Wednesday, September 28, 2005

pray for mercy


dear "god",

thanks for all the hurricanes. i've already been to new orleans, so i guess i didn't really need to see it again. are you going to be wiping out all the other places i've visited? should i give folks the heads up? (i'm looking at you, california...)

thanks for two consecutive terms of georgie w. thanks for the death of stanley kubrick and the career of brett ratner. thanks for cancer and bigotry and sports and serial killers and flesh-eating viruses and IKEA and the rent in NYC and my day job and euro-trash and ameri-trash and Emeril Lagasse and burn victims and born victims and unrequited love/hate and for giving us your "only" son so that we could hang him up real pretty. oh, and especially thanks for the years 1976-1999 as well as 2004-2005.

ERASE ME!!!

amen. :-)

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

i may not always love you


when i think about these being the closing months of my 20s, it just makes everything so much better. to be fair, things were looking up for a few years before it all went into the shitter. but far be it from me to put a positive spin on any of this. i refuse to be the kind of person who gets shat upon and serenely exclaims, "everything happens for a reason!" you know what, buddy? you just got shat upon! what in the fuck good did that do you?? how are you better off than you were, brother?? for fuck sake, you're covered in feces!!!

october's coming head-on. more casting issues with that Ibsen show i agreed to direct. can't even hammer out a rehearsal schedule till i've got confirmation on everyone. i really got handed the shit-end of the stick with the casting. it just means my segment's gotta blow the others' segments out of the fucking waters. jesus, i'm negative. (jesus loves the fuck outta this blog, believe me.)

the apartment's somehow looking worse and worse the more it's dismantled. i really need to make some headway before friday. i'm not even certain i'll be moving, but this has gotta be done. i've at least got to pack enough so that there's enough space to hold a few rehearsals the next few weeks.

on a lighter note, scientists are finally getting more serious about finding out why pandas make shitty lovers. (yes, i'm a quarter panda.)

Monday, September 26, 2005

bully


autumn's come on like a bully you can see striding toward you from across the schoolyard. quick change. quick plotting. quick decisions. long-term is out the window. forget the big picture. nothing matters any longer. nothing counts.

grisly weekend, set about dismantling the Fortress of Solitude. what can i take? what can't i leave behind? if it were up to me, i'd toss most of it; but my life is not my own, is it? rico promised me things would be different, but rico lies. isn't that right... joey?

monday can go fuck itself today. i mean, really.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

autumnal equinox


i only feel like mumbling today. maybe i need caffeine. my mourning nicotine didn't pry open my eyes. i feel parched. numb. maybe it's a tumor. didn't even drink that much last night. everything's changing really fast. i may have to make the earth move in the next few weeks. i'm sick of the year i've had. nobody deserves the year i've had. ok, some people deserve the year i've had, but i don't. it ain't the way i wanted it -- i can handle things! i'm smart! not like everybody says... like dumb... i'm smart and i want respect!

i'm fucking exhausted. 10 minutes late to work today. i even got out the apartment in time, the fucking F train just shut down around 14th street. how perfect. well, my job's the dog's balls and i think deserve the leeway to fuck up a little. i've been keeping my sneakers on at work for the past 2 days. it's a cry for help, really. i am out of control -- somebody stop me.

death is rough, but a drawn-out process of dying is so much worse. how long can a person be expected to grieve?

happy fall, you beautiful fucking people.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

rampage


Morality is a human invention—it doesn't come from outer space, it doesn't come from God. It's constantly being redefined, and it's constantly up for grabs. It makes a lot of people very nervous to accept that and they want absolutes, but of course then you just get absolute opposites killing each other.
-David Cronenberg

fuck christ, i'm out of control. it's only wednesday and i don't know what i'm doing anymore. i woke up way too late this mourning. my search for oblivion yields strange, disturbing dreams. i think i'm just pissing myself over what's to come. this whole year's been a big, dreadful anticipation of what's to come -- and it always seems to be right around the corner before it gets pushed back. but something is going to break this weekend. for good or ill. and there's no bracing for it. and there's nowhere to run. and there's nowhere to hide. because the world is decimated and the only things left standing are me and my demons.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

god-shaped hole


sometimes i feel like i've got enough misanthropy to level a city... and you know why. (and you ought to be ashamed of yourself -- yeah, you.)

inside, everything's rotted away. and i don't think it's ever regenerating.

problems will be solved or resolved -- cleanly or messily -- with positive, negative or imaginary number results. but nothing will ever be fixed.

