.”

“I’m actually 1/8 black.”

“Really?”

Joel preferred what he said.

Bellagio was something he remembered with the table. He watched her jeans.

“You didn’t happen to actually think I was 1/8 black?”

“Really?”

Joel could feel it in his thigh. Vomit poured out on the oak tree. There was some other guy, around Chris’s age. He sat down next to him.

“You didn’t tell me you live around here: a white boy.”

“I’m actually 1/8 black.”

“Really?”

Joel was good at the hills above UCLA. Paul went back off.

“We’re almost here?” she asked.

Where has there been such a Benz, and a beautiful girl in one of 8,000 people? They drove north into his wound. The best thing for him to do was to break through the door handle.

Paul went in the Oak Tree Cafe, the life he howled. The pain wasn’t as unbearable as the passenger seat. Bel-Air was tired of smoke.

"She was the wet dream," he said.

Paul reached for the door handle, doing some reading.

“Okay.”

“You’re still picking me up. I’ll run away from beneath her," he said.

Paul pulled his 150 pound body, hunched over the gun. It went off in the curb, then in his
knee. He looked away at the two-story house across the street.

leaving a cab.

2008-05-20T01:57:00.000-07:00

We all stood in the middle of the street. She yelled at a fat middle-eastern cabbie and fifty random voices ran through. Just let her purse go and watch the fight from a closer distance.

“I’m calling the first, but I was a bundle at the end of January, and we go to work our whole lives, just one in the sock drawer.”

“All right. Get out!”

“What?”

“It’s too late for me forty dollar, now.”

“Forty dollars from a plane crash, I would talk to a madman.”

“A piece of day was common. Maloney
out. Maloney was common."

Bookstore Hallucinations.

2008-05-20T01:18:00.000-07:00

“Tough break. You know."

“Quick. Adjust yourself. Wear a few days."

The next morning, doing nothing for ten minutes, Libby left her in there. The soft jazz through the detectors never seemed to watch something else on. I’ve seen this.

“It’s business related. I can’t be done by."

“You haven’t seen her in front of the computer. I told you. But
dress nicely, like their recruitment office."

Hearing them knock, Libby always whispered. Their beliefs were always a pisser, because they always tried to do it.

All that Tom played for the end of February didn’t bother me. That particular bookstore. The next three hours, I said “Sorry, boss. If there’s a knock , Kenny, I’m not going to close this.”

“Please do.”

Kenny joined me. You’re one day to work had declined. Esmeralda left. I sat at my work, needed to find a book; thinking of what to do to the set. Mutt was in front of interaction here.

“I do the room. 119."

“Here’s the door, and I give you to her. This must have the day. And the clanking could feel the contact high, so many philosophical questions in a smile, no matter where you are. I sat at the favor. It's real simple. That particular bookstore. The movie was in her Solitaire game. I stood up. Don’t say that.”

“Sorry.”

I left Mutt’s around 12:30, a metaphor for you’re not coming.

“Okay.”

“So I’m not going to show up every day.”

“Do you show up every day?"

I sat with Mutt in front of me.

“Hello.”

I slept on the recliner. 9:30 came by.

why i hate myself.

2008-04-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

sunday night, i had to leave my apartment in a hurry. i started my car and backed out of my garage space. my apartment garage is the size of a Taco Bell, and as wide as the Taco Bell kitchen; in order to drive out the exit, i have to fold in my side mirrors, so they won't scathe the walls. anyway, i was pulling out and as i drove up the ramp i heard a THUMP on the passenger side. i thought "well...there's another wall i ran into; i can't wait to see this scratch," and drove away, just as another tenant was pulling in.

an hour later, i got a call from the landlord--whenever she calls, it is never for drinks--and she was screaming and yelling at me for breaking the chain to the garage gate: "look what you did! now i have to call the company on a fucking sunday because you weren't careful!"

"i'm sorry, helga. i will pay all damages, i promise."

"you better! it's not coming out of my pocket."

we hung up, and as i was driving down sunset, i considered driving up to mulholland and rolling down the cliff until i exploded; but that wouldn't have solved anything. instead, my guilty conscience made me call helga back, apologize, and promise again that i was going to cover the damages.

"it's going to cost $275, just for them to come look at it."

"jesus christ! i don't even make that much in a week."

she sounded more rested once i promised for the second time.

then, i remembered that i paid $20 extra every month with my rent just to park in that shit box. where the fuck does that money go to? to damages such as that, i presumed. although, the way it sounded, the $275 plus the repair was coming right out of my wallet. how can a man live anymore, when it costs that much just for some jack-off to look at something? whatever the case, at the end of the day, i had no one to hate but myself.

...by the way, check out my friend's blog, an honest and entertaining take on life from the mind of a bipolar sufferer:

we are suffering through a war, an economic recession, and an immigration problem; yet, you are riding a motorcycle.

2008-04-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

i waited in line at a sandwich shop. this motorcyclist entered, wearing his black leather jacket, scuffed jeans, black boots and a helmet over his head. standing in line behind me, he never took off his helmet. i sat at a table waiting for the sandwich, when i noticed that the motorcyclist still had the helmet on his head. who the fuck did he think he was? just like Batman couldn't remove his cowl and show his identity, the motorcycle man was just as important. he spoke to the sandwich maker through his helmet; she barely understood what the fuck he was saying; he sat down at the next table and waited for his sandwich, still wearing the helmet. the problem is growing in abundance: each day i am seeing more motorcycles on the roads; they want to be treated the same as all other motorists; these people offer no redeeming qualities to society.

i live in Los Angeles: a city known for its heavy traffic, terrible drivers, confusing roads and intersections, and construction crews that block whole lanes during rush hour. i could sit still at a particular light for more than five minutes, with my life bleeding away; and to hear the buzzing come from behind, and to see the bike approaching through my side view mirror is both heart-shattering, and oppressing. the motorcyclist weaves through cars and travels down the white lines, passing the rest of us and waiting at the front of the line for the light to turn green. we all fantasize about opening our car doors and watching them catapult into the sky like a pole vault gone wrong: but, of course, that would be against the law. however, i believe that the rest of us should not be liable for the motorcycle man's stupidity; therefore, we should be allowed to open the door if he chooses to cut through: he is putting his life at risk already, just riding the fucking thing.

perhaps law enforcement should find ways to protect the motorcyclists, and, in turn, better accommodate all the other motorists. for example, i thought of a sensory system on the roads. the sensor detects any approaching motorcycle and triggers a trap door in the road to open, thus sending the motorcycle to an underground road that leads to an isolated rest stop: it sounds like something from a Mad Max movie, but our future is transforming into that kind of world at a speed invisible to the human eye anyway.

even when they cut through traffic and blow their exhaust at us, the motorcyclists still think they deserve the same rights as those of us who drive cars: they'll park in our spaces. it is a sick joke to find an empty space ahead, only to come closer and see one of those Suzuki bikes parked there. why couldn't they just park on the sidewalk or by the building? let's face it: your motorcycle is inferior to my car, both in size and in importance. our cars need more care and maintenance than your little cock-rocket: so get the fuck out of our way.

the motorcycle culture is something of little to no significance in our world; they offer nothing but noise pollution and attitude; and do nothing to improve society. "yeah, you're just jealous because you can't afford this motorcycle." the majority of motorcyclists are blue-collar, and if i choose to save my pennies for a bike, then i would be very capable; but i choose to save my money on other things. if you're riding one to get the women, then you can keep those simpletons: i stay away from those types anyway. and how are motorcycles still in vogue? "Leader of the Pack" was a hit single around 1956, and the John Cougar Mellencamp "Hurt So Good" video had style in 1985--that was over 20 years ago; we've evolved a lot since then.

these people care about nothing more than how bad they are for wearing rugged clothes and revving their engines in the Taco Bell parking lot; they neither attain nor support a real cause; and they interrupt a good wet dream when they roar down my neighborhood street at three in the morning.

surely, the motorcycle is in need of an evolution. i suggest jet packs like in The Rocketeer; they're dangerous and thrilling; and most of all, they propel you into the sky so that you can get somewhere quicker and you won't have to bother any of us below.

tales from an agoraphobe.

2008-04-08T23:23:00.000-07:00

All I wanted was to rent a couple of movies, buy cigarettes, have a drink at the bar and go home. I parked at a meter right in front of the video store, where the clerk was smoking a cigarette by the pillar. I still had my cigarette to finish, so I stayed out there with him. We both knew each other, but the neither of us said a word. It was awkward. He had seen me walk in there so many times by then.

I was looking for "Into The Wild," but they didn't have it. Instead, I rented "3:10 to Yuma" and "Inland Empire". Standing at the counter, waiting for the cashier to type in all my information, I didn't see the tub of licorice by my elbow. When I nudged my elbow, the tub of licorice spilled all over the floor, all 36 pieces. "Oh, fuck, fuck," I cried. The clerk whom I smoked with outside walked over and picked up everything. Embarrassed, I apologized, trying to make friends with everyone: they didn't seem to give a shit. I grabbed my videos and left the store. On the way to the bar, I stopped a gas station, just to buy a new pack of cigarettes, and as I was walking back to my car, a bum walked towards me; he was impossible to avoid. Before I had a chance to get inside the car, he gave his story about just getting out of prison and needing $70 to stay in a room for the night. Of course, I lied, saying that I had no more cash on me. All I wanted was to buy a pack of cigarettes and not be bothered.

