A new start:started.

So last week I stopped going to work.

The last few years have seen work and its demands intrude farther and farther into our lives. If it isn't the hours spent working, it's the hours spent getting there and back, and the money it takes to maintain a vehicle, make sure the child is supervised: all the little details that every working family encounters and combats. 

That's all fine, but at some point, the machine you're building takes on a life of its own, creates its own demands, and you start doing things for the machine's sake. I was throwing all of my energy at things I didn't want at all. There was no time left in my day (or night) for fun, for relaxation, for reflection, for love. Nothing but eat, drive, work, drive, housework, sleep insufficiently in quality and quantity, REPEAT.

As a creature of habit, I get in a nice comfy rut, and brother, do I ever stay there. It's a strength, and a flaw. I've stuck with bad jobs and bad women for just this reason. So maybe you can see how difficult it is for me to declare "Fuck this!" and step off the trolley. With my habits and lifestyle reaching ever-more detrimental patterns, I truly believe that something awful would have happened, and soon. Physical event, car accident, mental event. I was red-lining on several fronts, and my commitment to routine was carrying me happily to an early destruction.  It wasn't just the 90-mile commute to my most-recent job - that was just the capper.

Even the previous job before that, at the campground in Avery, CA, I felt I was on the wrong track. Some people think I'm smart, but I'd be a lot smarter if I stopped and looked around more often to see where I'm headed. I felt things closing in but did nothing about it. Further committing to plans I didn't really want to be a part of, I was giving my life away.  This course correction I've made last week could have been more drastic, but I'll settle for this, what seems to be an enormous step back in the right direction. 

At a minimum, it is a break, for which I am hugely grateful and in dire need.  It is also an opportunity to embrace parts of me that I imagine to exist: creative thoughts, ideas, needs, passions, impulses, motivations, desires. God, I hope they're not just imaginary.

So last week was about housework (as will all weeks in the foreseeable future, but none so needful as last's). I threw myself at all the labor needed to push back the tide of filth that had worked its way into every corner of our formerly-nice house. The shit was truly disgusting and embarrassing. I was ashamed to be a part of it, and I wouldn't let me kid spend the night in someone else's home if it looked like that. And yet I let my kid spend every night there. My only excuse was that there was no time to spend making it better. And I knew it was literally true: I spent spare minutes and hours just to keep the place no worse than the unfit-for-human-life condition it was in.

So last week I dug in and started moving, organizing, cleaning, keeping house on a more-aggressive level. I cleaned a bathroom, cleared debris from the dining table and reclaimed 2/3 of the once-ample counter space in the kitchen. We can now set groceries down on something other than the floor when we return from the store. A start.

This week though, I have to start making good on the promises and fantasies that clouded my windshield for the last two years of my "supercommute," the name of the daily, merciless trek to work lasting (much) more than an hour each way. Every day and night I promised myself I would exercise, planned to write and perform comedy, and work with some forms of visual arts, if ever I was given the time and grace to do so.

So here I am now, sitting at a quietly-noisy coffee shop with my son, tapping out the longest blog post in a while, just to limber up my creaking fingers, and loosen up my creakier mind. One of the purposes of this blog is to leave little landmarks along my journey, but if nothing else, I hope this has warmed up the old Thinkin' Machine.

Gotta be a good thing.

Yard sales 5/18/13

My son and I went to a few yard sales today.

I have come to regard garage sales and yard sales as one of the great joys of the changing seasons, on par with the blustery broken clouds and winds of fall, the snows of winter (in some areas, rarely mine), or the buds and birds of spring.

I think it connects my frugal nature with my love of variety quite nicely. Add to that that I have taught my son to enjoy it as much as me, and you've got a pleasant family component that is also rare enough in my day-to-day.

ANYHOO.

My son and I found a fairly sparse number of yard sales to review, with NONE of them advertised on Craigslist.org. Unusual!

But the ones we found were remarkably high quality, with very few of them simply piles of clothes and dirty baby toys, or similarly weirdly bare offerings. Today was great because there were the novelty of choices that make garage sales fun. And the deals couldn't have been better.

The crown jewel of my purchases today was a $30.00 Compaq Presario laptop that has a firewire port! Huzzah! Up until now, I haven't had a way to offload video from my Canon camcorder, as my previous firewire-enabled laptop for the job finally failed. Looks like I found an affordable way out of that, at least for now. So happy.

Here's Poppa Rickie

It's been about a week since Michelle's Dad Ken (aka Poppa Rickie) moved in with us. He's got a little trailer he stays in, and it's his own space.

He helps a lot outside, and spring is a good time to have an energetic outdoor-doer. We all make an effort to get along and so we do. It's an adjustment, but not a big one. It's nice to have him around.

I was looking through one of those big coffee table books on Paris which I had recently scored at a local estate sale, and I took some satisfaction at showing him the image of the topless dancers in the Red Light district. With very little prodding I blabbed on and on about the history of the Eiffel Tower in a nusthell, and he and Michelle and I had such a good conversation I felt like they were doing me a favor, and maybe they were. I enjoyed it in any event.

Death of the Easter Bunny

My son is eight years old now, (nine later this year) and he has been making good use of his burgeoning frontal lobe, applying logic to long-held beliefs. I couldn't be happier. I hope he continues the trend for all his days. But his newfound fact-finding culminated this year in doubt at the existence of a favorite spring harbinger: the Easter Bunny.

