The Burning and the Clamor

A house burned down.  The family that lived in the house got out before they were hurt.

Three reporters stood next to each other on the street and watched the house burn down.

Then they reported the story to the people who watched their news programs.

The first reporter said that a house had burned down.  Those were the facts.

The second reporter told a story about a poverty-stricken neighborhood where gangs are a way of life and violence is something to be accepted and feared.  Gangs, obviously, had burned down this house and something should be done about the violence in this neighborhood.

The third reporter told a story about how the political party in power had been lax in taking care of the police and fire departments in this neighborhood, placing families in jeopardy.  It was now up to us, the patriots, to vote against the current political party in the upcoming election if we were interested in taking care of the problems that exist in our world.

Preachers and religious leaders, who weren't there when the house burned down, saw these stories on the news.

Some preached about family values and how that had been lost.  If only our parents would keep their children more moral these problems wouldn't happen.

Some preached about how burning houses happened in the past when whites and blacks fought, and we need to be careful of the whites and the blacks, because they want to hurt each other.  And the Hispanics, too.  Maybe the Asians, too.  It's hard to tell from just a house fire which nationality you should be afraid of, but remember history teaches us that the other races will attack you and kill you.

Some preached about babies having babies, and if only this family had decided to get married the way god intended, this fire wouldn't have happened to them.  This fire was payment for their sins.

Citizens watched the news programs and listened to their religious leaders.  Each person, like each reporter, took away something different.  But all the citizens raised their voices.  "Something is wrong and I won't stand for it!" they all shouted. 

At this time, I turned to one of the shouting Citizens.
"Reminds me of the movie 'Network'."
"What?" said the Citizen, confused about being abruptly taken out of what was obviously a simple morality story and thrust into self-referential dialogue.
"You know, 'Network', the movie?"  The Citizen stared at me.
"'I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!'"  The Citizen stared at me.
"It was a movie back in the 70s... maybe 60s... but probably 70s.  It was an important work about the power of media and how a free press can be turned from a source of education into a profit machine that no longer takes care of those who consume it but, instead, actively destroy those who participate in it."  The Citizen stared at me.
"Nothing?"  A small, clear drip of drool plooped from The Citizen's agapeness.
"Good talk.  Let's get back to the morality story."
"I know, right?!" said The Citizen.

The politicians heard the citizens saying something was wrong, and they promised to fix the problems.  They promised to build better schools, and stop violence, and get rid of drugs, and make you drink more or less milk (depending on if milk was healthy or unhealthy on that particular day).  They promised to take care of our country while we got to sit back in bliss.  They promised us football on Sunday.  Then Monday.  Then Thursday, too.  Then there were three football games on Thanksgiving corresponding to the three daily meals most people eat, and pre- and post-game discussions.  There was talk about which politician had actually provided the best football game to his citizens, and what if Lincoln's football team could beat Nixon's hockey team, and you know the only reason why Kennedy beat Nixon was because of the television debates because Kennedy is cute and Nixon is a stroke victim, and did you know that Britney Spears thought we should do what George W. Bush told us to do?  I didn't know that, but I love her songs, especially the picture of her getting out of a car and I can see her vagina.  I know, right?!  I mean, come on people, that's obviously an invasion of her privates, but at the same time, I really like masturbating to that picture trying to imagine that maybe I could go into her vagina with some part of me.  Not because I think she's gorgeous, but because it would give me something to talk about.  How many people do you know who have put a part of themselves inside Britney Spears?  Ima blog about it.  But typing is so hard and i have to serch for the rite spellings n stuff so ima not capitolize shit n stuff n i don relly wanna no bout whats happening because i just wanna see the latest 6 sec video on vine, then branch will have a great 5 sec vid, then twig will have a great 4 sec vid, then nub will have the best 2 sec vid of all time n we'll all just live our lives in little 2 second bites and dam i gotta piss.


The Family watched their house burn down.  And the best that they could do was watch their house burn down, because behind them was a world screaming out of control about how horrible everything was.  And watching their house burn to the ground was much more peaceful than what was behind them. 

I hope The Family went to Best Western and got some Belgium waffles for breakfast.  Those things are good.