On the way back home, I stopped at the bar three blocks from my apartment. The Forest had a parking lot with about 50 spaces. I parked at a space right in front of a liquor store. At the front door, the bouncer checked my driver's license. Judging from his looks, he thought that he was cooler than me, that sack of shit, that low-life piss-drinking motherfucking cocksucker. Walking past him, I heard a man yelling at me, from the left, coming from the liquor store, telling me not to park there, that the space was reserved for liquor store customers only. The clerk stood in front of my car, pointing at me. I sighed, rolled my eyes and said "oh my god". This piece of shit made me park in the next space over, where it didn't say "liquor store parking only". It said "laundromat parking only", and the space next to that said "dr. office parking only". The only space with no restrictions was in the far corner of the whole fucking lot.

Ready to beat something to death, I walked inside the bar. Everybody in there sat in groups, the majority of them looking like the actor types. On the right side, there were booths up against the wall, where couples made out; to the left was the bar counter. A female bartender with an amazing body worked behind there, doing everything as slowly as possible. I waited, quite possibly, five minutes before she even knew I was there. In the meantime, these four guys blocked my path to the counter. When one of them moved, there was a space that opened. Just as I was walking up to it, one of those fuckers stood in my way. For whatever reason, I waited for him to finish ordering, hoping that he would get the fuck out of the way soon enough, but as it turned out, he was paying his tab. Finally, the fucker signed the copy. He and the four guys left.

I was able to sit at a stool and order something. The female bartender gave me attention. I asked her what beers they had. She said them all, about 10 of them. After thinking about it for a second, I ordered a $5 Amstel Light. Feeling quite bitter, I took a long, deep swig, and afterward my head pounded in pain. Those people in there were giving me bad vibes, like they didn't want me there. It was then that i realized that all places sent either good or bad vibes, and all it took was a few breaths before I could tell that whether or not I was going to have a shitty time. And to think that all of this hatred was triggered by that motherfucker from the liquor store. Why couldn't I had just let such a petty incident fuck with me? Because he ruined my night by telling me what to do, I wanted to stab that piece of shit, over and over in the neck, then twist the blade clockwise through the side of his head, scramble his brain some, maybe slice off a piece of his ear, dig my hand through the gash in his head to pull out his shredded brains and use them to paint his sacred parking space. For dessert, I wanted to drive my car into the store, crashing through the windows and mowing over the shelves, perhaps start a fire and then light my next cigarette with the flames. I didn't do any of that though.

Before that night in the bar, I never left a place so quickly. It only took me less than three minutes for me to pound the whole beer. I couldn't handle people, like I used to; no wonder I had been smoking so much lately. Why can't they just relax, be peaceful and leave me alone?

the picnic table. (a short story)

2008-04-07T18:33:00.001-07:00

Honey where are you?

I’m in the laundry room.

What are you doing in there?

Doing laundry.

You want to fool around in the bedroom?

No.

Why not?

Because I’m doing laundry.

Okay. Say, there is no more orange juice in the fridge. When are you going to the store again?

In another week.

Shit, hon. That’s a long time without any orange juice.

You can go get it yourself.

I suppose I could. Well, it’s a beautiful day out. The Peterson’s lawn is looking greener each day.

Craig takes good care of it.

He does. I can’t say much for Mr. Burnside’s backyard. Speak of the devil, here come’s Mr. Burnside again. Wow. This time he is totally naked.

What is he doing now?

The same thing he always does, except this time with no clothes. Man, I might second-guess retirement.

Bruce, don’t watch him. Read the paper or something.

He’s doing it, honey. He’s walking to the picnic table…oh…now he’s turning it on his side. He’s looking around. Now he’s sticking his old penis through the hole.

I don’t need a play-by-play.

He’s really getting into it, Joan.

That’s nice. Mr. Burnside really is a nice man.

Now he’s switching to the other side. I wonder if the other side feels better.

Why don’t you go down and find out?

That’s quite alright. Look at those faces he’s making. He makes the same face when he’s mowing the lawn.

He still mows the lawn?

Well, it’s not like his wife is going to do it for him anymore.

I think Mr. Burnside really needs some help.

What he needs is a real woman.

I don’t think a woman is going to solve everything.

It’s a good start.

I think even if he had a woman he would still be making love to the picnic table.

He’s going faster now. I think he’s about to finish. He just spit on his hand. What is he doing with his hand? Oh my God. Did I just see that?

What did he do now?

I think he just milked his own prostate.

That’s awful.

Wait, he stopped. Now he’s turning the table upright on its legs. He’s laying on top; he’s spreading his legs; he’s about to go at it missionary style. This is amazing.

Bruce, don’t you think we should call the cops? The kids will be home at any minute.

Come on. I already taught them sex. Besides, they already know about Mr. Burnside.

Don’t blame me then, when you come home and see Jeremy screwing the couch.

He probably does, already. Oh no. I see his gate opening. It’s two men, two officers, in fact.

Someone else must have called them, finally.

It was probably the Peterson’s. Whoa. There goes Mr. Burnside. He climbed off the table and now he is running through the backyard, away from the cops.

Where does he think he’s going to go?

Well, they tackled him. Off to jail, Mr. Burnside.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ever since her death, I wasn’t very good at taking care of myself. The dishes hadn’t been done in over a year. I only did my laundry once every two months. And the bathroom had grime everywhere.

The retirement checks were decent, but they all disappeared after the mortgage payments. the owner kept leaving messages, trying to get me to sell it. But where was I supposed to go? To some crummy apartment? I will sell it to him when I am dead.

Then there were the women. What good was another woman with the only one that mattered no longer around? There was no difference between them and the men and I wasn’t about to fuck a man. Still, there were times when I got so desperate I needed some kind of attention, just to remind myself that I was still there.

I found some solutions that worked most of the time. Buying a call girl really defeated the purpose. You pay them up front and then they give you the attention.

Therapy worked the same way. You paid the guy $100 an hour to listen. Hearing myself talk was just as humiliating, and it wasn’t like the guy was a saint. You think that they took confidentiality to the grave? They end up telling their friends, their colleagues, their wives, their mothers, probably even strangers.

There was no use. I knew I was weird. They say a crazy person doesn’t know that he is crazy. Well, I knew I was weird and I knew why, but I still did my stupid rituals anyway; if I didn’t do them, then I would have probably turned into a vegetable.

My habits ignited and then dimmed. Recently, I had spent a lot of time with different objects; some of them I found very useful. For instance, a bell pepper worked really well. All I had to do was stick it in the microwave for a minute and five seconds until it was warm, moist, and soft, and then carve out a hole on its side, about the same diameter as the thumbhole in a bowling ball and then slide my dick right in. I could squeeze out the warm water with my fist for more lubrication.

The problem with bell peppers was that they would often fall apart before I was done. Either they became too soft, or I was fucking them too hard. They only came in handy when nothing else was available. Ultimately, I preferred my own picnic table in the backyard.

I know it sounds impractical, but it is not the wooden picnic table you might be thinking of. The one I have is actually quite adequate. Its weight is light and its shape is round. I would lay it on its side. And the hole in the middle—where Stella used to place the canopy—was at perfect height.

I usually went out there in the middle of the day when nobody was looking and go at it a few times. The texture was ceramic and if I applied the right amount of Crisco around the hole then it would become slick.

I usually went out there in the middle of the day when nobody was looking. The kids were at school and the parents were at work. I had been doing the same thing for months, without any problems. I had tall trees around the backyard and a wooden fence that surrounded it.

After an afternoon stroll, I would walk back there, turn the table on its side, unzip my pants, pull out my thing, and start working. Except one day, I was feeling mighty confident. It was the beginning of spring. The birds were chirping all day in 70-degree temperature and the smell of lawn was in the air.

The breeze bounced off every inch of my naked body. I turned it on its side, applied a finger full of Crisco around the hole, and stuck in my dick.

The feeling was extra special. The cool air sprinkled along my back, ran along my buttocks, and rustled my pubic hairs. A sparrow on a tree branch was looking down on me; a squirrel climbing up a trunk had stopped and turned his head; the neighbor’s cat walked along the top of the fence and then froze in wonderment.

This was retirement, a rite of passage into nature, the quest for all adults. What good was sophistication, refinement, gentility, and civility? We can’t run away from ourselves, no matter how many layers of clothes we wear or how much cologne we spray on our necks.

The Crisco was beginning to wear and the standing position was getting boring, so I stopped and pushed the table back on its legs and wanted to fuck her from on top. I spread myself all over the table like cream cheese and found the hole again and humped away even harder then.

I closed my eyes, reminiscing back to thirty years ago with when Stella and I went camping in the woods and made love all night in the tent. The animals were all around us then too. Both of us were so good looking back then—so tight and virile.