I don't know if he saw the goodies hidden in his parents' closet or if there was some other evidentiary loose thread to prompt his suspicion, but a day or two before Easter Sunday the kid was all questions; mainly, one big one: "Is Momma the Easter Bunny?"

I did what any unprepared coward would do: I stalled for time.

"What if she were, son?"

"I'd be sad. But I'd rather know."

We talked a little longer and I felt around inside his head to see just how much damage I'd do if I told him that the Easter bunny had tattoos and kissed Daddy goodnight at the end of every day.  After further review, I found that the "sad" part outweighed the "I'd rather know" part, and he seemed more reluctant for the unvarnished truth than he did originally.  So, and with both of us becoming weary of a conversation where one doesn't quite know what he's talking about and the other won't talk about what he knows, I offered the limpest-wristed confirmation that: "Yeah son, your mom's totally not the Easter bunny," complete with a sarcastic and defeated delivery, my lack of sincerity itself a clue.

My uncertain choice to flaccidly continue the lie for juuuust a little longer was proven the right one when my son eagerly snapped up the confirmation and let the whole mess go.

One sacred cow, rescued.

As it turns out, the cow was massacred just as sloppily not twelve hours later, when my wife set her alarm for 5:30 a.m. I knew as soon as we awakened that we were treading on thin ice. As soon as we stirred, our still-new Mastiff puppy "Kaos" sensed movement and start to fret and jostle, not ten feet from my son's sleeping head. With the spring sun already tickling the edges of the sky, it didn't take much for my son to rouse.  That, plus the fact that our house's layout demanded that we either creep directly past his bedside or climb out the second-story window, I "could smell what the Rock was cookin'."

Sure enough, one of us tried to slip by with a ridiculously large and colorful Easter basket, and the other with a plastic grocery bag full of eggs, my son piped up in the darkness: "Whatcha doin'?"

"Go back to sleep!" Came the slightly harsh reply, attitude borne of guilt.  But the little monster was not to be swatted away so easily. In fact, the persistent (dare I say "spoiled?" You better fucking believe I do) early-riser was so indignant and cranky about the whole thing (and about not being allowed to collect eggs sooner than planned, while Momma and Daddy still futilely clinged to hopes of returning to bed), that we threatened to tell the Easter Bunny to forget the whole thing, and meant it! I think part of his obstinacy was rooted in his disbelief that we had such powerful connections that we could cancel our reservations with His Egginess at such a late date.

After ten cold, dewy minutes of egg dropping, we were still finishing up the furtive task when the front door of the house opened, and there again, was my enterprising, curious young boy.  Again, we shooed him back to bed a little more stridently than would otherwise be called for, but there were secrets to be kept. Dark, difficult-to-explain secrets.

The task finally done, we "sneaked" back into the house, only to face a disillusioned and skeptical child who reminded me that the ladder to his bunk bad sits next to the window, out of which he looked when climbing back into bed. And what did he see?

You know damned well what he saw: his two lying parents dropping plastic eggs full of money and candy and a basket with his favorite new video game ("Luigi 3D for the Nintendo 3DS" or some shit like that, a forty dollar value by itself) in the front yard. My little toe-tapping darling was surprisingly hostile for someone who just found out his parents are way more generous than previously thought.

But soon he was over it and happily collecting eggs and money and sugar and plastic grass and singing our praises in a sugar-rush that will likely entwine with our benevolent betrayal in the catacombs of his child mind, and take years of psychotherapy to untangle.

Ah, parenthood. Good luck defusing this little brain-bomb, Dr. Quackenstein.

Confessions of a hopeless fuck-up

They always tell you: "Do your best."  The advice is less forthcoming when your best sucks.

I've got this job. There are some things that suck about it, but it's a good job. The people are fair and nice, and that alone is pretty rare, and makes me want to do well.

The thing is, I keep fucking up.  For a while there, I had good reasons to fuck up - not excuses, but real, verifiable causes that a conscientious person could identify and correct. Things like insufficient sleep, lack of training, inexperience and trying to work quickly at the expense of  of working thoroughly. 

One by one, I have corrected those problems, and things have improved.  But not enough.

I make stupid, rookie mistakes.  People hand me paperwork with obvious errors and my signature on it, just bigger than life. And I look at it, and it's like it's someone else's work. I remember handling it, but I don't remember skipping or duplicating or fucking up whatever got fucked up BUT THERE IT IS. And I am powerless to excuse or redeem it. All I can do is accept it, and promise to do better, knowing I probably won't.

It's all compounded for the worse that I am currently the main breadwinner at Casa de Loser; times aren't all that plush WITH me working. If I fuck this gig up, it's gonna get ugly and fast.  That pressure is the final turn of the screw, and there were times last year when I really thought I was going to succumb to it. I really felt like a mental, physical or emotional component was going to just give out, and shit would get real. All I could do was trudge miserably ahead and keep showing up as long as they'd let me. 

I'm a big boy, and I know that it's just a job. But I've tried not giving a whit of a fuck about my job, and it doesn't suit me. I can't get the math right. When I try not to care, I'm really good at it, and it shows. And it's unsustainable. It's not long before I speak and behave as if I really don't care, and at that point I may as well just quit and get on with it.

