Rave Reviews or How I Polished The Turd

Here's a review from another writer (a real one, not just someone with a pen) about my latest entries:

"You know, I was wondering when you'd get back to You. I liked your Son House piece, but your own 'goods' are much more compelling. Less distance, less in general. This last entry is really concise and polished. You should be proud."

F*ck you, you condescending prick.

How's that for concise? Ha, ha - just kidding! Keep 'em coming, byotch!

Okay, okay. If you want to see how a real writer writes good, read this link (no, not the link itself, silly, the copy after the jump! Geez!

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/12/20/apple-army-hackers-tech-security-cx_ag_1221army.html?feed=rss_popstories

My comment for your article, Andy, is as follows:

Andy's writing is always concise and polished. And thorough. And a good read. Okay? Now: Apples are more stable than their Windows cousins and are easier to support. IT purchasing decisions for our government are rooted in the almost distant past and will, some day, take into account that today's Macs and PCs are kissin' cousins, especially in terms of apps and support. What is a Mac except a super-secure Unix box with a very stable, time-tested interface. The Linux dweebs at GSA just have to keep banging away at their superiors and, one day, when those people die or retire, it will be Macs for all. By the way, I'm an IT expert that would rather service an army of Macs than PCs, and I was brought up under IBM mainframe technology. So, there.

So It's Like That, Huh . . .

Ho, ho, ho.

I have so much to put down on paper, or pixels, as the technology of today would have it, that I could probably spend all my time writing and never actually stop to experience anything. And that's just non-fiction. In fact, I was just complaining to myself, since I'm too irritating to be listened to by many for long, all this blogging crap has put a serious dent in my fiction writing effort.

Oh, come on. That's just an excuse. I've been writing the same book for ten years. I should put it together already. Ya know - that's a good idea! No time like the present! Bye!

Just kidding. In this blog, I can write in whatever voice is mine at the moment and no, I don't mean that I'm hearing voices, okay? It means that if I feel justified in hating humanity, and who isn't, I can speak that from the heart. If I want to profess my undying, juvenile canine, Archies, touch-me-there love for you, no prob. It's stream, river, waterfall, aquifer and sewer of consciousness all at once.

Now, I've felt myself wanting to self-censor but, so far, I've basically held back. This is me. Really me. And there's a chilling effect on the creative process where self-suppression is involved. In other words, if I have to tailor what I write here to avoid scorching the psyche of a friend or loved one, it ain't gonna work and I might as well write only ad copy. But this was a lesson I was taught by another writer. Wasn't my idea. I'd rather say whatever the hell I want and never see or read the flip-side. Oh, come on, now. You're no different.

I read my own stuff here and am amused, bemused and righteously satisfied. Sometimes I write things I wish I hadn't, but they are left to stand. I read other writers' blogs and they sometimes reference me and my lovable quirkiness. I mentioned my dismay - okay, I totally lost my kool, yo - at something I read. Guess what? I READ IT WRONG and not only embarrassed myself but quelled the writer's sense of freedom in doing the blog. When I realized this, I said to myself, "Self, y'all ain't doing that no mo. You will force creative production into obscurity." Since then, I've read things that made me uncomfortable but I haven't said a word. The writing stands on its own and I'm honoured to be written about anyhow. Plus, I would fight tooth and pencil for not only this writer's write and right to say whatever needed to be said, but I'd do it for that Nazi over there and that racist to the left and that ditzy schoolgirl in the back and anyone else who had the sizzling need to put thoughts into the ether for all to see. You go, girl, boy, android, whatev!

So here I sit, sipping a fine sherry, just like that pop songster whose name escapes me right now, as most names continue to do, is doing when he's watching that girl in a particular shade of blue who looks like you but is not you or whatever. Very annoying song. In fact, I was quite impress with him when his first record (ha) came out but have since realized that he's shallow and skilled only in the way a porn star has skills.

I have a laundry list of things to write about. This has been a week the folks in Lake Woebegon would likely rather forget. I know I would. To sum up:

• my mother took the long vacation
• my brother made it clear I am little more than a dust bunnie in the "family" as he continues his fantasy of morphing into Michael Corleone
• my I-wish-she-was-my-ex-already has gone native and has totally left the reservation
• I may go to Germany - for a year
• Secret Santa was good to me. He apparently wants me to take up drinking on the run
• I saw a wild turkey explode
• Pink gloves are harder to find than you might think
• I've made an important decision about my girlfriend. Oh, boy.