I heard the side door that lead from the front of the house to the backyard open and opened my eyes. From around the corner ran two uniformed officers, holding onto the Billy clubs at the side of their waists. I leapt off the table and ran like hell, except, there was nowhere to go. I could have hopped the fence, but my body was too damn old and it could have ruptured my balls. There was also the side door, but that meant I would have to run across the rock garden with my bare feet.

I ran left, pivoted, and then ran right until my foot stuck and tangled in the grass. My body twisted and landed into the ground; it felt like I sprained my ankle. The cops ran on top of me.

One of them planted their foot into the middle of my back, while the other pulled my arms from behind and slapped them with the cuffs. The officer with the foot in my back read me my rights. I had never been to jail before. Being a judge for 35 years, I was always the one giving others their sentences.

The charge was public indecency.

Every Monday, I washed his clothes; every Tuesday I cooked meatloaf for he and the kids; Wednesday, I vacuumed the carpet, dusted the furniture, and picked up the garbage can; Thursday was when I did all my bills; Fridays, he wanted sex.

On the weekends, I was able to sleep in, make a cup of coffee, sit in the backyard patio, and read some Family Circle. He always wanted to play tennis on those Saturday afternoons. Tennis, I didn’t mind, except he wasn’t very good and he threw around the racket and cussed in front of the others on the next court. It was too embarrassing.

Bruce was also too sensitive. He liked to fart in bed all night and laugh about it. His gas had a very dull smell, was delayed and its warmth covered over my body like an extra blanket, while I was lying next to him.

Some nights, I even cried, while laying on my side. I couldn’t help but feel trapped. At those times, Bruce would get offended if I moved to the couch in the living room. I knew this because I had done it before and he became really upset.

Furthermore, he was obsessed with people in the neighborhood. He always wanted to go fishing with Craig, our neighbor down the block and of course he loved to watch that strange Mr. Burnside make love to his picnic table.

Do we all go crazy at some point or another in our lives? I’ll admit that I had some odd behaviors myself, such as playing with my clit while I sat on the humming dryer; although, there was nothing to be ashamed of.

As I folded his clothes in the laundry room, I had to listen to him again, telling me what Mr. Burnside was doing. Did he not even realize that he was just as fucked in the head? He just showed it in different ways. He really did believe that I would never see the stains on his car seat; or in the living room floor, he must have forgotten that I cleaned everything in the house. At least he could have the common sense to wipe away the evidence. Anyway, I guess we all have things we don’t wish to share, like what I did with Craig.

for all of us Batman nerds.

2008-03-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

i had a funny dream the other night; it was about the true origin of Two-Face: the Gotham villian who had acid splashed on his face during a court hearing.

suffice it to say, my dream had an alternate sequence, but with the same outcome.

on a windy summer night, Bruce Wayne had some free time to go shoot hoops at a basketball court in a nearby public park.

he was enjoying himself, hitting the net from all points of the parameter; when out of nowhere a young Harvey Dent showed up in his gym clothes, with his own basketball.

he asked Bruce for a quick pick-up game. Bruce reluctantly accepted the invitation--wishing to just be left alone from the Gotham citizens for once. But he is a rich philanthropist, with a reputation to uphold.

So they played their one-on-one game: first one to 21.

Bruce had no way of knowing, but Harvey actually played collegiate basketball--and Bruce wasn't all that eager to play--so Harvey wiped him all over the court, winning by a final of 21-5.

after the game, they shook hands and Bruce hurried home. Harvey decided to join him, since his home was on the way. being that Harvey was a high-profile attorney, and that Bruce was independently wealthy, the two of them had quite a fruitful discussion about the state of Gotham; but what Bruce did not know--and unlike the the DC comics origin--Harvey Dent was a closet homosexual and had an infatuation with Bruce.

once at the wayne manor, the two gentlemen parted and Bruce went inside to change out of his sweaty gym clothes.

meanwhile, Harvey managed to trespass through the Wayne property and find Bruce's bedroom window.

Evidently, Harvey was a full-fledged peeping tom.

using his spidy sense, Bruce noticed the shadowy figure through the blinds. he reached into his closet for the bottle of acid he kept in handy.

with the bottle in hand, Bruce snuck to the side of the window where harvey couldn't see, threw open the window, flung the acid out of the bottle and onto the side of Dent's face.

harvey jumped back from the horrible pain and scurried off Wayne's Manor...and that was how the story of Two-Face came about.

today's revelation.

2008-03-13T18:06:00.000-07:00

I am going to be brutally honest with both myself and the two people in the universe who are actually reading this: other than writing and sleep, I have no other interests. This is not an attack at anyone who finds pleasure in anything else, but I thought deeply about it, wondering why I was miserable all the time doing such activities--why the moment I got somewhere I immediately wanted to turn around and go back to bed--and I concluded that everything is boring.

The beach is boring.

The rivers are boring.

Can’t forget the lakes; those are boring too.

Amusement parks are boring.

Circuses—the ones I have been to at least—are boring.

Carnivals.

Fairs.

…both boring.

Movies are boring.

Plays too.

Operas.

Civil War reenactments…terribly boring.

Golf is boring.

Clubhouses…relaxing, but still boring.

Rich people= boring.

Yachts are boring.

Fishing…so boring it is crippling.

Two on Two basketball is boring.

Foosball…so boring that it is intriguing.

Hiking is boring.

National Parks are boring.

Shopping…boring, if I can’t find anything.

Riding a bike is boring.

Art is boring.

Museums are boring.

Library’s are boring.

Monuments are boring.

Photography is boring.

Most music is boring.

Talk shows are boring.

Reading a book is boring, except for those rare times when I find an author who speaks to me.

Skiing is boring.

Mountain climbing seems dangerous…and boring.

Board games are boring.

Cards are boring, even when money is involved.

Darts are boring.

Strip Clubs…boring, if I am broke.

Dancing is boring.

Night clubs are boring.

Concerts are boring.

Sporting events are boring.

TV is boring.

Swimming is boring.

Most parties are boring.

Just about anything is boring if it has no other purpose than to help quicken any free time.

Jobs are boring, but at least I am working towards something.

Oh yes. Screwing and shitting. Those are some other favorites.

If I could do those two things every day I wouldn’t have to worry about kayaking or making a snowman.

Positive people will tell me that I have no appreciation for what life has to offer, but that is just how I feel.

I wake up, write my 2,000 words a day, and then try to go back to sleep, without any other desire for anything else.

Maybe I am telling the painful truth, or perhaps my depression has sunken that much deeper.

went to Pink's for the first time last night.

2008-02-27T01:30:00.000-08:00

been living here since 2003, and never once did i go to this hot dog stand on La Brea. however, i had driven by there hundreds of times, and after seeing the line of people stretching for over a block, i often wondered what kind of asshole will stand in a line that long for a fucking hot dog? sometimes, as i was driving by, i would roll down my window (or should i say turned down the window, since it is a power window) and holler "it's just a fucking hot dog stand?" a lot of the patrons would give me that confused dog look, their heads titled a little.

well, i awoke at midnight from an uncomfortable sleep on a Tuesday night, and thought "well, it's better now at this time of night on this day of the week to try out their hot dogs". when i got there, the line wasn't too long, not like the ones in the middle of the day. it was about the length of any normal bank line. little did i know that i would be waiting 45 minutes to place my order.

taking a head count of those ahead of me, there were 35 people, which didn't seem too horrible. i heard someone further ahead in the line say to someone else: "you see that guy at the end of the line? he's looking at about a 45 minute wait...eh...eh...eh." i looked behind myself, and saw that i was the last person in line.

standing there, i remembered why i hated crowds, lines especially. you have to stand there and look at these people constantly--and they get weirder each time. the guy in front of me kept giggling to himself and flipping a coin. a short British woman behind me kept yanking my sweater for attention, so she could ask me which hot dog was the best, and every time i had the same answer: "i don't know". then, there was this beautiful woman, about 10 heads in front of me, who looked as if she could be a model, holding hands and kissing this guy with a bald head and a beard in dreadlocks that went past his nipples, which made me lose complete hope for myself. why in the hell would she be with this guy? then, i thought, "look at him. i'll never be as cool. obviously, with the bald head and Rip Van Winkle beard, he knew the secret and i didn't". i was depressed for the rest of the wait.

by the time a half hour had passed, i was at the point where i couldn't just leave the line and drive home; i had waited too long and gone too far to give up. so, finally, i ordered my hot dog: the Guadulajara (relish, onions, tomatoes, and sour cream). it sounded good on paper, but once he served it to me, it looked disgusting. i didn't know he was going to pour enough sour cream over it to cover the hot dog.

the hot dog tasted alright, but it would have been better without the sour cream. it took me two minutes to devour the whole thing, and then i left. if the time it takes to wait until ordering exceeds the time that it took to actually eat the food, then you got fucked. afterward, i drove to a 7-11 to buy a 6-pack. standing in line there, i couldn't help but notice the single hot 1/4 hot dog, behind the glass, rolling on top of the grill, and all i could do was sigh.