On the other hand, I have managed to disconnect some of the gnawing shame associated with tripping over my dick on a regular basis, and it's a good thing. Being a witless fuckup is pretty painful, if you don't handle it properly (and I don't).  I have somehow managed to step back from the sting of failure, and while I still want very badly to do well, the cascading anxiety of relentless, ridiculous mistakes has become a little bit removed. All I can do is patiently surmise: "Well, they'll either fire me, or they won't." I don't exactly look forward to that, but I have to say I have learned to look on the bright side of that eventuality and recognize the good that comes from change.

But I'd much rather do well and enjoy the benefits of a secure position that pays the bills. And I would really like to enjoy the well-being that comes from competence and a job well done. That is much more my speed, and while I'm capable of it (in theory), I miss it.

The blank canvas

I found this picture on Facebook, and I like its message a lot. 

I like it because it speaks to the huge, hideous cramp I've had in my creative muscles for (egads) a couple of years now. As much as I've lost the impish little voice that was always on standby to connect two strange things in the background and present them to the foreground, my problem has also been laziness and a fear of "putting brush to canvas," in any artistic sense, including this blog or comedy.  My only outlet has been Facebook; while that is an outlet and serves my social needs, Daddy likes to go on and ON, and I need a long-form format to air my things out.

I digress (which is kind of the point, isn't it?).

I think somewhere along the way I let the mild fear of writing something, anything, that  might be met with disappointment turned into a reflexive aversion to writing anything at all, possibly corrupting the whole creative process.

I read on and off a book called :"Art & Fear - Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Artmaking." Right up my alley, you might say. Mostly and so far, it is encouragement to brace against all the fears an artist might have, about relevance, quality, skill, all of those bugaboos. I was hoping for something a little deeper, but then again I'm not done with the book yet, am I?

Anyway, in that book they point out that after the first stroke of the paint brush or pen, the potential of a work  narrows and with each successive stroke it stops being a possibility and starts becoming whatever it's going to be. 

I thought about that during my last drawing or two, resisting as I always do the temptation to quit in the face of my real and perceived inabilities and lack of skill. I would be preparing to draw a face, an intimidating task for noobs like me.  And it reminded me of watching boxing:

I used to watch the "sweet science" on television, and occasionally I'd watch a fight where one fighter would seem to become so afraid of a counterpunch (or perhaps he was injured or exhausted, but it looked like hesitancy to me) that he  wouldn't throw a single blow for minutes on end! I would become so frustrated that I would shout at the television:"Dammit man, it's a fight! You're gonna have to hit him at some point!"

It's the same with creative works. At some point, you have to create SOMETHING, even if it sucks.  I  found that once I started in on the face I wanted to create, it worked out well enough, certainly not as bad as the fears in my head had convinced me it would be.

It is the time of year for resolutions, for reflection and the will to improve.  Some years I resolve to improve and some years I don't, but I always hold the idea firmly in mind at the dawn of a new year. The usual suspects leap to mind: weight loss, learn a new skill, etc. But I'm thinking more about the underpinnings of such urges.  If nothing else, it's a more profound form of useless navel-gazing, so that's a comfort!

But with at least as many wishes and shortcomings as ever to address, and fewer and fewer years in which to do it, the bells toll more insistently, and from a nearer distance.

Which is a damned wordy way to say that true perniciousness of my laziness is becoming more and more clear, and that I am happier when I'm creating something. I think my favorite part is the planning stage, in my head and to some degree on paper or digital form.  It has all the delicious, invigorating potential of the blank canvas, and less of the intimidation. All the ideas line up in my head magically, like pennies in your palm. And all things seem possible. That is exhilarating!

Somehow that eventually spirals into a recursive loop of anxiety, where fear and inaction feed each other, and I've convinced myself, in miserable fashion, that doing nothing is bettter than doing something. I can smell the stink of that mindset even now, and I hate it.

I hope that I can keep the bright light of this motivating notion resident in my head long enough to redevelop good habits and revivie the imp, reawaken the Muse. I miss that bitch.  I used to write and draw and say such pretty things, and gave myself such joy.  It's a very sad and fearful prospect that I might not be able to do those things again.

And I damn well reject the notion.  Let's go dirty up some canvases, and make some mistakes!

The last few months

The last few months have been some of the most thrilling, frightening and profound experiences of my life. And also the most private, so it is maddening not to be at liberty to chronicle them in what used to be my usual, open fashion.

One of the chief purposes for this blog is to drop breadcrumbs along my path for later review. Details great and small are always magnified in value after they've been worn smooth by the flow of the river of time, especially when they would have otherwise been lost to that submergence.  So it is of mixed value to blog about something without blogging thoroughly about it. Ah, Forced Imperfection, a close relative to Submission to Pragmatism, my old friend; how I recognize and welcome you still. Without you, I'd never get anything done.

But that's how it must be! In any event, I am grateful to be at a keyboard and hammering out anything at all. I've missed it.

Anyway: I can say that in the last several months I have had the opportunity to turn around and sandblast my relationship with my wife, scraping and gouging out a lot of sediment that had settled unhelpfully into the natural crevices that exist in our relationship. Things like laziness, ignorance, and mistaken impressions that breed mistaken actions and inactions like bacteria.

Blasting these malignant processes has made all the more room for communication, thoughtfulness and love to flourish anew. I get flowery when thinking and talking about it for the obvious reasons. But I am mindful not to overstate things. We're not perfect, but we are oh, so much better than before. I can now see my way clear to how deleterious my thought processes have been, and I'm proud to say I've done away with some of them. Certainly many remain, but when I think back to not long ago I can really appreciate the improvement. And so can my wife.