So, there's a lot to write about. Whether I'll be able to get to it all, I just don't know. But, write I shall, just as soon as I pick up that dog poo over there. Excuse me while I kiss this guy. Wha na na wha na na, wha na na . . .

Poor Junior - You Must Be Pooped!!

Junior is a god. He well knows what I found out: the chics like smooth-talking slim guys! Don't worry, I won't tell anyone that you're really CIA! Ooops . . .

Courtesy of Birnley and my very own dangerous mind . . .

It's Huge

Good news! No, it has nothing to do with saving money with GEICO, although I must commend them on what is possibly one of the most brilliant ad campaigns in history. My erection - it's BAACK! F*ckin' yay!

What's the big deal, you ask? Well, it's like this: I started taking Lexspro, an SSRI and SNRI, about 18 months ago. This was meant to help me deal with depression relating to my imploded marriage, anger and social anxiety issues. In the interim, I had CBT, or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which is meant to help me help myself look at things differently so that I could be happier. I guess.

The CBT most definitely works. I have tools now that were absent before. In truth, I'm not "cured" since it's an ongoing process, but I do have those tools . . . Although, looking at this blog in recent days shows that the Lexapro is certainly trickling out of my system . . .

Why? Well, I ran out of money and my new health insurance just got approved, so I ran out of drugs, man. Good and bad. Just like the drug. The good part of Lexapro is that my Social Anxiety Disorder and obsessive thinking (whymwohgodwhymewhatsgoingtohappennexttheskyisfalling) disappeared. The bad part is that my dick function disappeared, too. Naturally, my dozens and dozens of girlfriends (ha, ha, see?) were sorely, or not so sore, after all, disappointed, to say the least. Size may not matter (lies!) but inflation does!

This entire class of drugs destroys in some (they say, though it seems that it's in all cases) libido and sexual function. That doesn't mean that one doesn't want to have sex, intellectually speaking. It simply means that if it's a choice between crocheting and marinating the ol' man-meat, it's knit-one, pearl-two. Get it? Good.

Further, the meat missile simply doesn't respond to stimulation. If it does, elevation is short-lived and weak. Medical facts. Further further, orgasm is next to impossible. Believe me, I've tried. Knit-one.

So, the Lexapro has been leaching out of my system. Okay - it doesn't quite work like that and it takes months to get back to a stable, pre-SSRI state. In some people, the CHANGE IS PERMANENT. Yow! So, I was surprised when my member decided, of its own accord, to mimic a mass-transit bus hand hold and generate stiffness that, well, I frankly missed very much.

Like a new toy, I just had to take it out of the box and try it out. Shiite, it works! I nearly danced a jig. Had I done so, my flesh hammer would have swung about like a divining rod, I'm sure. That was easy!

Not satisfied (heh heh) with this one time performance, I challenged my hat hook to a Second Coming. Get yer mind out da gutter! I just wanted to see, okay? OMFG! It worked AGAIN! I pinged it and it sprung back. I slammed it against my desk surface (at home, okay) and it resonated with a very satisfying thunk-thunk. I did The Helicopter. I did some break-dancing with it. Okay, maybe not the last part, but yay anyway.

So, now I have a perfectly good population-paste shooter ready for action. Any takers? Oh, wait a minute, that was rude. My girlfriend should have the right of first refusal . . . oh, honey . . . .

So easy a cavemen could do it.

Quit It, Woudja?

My name is (fill in your name here,) and I'm a Smoker. (Room replies, "Hello, [your name.]" I hate smoking. It sucks. It sucks the life out of me and my penis. It sucks money out of my wallet. It sucks the scent of Fresh Linen out of my closet. It sucks the new car smell out of my new car. It just plain sucks.

But I can't stop.

My mother died of cancer. My brother has prostate cancer. I will likely have cancer because a) I smoke and b) I worked in the plastics industry for 25 years. By smoking, I increase my risk from "possibly" to "yeah, unh-huh, gonna die a horrible, painful death."

But I can't f*cking stop.

I've tried drugs. Wellbutrin, Almost made me lose my mind - no, wait, it DID make me lose my mind. But I quit. For three days. Three days out of thirty-plus years of smoking.

Cigarettes make me gag. I smoke them anyway. Or, do they smoke me? Yeah, that's it. They are smoking me the way an anti-hero in Miami Vice would smoke a good guy.

A highly-neurotic artist friend of mine says that it's because I hate myself but that I'm in too much denial to actually commit suicide directly. So, I punish myself. Could be. Or it could be that she's barking mad.

