I’m going to start us out today with a post in its entirety. Part of me wants to just ignore it, and include something better, but I feel like it’s somewhat appropriate, considering my recent experiences.
Other People’s Blogs
September 24th, 2006
12:06 p.m.
Maybe I’m just jealous that my total views are still under 400, and comments under 15. And maybe I’m discouraged that aside from ONE person (thank you Eliza), all of my readers are people I have known forever (thank you everybody else). And maybe I’m just being super whiny today, and should just get over it. Perhaps (see what I did there? I’m using the same opening, just mixing it up with synonyms. Boo-yah!) when I’m famous and have to discontinue this blog because of all of the interest, I’ll look back at this time in its history and smile at the simple level of interest and expectation. Of course, I hope to counting a pile of money while I’m lost in my memories. Or maybe I could pay someone else to count it.
On a column note, read Jon Carroll on www.sfgate.com/columnists/carroll/ and check out his archived stuff. Or if you live in the Bay Area, just pick up a copy of The Chronicle at a BART station for a quarter and look in the Datebook section M-F. Wow. And I wasn’t even asked for this plug. That’s good news, though. Instead of being a sell-out commercial whore, I am mererly an Attention/Approval Slut.
Do you ever hate when you write something as a joke and like two seconds later, when you think about it, you realize it’s true? Not that that’s applicable right now. Pay no attention to the man behind the… oh hell, I don’t know… stack of cd’s.
Alright, so I’ll make you guys a deal: I’ll post giganto-blocs of Vault material in a more moderated presentation AND make an effort to deliver a quality blog on a semi-regular basis if you can convince some of your peoples to check me out. Cool?
Okay. Oh. Also, I need some ideas for stories. Please feel free to send me suggestions. Thanks.
As I said, it’s a little on the nose about things I’d rather not admit I feel, but at the same time comforting, because I’m in a better situation than I was eight and a half years ago (and I’ve got over 400 views in half the time! Suck it, Batmart from the past!). I know that at this point, page views are academic, as there is nothing that I have which I can interest any of you in buying, but I like to know that I’m not just writing into the vast nothingness for no other reason than my ego.
Aha! And You Thought I Wouldn’t Do It!
September 26th, 2006
12:01 a.m.
Tuesdays
Living out the lies in a
winter of my making
suppressing waking cries
until the dawn’s dark breaking
I hear the breathing in the night
and know I should be somewhere else
be someone else, not hurt her
anymore,
but I am comfortable until
the arguments begin… “Do you
love me?” she asks, knowing
that I don’t.
And then she tells me that she
shouldn’t waste her time on
something that’s not real,
and then she tells me that she’s
got a child somewhere,
and by the way, why can’t I
feel the same as her?
And I haven’t an answer to give her,
at least nothing she wants to hear,
and we wrestle back and forth,
wresting truths held by the other,
until she cries, and I hold her, and
we agree that we’ve fixed
not a single thing.
Lay in bed until the sobs are over,
need to get away, I’ll only hurt her more
and she deserves someone who’ll
actually love her.
Just like me.
I hate God’s sense of humour.
I included this because it sort of explains where my wife and I were at just before we found out that my son was imminent. We had only gotten together out of convenience, and it was beginning to show. And actually, based upon something that I included in the original blogs that I’ve left out in these, is that the conception of David William has yet to occur. It will happen soon enough though, as evidenced by the date of his birth.
The emptiness adentro
September 26th, 2006
3:22 p.m.
I hate arguments with the girlfriend. The language barrier doesn’t help, either. And listening to Elliot Smith and Stabbing Westward is not contributing to my sense of well-being. I know, I know, I’ve heard it all before: I revel in depression like others might enjoy the satisfaction of, say, joy. I have a concert poster of the Doors for the Hollywood Bowl show in ’65 just above my monitor. I keep looking into the faded eyes of Mr. Morrison and thinking December 2nd December 2nd December 2nd, although, to be fair, I don’t think I’ll be going to Paris anytime soon. Delusions of Grandeur… sometimes they’re all a girl has. By girl I mean tragically tormented sensitive poet. By which I mean me. Not that all girls are tragically tormented sensitive poets, nor I without singularly identifiable cash and prizes. It just sounded right within the context of the sentence. God, I’m overanalyzing again. Sorry.
This is what happens when I wake up too early, drink some beers ‘cos it’s my day off and I don’t really need to be productive, and kinda want to go back to sleep, but find something on the idiot box to watch while I’m messing around online, and then when I finally get to sleep, someone calls me less than an hour into by beauty sleep and… well, you get the idea.