We are more giving, more trusting, more romantic, more adventurous and more fun than we have ever been. I am able to let go of the negative more now (thank Christ, because even now cynicism is a shadowy malevolence to me; the improvement was sorely needed). Just a few days ago, I wrapped up in a few hours a shitty mood that would normally have swept away an entire evening, and brought my lover's average mood to new lows. (Now there is a ticker worth keeping an eye on!) With my work schedule, evenings are that much shorter and therefore more precious. To be able to win them back and increase their positivity is a lifesaver.

I have faced the fear of lost intimacy and realized that there's no reason for it. What a freedom! All I had to fear was fear itself, as a wise man said. And that fear threatened to take things from me that weren't otherwise endangered! What a deadly combination, negativity and imagination, as another wise man said.  As it is, I'd be better off with neither than with both, but I have managed to shrink the power of the correct one, and am much the better for it.

Anyway, to sum up: emotionally, things are vastly better these days. Appreciation has gained new and profound status in my life, and I am able to look upon the landscape of my life and pick out all the good that is gleaming there, when not long ago so much looked dull and gray. What happiness had laid in wait for me.

Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" is a good song

It may cost me my Man Card, but there, I said it.

"Born This Way" is a song that espouses a good self-image. As someone who lets doubt fill any and all mental voids, I can attest that people are better off seeking a different normal.

It can be hard to see past the legions of homosexual, assless-chap-wearing fans and the chrome, conical breastplates, but it's worth the effort to do so.

And "don't be a drag, just be a queen" is funny. Positive message AND a little humor? That kinda shit makes new fans.

Commut-ication

(wrote this in my car during my commute)

I've been watching, feeling and thinking about mortality a lot these days. A lot even for me, and I've always kept a wary eye on that marker.

A big part of it is media, and the awareness it sustains that time marches on. Celebrities make a fair meter. It dazzles my primate brain to see someone who is "here with us" one day topple over the Great Horizon the next. I'm thrilled to have survived long enough to have a grown nephew who looks at me quizzically when I mention popular shows or artists no longer in existence. He looks at me like the dog does when I juggle. By simple extrapolation I know that there were artists before my time whom I'll never know or appreciate, although I'm making a few small efforts to broaden my musical appreciation.

Beyond the pop, I think of my mother, and now my brother, lost to the pantheon of memory and infinity. Now that my temporary blessing/curse of invulnerability to loneliness has dispersed, I am left with all too-keen an understanding of the need for human contact and interaction, with none of the social skills necessary to make it happen, and a wife who loves me but doesn't understand my need for communication to foster intimacy, nor harbors the communicative skills to make that happen.

In my teenage years, when my mom was still alive, she would get so lonely, trapped in the house by her illness and feebleness. Sometimes I would spend some time with her, but her illness was hard to witness, and I was a not-unusually self-centered teenager with a head full of madness and my own problems. I wouldn't mind spending some time to keep her company these days, and she could do the same for me.

I'm grateful that I get the chance to wake up every day and take another shitty run at life, although I feel that I'm still doing it incorrectly after thousands of chances to get it right. I am still baffled that so many people mortgage their souls to a full-time job, and yet I haven't discovered an attractive alternative. Then again, I haven't really put the time and research into it, have I?

Usually by this point I would write: "Maybe someday," but once past life's halfway marker, phrases like that don't come as cheaply or wistfully as they used to. If "someday" doesn't come with an earnest plan, you might as well use the word "never."

I look forward to the day I can converse with my son as one man to another, and I hope I do things right enough in between that he'll still talk to me when we get there. Wouldn't that be something.

I don't know what to tell you about my daughter. The whole story between me and her has been an epic case study in poor planning and human apathy, and we quite obviously don't know what to say to each other, and haven't since she was four, it seems. Our entire relationship has wobbled on a knife's edge for years, with neither of us wanting to sever it, nor do we know how to improve it. It all smacks of failure and disillusionment and regret; what a mess.

Who writes these things in a place like this? Someone with nowhere else to turn. Words seep out of me like tears, or pus, a natural by-product of life. The lack of an interlocutor is beside the point, like complaining to a geyser that "all this water could be put to some use, you know."

Saturday night high

I performed at a comedy show in Manteca last Saturday night. It was great.

I was on a line-up with Chris Teicheira (I'm always a little proud of myself when I spell his name right), Dan Wilson, and headlining: Joe Klocek.  I respect all three of them for their comedic skills an experience, and I wanted to do well. And so I did!

I did my best, anyway, and came off all right. Comics sometimes throw around the words "killed" and "destroyed" when they simply did an able job, and held up their end of the bargain. It makes me slightly uncomfortable, so I strain to avoid the superfluous.  But I understand it: even a moderate showing can mainline those laughs (that you created!) so hotly into your veins that you feel like you blew the roof off the joint, when calmly reviewing the video later clearly shows otherwise.

All the comics (those performing, and those attending but not performing) were really cool/pleasant/friendly, and it was a great feeling. What a night!

Oh, the places you'll go

We get some flyover traffic here, being roughly due east of San Francisco. I like to watch the planes come in and out, and I marvel at where they could be coming from, and where they might go. I remember the direction we took to Paris more or less, and when one follows anything I can deliberately fantasize is a similar track, my brain flows with a mixed vision of my experienced there, my next visit, and all the imagined lives of the millions of people it could be on that plane. Boggles my mind.