Giving Thanks

This year, I really want to remember and take a moment for the good things in my life. The things that I am truly thankful for. In no particular order, I am thankful for:
my wife
my mother
my step-father
my 17-year-old
my almost 13-year-old
our kidden
my 17-year-old's kidden
A.F.
O.W.
C.R.N.
Horrible Things
P.J.
T.R.
Pj.J.
sex
basketball
Labatt Blue
super spicy and juicy boneless wings from BW3
my bed
my iPod
movies in the theatre with my step-father
my monthly lunches with my mother
random dates with my wife, especially to hotels around the corner
drives with my 17-year-old
J.I.
H.H.
B.B.
A.H.
my computer
my wife's computer
my 17-year-old's iPod
my happy hat
my hoodie
my comfy pants
snuggles with my wife in the rumpass room
our wall-full of movies
our wonderful surround sound
Netflix
Playstation 3
pancakes
my shoes
prescription medication which works sometimes
my mother's halloween costume
my wife's halloween costume
seeing the boy's and their friends have a great halloween together
having a job that almost supports us
biscuits
BURGER NITE, BITCHES!
texting that keeps friends closer
the way my wife asks me to scratch her almost every night
my wife's boss
my wife's job
the original 1977 release of Star Wars
the original 1980 release of The Empire Strikes Back
the original 1983 release of Return of the Jedi
Run, Lola, Run
Bruce Lee
The Big Boss
Enter the Dragon
Fist of Fury
Way of the Dragon
Game of Death
Legend
Joe vs. the Volcano
Wolverine
The X-Men
Gandhi
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Rad Civic
The People Carrier
Big Gulps!
Slowly decreasing court activities
K.M.
positive memories
Yor The Hunter From The Future
Fall of Empire
donuts
cookie dough
NTN Trivia!
Ip Man movie
Ip Man 2 movie
dolphins
posters on the ceiling
ice makers
our recliners that are not broken, but well loved
our big screen TV
listening to my mother play the piano
hearing my mother tell the story of my birth on my birthday
my wife's butt dance
the way my wife gasps when I touch her
canned spinach
diet Mountain Dew Code Red
dreams of Portland
big pants
B.C.
H.L.R... except that might not be the right last name anymore
R.B.W.
improvisation
singing
smiles on other's faces that I've put there
wrestling with M.M.
my wife's fire pit
O.W.'s mother
Cadburry cream eggs
Ingrid's Kitchen
Louie's
A.F.'s son-in-law's health
cool weather
sleeping in our bed my comforter
rice
ramen
gum
Skyrim
The Incredible Hulk #181
The Uncanny X-Men #1
The Incredible Hulk movie
All the X-Men and Wolverine movies (yes, even X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: The Last Stand)
The Amazing Spider-Man movie
Gravity movie
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Rocky
Sylvester Stalone
3 Guys Named Joe
The Second City
The Cabinet Theatre
SummerStage
my education
C-SPAN
NASA
The Mercury Seven
Apollo 11
Chuck Yeager
The Right Stuff movie
Amadeus
The Muppet Show
Monty Python
George Carlin
Bill Cosby
Eddie Izzard
Lenny Bruce
Dexter
Vince Gilligan
Quentin Tarantino
Steven Spielberg
George Lucas
holding my wife's hand
driving dates with my wife
the park where my wife and I go and hang out
our back deck
movies
ice cold beer
my wife's laugh when she REALLY laughs
my wife's toots when she REALLY toots
sound, peaceful sleep
"you don't have to snore tonight" when it works
my cameras
my editing equipment
all my lovely music
my guitars
my keyboard
Simon Pegg
Nick Frost
Edgar Wright
The Serenity Prayer
The Expendables
The Expendables 2
Predators
that perfect song at that perfect moment that makes your body melt and relax
That Mitchell & Webb Look
That Mitchell & Webb Sound
David Mitchell and Robert Webb
The Matrix
Michael Jackson
The Beatles
that road trip to College of Santa Fe with my mother
my freshman year English class
my senior year of high school
returning to my home state
the way my mother argues with me
the way my mother loves me
the way my step-father walks
my step-father's big, bushy beard
the way my step-father loves me
floaf
sloaf
that great feeling when you get into your cold bed and it's really too cold, but then you get under the blankets and snuggle into your wife and slowly starts to warm up
My Once And Future Lottery Winnings
when reason wins over noise
NPR
Eminem
Macbeth dreams
G-Spot dreams
sketch comedy dreams
unlocking my psychokenesis dreams
"bending the ceiling fan with my mind"
that moment when I wake up on the weekend and realize I have nowhere to go and nothing I have to do
waking up with my wife
my wife's songs that she makes up
my wife's art
Michael J. Fox
David Fincher
acceptance
Aaron Sorkin
Synchronicity
Thriller
Ten
The White Album
Abbey Road
Revolver
Rubber Soul
Trent Reznor
Brian Wilson
those who stay hungry and keep pushing for a better
ferrets
driveways
J.R.
Business As Usual and Cargo
Straight Outta Compton
Orvil and Wilbur Wright
24
health
truth and honesty
ceiling fans
sticky figures that are still stuck on our ceiling
our refrigerator
our home
our washer and dryer
all the air conditioning units in our home
the sounds of our 13-year-old screaming with his friends over video games
when I see my 17-year-old really relax
when my wife is playful and nothing gets to her, usually she does little dances everywhere and sings
wife kisses, the good kind
wife hugs
people who keep trying
that fire that hasn't gone out in me yet and is with me just one more day
hope