[why did i agree to direct a show when all i want to do is get wasted every night?]

jesus, get me a gun. get me a gun and i'll show you what i can do with it...

Monday, September 19, 2005

outrace the speed of pain


happy monday mourning, all you cheery fucks. everyone have a lovely weekend? that's wonderful. how's that working for you? being happy and all...?

because i'm some sort of glorious sucker, i'm directing 1/3 of a show that's going up next month. excerpts from IBSEN plays. i'm directing the first act of "When We Dead Awaken", which was his last play before his expiration date. last time i directed for this theater company, i did it as a favor to a friend. this time, i don't know anybody involved. but it's okay, because i'm terrific at meeting new people. i've gotta go to the Y on the upper east side tonight to help oversee the auditions. promises to be a gas gas gas.

even though the weather's been unseasonably summery, the nights are definitely growing longer. it instills a grim sense of doom in me. like everything is not going to turn out okay. like everything is just about to get much, much worse. no hard data to back this up. just a feeling in the bones. how much loss and tragedy can one person suffer?

tomorrow's not ours to see. run for cover. then steady yourselves for the rain.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

DUNCE!


the agent rejected the script. so now you know what not to bring up the next time you see me. (add it to the list.)

i guess it would have been too easy if the agent had liked the script. you can't depend on a lottery ticket. or at least *i* can't depend on a lottery ticket. not this year. (unless it's sponsored by shirley jackson.) i have to do everything the hardest way possible.

i know that rejection is part of the game -- repeated, bludgeoning rejection -- but it's always hard to shake. the renewed self-doubt. the shame. the mourning.

the "good" news is that i ain't working tomorrow, in the interest of using up vacation days before i lose them. four days of sulking, here i come! outta my way, fuckwads!!!

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

oh the places i've gone


the thirteenth of september, twenty-oh-five.
ten years ago, my junior year had arrived
and i contemplated--then--that perhaps it was time
to drop out of school while i was still in my prime!

although i earned my degree, i try not to resent
that nothing i learned there helps me pay the rent!

"oh!, the places you'll go!"
said the drunk in the rear...
"like a dead end job
and a stalled career!"

because life is all heartache, disappointment and hate,
so you must hurry out, hurry now, don't be late!

Monday, September 12, 2005

the death of the party


i don't normally do reviews of things on this page; there are plenty of other pages where you can read reviews. but in a little over two weeks, i've just powered through 5 seasons of "Six Feet Under", having just watched the final episode yesterday. i'm demolished. one day, i'd like to create something that will affect people as much as this show affected me. considering that i've essentially been in a state of grieving for over a year, the 63 episodes of this series really tapped something volatile in me. and unlike many shows that i've been impressed by but end in a clumsy manner, the ending of this show was, imho, pitch perfect. i am in awe. i am in envy.

i am completely fucking depressed.

there are a few months left in this turbulent year. the days are undoubtedly getting shorter. and there's so much i've got to do and get resolved. so much unresolved and bitter and messy and unfortunate. i'm desperately trying to refocus myself so that i can make it through without getting buried. last winter was cold. this could be colder.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

there's not much left to love; too tired today to hate


A lack of pain,
A lack of hope,
A lack of anything to say...