My world is finite, and yet so infinite!

Gay marriage

It's strange; during a life when there are two (or many more) sides to every story, and nothing is simple, some confusing issues have presented themselves in some pretty binary ways. What a relief to my brain, a brain that can never seem to find a handle by which to wrangle things.

Gay marriage is one of those things.

With all the arms, legs, finger, toes and other appendages this issue displays, reasonable people can always find something about which to disagree. Religion, social norms, love, civil rights,
the very definition of social institutions; what a varied gumbo of discourse awaits the dumb bunny who thinks he can make sense of it all.

I say that having been on both sides of the issue in my head. Like President Obama, my thoughts on the issue "evolve." And I think you, him and I all are aware what a flimsy state of affairs that is. But then again, if you're not sure, you're not sure. It smacks of a shortcut to profess a position on these things if you're not certain where you stand. Unfortunately, there's very little room for uncertainty on any issue under the sun, especially in politics. Also unfortunately, some things are too complicated to find an easy handle.

Yeah yeah yeah, life's complicated. There a point to be made here, Tom?

Why yes, voice of cynicism and impatience, there is. My point is that with all the swirling, logical distractions that get kicked up in the debate about gay marriage, the thing I keep circling back to, the one question that seems to be the key to the whole thing for each person is this: do you think a gay person's idea of love is any different or lesser than heterosexual love? Is their idea of love any less genuine than yours?

Because if you agree that it is equal to your own genuine, fallible, brilliant, crazy, breathtaking, fluctuating heart's cry, then it's a very short and direct path to "granting" "them" the same rights and responsibilities that "we" have. Sorry for all the quotes, but it's amazing how quickly the terminology of division presents itself, with "them, they, us, we, their and our" all slicing up a pie that in reality is big enough for everybody, and I'm not comfortable with it.

But yeah, it always comes back to that for me. If it's real, then you've got to admit that gay marriage is just as valid as hetero, and following that truth where it leads.

If not, then no. But good luck shoving that rock up that particular hill. You try to look these people (see, I'm doing it again) in the eye and tell them that what they call love isn't as good as what you call it. I wanna be there for that, because sparks are gonna FLY son! You start chipping away at that load-bearing pillar of self, and you're not very far from denying someone's entire validity as an entity in a much larger sense, and even the weakest among us will fight that with the utmost ferocity.

What do you think?

Cotes du Rhone

I scored a cheap Cotes du Rhone wine at a Hayward Safeway store this morning before work. With the tangy, tannin bouquet and a swirled half-mouthful, I was back in Paris, seated at a sturdy outdoor table at an affordable restaurant with my wife. An intoxicating wave of nostalgia, consisting of escargots, garlic, butter, bread, duck, and cobblestones flooded through me, and I was back in Paris.

I haven't even gotten to the cheese yet. Gonna be a good night.

Goodbye, Dick Clark

Okay, I'm the first to admit that the title of this post is misleading. I'm not a big fan of Dick Clark. I have no problem with the man, but he was blandly affable, and I like my entertainers with a point of view.

But Dick Clark died this week. That's sad. His death, like my 40th birthday and gray hair (which I've gotten a lot of comments on lately, even though I've been going shamelessly gray for years) was for me an undeniable signpost that life keeps on going by.

I watched a lot of T.V. growing up. So much that my parents justifiably worried about the effect it would have on my development. It gave about as much as it took, but my point is that even at a young age, I had a morbid, ever-present sense of mortality. I'd see old people on the screen and regularly experience the thought that if everything goes according to plan, this guy will be dead long before me, and to a lesser extent, so would many of the middle-aged artists and entertainers who were currently in their prime.

I remember specfically thinking this about Michael Jackson, who has been dead for a little while now. I wasn't a big Michael fan, but for a time, the guy was everywhere; they didn't *get* any bigger. And there he was: youthful, slender, nearly ageless even in later years, whirling, dancing, energetic. And I thought to myself: "Unless something unforeseen happens, there will be a time when he is dead and I will persist."

And here we are. I'll tell you something else: it still blows my mind that I survived to see the new millennium. "The year 2000" was such a mind-blowing, jet-packing, Star Trekking impossibility that although I could do the math and realize that I only had to make it to twenty-nine to realize it, I could hardly conceive of it.

Still, here we are. Some of us, anyway. It's funny, an eight year-old kid also can't conceive of how the titans of his culture can fall from grace; how even the impossibly rich can blow their money and end up stealing or selling used cars or just die cold and alone. He can't foresee old age slowly but inexorably stealing things from people that he didn't know could be stolen: A stroke took the forever young Dick Clark and reduced him to a slurring, stammering stiff-walking parody of his former self. For those that grew up watching the alert, smooth, raven-haired game show host, it was flatly horrifying, a profoundly sad reminder that nobody is safe from Nature's ruthless coin toss.

They say these things happen in threes. While I don't go for superstitions, they do seem to my simian brain to occur in clumps, whether twos or fours or what have you. I wonder who is next?

My heroes aren't getting any younger, and I bet that many of them don't live very cleanly. Death has already claimed my beloved and hard-charging Christopher Hitchens, all of whose fans wish they'd discovered his genius sooner. If anybody could have made hay out of another thirty years, that old bastard would have. And yet we'll never know.

