Category Archives: After Dark

After Dark

After Dark: A Blast From The Past, Part Five

 

Welcome back to the fifth and final installment in the After Dark: A Blast From The Past series. Chapter One dealt with the beginnings of my blog on Myspace until around the time that I began to (biologically) be a dad. Chapter Two focused on the news of Flor’s pregnancy (through the end of ’06), and my coming to terms with my own Dad. Chapter Three finished out my son’s gestation and welcomed him into the world. Chapter Four was mostly me whinging on about the fact that I had no idea what it was that I was doing as a father. Each of those chapters focused on just a couple of months or so, and that was alright, as there was a whole lot going on. But for this final installment, we’re going to be covering a lot of ground. This chapter is dealing with events from October, 2007 until the end of my old blog in April of 2009. But before you become discouraged, and bookmark this page to read when you’ve got a free week or two, just know that I wasn’t writing a whole lot back then, and that I only chose a few posts to share with you. Let’s get started…

Life within the Cave of Batmart

October 17th, 2007

6:42 p.m.

So it’s time to give an update on the monkey. I’m sorry if any of you are uninterested or already bored with baby stories, but too bad. It’s either that or work stories, and no one, myself included, feels like hearing those.

Today’s subject is poop. I realize that he is on a liquid diet (one rather unlike those of his irish ancestors), but nothing is quite so daunting as facing a diaper full of a multicolored stew. It’s especially appalling if it’s taken me a while to decipher his grunts and cries, and he’s managed to spread the goo all about himself, his clothes, and everything near him. He is a poop artist and the world is his canvas.

We have been developing a rudimentary form of communication. He cries, and I begin to question him as to why. For example:

       David: (Pathetic moaning)
       Me: What’s wrong sweetheart?
       David: (Face scrunched up, pathetic moaning upgrades to soft wail)
       Me: Are you hungry?
       David: (Hits my eye with his razor sharp claw, continues to moan)
       Me: David, please don’t hit daddy in the-
       David: (Puts his fist in my mouth, and stares at me, whimpering)
       Me: (After removing his hand, with only minimal cuts along my gums) Mucho pee pee? Mucho pee pee?
       David (Apparently understanding the first time, rolls onto his side and places his butt near my face. Wailing continues)
       Me: What is that? Old cheese? Oh god… did you?
       David: (Stops for a moment, tears welling in his eyes)
       Me: Mucho poo poo? Eres un poposo? Are you my little poop monster?
       David: (Smiles, punches me in the head, grabs my hair and pulls)

It was a Poo Stain. And colorful. It must have been like a quart of it. And of course, the second I start undoing the diaper, he rams his feet directly toward the primordial ooze, like a deity unsatisfied with his creation. So I grab his legs with one hand, and try to mop up the… okay, I’m running out of colorful metaphors… shit.

The whole ordeal takes just a few minutes, but leaves an irrevocable scar. On me. So gross. I mean, I know that his diet is directly influencing the nature of the… grossness, but, I mean, after thousands of years of human evolution, would it be too much to ask that maybe it come out in sort of pellets… I mean, not like Milk Duds, that might hurt him, but maybe like a warm Tootsie Roll. Something easy.

And another thing: Why is it that he can’t multitask? I mean, I’ll toss a couple pee rags out, and he’s fine. But when I change his poo pants, he waits until he’s cleaned, baby wiped, and powdered and then goes nuts with number one. I mean, what the hell is the deal there? He feels uncomfortable soiling himself while he is himself, already soiled?

Okay, enough of the nappies. I have one more anecdote to share.

So, I’ve been calling him “Monkey” since before he was born. Initially Flor was livid with me, insisting that he was a beautiful baby (and before she’d even seen him, no less). And then he was born, albeit without a tail, and indeed, aside from boobs, he was the most beautiful thing I’d seen. And then I noticed all the hair on his upper back. And lower back. And the back of his ears. And his eyebrows, while still defining themselves, are already threatening to become one.

No son of mine will bear the name of unibrow.

So one day, I was bored, and he was distracted by something shiny and/or noisy. I grabbed him gently by the ears and pulled them forward. Lo and behold I found a balding chimpanzee staring back at me.

I love him. I just wish he’d smell a little less like a broken fridge during a summer heat wave.

I think I was handling the adjustment quite well, thank you very much. At least I could find the humor at the bottom of a dirty diaper. That’s something, anyway. The next post was one of those “Tag” things that we did to all our friends that seems to have not fully made the transition over to Facebook. I’m only going to include some of them, as I find them amusing.

The Random Tag Blogger Strikes Again

October 25th, 2007

3:56 a.m.

1) I hope to be living in Mexico next year and writing my books.

2) My first adult relationship was with a woman 19 years my senior.

Her 1st husband was 19 years her senior.

3) I am more or less happily married (without the married part), but I’m kind of terrified that I’ll wind up a widower and in 11 years time, dating someone half my age.

4) My first encounter with someone very special to me, and very important in shaping the nature of the man I was to become, involved him telling me to pick him up and spin him around.

5) I own both seasons of Thundercats on DVD (all 4 sets). I can now justify this by virtue of being a father.

6) This is my 100th blog post.

7) Sometimes I miss my friends so very much. Both friends from long ago, and friends I’ve just recently slipped through my fingers.

8) I was a father twice. But one of my children I was fated never to meet, as his mother ended both the pregancy and the relationship. (Both happened within weeks of meeting the man she would leave me for).

Side note: She was my employee when we got together, and when she transferred to another restaurant, she left me for her employee.

Addendum: When that location closed, I was forced to absorb their employees into mine, and so her new boyfriend became my line cook. I hate people.

9) Some day I would love to be able to fly out everyone special from every time in my life to meet my wife and son. I still suffer from the Bi-Polar Bears, but any of you who have known me would be able to see that I am, at least on some instinctual level, actually happy now. What a trip.

BONUS MATERIAL:

[Fed] and I were once considering sending out junk mail with the following important notice:

YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON A GOAT!

See? I can do lighthearted! Also, wow. I thought that I’d be living in Mexico by 2008…. And speaking of things that I just cannot let go:

101 Best Ways to Romanticize The Past

November 6th, 2007

3:25 a.m.

Okay, so we are on Blog Number 101. I would like to thank everybody who reads this (all 5 of you) and for doing so often. Just a few numbers:

Out of 100 blogs, I received 82 comments, 41 Kudos, and 2666 views. I almost feel special.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a ridiculous number of views per post. Maybe it’s just because I’m only up to 700 with this one, and the writing is far more consistent and generally better, but I’m a little jealous of my numbers on MySpace, not that they were good for anything. Also, I want Kudos!

Things I Hate

January 15th, 2008

3:12 p.m.

A Two-Party Political System

Christians who feel persecuted (Try being eaten by lions, then complain to me!), and who are, in fact, the most judgemental, hypocritcal, abhorrent wastes of life, seeking out ways in which we could make the world a better place, and destroying them (See also: Soulless corporations).

People who think that invading Iraq and building a border fence are good moves.

People who still find Reefer Madness to be educational (but not in the obvious, “Goverment Gone Wild” way).

People who say Bill Clinton ruined this country and George Bush is fixing it.

People who use the word “synergy” and mean it.

People who cannot accept that artists need a wife and a mistress.

My dad, for being an asshole and not even responding by post after I mailed him a letter announcing the birth of his grandson, and trying to reassure him I was not after any of the thousands of dollars in back child support that he never paid.

Not being able to put DVD library onto iTunes and my iPod.

Having to work 11 straight days, even if two of them were only meetings and, combined, lasted less than 4 hours- I had to put on pants: Not a day off.

Not having numbered these so I could tell if this is an appreciably large collection of gripes or merely minor bitchfest.

Customers who think by yelling at me or my employees, I will somehow change my mind (also related, people who bang on the door after close and demand to be granted entrance. Fuck you! We have had these hours for 2 1/2 years. Quit trying to be the last customer before close, because I can almost guarantee you that you won’t be).

Thinking up more things to be angry at.

… And yes, I did speak to my mother today, why?

Now, back to the Minkey!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14th, 2008

6:27 p.m.

So last night my son stabbed me in the eye with a Valentine’s Day card. I went to the ER today (apparently this did not qualify for the $20 Urgent Care visit), and was told I had a Corneal Abrasion. I think I said something like that last night. Missed today at work because the pain is unreal. I still can’t really see. Still love the minkey, though, but please, please please NO CARDS! He’s cut off until he develops motor control.

Now he just leaves them laying around everywhere. Best to just avoid them, honestly.

The next post skips ahead a bit until September of ’08. I’d left my job at McDonald’s a few months earlier and… well, let Young Batmart explain:

Back From The Dead

September 17th, 2008

11:57 p.m.

So it’s been forever since I’ve written anything. Lots of stuff going on. Kind of.

I quit my job at McDonald’s almost 5 months ago, leaving due to a nasty case of ethics. The new owners at of our restaurant had, in the first week alone, fired all but one of our senior citizen lobby attendants, dismissed a developmentally handicapped lobby attendant / prep person, and let the Store Manager go as well.