Do you remember Doogie Howser? Every now and then, when you’re writing your blogs do you flash back to the end of that show? Didn’t think so. You’re probably normal. Or at least medium-well adjusted.
I still have to take a shower, finish a beer, stop by work and get out to The City. I can do all that in four hours, right?
It’s that overwhelming sadness and the knots and twists in your stomach like when you’re falling in love, only this time the butterflies are razorblades and the object of your affection is your nonexistence.
By the way, the show was AWESOME! Also, wow! It’s weird to see just how much of a sullen group I was back then. I wonder if I’ll look back on The Vaults and think the same. Note to self: Write more jokes!
Time for bed…
October 1st, 2006
2:55 a.m.
The fact is that I should be doing this every day. Not just blogging of course; that’s just a hobby. No, I mean writing. I still get some done, from time to time- mostly poems that I can bust out between work and sleep. But I think I’ve got at least a couple books in me, and I want to get them out before I get too old and bitter to do them justice.
Shut up Dave.
You too, Dave.
That last bit was just a snippet, but I felt like including it because at least it shows that I knew what I was supposed to be doing, all those years ago. As it turns out, I just need some tragedy and time for inspiration. Sadly (although the writer of those blogs might not agree), my quotient of tragedy would soon be on a downward trend. It’s one of the hardest parts of being a misunderstood genius: finding someone who loves you and genuinely wants nothing but to see you happy. It takes away the authenticity of the suffering, in my humble opinion.
Los Beatles- Podemos Solucionarlo
October 2nd, 2006
1:29 a.m.
The winter came early this year, bringing the chill of winds up off the bay, and flurries of leaves in long exodus from the safety of their canopy to the yards and streets below, only to be swept aside and trampled down by man and elements both. As I lay in my bed, pondering the likelihood that I might actually accomplish something today, I stare outside into a sudden storm and feel at home, though I am hundreds of miles away. The trees creak and struggle to sway, having lost flexibility in the hot summer months, now desperately trying to hold their ground against the onset of autumn. I look at my clock again. Only 10 in the morning. Too damn early. I’m going back to bed.
Okay, so it’s not either of the two stories I mentioned earlier, but good start, or crap? It’s hard for me to tell anymore.
Okay, so I promised a story that was actually something, so let me track down RoBG.
Okay. Found it. No making fun, I haven’t proof-read this in like 6 years. [Make it 15, now]
The Risk of Being God
It’s not about depression, or anger, or any of that standard bullshit psychobabble concerning unresolved issues, or one’s inner child, or anything else you care about. It’s a lot simpler, and impossible to explain. But the odds are in my favor, dear sweet innocent simple passerby, that is, should you not believe me before I’ve told my tale, that you will find that we are nowhere nearly as dissimilar as you may choose to hope. Indeed, dear friend, I think you’ll be amazed at how very closely our so disparately world-worn selves truly weigh against each other. But of course you can’t believe me. If it were any other way, I sincerely doubt that we’d have ever even met.
Before we begin, I should like to warn you of the Risks you take, in the event you find that you can hold yourself so far away no longer. Suddenly distracted, letting down your barrier of the empty pretense of a passive reader, you may unexpectedly discover that the more real to you that I become, the more it seems that you have never been. Never been any more than, with any luck (can’t tell yet- good or bad), a figment of my sweetest dream from which you know I’ll soon awaken. Remember: I am solid, true, empirical and infinite. And you, my child? You are merely but my shadow: you do not exist.
The exits are here and here and here.
* * *
For the fourth straight day, I deny the world my contribution in the hopes that God (or one of them, at least) will give me back my love. And for the fourth straight day, the distinctive sound of deitic chortling stumbles out from behind the empty hills, double-dog daring me to shed my pre-shrunk cotton-polyester boxers and black t-shirt reading “Roadkill Cafe- Montana,” to instead don a simple white robe and tie it tight with misery, to become another Job in this world that once again no longer seems to care. And so today, as like yesterday and those preceding, I graciously decline the offer to stake my sentience and mortality on some desert God nearing 60 centuries who has throughout this whole ordeal, shamelessly snickered in my ear, easily reduced (as is, say, a toddler) to reacting uncontrollably with glee to my plethora of “Funny Faces,” yet simultaneously deriving sadistic satisfaction from the witnessing of torture no more complex than the promise of a lifelong dream fulfilled, never to be received (proving beyond all doubt that God, before becoming God, must have either been involved in the S&M Industry, or else – and this I find more likely – spent His days as a High School English Teacher).