Angus Young of AC/DC; I don't think he's ever going to quit smoking, and it will be a sad, blurry day when I hear that he's gone (assuming I don't beat him to it, of course). Brian Johnson of the same band has had his health interfere with their tour dates and slows him down. What joy their music has brought me. They taught me about power, pain, humor, majesty, virtuosity, and rugged art without ever using those words to do it.

Queen has already lost Freddie (I feel like a fool that it still hurts to lose a man I never even came close to knowing, but what else is a romantic soul for?), and the ridiculous poodle on Brian May's head has turned a wonderful, poofy gray. Thank the baby Jesus that male-pattern baldness didn't strike and make a Bozo-like mockery of his spongy mane.

Bob Denver, and nearly all the one hit wonders of Gilligan's Island, dead. Michael J. Fox has goddamned Parkinson's.

Bernie Mac and Bill Hicks, both flamed out just as their star started to shine. George Carlin had a good long run, working at a strenuous pace even as he withered on the vine before dropping off.

Anna Nicole Smith died before she could slip into the degrading, inevitable run at hard-core pornography that so obviously awaited her, and that my right hand so eagerly welcomed.

Bob Dylan and Keith Richards look like unwrapped mummies but are still among us. Good for them, although I never had the good sense tp appreciate their works. It's never too late, or is it?Shameless misogynist Sean Connery keeps getting older and sexier as time goes on, but nobody really wins at this game.

I like to think that I've kept something of the imp in me, a twinkle of the inner child, giggling and running the streets in short pants, petting neighborhood dogs and playing tag. Although, I had struggled with that, especially lately, of which the malaise of the last few years has been a symptom: I had lost hope, forgotten how to laugh, and most of all forgotten what I knew when I was young, slender and stupidly joyful: none of it matters, in a wonderfully libertine way. It's something I've always known, but struggled to embrace: none of the negative really matters, and laughter is among the noblest of activities, in it's way. Mean, arrogant, joyless people (this last I've been recently and stupidly guilty of) aren't worth fretting over, and fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. Live with a perpetual, self-generated, exultant delight, and if they can't learn by example, then do it *harder.*

This creed is too long to tattoo on my body, but that's a good part of the reason I got Freddie Mercury tattooed on my forearm. He championed a harmless hedonism, a lust for life and pleasure and happiness that made the aforementioned, joyless tisk-tiskers vibrate with a condemnation that they never realized was jealousy, and goddamned good on him for it! For that alone he deserves my adoration; the artistic talent he shared was another lifetime's worth of glory, and it's a cruel shame that he didn't even get one lifetime to see where it took him.

While I'm rambling, what is this perceived connection between ultimate truth and death? My mother, my brother, my childhood friend Stacy Corn, all possessed an understanding of this principle, a comprehension that (I'm sick of reaching for a synonym) joy is a noble pursuit and state of being. Each in their own way shone with an uncommon light, only to see it snuffed out, in particularly cruelly protracted ways, as if there were some truth to the fable of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge. And people wonder why I'm an Atheist! If there were any truth to it it would only serve to prove the existence of a hideously barbaric god, not the opposite.

I guess I've said what I came to say. Besides, my commute is over, and it's time to put away my bluetooth keyboard.

Dick Clark is dead. Long live Dick Clark.

Lava Lamp

Two weeks since my last post, and my mind is a ridiculous lava lamp.

I continue to feel less scattered, more integrated, which is a welcome relief. Feels healthy.  Announcing to myself that I can set comedy aside has allowed me to shed the weighty, negative feelings of isolation and regret that were jabbing at me.

What's ironic is that now that I feel stronger, I feel tempted to do more, including comedy! My April 7th comedy gig now includes an hour's stint on local morning radio; new opportunities like this seduce and excite my mercurially unreliable intellect. I have the technical ability to do websites, podcasts, live shows and more. How tempting it is to try; they are wonderful, exciting productions (and huge responsibilities to shoulder once my manic buzz is gone).  Agh! These bursts of optimism are most frustrating! As you can see I have trouble managing the rise and fall.  If you're a mental health professional, feel free to Comment.

I feel like I used to be more at peace with these things, finding ways to swim in the tide's ebb and flow, rejoicing successes more and regretting less the areas where I've "failed" myself. I'd like to return to that level of harmony one of these days. Maybe it's just a conscious decision to let myself off the hook. What a concept, to simply live in a joyful state of mind. I am suspicious of the idea that humans are built to do that, but it's excruciatingly tantalizing.

If I could clone myself, the first thing I would do is turn around and slap myself for these constant, jarring reversals of fortune. I will work more on loving myself for the silly human I am.

Setting comedy aside, for now

Just before I got started in comedy, there was this really cool website forum called NobodyLikesMe.com (bizarrely prophetic in light of this post now that I've written it). It was built and maintained by Patrick Mellon, who has since gone on to be a writer last I heard, but who knows where he is now? He said later that he bought that domain name with the intent of starting some kind of a dating website (a la match.com, which I don't think existed then). Anyway, Fate took it's turns and NobodyLikesMe.com ended up the best online water cooler for new and intermediate standups to hang out, trade info and talk shit.

It all looked so exciting, if not glamourous. Plus, it made it look do-able.

Now that I think about it, that doesn't have much to do do with what I wanted to say today but I'm leaving it there.

When I started my own website, HumorMeComedy.com, I thought it would be a great pretext to plug into the local comedy scene, and it was. I saw lots of cliques in the comedy world, the extent of which seems socially unique: people improve their comedy by writing together. Comics find work by networking. There seemed to be genuine camaraderie.