They then began to terrorize remaining employees and managers (aside from myself), under the theory, we’d rather fire you, but if you quit, we’re not liable for unemployment. This is a disturbingly ubiquitous trend, which does not seem to have abated over these past six and a half years. I only stayed around for the time I did in a futile attempt to try and shield my people from this harassment. But as that didn’t work, and they cut my pay, began charging me for my health insurance, and insisting on transferring me to another location, I said enough was enough and left. No point in staying if I couldn’t do anything to help, and was getting screwed over in the process.

I figured it would be okay, as Flor, Minkey and I would be leaving for Mexico in a couple months, so I didn’t worry about finding a new job, figuring I could finally spend some time with my son. When we found out that we wouldn’t be getting the money Flor’s brother owed us, I began to worry a bit. But we already had tickets to go to Seattle to visit my family in mid June for the Minkey’s 1st Birthday, so I didn’t see a huge point in getting a job, only to start and then be gone for a week.

So we got back, and I slowly began trying to get jobs that I was interested in. They were less interested in me. I wan’t worried. Something would come through. Maybe the money from the brother in law would arrive.

Not so much.

August came, and I updated my resume on Monster, and immediately began receiving calls for phone interviews. For restaurant management jobs. That wanted me to have a car. In the Bay Area. What the hell?

And so we come to September. A little more desperate now. No one calling about my resume on Monster. My best shot is now a sports bar opening in a couple weeks. But to pass the time, I’m housecleaning. For those of you who didn’t know me 8-10 years ago, I used to do that. I vowed “Never Again.” The beauty of that is that now we need to pay for daycare again, and after factoring that in, I’m only bringing in like $10/day.

Also, in Monkey News:

So David can walk now. I left him on the floor in the bedroom and walked out into the backyard. He was about 30 seconds behind me, and when he emerged into the great outdoors, he had a neon green duffle bag around his neck, wearing it like a WWF championship belt (with neck strap) and holding an empty cranberry juice bottle in one hand, its cap in the other. He’s managed to dislodge a sock, and so it was like this that he came into view. I immediately ran inside and grabbed my camera and began taking photos of him that I will use to humiliate him when he’s getting ready to try to breed. It wasn’t until that he fell forward a bit that I noticed something.

Whether it was his carefree smile, or two rosy cheeks staring back at me, I realized that he was missing a key piece of clothing. I ran back inside, retracing his probable steps (and looking under furniture) until I came back to the bedroom, the exact spot where I’d left him. There it was, his diaper, laying on the floor next to the bed, looking as it had when I’d last seen it on him, save for the right side strap, which appeared battered and frayed and otherwise mangled, barely hanging on to the back of the diaper.

You should have heard the screams of protest when I firmly attached it back on him. Maybe he didn’t like the Duct Tape.

For those of you wondering, yes, I did find employment later that year. I went to work at Blondie’s Pizza in Berkeley. I then stayed at that job for nearly six years, until I felt that it was time to move on. And whereas my old blog sort of fell off after I quit my job, this new blog was born from the ashes of my most recent employment.

There are just a couple more snippets to go, mainly introducing things that I am still dealing with today.

Sometimes Life Is Not Enough

February 19th, 2009

12:09 a.m.

Sorry I haven’t written anything here for hella. I kinda got hooked on the Twitter a little bit. Have been enjoying my new job at Blondie’s Pizza.

Oh- getting married on March 13th in a civil ceremony in Oakland, with a nice little gathering at my place on the 15th. Anyone living in the area or willing to pay for their own travel accommodations and lodging is welcome to attend. We are registered at iTunes.

There was no gathering. Fed and his brother were the only two people not related to either Flor or myself that made the effort to attend. Of course, one of the people who did attend our wedding was our beautiful daughter. She seemed thrilled.

And that brings us to our final post. Will you miss A Blast From The Past as much as I will? Actually, to be honest, I’m a little relieved not to have to keep reading through all of the old blogs. You guys are seriously getting the best. Out of 121 posts, I’ve only shared 43, and most of those have been edited to make me look at least somewhat sane. Oh, and then there’s the bonus stuff, I guess. Still, that’s only around a third of what I wrote. And I went through it all, just for you guys.

Hug Me, I’m Goddamn Cuddly!

April 13th, 2009

10:43 p.m.

Tell me if you can figure this out.

She’s 19, lives at home, takes care of her infant brother by using my computer and watching my cable on my tv all goddamn day, eats all the food in the house, quadrupling our grocery budget, has a mother who buys her clothes, prepaid cards so she can call her friends in Mexico (when she’s not using Windows Messenger (which is never)), drinks MY BEER, makes it impossible for me to enjoy my days off, as I can no longer roam about the house without pants, isn’t working, isn’t going to school (in the interests of full disclosure, she’ll be starting an ESL class tomorrow, but that’s it!), refuses to leave the house, is afraid of making friends, even though she can easily overcome the language barrier with a frighteningly large proportion of the populace, as there are plenty of latinos here, and a large chunk of gringos speaking bad Spanish.

And here it comes…

When I was her age, I was busting my ass cleaning houses, helping take care of a kid over half my age (which was one of the only satisfying things to come out of those years). I had to watch the woman I love succumb to drug addiction, and lose everything. Again and agan. I was watching the worst in humanity that doesn’t involve murder. All of this culminated in a nervous breakdown.

And she’s stressed out.

We are getting along much better now. I think that motherhood has mellowed my daughter just a little.

So that’s it! A Blast From The Past has come to an end!

Thank you for spending your Thursdays with me, and I’ll see you all again real soon!

-Tex

At least HE enjoyed these!
At least HE enjoyed these!
After Dark

After Dark: A Blast From The Past, Part Four

When I last left you, I had just become a father. Let’s look in and see how that was working out for me:

Updates from the Fatherland

August 23rd, 2007

3:23 a.m.

So, he’s 8 weeks old today, but will be two months old on monday.

Stop and think about that: WTF? I think we need a new system of time measurement. Says the guy who thinks the metric system will destroy the universe.

Sorry I haven’t written anything for, like, 2 months, but, well, I’ve been kinda busy. Turns out that babies don’t much care if you’re working 10+ hour days, and would like to try to sleep a little before doing it again. But his mother has been more than fantastic, and honestly, I haven’t had to wake up more than a few times. Also, I’ve only changed half a diaper. I got it started, and was replaced by a professional before I could screw it all up.

For awhile, I was pretty sure he hated me. He always seemed to cry whenever I got near him. I came to realize this was less because he hated me, and more because I have inactive mammary glands. But now as he gets older, I am able to amuse him. He still cries on whim, but I’m trying to help him learn to communicate. To date he has actually spoken these words: “Okay”, “Hi”, “Chin”, and “Fuck You”. I may have to begin editing what I say while at home. Some people have said that he’s too young to actually be able to speak, but I would like to point out that he was in the womb for an extended stay, and nothing speeds up development like unlimited resources. I just wrote a sentence explaining that he was incapable of real usage, and he was only repeating recent sounds, which in and of itself is still fairly remarkable, but then I realized that he is making those  “noises” in context. Whether or not he understands what they mean is beyond the scope of my experience. But the fact that he has identified these sounds, and is trying to make them as seems appropriate, is something I do find fascinating.

He also makes an assortment of guttural sounds, indicative of some kind of attempt at speech. Unfortunately, his mouth is still to unsuitable to most forms of speech. At this stage, his cute giganto-cheeks are huge muscles used, in conjunction with his tongue and gum stubs to extract sustenance. My point being that his tongue gets in the way.

He also drools a lot. Both his mother and my mother say it’s indicative of pre-teething. God, he’s not even a season old, and he’s trying to grow teeth. I haven’t taken a tape measure to him yet, but he’s gotta be over 2 feet now. And we weighed him a week ago, and he was already at 21 lbs.

To be fair, I am still fascinated by the things he does, but they are usually not “Stop the presses! I have to tell the world!” interesting anymore. It’s really easy to fall down the rabbit hole of babies, but by the time they’re doing all the things you couldn’t wait for them to be able to start doing, you’re more concerned with getting them to actually do them on a semi-regular basis. Not really the accolades that they were expecting, just a higher standard to live up to.

Nothing prepares you

August 26th, 2007

2:44 a.m.

So, I was fairly nervous about being a dad before David was actually born. There had been two women before in my life with whom I’d wanted to have children: The first was already a mother, and didn’t want to have another baby, and the other was a psychotic Panamanian whose great aspiration was to become a stripper. She actually was pregnant, but terminated the pregnancy right after she’d convinced me that being a father wouldn’t be so terrible. Of course, I’ve always said that if I had a son, his name would be David, whereas she’d always dreamt of calling him Amir. Somewhere on a Playstation 2 memory card, I have a create-a-character in MVP 2004 called Amir Baxter. Of course, I no longer have either a Playstation 2 or MVP 2004, so I haven’t had much of a chance to resist that.

I haven’t really mentioned it, but the loss of my son kinda messed me up. I’d had another close call, where an ex had told me she thought she might be pregnant, and flippantly, I quoted “The Doors” and gave my support for her single motherhood or choice to abort. I sort of go back and forth on it. Or, at least, I did. It’s a little late now.