As relieved as I am that I've finished that screenplay I've just finished, now I've got to think about what I want to re-focus my efforts on. This is a revised list of projects I'd like to see through to completion, in no particular order:

"The Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table
of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella"

(animated short—in production)
Zombie Zoo
(screenplay)
The Gingerbread House
(screenplay)
Dystopia
(screenplay—revision)
Carpenter Ward
(screenplay)
Rise, Gerbils!
(play?/short film?)
All Goodbyes Should Be Sudden
(play)
Chinadoll Overdrive
(play)
God & Malice
(play)

this weekend could be murder. because i lost my atm card, the only access i have to my money is through personal checks. trying to focus on one crisis at a time. the fortress of solitude needs tending to. i need to get it in some kind of order. in case Katrina decides to pay a surprise visit.

oh yeah, blogs should have links, right? i aspire to create a world as lunatic as Sid & Marty Krofft's. i want people to see my work and wonder, 'what was he smoking?'

and the answer, of course, will be 'menthols'.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

black box recorder


back at the job. just two days this week, but two days i could do without. it's always hard coming back when you've been on vacation. it's a little harder when you've just lost out on a promotion that would have made the job a lot easier. harder still when you're a suicidal hate machine. who let the dogs out?

the "good" news is that i've finished a screenplay that i've been kicking around for the better (or worse) of a year and a half. i've sent it "out" and now i play the excruciating waiting game.

the lame news is that i've somehow managed to lose my atm card. i barely took my wallet out this past weekend, too. but i'm pretty sure i had it when i left the mountains. this comes at such a lousy time, i won't even elaborate. well, it's okay because i haven't suffered enough this year. pity party in the comment box, BYOB.

i love autumn in new york, though. things begin to die, the nights grow longer, the weather gets a little more bitter, and the world gets a better sense of what it's like to live inside my head. but am i really capable of "love" at this point?

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

now, where is that golden arm...?


yes, i've returned from the wilderness. alive to mope another day. i can't express how thankful i am that i've taken today off as well. no, there's no way for me to adequately express that.

thanks to nick-o and the velvet underground for sponsoring my impromptu trip to the adirondacks. for the record, we stayed in a lovely, bourgeois home in woods, so it wasn't like i was actually camping. there was a very nice fireplace, however, and i used the opportunity to try to tell ghost stories i remembered from when i was a kid. i used this opportunity badly.

there is the story of the "golden arm" that i attempted to relate. for some reason, i found this story terrifying as a child. i don't know why, exactly. it's an absurd premise that doesn't get any less absurd as it reaches its anticlimax. i suppose many "classic" ghost stories suffer from these failings, and are subsequently a testament to a good storyteller's skill in making something scary. how sad, then, that i -- who aspire to become such a storyteller -- failed so stunningly with such an old story. the failure is made worse by the fact that i was afforded the rare gift of being surrounded by a bunch of semi-inebriated adults who had somehow never heard of the diabolical tale of the golden arm (here coupled with the even more ridiculous tale of the "missing liver").

you want genuine creepy, though? (after all, dear reader, why would you be reading misanthropy central...?) how about a little Kigurumi (work-safe) to get under your skin (less work-safe, but i know you can't help but click on this: the power of christ commands you!).

eff september and eff rico while you're there...

Saturday, September 03, 2005

man on the moon

last minute decision to flee the city this holiday weekend. though i'm the furthest thing from a tree-hugger, i begrudgingly admit that it's nice to be out of the city, away from the comforts and concerns of the fortress of solitude. this weekend of all weekends.

be back in a day and a half maybe. then, i'll deal with the world. till then, i'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

The Stolen Child


Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.


Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's morefully of weeping than you can understand.


Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,.
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For to world's morefully of weeping than you can understand.


Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
from a world more full of weeping than you can understand.

x william butler yeats


everyone's caught up in the idea of heaven. even non-religious people. what if there's nothing? what if there's no greater plan? what if the idea of a "soul" is just romantic narcissism and there is NOTHING that happens to your conscious mind after your expiration? you just *end* with your physical body. what if the universe doesn't have any greater spiritual mysteries and it's just a big, cold machine? what if most people in this world are just fooling themselves with the idea that there's any kind of "afterlife" -- and the big punchline is that there's nothing at all...? but imagining that there *is* one makes every day just a little less scary?

funnier still, the number of people who've been killed over conflicting ideas of an afterlife throughout history. everyone's killing everybody else trying to assert their belief about what the afterlife is about; what if everybody's wrong...?

what if, eh...? what if...?

it's like the petrol tanker filled with sand in THE ROAD WARRIOR.

(p.s. wake me up when september ends.)
(p.p.s. eff rico.)