Several years later, I've done everything right for my family, and everything wrong for comedy: I've moved far away from any population centers, far away from most people whom I could have befriended and with whom I could have collaborated. I've known for a long time that I work more efficiently and more productively with a partner or a group than alone. And yet, I've isolated myself.

Which in the long view is okay. Every time there was a decision, I'd jump in the direction of sensibility: which job to take, which place to live. It's hard to regret that in the larger sense. My kid doesn't know any curse words or anti-social habits that I didn't personally teach him, which is a blessing that the little demon-spawn in Valley elementary schools can't boast. What a relief!

I don't regret these decisions, but I acknowledge and regret their consequences. I'm saddened to find that I have been unable to form more-solid friendships among the people I've met.

It could be worse - I'm not reviled or overtly rejected in their circles. But I'm rarely sought out. I invite people to come hang out at our country home, and they find reasons not to come. I've offered free beer and compensatory gas money, and still nothing. It feels like rejection, and at some point I get tired of shrugging it off like it doesn't bother me.

I have to wonder how much of it is me? There's a case to be made that my social equipment and processes are damaged enough that I repel people and misjudge social cues even when people *are* extending a welcoming hand. I admit that I fumble these transactions (See? Even there! Who calls this shit "transactions??")

In my teens, I didn't have many friends, and the ones I did have were not good for me. They were selfish and bizarre, and not in a good way. At some point I found myself without a single friend. It was healthy in a sense, because I stopped associating with people who didn't have my interests at heart, and I had to become my own best friend, the imaginary reflection of my mind's eye.

Even then I knew, it was like having a dead limb; one that hung limply at my side, getting caught on sharp edges and pinched in the car door, serving no purpose and feeling no sensation but pain. What sensible reaction could there be but to amputate? Somehow I did that, cut the wiring inside my head, and I was relieved and grateful for the numbness that followed.

But in another, very real sense, it was radically unhealthy. Shutting myself off from other people, I don't think I ever formed the emotional foundations that underpin normal social context. I've moved on to a point where Im constantly questioning and reviewing decisions in the social realm that people don't usually give any thought to.

It's a great mechanism for comedy because it fosters an instinctual examination of every segment of every interaction, allowing the exploration of the road less traveled. That's where my sense of humor lives.

But here's the funny thing: the limb is growing back, and the nerve endings are jangling, things are twitching. The pain returns. The wiring has been repaired without my permission, and not quite "up to code." The systems are flickering and sparking and are still in need of repair. (I realize that I'm mixing metaphors, but you'll have to forgive me, I don't have time to get this exactly right and this sloppy exploration will have to do).

I knew I couldn't deny it any longer when I went to Paris last year: I had all the time in the world and as I lingered on those history-drenched, rain-dappled cobblestoned streets of my dreams all I could feel was the cold, empty ache of loneliness, down to my bones. I clung to expensive phone calls to my wife, I offered to buy a complete stranger a meal at a restaurant so I would have someone to sit with. I didn't care whether she spoke English or not. (I don't know exactly what to make of the fact that I had no interest in dining with my good friend and travel partner that night; whatever my soul needed, it didn't see it in his company at that moment.)

It felt good to cough that up onto the page, even though all of this rant feels way too personal, like someone lamenting the smallness of his penis, complete with photos from several angles. And yet, what else can I do? I've gotta talk this over with someone, even if it's just with me.

All of this gazing inward is just a detour on the road to explaining why I'm setting comedy aside, believe it or not! I just couldn't figure out how to extricate one subject from the other, so I am dumping the whole tangled knot on the table here in it's jumbled state. So be it.

The social isolation, including the lack of camaraderie as well as collaboration, the geographical isolation, the demands upon my time of my day job, they all make it just too damn hard to continue to call myself a "comedian."

I can't say I'm "quitting;" that involves a finality that I don't feel. I can easily see myself getting back on the horse once one or more of the above-named conditions ease up. Maybe I'll move. Maybe I'll have a different job someday. Maybe I'll partner up with somebody and things will click. I look forward to such a time. At the same time, it seems crushingly sad to think that I may look back at this moment ten years from now having not created or performed in the meantime.

Until then, I've got one more obligation for a show in early April. I'll prepare and do my best for that one, but I certainly won't seek out new opportunities. I don't know what I'll do if offered a gig after that, but I doubt that I'll accept it. "Luckily," offers don't come too often anyway, so the decision shouldn't arise much. I just know I don't have the resources right now to keep going, even in the half-assed manner I've been pursuing lately.

Thanks for listening.

A great morning, short-lived

I ejected myself from bed this morning with the same reluctance that always occurs at 4:30 a.m., but I felt good. During my commute, I wrote a quick blog entry about gratitude for warm showers and hot coffee.

At the risk of announcing cynicism in the guise of self-awareness, I also recognized that this springlike feeling of effervescent ebullience always (always!) precedes an equal and swift downward shift in circumstance and/or mood, back to top-dead center. Sadly, I was right again: while the warm water held out, I had no sooner looked down adoringly at my travel mug than I realized it still contained the warm water with which I had rinsed and warmed it to prepare for said coffee.

I also pressed the "Back" link in my Blogger interface during the entry of my post and without a blink, my post about gratitude was lost to the ages. No prompt of: "Are you sure you want to toss this post out like yesterday's garbage?" Just gone.