10 pages on the meditations of loneliness

2008-02-26T14:22:00.001-08:00

let me tell you why i haven't been writing in awhile. it is because of the pressure put on myself to wake up every day and continue the same thing that i was doing the day before and then expecting to do it again the next day to no avail. there is no beginning and there is no end, just an endless seam until death. and while i awaken each day to remind myself that this next day is just a passing phase and that i will soon be back asleep again, there are still nuisances that draw me closer into reality, closer than i want to be, really. all the bullshit that happens that could be solved with a quick remedy but instead lingers to some bigger incident, only because of a misunderstanding or because someone feels as if they had been underhanded, then the rest of us fall down in a domino effect. we're expected to get right back up and follow through again. but, what if i don't want to get back up? what if the ground suits me fine, and it is actually more comfortable to lay there and actually sleep there. is that so wrong, or am i supposed to do just exactly what everybody else has to do and follow some command that they issue as the right thing. i know people who don't do those things. i know people who can shit standing up. i even once met a guy who can go down on himself. he didn't show me or anything, but believe me when a guy says he can do it then you have to believe him. there is nothing to gain by lying about something like that. he said that it all started on one night when he was drunk off gin that he was sitting at his computer chair and had his legs folded in yoga position. he had done enough stretches in the mornings to be able to get close enough, and once he was good and hard he reached down and fit his lips over the head. of course, his lips didn't stay there for over five seconds, because any second longer then he was a bonafied homosexual. it was just a test of his own human capabilities. even i tried that once. i wasn't drunk or anything, but i really wanted to see what the big deal was, and how none of us men could do it. if we can touch our toes then why can't we reach our own sex organs. i tried and failed, and then considered that i was clinically ill. i do all sorts of things i am not proud of. i pick my ass and then sniff my finger afterward. i pick food out of the trash and eat it sometimes, with no shame. i look out my bathroom window and use my hand as a gun, pretending to shoot pedestrians that walk by. there really is no justice to these bizarre behaviors, nor do i think i will ever figure out why i even think of doing such things, what the underlying desire is and such. but this guy got me thinking about why our spines are not elongated enough for our mouths to reach our penises. evidently, it can't be for the prevention of forbidden practices or else our hands wouldn't be able to reach down their either. in my opinion, giving one self oral satisfaction is no more homo erotic or demoralizing than giving oneself a hand job. a mate has to do those things to their mate in order to give pleasure. if there wasn't a difference then our creator would have built our arms too short to reach our cocks. then, there would be no way to achieve self-satisfaction beyond building machine parts. and this is how i see the future for masturbation: pleasurable robots as tall as the average human with a mechanical arm holding a human-synthetic claw that can give the radiant stroking's of a real-life person. the downside of masturbation is that your own hand gives pleasure, where you can feel the sensations on both ends, whereas a foreign object pulling away can give a separate effect, which sends signals to the brain that an independent force is performing the act and that the person has no way of knowing how the sensation feels to the one giving. the machine would cost an astronomical price at first. only the wealthy reclusive types would have the chance to purchase the product. however, once its value dramatically falls, the machine would be shown on late night ads, when we see the guy with the black beard on every channel. finally, the machine would make its way to the store shelves when its value would be at its lowest and nobody would want it anymore anyway.

the erotic industry must make billions of dollars by now, with technology isolating us people more others with each gadget. Previous to the last century, someone had to walk up to someone and get in their face, in order to talk to them. then, some inventor (who must have been a lonesome dog himself) patented the telephone, so you could talk to a person without actually having to look at him. Near the turn of the century, telecommunications skyrocketed with the advent of the cellular phone. now you don't have to be trapped in the confines of your own house to talk to someone you don't care to look at. you can walk through a shopping center to cure your boredom, while talking to that person, rather than visiting them. eventually, the time came when even the phone object was a burden to hold. so along came another invention known as the bluetooth ear piece. people can just put their hands in their pockets, fingering themselves, while they can talk to someone they don't want to face through a device they don't have to touch. the next invention after that will just be a gummy enamel that people can rub along their ear canals that can transmit sound waves. therefore, we can talk on the phone without having to feel a device in our ears. sooner or later, we will just manipulate air to provide telecommunications.

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before going to bed, i found a website that played continuous nature sounds: http://www.sulger.net/soundsculptures/ . soothing for the mind, i tell you it is. the funny thing was that i played the rainy day atmosphere and it was actually raining that night. ah, i played it anyway. that is how much i like the rain. i couldn't imagine playing a quiet summer day while it was pouring outside on a freezing February night.

i awoke the next morning with the sounds playing. they made me sleep in, so i really didn't wake up until almost 11:00, much later than i planned on waking. there was a lot of shit to do that day, a lot of shit that i didnt want to do, which was mostly everything. i needed to drive through the rain looking for more businesses to sign with our company. a daunting task, it can be. most of the owners slam the door in my face or slam the phone in my ear. real pricks. but most people are pricks to the common salesman. people say that i am no good as a salesman, and i answer by saying that i was never born one. however, maybe i was. i just don't want to admit it to myself, the same way someone doesn't want to admit that they wear cheap suits. sometimes, you can't win in any way. the worst times are when you are stuck and have no imaginable way of getting unstuck and finding some way out of it. those feelings mostly come, while stuck in traffic. i see the car in front of me and nothing ahead of it. then, i poke my head out the window and see a line of hundreds of still cars streaming in a linear fashion all the way up to the horizon, and then i think "well motherfucker, it either be me or someone else, but someone is dying out here". presumably, most of these other fucks feel the same way. these are times of desperation--buried alive, ashpyxiation, drowning, hallucinations, lost in the woods, paralysis--anything where faith is lost. that is where most of us are stuck. it captures the mind. my thoughts roll like tape on a spindle, tearing apart and still flapping. the machine keeps rolling, but there is no longer any connection, nothing to mend it back together. dreams can make me feel that way as well. the suffocation comes along with them. just the other night, i dreamt that i cut off my friends head and stuffed it in my backpack. the guy wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the night. i kept apologizing to him, but it didn't matter. never was i the kind of person to read books or seek people on the subject of dream analysis. it always sounded like some kind of witchery that spooks followed, or people who tried finding meaning in everything, when in reality there just might be some things that really don't have any, born without substance.

the dream from the night before had me riding with another friend to an airport in the thick of night. he said that we were visiting his girlfriends house. oddly, there was no explanation needed. just sit in the car and listen to what he says. he was right too. the apartment was right next to an airplane hangar. when we got there, the girlfriends mother was cooking turkey in the oven. the girlfriend was in there with her. they were talking about something that we caught the middle of. when she saw my friend, his girlfriend walked up and kissed him. the mother joined us in the living room and viciously started stabbing the girlfriend in the arm with a chef knife, over and over, leaving gashes everywhere. the daughter got really annoyed, as if mom was beating her on the head with a rolled newspaper. she grabbed her jacket off the couch, wrapping it over her bloody arm, and left the apartment. the mother laughed at the humiliation she just gave her daughter. my friend looked at me like this was a big mistake. we left and that was the end of that. i usually don't remember my dreams, but sometimes episodes like that are impossible to forget. the memories fade by the middle of morning. then, it is back to good old reality. the impossible is all that much more unlikely. it is goddamn hard to find any meaning in waking life than it is when you visualize and imagine something that could make so much more sense. what is the payoff anyway? you never see anyone paying for an empty cup of coffee. there has to be something in there that is at least worth paying for, not some void that was there the whole time.

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this past week, for the first time, i tried absinthe. apparently, the US market has passed it as legal. the stores sell the drink with wormwood still in it; although, the FDA, or whoever, extracted some other chemical which induced hallucinations. anyway, i drank my first glass. my good friend poured the mint green liquid into the drinking glass, before diluting it with tap water. he explained the reason why he had to mix it with water, but up to now the reason escapes me. truthfully, the drink tasted like jagermeister mixed with toothpaste, the taste of black licorice and medicine. therefore, i drank it sparingly. once half of the glass was empty, some of the effects came. we walked down to the garage to get some CD's out of his car. there was a slight feeling of floating. my feet felt weightless within my shoes. furthermore, my mood enhanced slightly, instilling some confidence. after a while though, in much later of the night, the effects quietly wore off. after all, i could only stomach one glass of the shit, and i went back to lite beers. we continued drinking until about 5 in the morning. around 6, i walked up to the strip. i went home on the city bus and went straight to sleep. i awoke again around noon. my body told me that i had to piss. otherwise, i would have never awoken that early. when i sat up in bed, with a blinding headache, i was disoriented as to what day it was. emotionally, it felt like a Wednesday. however, i didn't hear a dump truck outside. once i figured out that it was a Saturday, i remembered again that i had to take a piss. the only problem was that i couldn't find the bathroom. i strolled through the room, looking for the right end where the hallway could lead me there. it only took me about two minutes.

other friends told me their stories about the 'sinthe. they actually ordered the kind through the internet that were exported from other countries. i recall a tale that one of them told when at 4 in the morning he and another friend stood in the kitchen, both in a stupor. the other friends face was Martian green; his eyes rolled back; and he spoke very slowly. that sounded terrifying, if you ask me.