I mean, I suffer from Bi-Polar Disorder, and there is a chance that it can be passed on. I’m not sure I know how to be a dad. I never knew mine, and, I’m sort a creature of self-interest. So when she told me she was pregnant, I naturally freaked the hell out. I wasn’t even sure I really liked this chick. I mean, she was totally into me, but in a scary way, and, really, aside from the convenience, I wasn’t terribly motivated to stay with her. A short while later, her “visitor” arrived, and I began to seriously think about cashing in while I was still ahead. But her love of me was too overwhelming, and I began to fall a little for her.

And then the night came when I did. Drunkenly, and without caution, I pollinated the Flower, and promptly passed the hell out. A short while afterwards, she informed me that this time it was not a drill. I don’t believe that I have ever uttered the words, “Are you sure?” so many times in so short a time.

Suddenly seeing my life coming to an ignoble close, I proffered the thought that perhaps we might just take care of this small medical issue, remove the parasite, and call it a do-over. For a month I tried everything to persuade her to come around to my way of thinking. I’d stressed the dangers of my bi-polar and perhaps exaggerated the probability of its hereditary transference. I beat out her Latina Catholic arguments.I won every argument on a rational level. Have you seen the pictures of my son?

I learned a valuable lesson that month: Nothing can withstand the beating of the biological clock. It was like a Poe story, only more frightening. I was seriously thinking about cutting and running, hoping that, if her arguments for love were true, she would solve my problem if I just left. But then I realized it would leave me with a child in Mexico that I would never get to know (For anyone thinking, “Wait! If you wanted to find him enough, you’d have been able.”: You don’t actually know me very well, do you? Or my Superhuman powers of apathy.). And I thought of the father that I have never known. I took a deep breath, cursed God for his amazingly similar sense of humor, and plunged wholeheartedly into the world of denial.

I managed to avoid most of her prenatal checkups, one of the few benefits of slowly working yourself to death. I also tried to keep her family at bay. I already hate meeting new people in general, and more than them, I hate new people to whom I must be nice and about whom I must pretend I give a shit.

Shortly after the beginning of the new year, we discovered that, according to something on the ultrasounds, he was at risk for Down Syndrome. Here was my way out! I argued that knowingly bringing into this world a child with such a disadvantage is not only irresponsible, but morally reprehensible, a sadistic act. I was told that he would be loved no matter what, and I agreed, but asked if it was fair to knowingly subject someone, especially someone we supposedly were to love to the taunts and mockery and general humiliation he would undoubtedly receive. There was a surefire way to know: an amniocentesis. But this was a somewhat risky procedure, and as we would not be hitting the reset button on her womb, moderately irrelevant.

I would like to point out that when pregnant, apparently most woman can become insatiably horny, and if you are unconcerned about disease, this provides an opportunity to dispense with the raincoat. Of course, from the moment she began showing, even slightly, I became unable to think of her as a sexual creature, and even though she has a daughter in Mexico, she was now somebody’s mother.

I slowly came around to the notion of parenthood and began trying to interact with David. By the time I could feel him moving, he was kicking fairly strongly, and seemingly enjoyed heavy metal by headphones. I spoke to him from time to time. He began kicking and punching me in the face, and although every one of the “experts” said he was just trying to interact with the point of contact he kind of remembered, I knew what the deal was.

So finally, after months of trying, she quit working. It amazed me how much faster my money was disappearing. I’d kind of been hoping that she’d given birth at work so that we could have gotten more money up until the end. Also it would have been an almost 100% chance that I could attend the birth.

42 weeks. He took after his daddy in that fashion. It got to the point where, on Tuesday the 26th, we’d set up an appointment to induce labor on the 28th, pretty much ensuring that he’d be born on June 29th. It seemed that God was trying to be funny again. But, despite my best efforts to do him in, it turns out that my son loved me. Wednesday morning, about 10:30am, her contractions began. It was a couple of hours later when they were serious enough to merit the mad dash to the hospital. Her water broke at 2:00pm, during the 1st examination to determine how far dilated she was. Mixed in with the amniotic fluid was his meconium (think baby’s 1st poo). Apparently when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go, even if you haven’t started breathing yet.

And then it happened. At 8:03pm, Wednesday, June 27th, 2007, I witnessed the scariest thing I have ever seen: My son’s squished head being forced out of an area that, at least the last time I had seen it, was really far to small to accommodate it. I realize I will take some flak for this, but I found the entire process profoundly unsettling, extremely disturbing, and not in the least bit natural. It was finished at 8:10.

Everyone kept saying how big he was, but, well, he was still significantly smaller than me, so I was not impressed. 11 lbs, 14 oz., 22 inches long. They had him under the heat lamps, and were having difficulty getting him to breathe on his own, as he had most likely over-developed himself while procrastinating in utero, and begun trying to breathe. I watched his head slowly begin to reflate as I accompanied the nurse up to the NICU.

He seemed so weak, So helpless. I tried my best to stay out of the way and ask intelligent questions, but then they needed to do something which they thought might freak me out (intubate him, I believe), and suggested I go back down and take care of Mom. And so began the night of the gigantic pace.

It was a couple of days before I got the chance to hold him. I was debilitatingly nervous. I felt that if I was going to drop him or something, I’d rather that it not be in a hospital where they could see how terrible of a father I’d turned out to be.

A few days later, we got to take him home.

He cries a lot now, and generally, pretty much his current M.O. was described in the previous blog.

But I have made a real connection with my son. I’ve been able to sing him to sleep. I mean, most of the time, he prefers Mom over Dad, but I’m okay with that. When we’re playing the “chin” game, or I’m reading him chapters from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and he’s hanging off my every word…

I have begun to live my life again, finally breaking free of the continuous holding pattern I’ve been in for a decade. I still think God’s got a juvenile sense of humor, but as it’s mine as well, I cannot fault Him for it, merely feel disappointed that the Creator thinks this is all funny.

For true and for real, though, I have never felt more alive, as when I am gazing into his eyes, and he into mine, and it’s like we’ve known each other all his life, and neither of us can remember a life that was before him.

Wow. Sorry that went on for so long, but it was nice, at least for me, to take that stroll down amnesia lane. I’ve just got one more reflection on fatherhood that I’d like to leave you with this evening:

B.P.D.- Bi-Polar Disorder or Battle Point Drive?

September 4th, 2007

2:57 a.m.

This is not a new revelation. It is, however, I believe, worth mentioning.

When I was 15, I’d planned on coming to California the summer after my freshman year. Life came up, and I put off my plans. Events coalesced, I met people, did favors, and set myself up for the summer of ’97. I met someone, fell in love, dropped out of school, and started working for myself. I had a, for lack of a better term, wife, and children (though not my own, I was actually received, as I’d still had fears of passing on my madness). It was the happiest time of my life. And then the Drug came in. Call it my penance, my learning curve, my pre-paid purgatory or damnation, it really doesn’t matter. It all amounted to the same. My life took a marked detour, and I began learning… something else.

There came a time, amidst the hell, when, faced with utter failure, I decided it was now the time to go to California. I’d written a poem just a short while before when I’d thought that both my “brothers” were leaving to different parts of the world beyond. One to Central Washington, and the other to California. One went, one did not. I got to Central, with all that I could carry, and planned to hitchhike down to Cali. But I was struck down with a fevered illness, and forced to return, to face the ruins of what I’d tried to leave behind. And events played out. And the fairy-tale gone horribly awry ended.

I took a few preparatory steps toward my new life, but was still held back by chains of pain I’d tried to leave behind. New loves came and went, people that I loved passed away. And then I got a phone call from the other brother. He was finally moving down to California, and thought I should come along. Whether he was uncertain of this new life, and wanted some token of “home”, or guided by my fates is unimportant. I finally came to Cali.

I met a girl, under certain circumstances, some familiar (at work), some new (residential status), and tried to get my life back to the family ideal. I’d like to think that we were in love, but it’s easier to think she was just using me for something I was born with. She got pregnant. I lost my son. Events played out that I had seen during the darker days. My world collapsed and I reverted.

I began again, following the friend asylum pattern, established after the nightmare. Got a job at the same company (more or less) as before, and fell in love again, and again, and once more, and then a few more times for good measure. Nothing worked out how I’d planned it, and it felt like High School once again. It’s like my life was rewinding, queuing up events to the moment where they’d once diverged.

I met someone who was madly in love with me. We didn’t even speak the same language (I had been prepared for this by a month-long practice course at the beginning of my job). It was like my life was mixing and matching people and events to hurriedly reposition me. Within 9 months of starting my new job, I was back to the position I had held at the last. Hmm… okay that part is a new revelation.

Then, 2 months shy of 9 years from the DAY, I began dating her. We dated for a while, and then, due to a rather bizarre set of events leaving me without a home, we began cohabitating. All the while I was fighting it. And then she became pregnant. I was still devastated at the loss of my son the year before, and did all I could to hold back destiny. But one should never underestimate the curmudgeonocity of God. The child was born two days shy of 10 years from the DAY.

I am now where I left off 9 long years ago. I have completed the journey I’d known that I must undertake since I was 15 years old. I have a wife, a son. And my life is hiccoughing out the last of the repetitions. I suppose it will be down to: A) Dealing with my BPD to avoid destroying everything positive I have built, and/or B) Beginning to write the story that I was, apparently put through Hell to as preparation for. Like the Divine Comedy only not nearly as rad.