It could be that I'm lazy. Each pack is my last, but the timing is never right. Just one more, just one more. Pitiful, actually. Could be that it's part of my "rebel" and "punk" personality. Could be that I'm just a hopeless addict.

My barking-mad artist friend says that everyone has an addicition. I say she has an addiction to sweeping platitudes and generalisations, and to pop psychiatry. F*ck that. How do I quit?

Last year, I joined a local QuitNet campaign. They sent me annoying e-mails that MADE ME WANT TO SMOKE. Now, I work with Germans who are avid smokers. WTF? A friend of a friend just had quad bypass surgery and has been a heavy, Lucky Strike-type smoker for more years than he could remember. A woman I work with, who's had three rounds of chemo, no hair, lost 200 pounds over 18 months (she's looking good for a cancer patient) and a f*cking bone marrow transplant actually says her doctor thinks it's okay for her to smoke 5-6 cigarettes a day rather than endure the stress of quitting. Sound like the good ol' Doc isn't giving you the whole story, babe. Anyway, all of this should make me want to quit even more.

I had a doctor, a cardiologist, when I was in my early 20's. He would examine me and then take me into his office to let me know that my X-rays were okay - for now. I should probably quit smoking, though. On his desk were three or four packs of Pall Malls, some open, and one crumpled pack in an ashtray heaped with butts. You should talk, I thought. The next time I called to make an appointment for an annual check-up, he was dead. Well, duh! I guess he couldn't quit either.

So: I'm at the cusp of a New Year. My mother has taken The Long Vacation, courtesy of the Big C. I think I should get my act together and crumple up my last pack of Mavericks when that last butt is done.

Nah. What then would I have to write about this time next year?

Urban Brigand

It was brought to my attention in a discussion of urban legends and myths that some things are too stupid to be real and some things have never been heard and so, can't be true. Take the tale of Jodee Berry, a former Hooters waitperson (sorry, must be PC here, I guess, in order to avoid a lawsuit.) She alleged that her employer scammed her out of the prize of a car for pushing the most beer in a contest at her job. Here's the actual newspaper clipping:
Now, there are variants of this story, but I'm going to believe that a) it's true and b) AP may get it wrong but they're not going to take their rep as a news organization and Onion it.

The good news is that Ms. Berry, despite her unlikely qualities as a Hooters professional, did win a settlement. AP followed up thusly:

Former Hooters Waitress Settles Toy Yoda Lawsuit
The Associated Press ^ | May 9, 2002 | AP staff

Posted on 05/09/2002 1:50:36 PM PDT by jpthomas

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) - A former waitress has settled a lawsuit against Hooters, which she said promised to award her a new Toyota but instead gave her a toy Yoda.

An attorney for Jodee Berry said Wednesday that he could not immediately disclose the settlement's details.

"She's satisfied with it," said the attorney, David Noll. He did say that Berry can now go to a local car dealership and "pick out whatever type of Toyota she wants."

Berry, 27, won a beer sales contest in last May at the Panama City Beach Hooters. She believed she had won a new Toyota car.

She was blindfolded and led to the restaurant parking lot, but when the blindfold was removed, she found she was the winner of a toy Yoda Star Wars doll.

Berry quit the restaurant a week later and filed a lawsuit in August against Gulf Coast Wings, Inc., the corporate owner of the local Hooters, alleging breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation.

The restaurant's manager, Jared Blair, has said the whole contest was an April Fools' joke.

This settlement is unusual in that Hooters did not ask for a sweeping confidentiality agreement, Noll said.

"I think that's a recognition of the fact that there's been such an amazing amount of attention focused on this case," he said. "There's not a whole lot of reason to try to hide its existence."

AP-ES-05-09-02 0155EDT

So, she was able to Pimp Her Ride. Yay. My question is this: is she learning-challenged, given Hooters reputation for silly, sophomoric publicity stunts, or did Hooters willingly commit a fraud against her?

According to my sources, the terms of the contest were not published. Nevertheless, did Ms. Berry have a reasonable expectation of the nature of the prize to be awarded? Could the new "Toy Yoda" not be a new Toyota - Hot Wheels, image, ashtray? She could have said, "You mean if we sell 100 million gallons of beer this month, we will win a new Toyota automobile of our choice, without further cost to us, without obligation or signage (advertising to be carried on the vehicle, typical of vehicles awarded in promotions)?" In other words, who on this planet doesn't check the dental records of that equine reward?