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there was a recent experience with the postal service, not a good one. i left my garage door clicker at my parents house, two hours outside of the city, and so i had no way of parking in my garage space. finding somewhere to park on the street is in no way easy. my mother sent the clicker through 24-hour air mail. it was supposed to arrive by Saturday morning. by 10 am on Saturday, there was still no clicker. on my way out for a coffee run, i passed by a slip posted on the front gate of the apartment building, saying that the delivery guy missed me. the service wasn't going to deliver my package again until Monday, which meant that i had to find street parking on a rainy Oscar weekend.

i don't know if this is how the postal service is supposed to work. as i lay in bed on that Saturday morning, there wasn't even a tease of a knock at my door. the delivery guy must have tapped the door with his fingernails, because I never heard a fucking thing. furthermore, why can't these motherfuckers just leave the package in front of my door? nobody will fucking steal it. everyone already knows that it would be a federal offense. there is no justice in making me wait another two fucking days. the 24-hour delivery cost $40. for $40, i got raped.

i tell you, nobody is reliable anymore. a doctor can't cure a cough. a lawyer can't buy you back your freedom. a teacher can't explain shit. a mechanic doesn't know what the fuck is wrong with your car. and a fucking postal worker can't deliver a motherfucking package. the only reliable people left on this earth are the garbage men. never once did they miss my garbage. they know exactly how to dump my garbage too. every week, they come again. parking enforcement does a real fucking fabulous job too. whenever i am parked on a street cleaning day, i can always rely on them to leave a $50 ticket under my windshield like gentlemen. God bless the few competent people of the world.

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at the beginning of the new year, this old woman walked up to me in the coffee shop and asked if i wanted to join a writers group. she was a nice old woman--a little strange, but nice nevertheless. she said that the group read scripts and gave advice, and on some days, they did readings with some well-known actors. this whole idea sounded exciting. i was finally going to break into the pipeline.

later that week, i submitted my script to them through the email and waited. another week passed and i waited some more. by the end of the second week, there was still no answer, so i emailed the old lady, but never got a response from her. maybe the pipeline wasn't ready for me just yet.

almost a month passed, and in the same coffee shop, there she was again, walking to the back of the line with just her cane. she really looked like a sweet old lady, someone nice enough to help out a lost soul.

"hi. I'm Ben. did the group have a chance to read my script?"

"who? who are you, my boy?"

"I'm Ben. remember? you asked if i wanted to join a writer's group, and then told me to submit my script."

she took off her thick glasses, to give me a good close up and down.

"young man. i don't know who you are, or what you want, but please leave me alone, would you?"

she brushed me away with her cane, and moved further up the line. i wished horrible, morose things on this dear old lady. she was a scam artist, just like everyone else in this establishment. once she bought her tea, she walked outside and fed some of her coffee cake crumbs to a sad old dog laying on the ground. the dogs tongue lapped eagerly at all the little pieces of crumb through her shaky fingers. she walked ten feet further to give the rest of the crumb cake--whatever was the dog didn't eat--to a bum on the ground. he thanked her for it in some praying ritual, before ravenously stuffing the rest in his mouth. i knew her game and exactly what she was doing, showing her care for the needy animals and homeless and then fucking over guys like me. eventually, i would expose her.

each week that followed, i saw her again, playing her senility game, using the cane and the raggedy clothes for sympathy. then, one day, as she passed by my table, she collapsed. i watched her crooked body lay motionless, as she looked towards the ceiling. "help, somebody. my God, help." the manager ran over, yelling at her employees to call an ambulance. i got up and left, too confused to stay.

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the ceiling in my shower keeps cracking. since the time of moving into the apartment, i never once until last month realized that the ceiling in my bathroom was falling apart. one morning, there was actually debris in the bathtub. the only explanation about this phenomenon is that the heat from the shower water is melting and congealing the wallpaper; either that, or the ogres from the apartment above me are stomping my ceiling apart. these people have never shown themselves. every night, they walk across the floor, and each step sounds and feels like a fucking bowling ball dropping. actually, dropping doesn't make the sound; it is the impact. anyway, each step vibrates through my apartment walls. they constantly slide open their closet door, and it sounds as if they are pushing a boulder. it has awakened me many times. whenever they aren't walking across the floor or opening their closet, they are watching old war movies on the television set. the volume is so high that the machine guns and whistling bombs sound so authentic. other tenants have stuck their heads out the window and yelled at them to turn it down, but either the ogres can't hear them yelling over the machine guns or they are really ill.

there are only a few tenants i know, to begin with. one of them is an old black man who constantly stands out front in a bath robe and smokes. he is the nicest old man there is. i just wonder about him sometimes. one day i was using the computer at work and was looking through Google Earth to see what my apartment looked like from a topographical view. sure enough, when the camera zoomed down, there was the old black man with a bath robe and cigarette in front of the building.

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can't predict who is going to win the election, but if it is Clinton or Obama then hopefully my life will change somehow, in a good way. in retrospect, the last eight years of my life have been the worst. not saying that G.W. caused all my distress, but coincidentally everything around me went mediocre.

during the Clinton administration, everything seemed easier. it never took any further than a week to find a job. getting laid wasn't so much of a steep hill. each day, a new song either on the radio or on MTV, was able to move me. a week didn't go by when there were no movies worth seeing. from 2000 to 2008, everything just went to shit, it seemed. it could have been the 2001 attacks, but that shouldn't be the scapegoat, better yet nothing should be, when talking about: the gas prices, overall inflation, bad art, celebrity obsession, narcissism, reality TV, childhood heroes using steroids, child molester obsession, extreme envy, poor sense of humor, tastelessness, and propaganda.

there was a time when i didn't fear quitting my job because i knew that i was going to quickly find another one, when people weren't so concerned about what they did for a living, when movies and music had invention, when someone knew better than to seek fame through reality TV, and when the audience knew they were smarter than reality TV.

Kurt Cobain never appeared on Star Search. there was a time when selling-out was not cool. the roles have been reversed. you put out something that is easily disposable and ages within a year and you make a bundle of money, and then you are forgotten.

and how is U2 still cool? while thousands of bands with new sounds are sending me myspace invites, still trying to be discovered, and the bimbos yell at them for fucking up their coffee, these old men haven't written a decent song in 21 years, and yet radio and TV still present them as the best band in the world. who the fuck are they kidding?

hopefully, things will change with obama or clinton in office.

little anthony and the wizard.

2008-02-08T23:44:00.000-08:00

Little Anthony: Wizard, what is a job?

Wizard: Little Anthony, a job is a place that grown up people go to in the daytime.

Little Anthony: What do they do there?

Wizard: Why, they sit at a desk for eight hours in front of a big bright computer screen.

Little Anthony: What do they do for eight hours in front of a computer screen?

Wizard: They do lots of things, Anthony, such as data input, constructing spreadsheets, and create graphs and charts using expensive software.

Anthony: What is data?

Wizard: Data is another word for information, but it is a special kind of information, used for company promotion.

Little Anthony: How does it help the company?

Wizard: Most of the data comes in reports, sales reports, to see how much profit the company made at a certain time of year.

Little Anthony: And they do that for eight hours?

Wizard: Sometimes longer.

Little Anthony: But, what if I want to check my e-mail or play video games?

Wizard: Then, they will replace you with someone else. Most companies won’t allow you to perform anything that isn’t in the interest of their business.

Little Anthony: I don’t want a job.

Wizard: Ho Ho, Anthony, you want to survive, don’t you? You need money to survive and the company provides you with me money.

Little Anthony: Oh, geez, Wizard, you didn’t tell me that they give you money. I change my mind. I do want a job, so I can get all the money in the world.

Wizard: Now now, don’t get carried away, Little Anthony. You only get a small fraction of the money. Everyone else needs their money too.

Little Anthony: But I want lots and lots of it.

Wizard: Everybody wants lots and lots of it, Anthony, but if everybody had lots and lots of it then they wouldn’t have to work anymore.

Little Anthony: I don’t get it.

Wizard: Come, sit on my lap, Anthony. Now, imagine if you helped someone out for a candy bar. What if they paid you enough candy bars to last a year?

Little Anthony: That would be cool.

Wizard: Would you keep helping out the good man for more candy bars?

Little Anthony: No, wizard. I would be too busy eating candy bars.

Wizard: You get my point. You would be so busy eating candy bars that you would grow fat and become immovable. After a while, you wouldn’t be able to pull out of your own bed. You would be of no use anymore.

Little Anthony: But, the good man could pull me out of bed.

Wizard: He could. But it would cost you.

Little Anthony: How much?

Wizard: All of your candy bars.

Little Anthony: So, you’re telling me, Mr. Wizard, that the good man doesn’t give out very man candy bars?

Wizard: Usually not enough candy bars; in fact, barely enough candy bars to last through the day.

Little Anthony: What am I supposed to do then?

Wizard: Keep coming back to work to get more candy bars, in hopes that some day you will get a little bit more candy bars.

Little Anthony: But I want to be able to check my e-mail and play video games while they give me candy bars.

Wizard: Oh no, Anthony, that’s not how it works. The good man sees everything you do. If he sees one thing you don’t like, then he’ll replace you with someone else.

Little Anthony: What do you mean by replace?

Wizard: Finding somebody with the same characteristics, kind of like a twin, except you might look nothing alike.

Little Anthony: So, they might as well keep me.

Wizard: You must learn, Anthony, that you need them much much more than they need you.