And you want to know something? None of this really matters any more. When he grabs my finger and squeezes, smiles at me with all his face, and speaks to me in his unique mixture of language and monkey-grunts, I am lost within the moment, living in the present, and realize that, as far my day-to-day OCD goes, there’s never been anything else so perfect.

Thanks for sharing in these memories with me. I know these were a little philosophical, so if you’d like something to cleanse your palate, and inspire a chuckle or two, why don’t you check out these bonus Blasts From The Past: I hate Comcast!, If you are not where I say you are, and Superman: Doomsday: WTF?!!.

Have a wonderful evening!

After Dark

After Dark: A Blast From The Past Presents: “If you’re not where I say you are…”

My mother and aunt came to visit shortly after my son was born in 2007. I knew that I would be unable to get out of work to meet them, so I had to send instructions on how to get to me. Of course, now that we’re in 2015, this is a little outdated, as the AirBART has been replaced, and the prices have increased. All commentary remains valid, however.

If you are not where I say you are, then you have FUBAR’d the situation and are on your own.

July 2nd, 2007

1:42 a.m.

There are AirBART stops outside of both Terminal One and Two. It costs $3.00/person. Exact Change! (What did he mean, ‘Exact Change?’)
Take it to the One Place It Goes (unless you get on at Terminal One, at which point, take it to the Other Place It Goes- The Oakland Coliseum/ Oakland Airport Station).

When you get there, disembark the AirBART (which is, in case you do not remember, actually a bus), and thank the driver. They love this. Especially if you decide to personalize your gratitude in epic poetry. With everyone else behind you waiting to get off. Seriously.

Enter the Bart Station and approach a vending machine. Place $4.20 in the machine and select the option on the right side of the screen indicating that you wish to purchase multiple tickets. Which you do. You want two (2) $2.10 tickets. I would say that you could simply purchase them separately, but you don’t want to anger people by appearing that you don’t know what you are doing, and taking forever while not doing it. Remember: This is Oakland. And you both are VERY WHITE.

Once you each have your properly priced fare ($2.10) ticket, approach the entrance gates. They look like turnstiles without anything that turns (and, to be honest, not so much with the style). Place your ticket in the slot at the front of the gate (before doing this, please make sure that there is a green arrow signifying that it is being used for entrance and not exit. Again, the WHITE/OUT OF TOWNER THING. The mechanism in the gate will appear to eat your ticket. Do not be alarmed. It will appear momentarily at on the top of the gate. Take it from its new resting place, move through the gate, and off to the side, out of the flow of foot traffic, and put it somewhere safe where you will remember it (A word of caution- you may want to keep it away from anything magnetized, and that black strip along the side may be affected).

Now you may choose to take an escalator or stairs. It really doesn’t matter which you choose. Neither is correct. But if you take the escalator, please keep your luggage in front of you, and ensure that it does not exceed the width of your body. Be aware of which side of the escalator is the passing lane. Please do not aggravate the hoodlums (You may want to lean mostly over the railing to allow those in an extreme hurry to pass you without the indignity of social nicety).

Now you are on the elevated platform. Hooray! There are screens on both sides of the platform that announce which trains are arriving, and when, along with mindless drivel that no one actually pays attention to, except to comment, “I don’t care! When’s my (expletive deleted) train (expletive deleted) coming. (expletive deleted)!” You are looking for the Richmond Line. No, you are not actually going to Richmond, despite what the woman might try to tell you later this week. Richmond is evil. We do not go to Richmond. But there is time for horror stories later. Right now we need to get you to Berkeley.

Okay. Have you identified which side of the platform your train will be loading from? No? Keep looking. Let me know when you find it…

Did you enjoy that? Then come back this evening for A Blast From The Past, Part Four.

-Tex

After Dark

After Dark: A Blast From The Past, Part Three

Welcome to the third chapter in this sprawling saga. When we last parted, I had officially discovered that I was going to be a father, and decided to cope with it the best way that I knew how: Poetry. Now we’ll fast forward a couple of months, and welcome in 2007, wherein the fetus has a name for either gender, and I get a little philosophical:

General Mayhem and Confusion

January 23rd, 2007

7:33 p.m.

Sorry it’s been so long since the last installment in the continuing adventures of The Batmart. This one isn’t going to be fantastic… Just need to start getting myself in the habit of writing again. It’s been too long… I think it’s getting to be time to put down some things… you know… for posterity.

I’ll be 30 in less than three years, assuming I don’t bite it before December. I don’t think I’m prepared to cope with that. Maybe even less than I was able to cope with 25.

I need to make time to start writing again. That’s my only hope out of where I’m at now. I have no other skills, save maybe photography. I gambled everything years ago on that talent, and as the years go by, I see I may have been shortsighted in my approach. Not about my gift, but rather about the time it would take to come to fruition, and about how long I’d have to stick around (not entirely the same point), and all of the other things that have popped up along the way. It never mattered to me that I was fucking myself over financially, putting myself in ill social standing, or at odds with the law. I was supposed to be dead by now. And the Bi-Polar Bears haven’t helped. It’s not that I see things in Black and White, but rather all of the extreme shades in between.

Now I have the feeling like I’ll be around for fucking ever, and like my great grandfather, outlive my savings and my ability to contribute anything to anybody. Of course, he had to live into his golden years, whereas the previous statement is self-applicable even today, aside from the “for fucking ever” part, obviously.

Now that I’m arriving at a point in my life where my word would be a useful thing to have in the financial world, I find I’ve no ability to use it- they all took their chances years ago, and even when I tried my best amidst my second chance, I still managed to fuck it all up again.

And so my only hope is to do what I do best- do what I was born for, stop sitting on my ass, and molding away in job for which I am ill-suited. And even then, might I not become like so many of greats- impoverished until my poor health and chronic misery consume me, only to have my redemption come years after my passing, when all the world might shudder at loss of one they would have never known, but for the volumes of sad and lonely photographs and stories, songs and poetry discovered by someone cleaning out wherever I had lain them.

And I wonder, would David William or Jennivee Isabel even care?

Or would they think of me forever as the failure that condemned them?

I forgot just how cheery a gentleman I used to be. The reason I included the whole post was to show that I’ve been saying I needed to be writing for almost half the time that I have actually wanted to be a writer. Also, how sad is it that I haven’t uploaded any new photographs in years? And now that I’ve got so much backlog, I don’t know that I’ll ever get it done. Suddenly, the amount of things I should be doing with my days of leisure are drastically increasing.

Out Here We Is Stoned… Immaculate

January 27th, 2007

2:50 a.m.

…I’m feeling pretty good right now. I still can’t feel the demon monkey dancing, but maybe my hands are trying to keep me from freaking the hell out.

My mom is coming down at the end of February. And again when the demon monkey arrives. ***THOSE OF YOU WHO KNOW OF THE DEMON MONKEY AND WHAT IT IS, PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT UPON IT IN THIS FORUM AS THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO READ THIS, THAT, FOR NECESSARY REASONS, CANNOT KNOW YET***

“I’ll always be a Word Man. Better than a Bird Man.” [-Jim Morrison]

Biiiiiiiiiird! Maaaaaaaaaan!………… [-Birdman]

Oh, having to keep the knowledge of my love child a secret from the world (or at least, my co-workers at McDonald’s). It took the longest time for me to actually feel my son moving around inside of my girlfriend. When I finally did, I can’t say that it made things better. There are certain things that Sea Monkeys should never be able to do. Just saying.

Greeting Card I’d Like To See

February 2nd, 2007

10:14 p.m.

Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
I knocked up your daughter…

That’s it. I’m really sorry.

By February, it appears that my usual sense of humor had returned. I had been trying to figure out what I would say if I ever met my girlfriend’s father (who totally looks like a Mexican Sean Connery!).

The refund from dispute went to card #5973,

March 2nd, 2007

10:28 p.m.

…It reminded me of a walk Dave and I took one night stumbling drunkenly back in Emeryville after leaving [Fuddrucker’s].

Although, to be fair, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen blood gushing like that. It took months for the drops to wash out of the sidewalk.

I’m not going to give any other context.

Shut The Hell Up

March 27th, 2007

11:44 a.m.

Like some of my other friends, I have been re-reading the Harry Potter series in anticipation of the release of the final book. I am on the 5th, now, at the part when Harry receives the “badly wrapped package roughly the size of a paperback book” from Sirius.

Shortly before 9/11 I left my hometown and moved into the city (not the city proper, mind you, but still…). Every time I spoke to my mother or grandmother, they told me to make sure I called my great grandmother. And on the rare occasions I would come over for a visit, would, they would ask if I had gone to see her. I did. A couple times.
Here’s the thing: She was born in 1912. By the time I was born, she was already a senior citizen. But I never really saw her like that. She always had so much energy, so much life, that we all sort of seemed to take her existence for granted. Or at least I did. But by the time I had moved away, her age had begun to creep up upon her, or rather, overtake her exponentially for all those timeless years. She had begun to look and act old.
Maybe it was due to my youth, even as obsessed with death as it had been, but I became unable to be near her. Here I was, caught up firmly in the prime of my youth, and there she was, quickly fading into twilight. It offended my very nature to be near her- not for lack of love, no, she was someone I will always hold most dear, but something physical, as if my body was unable to face its own demise by fading- and so I did my best to avoid her, never really believing she’d be gone.
And so it was that in the summer of ’02, she finally sickened beyond cure and passed away. The day it happed, I was off [redacted, because this is a family blog]
Every year as far back as I could remember, we had had a family Fish Fry. All the cousins in the area getting together and eating and drinking an generally being a kind-of redneck-close-knit family.
That year it was a wake. Most of my Gram’s kids had quit smoking, but the smell from my own, enticed them to come over, and breathe in the 2nd hand comfort.