I know there's more.

I hope you have much to give thanks for this year.
I hope you have more to give thanks for next year.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Maintaining Friendships

My mother is still friends with people she grew up with. I went to college with several people who maintained friendships from their high school and elementary school days. I have one childhood friend that I "keep in touch with" (read: I go out to dinner with him when he comes back to town with his wife and three kids and he has the opportunity to call me and make plans that I don't cancel for whatever reason). I met my wife in high school. But the rest of my friends from those days are gone. In fact, I haven't maintained friendships from elementary shool, middle school, high school, any of the three colleges I attended, my years in New York, over a decade in Michigan, or my previous job that I had only three years ago. What's the secret to finding people who don't suck? Or is it me that sucks? My wife liked when she went to a bigger school because that gave her more choices of people to befriend. She seemed to know pretty early that she didn't fit in with many people, and it took somebody special and unique to be her friend. I never had that revelation in my life. I always felt like my world consisted of the people that I went to school with, played sports with, played in bands with. Those were the people I had to choose from, and if I wasn't friends with them, I was out of luck and had no friends. Which was pretty close to the truth. I don't remember having many friendships outside of those institutions. And many of the people I spent lots of time with in Michigan not only don't talk to me, but have actively said bad things about me. Sometimes people really really suck. I'm just gonna put my wife and mom and step-dad and our two kids in a basket and go someplace that has good shelter and food, and we'll all live there and be fine. Fuck everybody else. They all suck.

Ridiculous

I fucking hate everyone. They should all die. I should pound them and feel their bones crumble under the pressure of my fists as I grind their faces into the pavement. What kind of fucked up shit am I living in? I fucking hate everyone. I get a pay cut in January. Because insurance rates are going up. We value ignorance and noise over information. We value violence over intelligence. Any idiot with thumbs now has a platform to espouse his idiocy ideology (yeah, I'm no different from any other idiot). "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Except there are no good guys. Not one. "See?! We told you Obamacare would be a failure!" It's a fucking software glitch, you fucks! Attack the software. Attack the servers. But as of yet, you haven't seen Obamacare in action, so to say that it's a failure only illuminates your ever increasingly obvious stupidity. You don't want to help others. You don't want to help the planet. You don't even really want to help yourself. You want money. You've been duped into thinking that's what we all need. And, ultimately, you're right. This planet runs on money. We've built a system around a middleman who isn't looking out for anyone. At this point it's impossible to change. We will continue to fail in our attempts to take care of ourselves, no matter how hard we work or how many doctors we see or how many miles we walk or how much broccoli we eat or how much caffeine we cut out. We are a cancer. Money intensifies and exacerbates our desire and willingness for self-destructive behavior. We are not long. And I fucking hate you all.

Making Me Laugh (Worth Repeating)

The following is from a Monty Python sketch called "Doctor Quote". I've enjoyed it for years and it has made me laugh out loud so many times. The pure absurdity is so wonderfully my style of humor. Before this scene begins, we hear Michael Palin narrating his life as if it were a mystery novel, except nothing out of the ordinary happens to him. At the end of the previous sketch, which runs into "Doctor Quote", Michael Palin's character, Mr. Eegis, is ushered out of the house by his wife, played by Terry Jones, as she is preparing breakfast for the doctor, who is inexplicably at their home. The scene begins after Mr. Eegis is shoved out the front door, and Mrs. Eegis continues to talk with the doctor, played by Graham Chapman, who is eating breakfast at their kitchen table.