So in case you're wondering why my early morning non-prayer of thanks didn't include technology, it's because I wasn't feeling too grateful at the time.

Harumph!

Stupid

I feel so stupid. Stress produced rage, which produced destruction, which produced shame, which now produces stress, again. Ugh - brilliant.

I'm embarrassed at it. I don't want to discuss it with my loved one - why give my wife more evidence that she's married a fool? When I can't talk things out, I literally can not get them out. So, it recirculates within my systems, knotting my gut and haunting my psyche.

I can spoon some of it out here in my blog, which helps in small measure.

People must wonder how I can be comfortable noting in bright public relief things I am scared to admit in private. The answers are that I have a low estimation on humanity as the faceless, slobbering throng that it insists on proving itself to be. You inhuman rabble, I don't care what you think of me.

Paradoxically, people who have shown me kindness and friendship, even of a virtual kind, I trust you with my oddness, my pains, my secrets, my shames. I would gladly hand a knife to a friend and confidently turn my back. What good are these bonds if they can't be relied upon now and then?Thank you for listening.

TGIF

When I was a school-aged child, I couldn't wait for three o'clock so that I could be free to play as I wished. I would stare at the clock and fiercely will it to shuffle along its way. I should have been more careful as to what I wished for.

Now that I'm 40, my days flip by like the pages of a book left open in a storm. It's Monday. It's Friday. It's Monday again.

I drive in the dark and marvel at the natural wonders of the morning landscapes, both plain and mystic with their Navy blue sky, surreal moon and creeping, glow-eyed, nocturnal fauna that most people rarely experience.

I dream of pulling over, exiting my car, my life as it now exists, and giving myself over to the haunting call of the not-yet-dawn.

I fantasize about sneaking away from my carefully, yet precariously planned life, stacked like river rocks, in a blurry, secret agent-style departure, slipping away to a new, more exciting chapter that doesn't resemble this one at all. A bon vivant in Paris. An artist in the City with intense, creative friendships and long, compelling discussions and passionate arguments that last into the dawn and solve all the world's problems and dance around the most utterly frivolous nothings with equal reverence.

The longing is persistent and distracting. I fail to resolve two truths I feel in my heart: one, that I am leading a life unprecedentedly fortunate among those of my species, even in this "modern" age. A life full of love and family and ease and comfort and opportunity. The other, that life is short, too short to always choose the bird in the hand, that my brother died at what we consider a young age without finding a true love or a passionate pursuit, a fire into which he could willingly and joyously feed the fuel of his body, mind and time. What a sad prospect.

Turning forty has been a wondrous existential catastrophe. Fairly to the day of my life's anniversary, I was struck as if by a lighting bolt with an added dimension of perception. I felt like a hiker who had paused to look back at the mountain he had half-climbed, having only seen it from the start of his journey until now. How small the routes look from up here. How lucky I was to survive some scrapes in hindsight. But most of all the way the entire journey is cast in a different light in view of my experiences so far, throwing into doubt not only the routes I take next but the entirety of the goal itself!

One of the lessons I have learned is that I am never satisfied. Even as I near a goal (when I am persistent enough to have neared it, which is too rare), I am bewitched by other twinkling distractions, drawing me away and leaving me unfulfilled, my current prize nearly but not quite achieved.

And so when I look my mid-life crisis in the face, I am powerless to recognize it for what it is. Is it the gauzy Muse, screaming truth at me across the void, gesturing madly that I may listen and follow my true course in life? Or is it a fiendish siren song, a lovely, heart-rending beseeching that I would stray and guide my little ship away from calm seas and fair weather and onto the rocks, and lament my stupidity and loss as I slip beneath the waves?

I am wholly powerless to discriminate; I truly cannot tell the difference, and at times the agony of indecision is exquisite.

Don't be so glum - it's Friday!

It's a new year, and I'm off to a very mixed start, with positives and negatives coming from unexpected places. This is a good thing I guess, as at least it's not boring.

On the downside (so I can finish with the "ups"), my intentions to eat healthy and get more exercise have gone right in the shitter. The same habits and weaknesses and struggles with discipline don't give a dry fuck whether it's a new year, they just want what they want, and they're getting it. Hope springs eternal, where there's life there's hope, and tomorrow's another day. Three cliches oughtta do it. But obviously, I cling to the idea that I can always try again tomorrow, as long as there's another tomorrow in me.

On the other hand, comedy started January off with a big show in a big room in a new place, and not only did I do a pretty good job performing, I earned a little respect from my booker, I stretched and did more time than I'm used to and earned a little for myself. Best of all, I basked in the company and hospitality and dare-I-say-it love of some good friends while I was in their area. I haven't had a non-family member say "I missed you" and mean it in longer than I can remember.The effect was startling and warm. Wow, as a social misfit, you sometimes forget what you're missing, which is probably an excellent coping mechanism, and so for the best. Still, I was awash in the glow of genuine, unexpected affection. How do I show my appreciation for that, and pay it back in kind? I'm not good at that.

Also, I'm working on getting an open mike together in my area, hopefully strengthen my performing muscles. This has come along with a small but healthy breakthrough in my attitude towards performing, and I hope that I can capture this and develop it. These types of mental changes are mercurial, and can slip away if not acted upon, so we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, happy new year out there, people. It's looking like a good launch to a wobbly vessel on this year's journey. See you on the high seas!