    I remember at the funeral, looking at her face. It was the exact same except for the utter lack of resemblance to her at all.

And even knowing all of this, how much I wish I could have taken the time to just stop by and say hello- what tears me up inside is that I still don’t know of what we might have spoken.

Once in a while, the loss of my great-grandmother still hits me like the day I lost her, and I am reduced to blubbering while my wife and son look on in concern. I touched on this is the days leading up to my trip to Washington in December, but I’d forgotten a few things that I had remembered when the event was still closer to me.

 

Welcome to the Batmart (we’ve got fun and games)

April 7th, 2007

11:03 p.m.

It’s funny how “content” sneaks up on you. Not, complacent- content. Like knowing you’re doing the right thing, even though it makes absolutely no sense at the time.

I wasn’t quite happy yet, but a feeling of serenity had descended upon me, like succumbing to the inevitable. I was still about two and a half months out from fatherhood, and it looks like I was handling it with a modicum of grace.

A turning point

June 22nd, 2007

9:08 p.m.

So that moment has arrived once again where the feast has been laid before me and I must but choose a course upon which to dine. Each with its own flavor and temptation, and yet some, [much] easier to digest when I was younger and less ulcer-ridden. That’s not actually a sentence. At least not a good one. I hate double entendres.
I am faced with a career in hospitality, which, for those of you who know me and must realize, as do I, is not compatible with my curmudgeoncy. I have more responsibilities arriving soon, though, to his credit, he seems reluctant to join my company. And I know in my heart that my dreams are reaching out to me in some kind of death grasp, shouting “…Now or never!” Or maybe it’s just Dave.
More now than ever, I am confident in my ability, but as equally unsure as to how I will display it. No one …reads poetry anymore. Did they ever? I mean, by choice? I have a book within me that I know that I must write, if I am to ever write anything original again, and yet I know to write it I must throw myself into the past and relive the [things] I barely made it through the first time. And to do this I have to take the time to… I don’t know… 

How am I supposed to throw away a career I hate which right now is paying ALL the bills, and gives me health insurance, to launch myself, sink or swim onto a path which all odds tell me I cannot follow to the Happily Ever After? I can’t f*** up anymore. I passed by my chance for one last Do-Over, and now it’s forever.
The cost of following my passions is also a monetary concern, beyond the bills. I need a camera. Time. I need time. A pause button. All of this…  makes me miss the days when [redacted because this is a family blog] was my daily goal, when I could just allow my depression to consume me and treat with disregard the machinations of my life.

I…

Wow, have I really been that broken of a record? It’s kind of sad that it took me seven and a half years to do anything about it. As you can all see, that was dated five days before the birth of my son. I wonder what happens next?
She’s Having Contractions
June 27th, 2007
11:43 a.m.
She’s having contractions. More News as available.

-Batmart

The Monkey Has Arrived
June 29th, 2007
9:15 p.m.
He was born Wednesday night at 8:10, weighing in at 11lbs, 14oz, 22 inches.

I’ll have pictures later.

For now, I must sleep.

I wasn’t being overly dramatic: I hadn’t actually gotten more than a few hours of sleep since the morning of the 27th, and I was running on fumes. Flor wasn’t really doing that much better. So we have gone through the (hidden) courtship of my wife, and her subsequent pregnancy, and come out the other side. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I’ll end us now on a message to myself from November, 2006:
The End Of Days
November 13, 2006
8:39 p.m.
As the sun goes down upon one moment in my life, the cold winter begins within the next. The leaves are falling from the tree of my youth, and things are growing in the darkness which I have long feared would come. “She’s a in John Hurt way.”

“Oh Jeffrey….”

After Dark

After Dark: A Blast From The Past Presents: “I hate Comcast”

As a little #throwbackthursday treat for everyone, I’ve got a bonus Blast From The Past to get you ready for the sentimental stuff coming up this evening. With no further ado, I present the following Epic Rant to you in its original glory. The language is a little salty, so if you’re offended by that sort of thing, I invite you to read something else.

I hate Comcast

May 5th, 2007

6:28 p.m.

Comcastic is a dirty word.

I thought I had difficulty finding quality employees in my line of work.Turns out I having a harder time finding a single quality employee of the monopolistic cable provider. Such bullshit!

Here’s the deal: I ordered MLB Extra Innings on the 25th of April. The 25th! As you may be able to discern from the date, this story will not end well. I also ordered an upgrade to a DVR receiver so that I can actually watch the games I am paying $160 for. Somehow, I mananged to get MLS! Who the fuck wants to watch American fucking soccer? If I really have a craving to watch the futbol, I will watch it on a spanish language station, where, even though I don’t yet understand the entitre commentary, am still able to feel like the commentators A) give a shit about the sport (GOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLGOLG)
and 2) know what they are talking about (although I could be wrong, they do say Gol like 500 times after anyone scores).

Still with me? Ordered Baseball. Part way into the season. Anyone offer any kind of pro-rated discount for El Mateo? Fuck no! What did I get? Fucking Soccer! I called and explained the situation monosyllabically to the “Customer Care Executive”, and was told that I would not be charged for the soccer, but because I had a work order for the fucking boxes (I also ordered a dvr receiver for the bedroom (no, I don’t know why, either!)), I couldn’t get Extra Innings until after the installation tech had arrived.

Fast forward to Thursday, May 3rd, sometime between 8am and midnight. Tech arrives and tells me that he only has 1 box! How fucking hard is it to count? I mean, if we were dealing with more complex math, such as, oh, multiplication or division, I might be more forgiving. But it was addition. All that was required was the ability to fucking count to 2. Two! One. Two. How fucking hard is that? And then I had to fucking install the box myself, because the douchebag decided that he would try to call around to see if he could scavenge me another one. Due to the fact that I have made a fairly vitriolic paragraph concerning this, I have full confidence that you can fucking figure out the conclusion to this visit.

So dude left. Fine. Whatever. I called Comcast again. I want my MLB now, please. Okay? Everything’s okay? Yes? It’s gone through? Cool. Just wait a few minutes for the authorization do register in the boxes? Okay. Oh, by the way, I noticed that you’re raping us monthly now, so I think I’ll pick up Triple Play Platinum (we ordered Digital Platinum when we first got service. They gave us the Latino Completo package! What the fuck? It’s like having short bus cable with all SAP at no additional charge (for an additional fucking charge!). Okay? Okay. Telephone guy will be here on Monday? Cool. When will we have our new channels (which we should have had in the fucking first place) and Extra Innings? A few minutes? Okay, thanks.

An hour later, with no more channels than I’d had before, I called again, was on hold for a total of 25 minutes, transfered to 3 different people, was offered 4 completely insincere apologies, and told the phone that they would be installing would be comped for all the trouble. And when will I have access to the fucking channels I have ordered? Within the hour. Sometimes there are delays, so at the latest, tomorrow morning. Fine. Whatever. Fuck it. No more baseball. Have to get up early. Bullshit!

I get home from work yesterday at 6pm. Can you guess what service package I had access to when I got home?

I knew you could.

I tried calling comcast 6 times, each time on hold for a minimum of 15 minutes. I went to the online chat support. Talked to this fucking “Hey Guys! Wait for me!” asshole. Said he would reset the signal and all would be good again in the land of angry Scotsman. I was booted from the chat when the reset happened, and amazingly enough, that was the most productive result of that conversation. I tried Comcast by phone again 2 more times, waiting for only 10 minutes per call this time. Finally I got back into the chat support room again. Oops, I’m here for your internet support, let me transfer you. So then I talk to another guy, explain the whole fucking thing. He says the reason I (STILL!) don’t have MLB is- get this-  because I have a work order for MONDAY! I tell him fuck all that. Give me my channels, I can deal without a home phone for awhile longer. He says he will transfer me to Phone services and explain the whole problem to new guy before he logs out of the room. So I wait, and a new tech enters the conversation.

I explain briefly to him what I have been going through. Would you care to know what he told me? I think you know where this is going…. I’m sorry. YOU NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE IN CABLE SUPPORT. But wait! I try to type in time, my fingers curling into fists as I am gorilla pounding the keyboard in frustration. And then I get another tech. So I fucking rip into this guy. I’m pissed. At this point, I have spent over 3 hours trying to deal with this bullshit, and now will get around 6 hours of sleep before I have to go to work.

Turns out this new guy is actually the one who transferred me to Phone services, but I still rip into him. He lets me vent, which amazes and calms me, and explains that somehow Comcast has clusterfucked the whole thing. If I want MLB and my subscription upgrade, I will have to cancel the monday work order and reschedule. Fine. Will I have all my channels after that? Tonight?