Besides, Job had faith. Me? Forget it. No way, no how, not a Snowball’s Chance In Hell. I mean, sure – don’t get me wrong – I believe in God (or, rather, that God (Jehovah) and all the others do indeed exist ). But faith in any of their “Supreme Plans”? Not a single drop… like bleeding a fuckin’ turnip. Unlike poor, trusting (quite possibly drunk) Job, I’m not willing to waste my mortal run this time around in blind service of a “Greater Force.” I’m more than justly convinced that ain’t not a single damned one of ’em that’s playing with a full deck. Then again, I’ve always had credibility issues with Supreme Beings who won’t even mock you to your face (“Ha ha, puny mortal!” and that sort of crap). And then again, of course, there’s always poor old Alan – a, For The Most Part, Very Impressive Being, who sits for all eternity behind his Commodore 64, watching most of us, quite a good deal of the time (the best he can do for being merely Sortanipotent), awaiting word from above (and occasionally the plaintiff wailing from below), to unleash the devastation of the Not Quite Mighty Smite key, reducing the victim to almost nothing, but without the common courtesy of disposing of the rest.
I really only put this in because I haven’t even thought about this story fragment in close to a decade, and it made me smile. If you want a look at the sort of thing that I was working on before the Great Purge, this is it. As I mentioned a little later in the ’06 blog, I never went any further with this, and now that I’ve read several other things that were similar to where I’d wanted this to go, I’ve decided to keep it firmly on the shelves. Still, it’s been fun to share with all of you.
The following, I’m including because it shows just how incomplete the conversions of the blogs were when MySpace packed them away. I have had to leave out a few that would have been hilarious, but were missing a key piece of information, like what I was doing, or how I was feeling. Here’s a good example:
My New Favorite Movie of 2006
October 7th, 2006
1:37 a.m.
So I bought this movie yesterday, and finally got to watch it today. Absolutely amazing! Check it out if you haven’t already. Hell yeah!
Okay. That’s it. Just sharing my love of
And that was it. I literally have not the slightest clue what I felt my favorite movie of 2006 was. And damn it, I am now kind of curious!
Jupitular Musings in the Key of Drunken Sorrow (Part Three)
October 17th, 2006
6:52 p.m.
You get no Chapter Three.
Chapter Three Blows Goats.
I have proof.
Let me edit the shit out of the last half of the chapter,
and maybe I’ll put it up in a little while.
Yeah, the second half is good.
Less awkward pick-up lines and bad Jell-O shot
conversations.
And actually, this is Chapter 2, part 2, really
So…. whatever.
Ugghhnnnn…..
So, for a little while, I’d been putting up various stories and poems. I’d already posted the first couple of chapters of this (a story I’d been working on while drinking beer at Jupiter in downtown Berkeley after work), and apparently was going to post the third chapter, but was a little underwhelmed with what I had written.
Rumors of my death may have been greatly exaggerated
October 23rd, 2006
10:48 p.m.
I feel negligent in my postings, so, just for you guys, I’m gonna write a poem on the spot. I apologize in advance if it blows goats.
Who am I to be unable to decide
when I have countless opinions about
how shit should go? He who has an
answer for everything, and I don’t know
what to say when she says she wants to
have my baby.
Is it that I cannot see myself a Dad,
or is it that I cannot imagine us
together long enough to raise it
right?
Eighteen years seems an awful long
commitment for two people I cannot
envision lasting through next year.
But I don’t want to be that guy who
can just walk out on the life of my
child. never to know him, to love him,
I don’t want to be my dad.
And the smile I doubt I’ll ever see stares
hauntingly up into my eyes,
the grip of tiny fingers ’round my own…
is anyone ever prepared to be
a father?
Did you know my mother almost
died when she was pregnant with
me? It’s true. My father tried to
drown her, drown us… Sometimes
I wish he’d succeeded. At least with me.
I never asked for this, so who am I
to bring a child into this world?
I don’t want to be
my father.
And that week, between the 17th of October and the 23rd, is when I found out that I was going to be a dad. All in all, knowing myself, I think I took it rather well. I had been on the way to being a father before, when I was engaged to La Diabla, but that whole situation ended badly, for prospective fathers and fetuses alike. Still, there was a certain change in the air.
And that’s it for this edition of Blast From The Past. The next edition brings us to 2007, and the rapidly approaching birth of my son. Join me next week, won’t you, for a trip back eight years into the past!
-Tex