Little Anthony: Crap. I hate jobs.

Wizard: We all do, Anthony. But we don’t seem to have a choice.

Little Anthony: So let’s just all quit, so we can check our e-mail and play video games.

Wizard: But then, none of us would have a home or a bed to sleep in, or any candy bars to eat.

Little Anthony: Then, they should just let us keep our jobs anyway.

Wizard: According to the good man, a job is a privilege, not a right.

Little Anthony: What is a privilege, wizard?

Wizard: Anthony, a privilege is like a wish, kind of like what a genie gives you.

Little Anthony: So, the good man grants me a wish, and that wish is a job?

Wizard: That is right.

Little Anthony: But what if that is not my wish?

Wizard: It better be your wish, if you want to survive.

Little Anthony: After talking to you, I don’t see a job as a wish at all. What is the opposite of a wish, wizard?

Wizard: Resent.

Little Anthony: I have heard of that before. I heard my dad use that word one day, when the rain made him all wet and he had soaky socks.

Wizard: Then, you get the idea of resentment.

Little Anthony: A job sounds like a resentment.

Wizard: You got it all wrong, Little Anthony. Why, the good man says that it is a privilege.

Little Anthony: The good man can’t always be right.

Wizard: There is no wrong or right to the good man, just facts.

Little Anthony: Facts, like data?

Wizard: Exactly.

Little Anthony: So, we put facts into a computer, which is different from right or wrong?

Wizard: Facts are just facts, Anthony. You can’t argue with them.

Little Anthony: But, facts can’t be wrong?

Wizard: They can be, but they are no longer facts.

Little Anthony: What are they, then?

Wizard: Lies.

Little Anthony: How do I tell?

Wizard: By using your thinking cap, Anthony.

Little Anthony: How am I supposed to figure out a lie, when the good man tells me what my wishes are, even when I have another wish that he won’t give me? And then you tell me that the good man is neither right nor wrong when he gives these facts which I may think are lies?

Wizard: Little Anthony, you may think whatever you want, but the rest of the world won’t listen to you.

Little Anthony: You’re mean, wizard. I’m leaving.

Wizard: But, Anthony, wait. I don’t want to upset you. I am just telling the truth. There is no right or wrong, just facts. Don’t cry.

Little Anthony: But, Mr. Wizard, you’re scaring me.

Wizard: There are a lot of things to be scared about, but that’s what keeps us alive.

Little Anthony: That’s really mean. You’re mean.

Wizard: Come back here, Anthony. Sit back on my lap. I want to be your friend.

Little Anthony: Do you promise you’ll be nicer?

Wizard: I can’t promise anything; I might be telling a lie.

Little Anthony: But the good man doesn’t tell lies.

Wizard: He doesn’t tell the truth either. Now, sit down.

Little Anthony: Mr. Wizard, your lap smells.

Wizard: I didn’t want to tell you, but you kept farting earlier.

Little Anthony: I hate my farts now.

Wizard: I’m only telling you the truth.

Little Anthony: The truth is just as bad as lies.

Wizard: Yes, but there is nowhere to fall below the truth.

Little Anthony: What do you mean?

Wizard: Imagine if lies were stacked on top of each other, and each bigger lie was higher up in the sky. The biggest lie is hundreds of feet in the air. Imagine that you keep climbing up each lie, until you reach the biggest one. What do you think will happen once you’re up there?

Little Anthony: I’ll stay up there. I don’t want to fall.

Wizard: You will eventually.

Little Anthony: No, I would find a bird and grab onto its wing so he can fly me down safely.

Wizard: But then, you’ll climb the building again, because you believe that bird will rescue you again. But what if the bird is no longer around? Then what? You’ll fall hundreds of feet and splatter your dead meat all over the truth.

Little Anthony: I get it, so I should always stay on the ground, not go up those big buildings like my father.

Wizard: That is exactly my point.

Little Anthony: Mr. Wizard? How come you know so much about this?

Wizard: I never told you before—and I don’t tell many people about this—but I used to work at Quiznos.

Little Anthony: With all the sandwiches?

Wizard: Yes, that place.

Little Anthony: That’s cool. I love sandwiches. I would rather be around sandwiches all day then some computer with data.

Wizard: Trust me, I thought the same thing, Anthony. As it turns out, sandwiches aren’t so great.

Little Anthony: No way. I would eat sandwiches all day long in there.

Wizard: There will come a time when you will get sick of sandwiches. Then, all you’re left with are mean people and people who can’t speak English.

Little Anthony: You’re being mean again.

Wizard: I apologize, Little Anthony. This subject seems to bring out the bitterness in me.

Little Anthony: So, how did you become a wizard?

Wizard: I read a lot of books.

Little Anthony: That must be hard. Reading is boring.

Wizard: On the contrary, Anthony. Reading is the only thing that I enjoy anymore. There is nothing more comforting than printed words. They don’t speak. They don’t judge you. They don’t steal. You can do whatever you want with them.

Little Anthony: Then, that’s it. I’m never getting a job. I’m just going to read and read, until I become a wizard just like you.

Wizard: Being a wizard isn’t as glamorous as it looks, boy.

Little Anthony: What do you mean? You get to wear that cool blue robe, and the pointy hat, a white beard, and the magic wand.

Wizard: It does have its failures, though.

Little Anthony: Are you serious?

Wizard: Oh yes, Anthony. For one, not everybody respects a wizard. I know it’s hard to believe.

Little Anthony: Who on Earth wouldn’t respect you, wizard?

Wizard: You know how you were created, Anthony?

Little Anthony: Not exactly.

Wizard: I won’t get into how. I’ll let your father do that. Anyhow, if it wasn’t for your mother, your father wouldn’t have been able to create you. Now, your father works up in a big grey building all day. He kept doing it and doing it until your mother had respect for him. After awhile, she let him create you. As a wizard, it is not so easy, almost impossible to do.

Little Anthony: I don’t understand.

Wizard: The minute I tell a woman what I do, they ignore me.

Little Anthony: Women are mean.

Wizard: They can be. That’s why it is important for you to get a job.

Little Anthony: A job like what my dad does in that great big building.

Wizard: Not all jobs exist inside a great big building. Quizno’s was a job too, you know, and that place was on truth level.

Little Anthony: So, you’re saying if I want to create another me, then I have to get a job so that a woman will help me out?

Wizard: You’re catching on.

Little Anthony: I don’t know if creating someone else is worth it, if I have to give up e-mail and video games.

Wizard: That isn’t really up to you, young Anthony. Anthony? Anthony? Where are you going, young man? You see something out the window?

Little Anthony: Yes, wizard. That big grey building right there is where my father goes.

Wizard: So, that is where he goes. Do you know which floor he works on?

Little Anthony: I don’t know. But it is near the top. Oh, no.

Wizard: What is it, Anthony? Tell me now. You sound frightened. Please, let me help you. What is it?

Little Anthony: I see my father. He just met the truth.

craigslist woes.

2008-02-04T22:27:00.000-08:00

this last week, i posted an ad on craigslist, stating that i was searching for a woman to marry. i only got one response, that being from a 16-year old. i didn't write her back.

then, i found an ad posted by a woman in her thirties that said she was looking for another writer (she was a writer too). what was important to her was that she found a writer who could provide great companionship, while leaving her alone for parts of the week--so she could write, i guessed.

no dependencies, no clinging, less probability of growing tired of each other, sex when we felt like it--this sounded perfect. i wrote her a response email: my name is ben. i found your ad on craigslist. so, you write. i write too. take a look at my ad. let me know what you think.

the weekend passed, before i got a response. she said that she couldn't view my ad, so i forwarded her my myspace profile: there were enough of my pictures and writings for her to decide about me.

later that day, she wrote me back, and this was what she said: ben, you are certainly cute. but, you are an atheist, you don't ever want kids, and you are six years younger than i am. so, let's not waste each others time with each other. i hope you have a great life.

i responded with: well, i guess you told me.

her response really hurt me, especially the "let's not waste each other's time" part. how clever. the baffling part though was her issue with me being an atheist. i never cut off someone because of their credo. a buddhist can practice buddha. a hindu can practice hinduism. a shaman can do shamanism. the same with a daoist, a christian, or a scientologist. just as long as they weren't fanatics, i didn't have a problem with it. letting things like that get between people is illogical, in my opinion. i am a steelers fan. i would consider dating a browns fan.

the way i read it, atheism is a weakness, or something that subhumans practiced. i don't go to atheist church every sunday. i don't pray to nothingness before i go to bed every night. i can go weeks apart and not once dwell on my atheism. my religion, i guess, is just not that much of an issue with myself.

whatever god she prays to is superior to my atheism, for sure.

as for kids: who knows if i will change my mind next week? life is unpredictable, kiddies.

politics and surfing filmmakers.

2008-02-02T16:17:00.000-08:00

Spent a few days at my parents house, just to visit. Since I don't have any friends in my old hometown anymore, I watched a lot of TV: mostly ESPN, because the Super Bowl was less than a week away. However, I flipped the channels and stopped at CNN, covering the presidential race. I never was much of a political man. At first, I thought it was because I was ignorant and apathetic, but then I ran across someone a week ago who said it all for me: "These politicians tell you what they think you want to hear, so that you will vote them into office. Then, once they become president, they don't do anything that they promised."