Yes he says. Fine. Cancel. Good. Dandy. Just fucking do it. And don’t fucking transfer me. Just take care of it. So he goes to fucking investigate how to go about unclustering the FUCK, and tells me: He can’t cancel/reschedule the work order, I have to call the local phone support line. Sorry.

He gives me the number and I am fairly sure that there is actually nothing more he can do. So I let him go.

I open my phone. I dial the number. Put the phone to my ear. Enter the 10 digit number (including area code) where I have, or would like to have service. I press 1 for english. I press 1 for problem with my service. I press one for Cable.  I listen to some bullshit recorded message that has absolutely nothing to do with me, and so do not push 5. I hear shitty recorded Muzak. I am told that comcast is constantly seeking to improve its service and am offered a chance to particpate in a brief survey following my coversation. I decline, and do not press 1. I wait for 10 more minutes.

I call again, diverging from my previous path only in that I press three for home telephone service. I still hear the recorded message, Muzak, and survey offer. I hang up after another 10 minutes.

I now have less than 5 hours to sleep. I still do not have MLB. I still do not have the premium package I have ordered. I DO still have access to MLS, although there are no games.

Here’s what I don’t get: I’ve had service since September (or October). I have a credit card ON FILE. I make auto payments with it. I WANT TO GIVE THEM MY MONEY IN EXCHANGE FOR THEM FLIPPING A FUCKING SWITCH OR PRESSING A FUCKING BUTTON (OR LESS LIKELY, THOUGH I’M SURE STILL POSSIBLE, PULLING A LEVER), AND LETTING THE FLOW OF SHIT I WANT TO WATCH COME BARRELING TOWARD ME!

And the worst part part about all of this is that AT&T is worse!

Comcastic! Fuck that shit!

After Dark

After Dark: A Blast From The Past, Part Two

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

After Dark

After Dark: A Blast From The Past

So I’ve been going through my old MySpace blog this past week, and have managed to put together a little tour of my life beginning nine years ago. Enjoy!

i hate time

March 27th, 2006

2:46 a.m.

I wish I didn’t have to work tomorrow… today… whatever. I hate time. such b.s. I wish I didn’t have to work.I’d just sit at home and drink, write and smoke cigarrettes until I passed out, then start again. maybe I’ll take the banderhoos’ advice and start posting my stuff tomorrow… today… whatever. I remember back when a day used to last seven… or eight…

glad to be rid of those days….

I think I’m happy today…at least not pissed off.

i dunno.

anyway, going to go to bed now.

more tomorrow.

As you can see, my I was a little more freestyle at the time… Sadly the sentiment has remained pretty much intact over the years.

La chupacabra vive!

March 28th, 2006

1:34 a.m.

So my ex-girlfriend’s son just turned 19 on Monday. Jesus… Makes a man feel old. No, he’s not my son… biologically impossible and all…

Hell of a kid… I miss him. Aside from the vast collection of writing spawned from that era, I’d say getting to watch him become a young man was the most rewarding. And like I told him once, if I ever have a son, I hope he is just like Caleb.

On another topic: I hate my job sometimes. Not the job itself, exactly, just some of the morons I work with. I’m not going to name names, but it feels like I might be better of[f] working with goats and monkeys… and then I could train the monkeys to ride the goats.

Attention:

You may have already won a goat!

The bit about goats was inspired by something Fed and I were joking about when we lived together in Open Air Shopping Mall, CA. And my son has actually wound up quite a bit like my ex’s son. There are many worse people to emulate.

Not all my posts were about my life, however.

Charles broke the cycle!

March 29th, 2006

9:51 p.m.

Way to go Charles for breaking the 6 and 1/2 yr. cycle of sexlessness!

And I’m sure he’s thrilled that I’m bringing it back up again. Sorry, Chuck!

Beware the wrath of angry drunkards!

April 12th, 2006

12:52 p.m.

Okay, so El Mateo is hella pissed off. My roommate (well, I have 2, but only the male is an incurable ass) has decided to be a dickfor and try to f**k with me. So I figure he’s gonna have a great time come the 1st when he either has to move the f**k out or pay for the whole damn place himself.

okay, so I feel better now.

Anyway, I’m in the middle of playing a hella addictive RPG, so I gotta run,

mas cuando tengo tiempo.

Okay, a couple of notes with this one. This was the last time that I was living with anyone who wouldn’t someday be my wife. This dude moved his girlfriend in like a month after he moved in, and then they brought their dog, almost getting all of us kicked out. Also, wow! I used to have time to play video games. It was probably something on my PS2… Legend of Dragoon, maybe? Also, nothing was ever really resolved until later that year, but on the upside, I started seeing my future wife socially less than two months later. I mention socially because she was my subordinate at work, and we would have both gotten into trouble had our secret come to light.

Life and its nonlinear implications

April 14th, 2006

11:36 p.m.

So i just heard from this amazing girl I used to know back when  i knew everything (high school). She is still as charming and pretty as she was back when I was an idiot. I am smiling. Maybe life hates me less than I had previously thought….

There is a downside, of course, of being cryptic. I have literally no idea who I was referring to. Since going back through all of these, I still have no clue whatsoever. But for that moment in time, a girl that I’d known nine years before (double that now) made the hell out of my day.

what i know to be true

April 21st, 2006

5:20 p.m.

i am the jelly in the doughnut of truth. talk to fed if you want to know. anyway, i’ve decided to give up the search for romance.if it wants to head my way, cool. if it wants to sneak up behind me and smack me on the head, awesome. but i’m not gonna put myself out there to be crucified on the lumber of betrayal… more later…

i need my own computer…now to watch the hockey

Even worse than cryptic social media nods are pseudo-philosophical nuggets of truth. “i am the jelly in the doughnut of truth”? What? Also, apparently this was when I had to do all my MySpacing in the Internet Cafe in downtown Berkeley.

absinthe is fun and educational

June 3rd, 2006

12:38 a.m.

okay. this is pretty neat. when i get my raise, i am so buying some of this for myself.
Today’s Topic: Friends

I’m not drunk enough yet to be telling all of you that I love you, so fucking forget about it, but I will say that run-on sentences are my all time favorite. Bonus Points if you remember the classic “Great American Novel Which Will Get Me Out Of My House Before I Turn 18” (involving lesbian goldfish). Okay, I was reading a lot of Tom Robbins at the time, and it sounded about right.
    I apologize in advance for any spelling errors which may occur- I refuse to edit. I’m on a roll, here.
    Anyway, friends.
    Thank you to those who have stood by me when I doubt that I deserved it, and many debts are owed to those who, regardless, wished me well. My gratititude to those who have inspired me, and {insert synonym for “thank you” here} to the asshole who convinced me to move down here.
    Okay, that’s enough of that.

    SAYING OF THE DAY:
    “Behold, I send you out as geeks among the nerds.”

    MATT WORD OF THE DAY
    futilaerobics- (n) the exercise in futility

    No more of the Days….

    MIZTLE’S:
                WHAT THE FUCK……  
                                           MAN?

    Damn tweeeeekers at it again….

    okay, I’m done.

    NO COMMENT.

    GRRRRRR….. FUCK OFF!

                            RANGER BOB FOR PRESIDENT ’08

Imagine, if you will, a world wherein this was an acceptably written blog entry. This was close to the halfway point of the Desert Years, and it shows. Just reiterations of the greatest hits I replayed over and over again for myself, punchlines to jokes which were only funny to kids strung out on drugs. I stand by the Word of the Day, though.

I’m getting old. Man.

July 7th, 2006

6:01 p.m.

So it takes me almost a whole hour to get out of bed in the morning now. I have my grandfather’s knees, I somehow banged the hell out of my elbow on the wall when I was sleeping, and I have to hold my lower back when I stand up from a long convalesence in any type of chair or sitting apparatus. Well, I can’t be that old, I still can’t get to sleep before dark, no matter how exhausted I am. Old people would be asleep by now. Maybe I’m just midlife. Hmmm, I really kind of want to have a Kick-Ass crisis. The problem is that if I date a woman half my age… well I’m only 26, so that’s just wrong… what’s 2/3 of 26? Is that less creepy? Fuck Math.

So I’m gonna go do this thing next weekend, and it’s a surprise, so I can’t tell you. But it’s gonna be cool. I might even take pictures.

Okay, whatever, I can tell you’re not interested.

So I need to get a new computer and some internet access of my own so I can inflict these on everybody more frequently.

News on the Book:

Did I mention I’m still working on the Book? Right now I’m picking out music for the film adaptation. Kinda want to end it with “Blood and Fire.” Think that would rock. Too bad I’m not famous already, with a rapport with my editor so that I could just summarize the novel and get an advance so that I could quit my job and just fucking write the thing. Of course, if I were a famous writer…

Not your problem!

I hope everyone has had a fun however long it has been since you last sat through my rantings.

((Stole the Sidebar from a friend) Just so we are all on the same page, I have ceased droning on about the Book)

Okay, gonna go read my friend’s blog now. Maybe even get me a subscription. Boo-yah!

Until next time, Drink Hella and Don’t Drunk Dial Me!