Okay, so she just assumed. In law, it's said that ambiguity is the responsibility of the draughtsman, meaning that a contract or offering, statute or other private or public law instrument should be thorough in covering all aspects of the matter in question. We all know that the absence of such thoroughness is the stuff of lawsuits and loopholes. So, she worked hard for the money - after all, it is a waittressing job, oop, I mean Waitpersoning job, which means not only be consistently courteous, a good salesperson, customer relationship manager and Go-Fer, but also means being on one's feet for eight hours, running back and forth and wearing short-shorts to boot. An ex-waitress I know says that it is more than just hard work, It can be demeaning, what with cooks insisting on the waitress' juicy-ness and all, short pay, bad tips and rotating shifts. It sure sounds like a suck-ass job to me. So, regardless of whether you think Hooters wait-persons are bimbos or whatever, they are working people, real people, who would rather be sitting in an office just like yours rather than working their arses off pushing beer to the ultimate benefit of the franchise holder. So, yeah, I'd be pissed and yeah, I think the company should have made it clear rather than condescend to the employees. In that respect, they breached their responsibility to their employee and her assumption can stand as is.

If you think about it, Ms. Berry may have said, "Oh, hell, no. This isn't only about the car that I need to get my sick mother to dialysis on Tuesdays (or whatever she wanted it for, or even if she wanted it just because - ed,) it's the principle of the thing." And she'd be right. Ha, ha. Look at the stupid waitress. We fooled her. Ha ha. Not funny. Not at all. Not on top of everything else the working person has to endure. So, she marched her little booty down to the lawyers' office and did what any patriotic Merkan would do - she sued. And won. Good for you, Ms. Berry.

You might call it a stupid lawsuit or a waste of taxpayer's money. Well, taxpayers don't pay for private law suits - it's a civil matter between two private parties. Further, it can be assumed that both Hooters and Ms. Berry are taxpayers and they have the right to public facilities, in terms of a public courts system, which, by the way, is not without its fees. And, since when is defending your own sense of respect in the workplace stupid? Better ask yourself that the next time you brown-nose someone, as you know you will, at work in order to keep the friction down, get ahead, keep your job or whatever. If you put yourself in her shoes, you might have to admit that it's gutsy to stand up and say, "I mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." (This link has the entire text of Howard Beale's classic speech from the 1976 visionary masterpiece, Network, written by Paddy Chayefsky.)

Enough of the righteous pontification. I started out talking about Urban Myths. This is most certainly legendary, but not because Ms. Berry is a dum-dum. Once descended to the status of Urban Legend, the value of her response, if taken in my speculative but likely context, is dimunuated, compounding disrespect for a fellow worker, a fellow human. Her tsouris is mitigated into entertainment. It can't have been very entertaining for her, now, could it?

The other legend/myth has to do with Eric Clapton and the song, Layla. My good friend asked whether I knew the original of the song and whether there was any truth to that story. Having been alive at the time, I felt sure that I would have heard about it. I said that it sounded like a Myth, but it wasn't a Space Alien-type of thing, and so, it could use some research. Here's what I found, courtesy of USA Today:

• “After failing to win Boyd through emotional blackmail (by writing the song Layla), Clapton threatened to take heroin full time, though he was already addicted.
• Once he did lure Boyd from Harrison, he lost interest and banished her from tours. “I was off having one-night stands and behaving outrageously. … My moral health was in appalling condition.”

Well, there you have it. Just because you didn't hear about it when it happened doesn't make it false. And, just because you have some of the facts, doesn't mean you can draw a conclusion. Unless you're lazy. Lazy like me.

Life Sucks and Then You Die

My mother died yesterday. She had lately discovered that she had colon cancer and that it had metastisized to her pancreas, liver and left lung. She was 82. February 26th was her next birthday. I won't have to worry about what to get her, I guess.

This entry is more about the shock and awe I'm experiencing at how totally alone I am. I had a vague notion that I'm mostly tolerated even by those who purport love and affection, but I truly had no idea. Now, I know, and it's not too wonderful.

I got a call from my sister-in-law at about eight in the A of M. The first sylable she uttered told me what I had to know. I was exhausted after having shopped at Pathmark at four in the morning the night before and after having worked 12 hours straight before that. Further, I had to stop taking Lexapro last week because I simply ran out of money and couldn't afford the prescription. So, I was in possibly the worst place I could be to hear news that was actually bad and that was immutable, not like "you got a parking ticket" bad or "sorry, we're downsizing the department" bad.

It's true that I'd come to a series of healthy intellectual conclusions about my mother's impending demise. She was elderly. She had a aortic aneuyrism that should have killed her two years ago but somehow, it stopped its balooning path and waited. She had bladder cancer that was "cured" with radioactive seeding but cancer is cancer.