MRS. EEGIS: (refering to her husband who has just left) Oh, I'm so worried about him, doctor.
DOCTOR: (licking his lips and swallowing a delicious bite of breakfast) Yes. Yes, I know what you mean. I'm afraid he's suffering from what we doctors call whooping cough. That is, the failure of the autonomic nervous section of the brain to deal with the nerve impulses that enable you or I to retain some facts and eliminate others.
MRS. EEGIS: Another dog?
DOCTOR: Uh, not for me, thank you.
MRS. EEGIS: I'll have one last one.

(During the following monologue, we hear the bark of a dog in the background, followed by the shot of a gun, the soft thud of the dead dog, acknowledgment of the kill by MRS. EEGIS, and then the sound of flesh frying in a pan or skillet, presumably with butter or marmelade. That last part was created by my, by the way. I have no way of knowing the correct sauce in which to pan-fry dog.)

DOCTOR: The human brain is like an enormous fish. It's flat and slimy, and has gills through which it can see.

(Gunshot, and thud of dead dog is heard)

MRS. EEGIS: There we are.

(Frying of dog heard)

DOCTOR: Should one of these gills fail to open, the messages transmitted by the lungs don't reach the brain. It's as simple as that.
MRS. EEGIS: Well, I'm a simple soul. I don't understand all that. All I know is he's not the same man as I married.
DOCTOR: Am I the man you married, Mrs. Eegis?

(The DOCTOR playfully approaches MRS. EEGIS, excited about his anticipated sexual encounter with her.)

MRS. EEGIS: Ooh! Now, get away! Ooh, you'll get struck on!
DOCTOR: Come on, come on!
MRS. EEGIS: I can't! I'm eating dog!
DOCTOR: Come on, just a quick examination!

(The tearing of fabric is heard)

MRS. EEGIS: Get off! I'm married! Ooh! Ooh!
MICHAEL PALIN (resuming his mysterious narrator voice joyfully): But Dr. Kwat was a man of quite remarkable medical insight, skill, and determination. And within a few minutes, he had completely removed my wife's knickers!
MRS. EEGIS (scoldingly, to MICHAEL PALIN): Get out, you!

(MICHAEL PALIN is thrown out of the room by his wife, and the door slams shut behind him. More fabric is heard ripping, as the doctor continues his sexual examination of Mrs. Eegis, who is playfully resisting his obviously welcomed advances.)

MRS. EEGIS: Ooh, ooh, Dr. Kwat!
DOCTOR: Put your tongue in my mouth!
MRS. EEGIS: Don't! (As she does)
DOCTOR: Oh come on, I've got your knickers!
MRS. EEGIS: Oh, wow, ooh!!

(Triumphant music plays as the scene fades out)

Very Proud

My 17 year-old passed his driver's license test yesterday!
I'm very proud of that guy. :)

Flip Master

Why is it that some people have more power over us than others? Or, why do we give some people more power over us than others? What is it that makes us susceptible to some people and immune to others? Why is it that my previous supervisor made it hell for me to come to work every day so much so that I simply couldn't focus at all, while I couldn't seem to allow my friends and family space in my head and heart to help me through those times? I didn't feel like I was pushing them out. But my supervisor definitely had more power in my world. Why was I unable to flip that around and give my friends and family more power in my life over my supervisor? Why are there some people who know exactly where to hook you so that you seem to fall victim to their viciousness every time they are around or say something to you or send you an email?

I want the good to be stronger. And maybe it is. But I want it to make the bad go away. I guess that's probably unrealistic. There will always be bad. How about: I would like to become a Master of the Flip. I know bad things will happen. I know bad people will exist. I know those bad people will make their way into my world at some point and I cannot prevent that. While they are in my life, I want to become a Master of the Flip. I want to have those bad people do whatever it is they're going to do, and then instead of getting furious or emotional, I want to flip it and take myself to a healthy place of peace and calm and non-care regarding the mean people or situation. I wanna flip myself around from anger to peace. A Master of the Flip. 

Wish I knew how to do that. Wish there weren't people in my life who had so much control over me. Wish I could allow myself the confidence to take power over my own emotions. The confidence to not allow those people the power I give them.  I want to be the Flip Master today. Right now. Immediately. 

Especially since I didn't win the $420 million jackpot last night. Motherfucker.