Unless you’re cute.

And single.

No boyfriends and/or husbands.

Legally separated is okay.

I’m going now before I get myself into trouble.

The book in question is something that I’ve been specifically not working on since 2001. It’s the story of all the fun adventures that I somehow survived between 1997-2001. Since that was posted I’ve written about two pages of an outline and some character notes. As everyone can see, I’ve felt like an old man for practically forever. I have left in the boo-yah and other embarrassing nonsense as a cautionary tale to myself in 2015. Stop trying to be cool! As for the “this thing”, again I have not the slightest clue… Dear God, I romanticized the hell out of this in my head when I decided to start up my current website.


Poet’s Heaven

July 24th, 2006

10:18 p.m.

So I think I’m going to poet’s heaven when I die. That, or eternal damnation in Boise…
On a side note, I’ve decided that being a chunky monkey isn’t all bad. I mean, I’m rarely cold come the winter months.
Oh.. so that secret mission of mine was to go to Seattle last weekend for my mom’s 50th birthday. Awww…. I know, I’m sweet. She said it was the best birthday present ever, but to be fair, this is the first time in 26 years that I’ve remembered it.
Beers are good food.
Look for Ranger Bob to make a comeback in ’07.
I want to be in love again. Well… reciprocated love, anyway. Hell, I’ll take married love, again…

I’m moving this month. I don’t know where to. Anyone got a couch?
Something more eloquent next time, I promise.
Or the time after that…

I edited out half of this post, as it was nonsensical, at it irritated me. So apparently “this thing” was doing something nice for my mom. Go figure. As I wrote in today’s column about love, it took a while to find my footing with my wife. Part of this was to keep up appearances to the handful of coworkers who were “in my extended network,” and part of me, I’m sure, was genuinely longing for the butterflies.,

Bargaining With Bi-Polar Bears

August 20th, 2006

8:18 p.m.

How is it that the world can seem so cold in the California sun? Feel so empty surrounded by my friends, and so meaningless when I’m working somewhere where I’m doing what love (no pen in company ink jokes) (it would take away from the dry sarcasm)? Okay, so my work is not that which I’d envisioned….. ever…… but I it’s not shoveling shit (literally), so I suppose it can’t be entirely terrible. I can’t wait until my manic swing so I can actually get some shit done- this depression shit is fun for self-abuse (I’m en fucking fuego with the D.E.’s!), but notably inconvenient for accomplishing anything.
I am house/dog sitting this weekend for my best friend while he’s off watching kick ass baseball, and generally not working. Lucky bastard! Although, on the plus side, his dog stopped barking at me sometime this afternoon. That’s a start, right?
I have come to realize that I have no life.
I work 45+ hours a week, often with mixed shifts, and rarely have my days off together. I talk to my two best friends about 4x/wk, my mother about 5x, and see my lady-friend once or twice. God… for the most part, I’ve even stopped drinking. Gotta remedy that shit.
But, to address the title of this epistle, I guess I won’t be bargaining with the BPB’s anytime soon. Last time I did that was Winter ’96, I couldn’t write for a month and a half (of course, that might improve my productivity at this point), and I wound up dating a Whale’s Tail (Not her real name) (Also, not an accurate representation of her physical beauty)(Of course, I am trying to protect my image, so I am unlikely to accurately represent any of the physical properties of my ex-girlfriends)(except for Desert Tiger, she had a booty hotter than a slutty Latina pop star). Wow. This paragraph is really, actually very small.
I’m going to go get food now.
Don’t die. (also, sort of for me)
(well, more TO me).

This is the first mention on any platform that I’ve made about Flor (my lady-friend). I had just recently gotten another promotion at work, and the hours were starting to pile up. I was still on the hunt for somewhere new to live, and had to be out by no later than the second week of September, 2006.

Would you like to ride with Batmart?

September 22nd, 2006

10:30 p.m.

Found out my paternal grandparents are dead. That’s cheery. I also managed to track down my dad’s phone number though as of yet I am still too chicken shit to call. What do you say to a man with whom you’ve never even spoken? “Hey dad, it’s your son. You know, the one you’ve never met because {insert parental bullshit here}? Just saw Grandpa died. Bummer. So anyway, ever thinking of leaving Idaho for awhile and coming to visit? Didn’t think so. Well, good talking to you. Yeah, we’ll keep in touch. Yeah, good talkin’ to you too… Dad. Yeah. Bye.” Click.

And that’s the version in my head that goes well…

I never got to know my dad. He and my mom divorced shortly after I was born. Apparently, he didn’t want kids, and tried to kill my mother while she was pregnant with me. Of course, I’ve heard only one side of the story, but if bi-polar disorder is hereditary, then I guess I can’t deny the possibility. I don’t know. It’s not my job to play apologist for my folks. Nor my son for me. Not that I have one. I almost had one. Once.

Did I ever mention that I hate ex-call girls from Panama? I hate ex-call girls from Panama!

Bi-Polar Disorder. Department of Redundancies Department. Assisted Living. Okay, that one’s a little abstract. Sorry.

And sorry for the meloncholia. Just need to get it out from time to time.

Same Batmart Time Same Batmart Channel

I know this one is a little bit of a downer, but I found the topic wonderfully juxtaposed against the knowledge that around this time, I had the very beginnings of a son. And also, that I never got to speak to my own father. Too many old wounds from before I was even born.

I’m going to leave you all here, as even though my new content is negligible, I’ve still given you quite a bit to read. This collection chronicles my life from the beginning of my MySpace blog to the moment (more or less) when I began to be a dad. I’ll do up the next part (Pregnancy and Other Mental Illnesses) for next week.

Until then, thanks again for reading!

-Tex

Same Batmart Time, Same Batmart Channel

After Dark

The Midnight Hour

I originally wrote this during the spring of 1997. I was trying to come to terms with what was going on inside of me. I later submitted it to my Advanced Creative Writing class because I hadn’t turned in anything for a few weeks. It was very personal, and hard for me to share at the time. But I’d like to share it now as a companion piece to the column which I wrote earlier today. 

 

 

The Midnight Hour

 

It’s cold, and sleep beckons me from beneath the pillows. But tomorrow is mere hours away, and if I should retire, the morning spirits would keep me from my silent masochism. Just a few breaths until I can see you again, before I must put on a mask of mere friendship and general well-being. Just a spin of the cosmos until I can drink in again the Chambord of your smile and lose my sight in the twinkling of your eyes.

Nicotine eats away at my throat and Depression wraps me up snug in her hand-crafted pioneer quilt. She’s been my true love since before I ever drew myself close to another. Just an affair, but I’ve become too intimate with her lying whispers in the night. And then, like now, in my moments of doubt of your worth, she beckons me to Self-Pity- her garden home of skunk cabbage- where I am hers again.

Her sister, Suicide, joins the orgy with her lover, Hatred. They lay me back into the stink of Self-Pity, and it begins. I am naked before them, and the first… touch… is the same as the last. A cold shiver, as my mistress arouses me from Morpheic gaiety, caressing my spirit totem. The peacock rolls her eyes and leaves me to pursue melancholia. An errant whisper evaporates when the Lady Razorblade kisses up and down the length of my essence and Fury engulfs me in his erotic thrall.

Help me, my love! as Depression mounts my virgin love and takes from me the gift I sought to give to you. Hatred massages the knotting in my spinal column with his homophobic enema. It burns a bit at first, but O! a gasp of pleasure escapes my lips, and I know that I am theirs.

In a gentle rocking, I lose myself in passion and call Suicide from her sister’s heaving bosom, to begin whispering those truths into my ear with her tongue and teeth. Her hands seek my nipples with the needles in her eyes, and sew into my flesh two copper bands. ‘You won’t feel a thing,’ she says as I throw my head back in ecstasy. Her fingers loop through the rings a rusted barbed wire and she pulls me toward her soft mouth.

A kiss. Simple as two loves exchanging vows by moonlight, but somehow more romantic. She whispers the name of the first I ever loved, and I know that she is better than Heather could ever have become since that ignorant third-grade bliss. The look of contempt eases Hatred’s passage in even more, as he penetrates me all the way up to last night’s cheeseburgers. But they know I want it.

Depression slaps me in the face and tears me back to her. Our chests collide, and the wire cuts her deep as well. God, Crys. Help me!

She fingers her wound while riding me like a battered spacecraft, then licks the blood from my chest. Her tongue burns in your face between our wedding rings, and she retracts the forked whip to tell me that I am now hers as well.

The bile rises in my throat like understanding. All the pot, all the acid, the cigarettes, bourbon, and dark dreams pushed down out of sight. What was sweet is now sour in my mouth, and the rape progresses further. I cannot leave. I still love them. All three of them. I came here of my own free will, and even if I could leave, there’s nowhere else for me to go.

Hatred comes, and I feel his seed deep within my gut. He pulls out of me, and the blood, semen, and shit slide out like afterbirth.

Depression lays me back now, and holds my arms down against the nettles of the headboard. I am helpless. I gave myself to her, and now it is not my pleasure to fulfill, but hers. Climbing me like a tree, and descending like and escalator, the void of her seeks for me to fill. Her sister smears her juices over my eyes and then into my open wound.