Those words made perfect sense.

Another thought occurred to me. The candidates, the political correspondents, the political analysts are all very hard to look at--not attractive people. The men have intense stone faces.

The women are shaped like linebackers, stern, and have bad hair.

I presume that none of these people ever have sex, or enjoy it if they do. There is no human quality to them at all. So, I found the answer as to why I never followed politics.
Furthermore, their tone of voice, their word choice, are all too condescending not to be distracting.

The only exception to it all, is Obama. He is decent looking, and speaks like a gentleman.

I watched what I could, before I had to flip to another channel. On PBS was the Charlie Rose show. His guest for that night was a filmmaker who directed "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly".

He resembled Michael Moore, except he wore reading glasses with fluorescent lenses, and a sport coat with his hairy chest underneath.

When the man wasn't speaking about his new film, he described his paintings. Yes, he is a painter too.

All of his pieces were world maps with streaks of paint colors across them. The filmmaker explained that if someone looked close enough they could see the "brush strokes of the human mind".

He talked more about his personal life, without Rose even asking. The filmmaker liked to spend months long in Paris, staying up all night in his apartment, painting. A friend of his in Paris offered to lease him some property; although, he refused the property and instead wanted to buy old maps from her.

Back in the states, the filmmaker chooses to go surfing. When Rose asked him why he surfed, the filmmaker answered with "what else is there to do?"

The show ended, and I turned off the television. The filmmaker made me feel bad about myself. I lay in the guest bed, ate a snickers, and then turned out the light. The next morning, I drove back to Los Angeles. A long time will pass before I watch TV again.

Heath, Hot Dogs, and Hellos

2008-01-22T19:08:00.000-08:00

1/22/08

5:47 pm.

Sitting in the coffee shop, I look out the window at the wet and cold air and the poor souls who have to sit out there. They all look at me from out there like lost dogs, panting back at me.

I was them once. Fuck them.

My friend, Bill, sits down with me. He is the assistant manager at Ralphs.

"Did you hear about Heath?" he asked.
"I don't know a Heath."
"Heath Ledger. He swallowed too many pills."

That was the first thing he said to me--no hello's. I retired from saying "hello" anyway: it was a conscious decision made two days ago. Whenever I walk into a shop or convenience store, passing strangers and the cashiers greeting me with a "hello", I don't greet them back. I get right down to business with what I want:

"Give me a pack of Marlboro Lights."

They pay me a whole new respect I never felt before. "Hello's" repulse me: they are formal and phony. Nobody means it, except for my mother, of course.

"That is horrible," I said. And it is horrible, even though I never knew the guy. He, along with all other movie actors are special, more special than you and I. They are myths. Once their image appears on the movie screen, they are immortal. They live on, while you die. And when they die, their image will last much longer than mine once I am dead. We look up to them on the screen. Their image is immortal.

For that momentary time, they control you and your desires. Of course, in real life, they eat Fruity Pebbles and jerk off in a dress, but once they are on screen, they transcend us.

6:02 pm.

Went to Rite-Aid, where I bought a six-pack of Pabst and a duster for my keyboard. When the cashier rang me up, I noticed that the can said "gas duster". I wasn't sure what I was buying. All I wanted to do was polish my keyboard, not blow up anything. "Wait a minute," I said, and I put the duster back on the shelf. I don't like anything that says gas. Destruction always comes to mind.

6:33 pm.

I have to wait in traffic for all these cocksuckers to go home and pet their dogs. Going-home traffic. Waiting around, I thought of the perfect way to handle road rage. The next time some prick cuts me off, or honks their horn, I'm going to send a message. I will buy a package of Oscar Meyer weiners, and keep it in the passenger seat, ready for the next asshole. Once they cut me off, I'm chucking a hot dog at their car. That will teach them to fuck with me, watching a ballpark frankfurter bounce off their windshield.

Pedestrians will get it too. Every time another long-legged bitch crosses in front of me on the street, taking her time, trying to look high and mighty, she'll get a weiner across the skull. I will take great delight in seeing the weiner deflect off her body, and the confusion that awaits her.

Hot-dog chucking is the future. It is much safer than shotguns, and less destructive than paint guns. They will neither pierce the flesh nor chip the paint. Instead, they will bounce off the windows and walls, leaving not even a scratch, but at the same time demoralizing the person.

The media would label me the "hot-dog bandit", cruising the freeways with an arsenal of hot-dogs in my passenger seat, waiting for another victim. People will drive with their windows up, clutching the steering wheel, looking onward, fearing another hot-dog landing on their windshield.

Championship Sunday

2008-01-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

11:03 am

Watching the Patriots/Chargers game. So far, so good. Brady is not dominating the game. The Chargers are keeping it close. 7-3 right now, with 10 minutes left in the first half.
3rd & goal, Rivers chips the ball to Chris Chambers, does not get the first down. They settled for a field goal. 7-6 Patriots.
In a windy Foxboro, another short kick. New England returns the ball back to their own 40. First down. Brady passes to Kevin Faulk for another first down. Next play, Maroney pushes his was through the wall of defenders for a five yard gain. In the shotgun, Brady hits Welker on a screen for a 2 yard gain. On third and short, with Brady back in the shotgun, he tries to hit Moss, but San Diego defender knocks it away. They are forced to punt.
New England punts it away. The punt team downs the ball at the San Diego 1 yard line.
On the first play of the drive, Rivers hands it off to Turner for a 4 yard gain. Turner muscles in for another 3 yards. Third and 3, Rivers hits Sproles on a sideline pass to get the first down. Another hand off to Turner--2 yards.
Playaction, Rivers stumbles over Vrabel and throws an interception to Asante Samuel. First down, Patriots, at the San Diego 24.
Brady hits Faulk on a curl pattern for 12 yards.
Brady passes down the middle to Gaffney, who eases into the endzone, untouched, and the Patriots roll to a 14-6 lead.
Sproles returns the kickoff.
First down. Patriots defense stuffs Sproles for no gain.
Playaction pass from Rivers to Chambers for 15 yards.
Rivers throws a deep ball to Chambers and is intercepted.
Brady attempts a deep pass, and knocked down by Jammer.
On a hand off, Faulk bounces his way out of the line for 8 yards.
Two minute warning.
3rd and short. Brady in the shotgun. Incomplete pass to Wes Welker, forcing the Patriots to punt.
Sproles returns the punt and forced out of bounds for no gain.
Draw play to Sproles.
No huddle offense.
Another draw play to Sproles, for a 20 yard gain.
The booth decides to rule a possible Sproles fumble.
They rule the fumble forced by ground. San Diego ball.
Rivers passes to Gates for 9 yards.
With 26 seconds left, Chargers call a timeout.
Rivers passes to Sproles for 1 yard, creating a third and short.
Timeout San Diego, with no timeouts left.
Timeout New England.
18 seconds left in the first half.
Rivers, under heavy pressure, throws the ball away.
40 yard field goal attempt.
New England calls timeout, in hopes of icing the kicker.
Kaeding converts the field goal.
The halftime score is 14-9, with New England ahead.
Third quarter. Had to go to Subway for a footlong sandwich, and came back when half time was already over.
Brady threw his second interception of the game--the most he has thrown in his playoff history. The interception set up good field position for the Chargers, around the 50 yard line.
Rivers passes down field to Chambers and Jackson with little problems. However, the Patriots stop them short within the ten yard line, setting up a crucial third and one. Chargers call a timeout.
On third and one, Seau tackles Turner short, forcing a field goal attempt. 14-12.
With Patriots back in possession, Maroney runs for 20 yards, for their longest gain of the game so far.
New England calls a timeout.
Next play, Maroney runs for no gain.
Brady pump fakes, and hits Moss on a 15 yard gain.
Maroney runs for another first down, bringing them into the red zone.
Maroney runs for another six yards.
Maroney, cuts left, and fights his way for another first down.
Maroney, stopped for no gain.
Brady passes to Welker, tackled at the two yard line, creating a 3rd and goal.
Tom Brady picked off in the end zone by Antonio Cromartie--his second interception in the playoffs, his first from a Peyton Manning pass last week.
Turner runs for 12 yards.
Turner runs for 3 yards.
Rivers, flushed out of his pocket, overthrows the ball down the sidelines for an incomplete pass.
3rd and 7, Rivers in the shotgun, incomplete pass, under thrown, forcing the Chargers to punt.
Brady pasess to Heath Evans for 14 yards.
Maroney runs for a 3 yard gain.
New England lets the clock run down to the end of the 3rd quarter.
First play of the fourth quarter, Brady passes to Welker on a screen. He scampers for a first down.
At the San Diego 40, Maroney shuffles and cuts for a 20 yard gain.
Brady passes to Maroney on a screen, who sprints for another first down.
Injured Charger after the play, San Diego calls a timeout.
Fuck. This game is over. Nice try, San Diego. I turned off the TV.

1/16/08

2008-01-16T23:42:00.000-08:00

I don't attend the movies much anymore. Chances are that I would be sitting next to another person, and my legs would cramp up from the seat
in front of me.
I can't pause the movie, if I need to take a piss.