The medical fact is that once you have a predisposition to any disease, there's a likelyhood that it will recur in one form or another, if initially "cured." Also, ask any doctor and they'll tell you that cancers of even the most benign variety are never cured, only put to sleep in the form of remission. Only outside parasitical invasions, such as infections borne be contact with animals, carriage via some other vector and so forth can be cured in the sense that those organisms are in a foreign host, namely, the human under attack, and can be killed or asked politely to leave.

So, my mother was slated to die, as we all must, except for those of you out there who are the blood-sucking vampirist night-dwelling undead, and that was a fact. Is a fact, as she's quite stone-cold dead right now, with no resurrection in sight. In my naivete, I thought I would be able to turn to my "friends" for support if I felt I needed it. I also thought that I was ready for her to die. Wrong on both counts.

I didn't exactly fold like an unstarched shirt. My reaction is mostly anger. Yes, I cried and cried with my daughter and almost cried at the funeral "home" when I heard my brother say in a crying, broken voice, "bye, mommie, i love you, my mommie" and it makes me cry now becuase I understand that loss. Mommie is just that always - a confidant, a spy, an encourager and defender, a gatherer and bringer of hot, tasty snacks. I'm glad I told her everything I needed to, even if I thought she might not have listened, but I knew she always heard. So, that's lost. The door is closed. I miss it even though that hasn't been our relationship for thirty years.

Day Two - Reaction and Review

Some hours have passed since I've written this. The reactions I've gotten from "friends" is like so:

Crazed Ex-Wife: "Some people can suffer grief, depression and life-changing events without being abusive." This was a text in response to my not wanting to go out a buy a Christmas tree 24 hours after my mother kicked. I also begged for her to leave me alone. Instead, she called me, taunted me and sent me 40+ text messages over the course of Sunday. Stupid git.

Horny Polack: "Yeah, that's a shame. I'm getting my tires rotated right now (on his 2007 Mercedes SUV) - can I call you next week?" Saved this fucker's life twice. Twice. Yeah, you can call me. Prick.

Neurotic Artist Friend: "Now's not a really good time for me. I'm having a really bad day (which is every other day, by the way and sometimes twice a day, though I'm not sure how that's possible -ed) and I need some space. Not a good time to talk to me." Maybe so, but a good time to reconsider chemical therapy. God.

Brother: " " No, that's not a typo.

C: In essence, "I'm devasted by your devastation, but I'm here for you." And she was. All day, all night, in my car, in the death room, at the Funereal Home, all in spirit, sensing, somehow magically, where I was and what I needed to hear, testing, feeling for the disturbance in The Force. Telling me gentle, funny stories, waiting for me to be composed enough to say the word that choked me. Leaving the door wide open and not waiting. No voice mail. Every text answered with a text. Every call returned. All her words carefully considered, weighed, real. Altruistically, without any sense of obligation - a pure soul, acting out of the best motives. A guardian angel, an artist of the soul, a true friend showing true love. I can never repay her kindness adequately. She alone, though this, is an inspiration. Since she believes in G-d, I have to assert that God should bless her mightily and us humans will do the rest. And die trying. Promise.

M: Thanks for that call back after your complaint. Thanks for making me feel guilty about asking you to talk to me via text and two messages. Yeah, that's not really what I call support. Maybe death frightens you: I know it frightens me. Maybe I frighten you - take heart as you're not the only one. So, I chalk it up to you needing to have even more distance than you've already orchestrated. You got it. Okay - I'm really pissed at you. Hope you can take it in that spirit rather than a total condemnation. I forgive those who know not what they do, being that I'm an arrogant ass and all.

P, R, et al: Your day will come. Lowlifes. "Too bad, but she was old, right?"

Rudi: I hardly know you and you're a work-mate but, next to C, you've been supportive and helpful and real, especially with the painful relation of the stories about your own mother's cancer death. You are a good person and I thank you for checking on me when you really didn't have to.

Shel: You don't read this blog but you've supported me in your angelic way, with hugs, kisses, sobs and tears. You are simply the best and I love you very much. Through you, I've inherited the understanding of the love a parent has for a child and vice versa. I can only hope to be the parent to you that my Mom was to me.

So, the whole point of this blog entry is this: Like Kirk, we all die alone. Sometimes, we live alone, too, except for the few gems that make it not so alone-y. Once you're dead, those who remain may suffer. It is, after all, the human condition.