Suicide feeds Depression the product of her labors, and the elevator cable is snapped. From the eighty-third floor, she begins a freefall to my pelvis. Hatred smiles and watches me, sustaining Suicide until it is her turn. Depression claws her nails into my shoulder blades and fucks me no more.

It’s now or never. Crys? Crys? Take my hand… please… help me.

But my pleas are answered only with your smile of product innocence. You cannot help me. Only a few more hours, but you cannot help me.

I stand now, alone, shivering, and clothed only in the sweat, blood, and come of my violation. Like shadows, Depression and Hatred slink away. Yet Suicide remains. Her smile has not faded, and when she points to my scarred torso, she merely laughs.

Silence.

’Come a little closer.’

When I look at her, I feel only my nakedness.

’Don’t be afraid, no one’s ever complained.’

Despite myself, I rolled my eyes: Suicide was a slut.

‘Everyone’s gone now, dear, and we can be alone.’

No, the word sinks in the quiet like quicksand.

I’m so tired. I miss you, Crys.

Suicide’s blue eyes stare hard. Crys or her. Crys is the chance, she is the sure thing.

God, I’m tired, Crys.

The clock begins to tick again at 3 a.m. I’m back in bed, still alone. I cannot feel what I used to feel for you, but the sun is not yet out. When it rises, these cold toes will thaw, and the dark will not seem as bright.

 ©1997, 2000, 2015 Tex Batmart

After Dark

LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

I’ve enjoyed playing the LEGO video games for the past several years, having been sucked in by LEGO Star Wars and its lighthearted interpretation of the prequel trilogy which, up until that point, had given me almost nothing but disappointment. The second installment was the original trilogy, and if you had your saved games on the same memory card, you could play out scenarios where Luke defeats the greatest threat to the galaxy: Jar Jar Binks. Those games came with built-in replay value, and were a nice option for a guy who still liked to play, but couldn’t find the time to immerse himself in epic RPGs between his 45 hours at work and quality time with his newborn son. I already knew the story, and the levels were short enough that I could play through a couple and still accomplish what I needed to without losing track of where I was the next time I powered up the Wii.

A couple years later, I convinced my wife to let me buy an Xbox 360 (one of the few times my son has ever been wholly on my side), and as I picked some used games out for my brand-new system, saw that there were a few more titles in the LEGO lineup. I grabbed LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Batman, and LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (which combined the first two games, but added in more functionality and interplay, and slightly better graphics), and my son was almost as excited as I was to get the system hooked up to the T.V. For him, I think, it was like watching and interactive cartoon, and every night when I got home from work, he ask me to play LEGO Star Wars (until I beat it, then he begged for Batman). The gameplay was fairly straightforward, and it gave me a chance to introduce him to some franchises I held dear, but in a slightly more age-appropriate manner.

As I began to fall out of love with the Fable series (the studio deciding to go ahead with aspects that I never much cared for, mangling the things which I absolutely had adored), I found myself appreciating Traveller’s Tales all the more. They took the things that worked and made them better, and only added in new elements a little at a time. There were only just a very few missteps along the way: the way to purchase unlocked characters, the confusing character selection and magic system of the Harry Potter series, the second LEGO Indiana Jones game. On the whole, though, the games improved in line with what players actually wanted to see. Their choice to incorporate voice acting into their games made them more cinematic experience, and with every new release, the open world hub became more dynamic.

I had a lot of fun with LEGO Batman 2 and LOTR (in which they used actual audio from the films), and their movie tie-in for The LEGO Movie was a work of school-age genius. So when I heard that they were doing a third installment in their Batman series, my only concern was the price of a brand new game. I’ve only ever bought a couple games within the first month of their release, preferring to wait six months or so for a price drop of 2/3. If the game was good, it would still be just as good, and if it was a disappointment, I’d only be out $20 or so. But luckily for both me and my son, the game dropped down to about half-price within a couple months, and it was just a week ago that we were able to pick it up.

A couple years ago, I’d been tired of coming home after a long day at work and being ordered to play video games. I tried everything to get David interested in playing by himself, but he seemed terrified at the very notion. Finally, I shoved a controller in his hand and talked him through a low risk level in LEGO Star Wars 3. I actually was able to see his lightbulb moment, and from that time on, it has been me begging to play the 360 when I get home from work (on the weekends, of course. Early on, I laid the ground rule that he couldn’t play the Xbox on a school night). I know it’s probably not the best thing for him, but at least with these games, he’s interacting with the television, and, to be honest, I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for him on this, as I was forbidden to possess a gaming console until I moved out of my mother’s house.

LEGO Batman 3 is a wonderful introduction to the DC Universe, and stunning answer to LEGO Marvel (released the year before). Something that worked so well in the Marvel game was the pervasive humor throughout. The Batman games, while still aimed primarily at children, were a bit darker, though still completely enjoyable. What they have done in this installment is to pay homage to the 75 years of the Caped Crusader, incorporating not only the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan visions (toned down for younger eyes, obviously), but also the Adam West era as well. As DC is preparing a multi-year film commitment to try and follow Marvel’s box office success, so too does this game follow a similar style played out in its rival from the year before.

The levels are fairly easy to get through in Story Mode, and complicated enough in Free Play that it’s like getting two whole games for the price of one. I like the cast of characters that have for the player to unlock, as it gives me a chance to go off on tangents with my son about various obscure storylines from issues long ago. The Open World and Hub areas now include the Batcave, Watchtower, Hall of Justice, and the Lantern Worlds, all with various missions to play and even more characters to unlock. My only complaint is Traveller’s Tales’ growing dependence on DLC as these releases progress. As I recall, it began with a Character Pack in LEGO Batman 2, which was really for a couple giggles, and not integral to the game itself, to Weapons Packs in LOTR, and now finally a “Season Pass” for this game which includes 6 complete levels, and a host of extra characters. The characters themselves are incidental (I mean, who’s really dying to play the game as Az-Bat?), but that amount is close to a third more a game that just wasn’t added until later. Eventually, I suppose, they’ll re-release it with everything included, but as for now, I’d recommend you hold off on picking it up until it drops down in price a little further if you intend to drop the $15 for the extras.

Overall, I’m still quite satisfied with the game, and my son is quite smitten with it.

Final Score: B+

-Tex

After Dark

Batmart After Dark

Welcome to the Evening Edition of The Vaults of Uncle Walt! I hope everybody’s had a productive day at work, and is ready to kick back, relax, and sink into another helping of Tex Batmart. The primary posts will continue to focus on the various aspects of my life and current events, while I plan to use After Dark to highlight the books, motion pictures, television programs, and music(ians) that are currently rocking my world. From time to time, I may also post original poetry, excerpts of original fiction, and perhaps an occasional video. This is not, however, a foray into the world of “adult” entertainment. I know the title has some connotations, but I’m just not that type of writer. Don’t get me wrong: if I had to write a piece of fiction that got the blood a’pumpin’ to provide for my family, I would do it in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t just give it away, though. I mean, what would all the other writers say?

Like everybody else, I find moments of inspiration throughout the day, little pockets of revelations that seem to comment perfectly on my mood, or something that’s been troubling me. Maybe it’s a song that makes you think Trent Reznor intimately knew your ex, or the movie that breaks through the wall you’ve built around yourself, and allows you rejoin humanity through tears or laughter (or bitchin’ spaceships and explosions, whatever floats your boat). Maybe you’ve found a series of novels which have allowed you to finally make a friend more substantial that those jerks down at the coffee shop. We all seek out, from time to time, a piece of humanity which we can partake of with anybody else; a certain magic that simply must be shared with others. Maybe it’s so that we don’t feel so utterly alone and insignificant, or maybe it’s just that there certain unalienable truths hidden in the things that we consume, uncovered by experience and the human condition itself.

I’d like to kick this off with one of my favorite songs of all time (no pun intended):

 

Fifteen years ago, the line that stuck most firmly in my mind was “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way”, as I was battling Bi-Polar disorder, facing the endgame of a failing relationship, and coming to terms with the banality of everyday existence. It seemed that if I could just bear it a little longer, I could make it to “Shorter of breath and one day closer to death”, which was what I was truly after.

But as the years have passed, spent on trivial things, as well as life changing events, I’ve come to discover that  “…one day you find ten years have got behind you. / No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.” has taken on more meaning. With time, the song has evolved for me, from a lamentation of boredom (“Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. / You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.”), to an elegy for misspent youth. While waiting for life to happen, you discover that it has been, and because you’ve been looking in the wrong direction, you’ve missed it entirely.

Dark Side Of The Moon is an incredible album, and worth at least a couple consecutive listens. And if you haven’t paired it up with The Wizard of Oz yet, you’ve missed out on a real treat:

http://vimeo.com/46682047

Go ahead and watch it at your leisure. If you have anything to enhance the mood (for the sake of plausible deniability, let’s say candles), I recommend you use it.

And with that, I’m going to call it an evening. This was just a sample of what Batmart After Dark will have to offer. In the coming weeks, look for reviews of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson, musician and sportsball writer Dave Banuelos, and my opinions about the quality of popular music and television programs today.

Thanks for tuning in!

-Tex

 

Lyrics to Time written by Roger Waters