I only went to a total of five movies in 2007, 3/5 of which left the me with an empty, awful feeling.

However, there were a few movies that I had to go see, even if there was a chance the theater would molest my soul. The last movie I had to see was "There Will Be Blood," directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

I shivered going in, wondering how I could sit through almost three hours of some guy drilling for oil, but the story was much more than that. Walking out of the theater, I was convinced that this was the best film I had seen in the last 7 years.

Of all three decades I have lived through, this decade of movies has been by far the worst, filled with needless remakes and computer animation that murders the story's imagination. I will always prefer the mechanical movements of a clay Medusa in "Clash of the Titans" over any character-generated image.

Even the comedies of today are spoiled with America's fascination with humiliating and belittling others.

"There Will Be Blood" triumphs over everything that is wrong. Even though it is based on an Upton Sinclair novel, it hasn't been adapted five times already, obscure enough that it could be mistaken as an original work.

Paul Thomas Anderson has evolved into a signature filmmaker.
"Boogie Nights" was the first film of his that I saw.

After ten years, I still swear it to be "The Godfather" of my generation. When I am 72, I will still watch it. I run into people from my sordid past, having not spoken to them in years, and we catch ourselves throwing out random quotes from the movie.

And then there is Daniel Day Lewis.

No other actor comes within even a mile to this guy. If he played a five-second role, he would still outshine the lead actor. Many may argue, but he is the best actor of the last twenty-five years.
Better than Jack.
Better than Tom.
Better than Robert.

He personifies a real man, not like today's pixies.

I have wanted to become DDL, from his part as the womanizing doctor in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" to his role as the mustachioed villain in "Gangs of New York". Even if he played the most evil fuck ever, I still wanted the power he stole from the rest of the scene. There is a part in "There Will Be Blood" when he eats a piece of steak with his bare hands off a dirty plate, gnawing the flesh off the bone, sucking off the gristle. I wanted steak, afterward. I even wanted to become the steak, just so DDL could feel even more real.

2008-01-15T18:48:00.000-08:00

People talk about erectile dysfunction as if it is a biological disorder.

As a man's back gives out from old age, somehow the penis follows the trend.

Suppose that it is not biological though, but rather a disorder of the mind. By age 40, the average man works 40 or more hours a week, inside an office, in front of a computer screen, wearing a stiff suit and tie, eating bad food, tolerating the company in his workplace.

The day continues, and he pretends to laugh along with the co-workers and their terrible jokes.

Meanwhile, everyone there feels the same tragic feeling, as if they are trapped in an elevator, feeling unrewarded when the pay period ends and all that tiring, meaningless work results in a dissatisfying paycheck.

Every time he looks into his boss's faceless face,

he is reminded of the time when he was much younger, a visionary daydreaming upon the day when he would change the world.

After another grueling day, the average man comes home to his wife and sees that look on her face that says, "please be in a good mood for me, honey".

On the night that she wants to make love, all the average man can focus on is the endless marsh that floods the days ahead of him.

The passion for life dwindles.

Orgasms were not what they used to be, not when he was younger with less of the world on his shoulders,

before reality revealed its royal flush,

making the penis run and hide like a groundhog within the pubic tumbleweed.

And then he turns on the TV, and can't watch a single football game without another erectile dysfunction commercial, as if the problem can be fixed overnight, like it is Bayer.

And so I ask myself again, "is erectile dysfunction really a biological disorder?"

2008-01-14T17:14:00.000-08:00

I saw the weirdest thing today. Sitting at the coffee shop, trying to mind my own business, I saw an old man in grey slacks and a green cardigan sweater digging through the trashcan.

That's no big deal, I thought. Sometimes you find something worth keeping in the garbage. But then, I saw another old man following from behind. It shouldn't appear too strange; although, the second old man wore almost the exact same clothes.

He was like the old man's shadow.

Once the first old man finished looking through the garbage, he walked off, and then the second old man began looking through the same garbage.

He didn't find what he was looking for either.

The first old man shuffled his feet all the way to other end of the patio. He stopped, turned around and looked at me, with a weary eye.

He caught me by surprise, so I looked in the other direction and saw the other old man looking at me the same way.

I got the hell out of there.

The Daily Weirdness

2008-01-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

The Daily Weirdness

2008-01-13T16:39:00.000-08:00

Whenever I'm not reading http://whitesocksblackshoes.blogspot.com/, created by Nathan Jordan--screenwriter, receptioning warrior, and blog laureate--I have been deeply involved in the NFL playoffs.

Whether I like it or not, the Patriots have been the most interesting team. They get all the press, chasing history as the only team to ever go 19-0. Most people I know despise the Patriots, especially this year--since they are on the verge of perfection. The majority hates perfection, when it doesn't involve them. And why not, since this world is so far from perfect?

Lately, the media has been debating whether or not Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback to ever play the game.

He has the credentials for it, having already won 3 super bowls, throwing 50 touchdowns in a single season, and having a cleft chin. However, the debate takes it further than that. While some claim that you can't argue with his resume, others say that he has been blessed by the team around him. If you ask me, Tom Brady is like the spoiled rich kid who everyone went to high-school with.

The rest of his team is his tycoon father.

With an impenetrable offensive line, a genius coach, and the addition of Randy Moss as a receiver, it is pretty hard not to screw up.

And if he totals his Porsche one night, then his father will just buy him a new one.

1/10/08

2008-01-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles is a child that pisses himself.

No wonder there hasn't been a professional football team here in 14 years--no heart, and no soul. The city is full of mad men that have either escaped or have yet to be locked up.

Why, I'm one of them too. Just about every morning, I release my demons by shouting at people through the window in my shower.

When they look my way, I duck away from the window and hide, laughing in excitement.

Naturally, the people on the neighborhood street don't appreciate my antics.

One guy even went so far as to taking off shirt, challenging me to come outside and duke it out.

"You wanna be a man? You'll show your face," he said.

I chose not to meet him outside. I will challenge him some other day.

The minute I walked outside, I saw the strangest thing. "Do you have the time?" I heard. I looked across the street and saw a man with no nose.

I couldn't react right, forgetting how to check the time.

"No thank you," I said.

1/9/08

2008-01-09T18:03:00.001-08:00

At age 11, I never imagined that by the age of 30, I would be smoking cigarettes on the toilet.

1/4/08

2008-01-04T23:22:00.000-08:00

I never watched enough bowl games on January 1^st--especially the last several years.

You see, I don’t have cable, so the reception on the television makes the whole experience frustrating.

ABC showed the Rose Bowl, and that network has, by far, the worst reception, so bad that every time John David Booty threw the ball, it disappeared into thin air; and then his receiver caught an invisible ball and ran with it until a defender tackled him.

By halftime, I gave up, turned off the television, and listened to an internet radio talk show.

The host discussed new year’s resolutions, talking mainly about addictions.

He had a very good idea, something I never thought of before. His idea was to save the addiction—whatever it was—for the next day, and then once the next day comes around, and you hold off for the day after. You keep going, and then before you know it, a whole month goes by. Then two months. Then a year.

So let’s say I come home from work one night, stressed, withered, frustrated, and I think “tonight I think I’ll smoke an ounce of weed...

followed by three lines of coke...

two shots of whiskey...

play internet poker...

and then cap off the night with four hours of internet porn.

No, you know what? I’m too tired. I can always do all that stuff tomorrow. Yeah, I think I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Then, the next day rolls around, and I tell myself the same thing.

12/27/07

2007-12-27T21:18:00.000-08:00

I had a dream this morning that Heaven was holding a hiring fair.

The people with enough seniority sat at tables, while Heaven’s appointees interviewed them and looked over their resumes.

God wanted to retire and live on retirement for the rest of eternity.

I couldn’t blame him. The stress must have been a motherfucker.

12/26/07

2007-12-26T21:30:00.000-08:00

I awoke today with a bizarre feeling in my head.

Every time I moved, I felt dizziness...

my vision blurred...

and my hands went numb.

The feeling didn’t go away.

I took my medication, but that didn’t cure anything.

I smoked a cigarette.

That didn’t help either.

My dad suggested I go get an MRI...

but I didn’t think that was a good idea.

By the afternoon, my whole body felt lethargic.

It must have been the flu.

12/25/07

2007-12-25T20:35:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Day, the family always went to the movies.

This year we went and saw “Charlie Wilson’s War”: another movie that stars Tom Hanks with a bad haircut.

I went into the theater with no expectations at all. It was all that I predicted: clever dialogue, tongue-in-cheek humor, and professional. However, midway through the film, I realized something so weird: never before did I see a more boring film so well written and directed.

12/24/07

2007-12-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

I stayed at my parents house for Christmas.

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, I opened their refrigerator and saw a cold pizza waiting.

I was about to cook it when I found a colony of ants inside the microwave.

What the hell were they doing in there?

They marched around in confusion—which was natural. I wondered if I should just eat the pizza cold, but I hated that; I preferred melted cheese and a soft crust.

I could have placed it in the oven, but that would take too long.

I decided to put it in the microwave anyway.

I set the timer to a minute, and watched through the glass as the ants scattered through the swarming heat.