Thursday, August 31, 2006

That's when the bad dreams started...

I've been away for a while, so what's the harm in two entries for today...?

I had a bad dream last night. Strange and bad.

The first part isn't really connected to the second, or I can't remember the connective tissue...

My step-mom was this strong black woman. She reminded me of a younger Pam Grier or maybe Angela Bassett. She was supposed to be my step-mother, but she wasn't really married to my father. (I realize that those of you who are familiar with my father are already laughing, but I'll continue anyway, thankyou.) In this dream, this woman had partially raised me, and I really thought of her as my mother. Anyway, this woman came to me -- as a mother would to a son -- and told me that she had been diagnosed with cancer. She was tough but slightly teary. She gave me a hug and told me that she thought of me as her son. It recall it having a big impact on me.

In the second part of the dream, I'm in an apartment that's supposed to belong to my family. Not my actual, real-world family, but some group of people who represented my family in the dream...

I was looking out the window. It was a bright, sunny day. Then, suddenly, the sky changed. Dark clouds blotted out the sun and it seemed to change to night within moments. It was some huge, volatile storm. But something worse, perhaps. I saw something streak across the sky in a plume of smoke, like a jet or an asteroid. I couldn't tell if it was something "natural" or something... else.

Then, watching through the window, I saw whatever it was affect the environment. Wind picked up. People began to scatter in terror. Whatever this was, it was an incredible force. Large trees began to crack. These massive buildings began to topple over each other, like dominoes...

And then I saw this huge building bending and falling toward the window... getting larger and larger... hearing the screams from everyone else who was in the apartment...

There is a break in what I remember, but I get separated from the building. I am elsewhere in the aftermath of this dream city. The world is in chaos and I'm at a museum. I run into a friend I don't see every day (Roger), and he wants to hang out, but all I want to do is try to get back home to see what's left.

I somehow manage to get back to the apartment. It's vacant and wrecked but intact. All our stuff is intact. But there's already a team of looters trying to get in through the window. They're throwing grappling hooks through the window, and I'm futilely trying to protect this apartment. Slashing their ropes. They are relentless and I am about to lose...

And then I realize that this can only be a dream, and I don't have to go through this, so I make myself wake up.

All American Antichrist

And the world spreads its legs...
And the world spreads its legs for another fucking star!!!


Thank you, BLOGGER, for reactivating my primary blog! I missed you, my precious fucking pets.

If you don't read that other blog that I keep, you may not have heard that Paramount Pictures has optioned the rights to my play (The Butcherhouse Chronicles) and is working with me to adapt it into a major motion picture.

SUCK ON THAT!!!

[chorus chanting: suck, suck, suck, etc.]

Resurrection, motherfuckers! Resuh-fuckin-rection!!!

Who's reading this? I know the regulars, I'm addressing the lurkers. People who know me? People who used to know me? Because let me you, I am born again as something you couldn't possibly fathom. I am talking to you.

I just won the biggest sweepstakes prize of the summer.

I have been working for this opportunity for my entire fuckin life, so it's more than winning some kind of lottery. I've earned this. By staying in the game and by working on the craft while nobody cared what I was doing.

Ya didn't believe me! WHY DIDN'T YA BELIEVE ME?!?

Welcome to a new kind of misanthropy...

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Charity Case

Just an urchin livin under the street
I'm a hard case that's tough to beat
I'm your charity case, so buy me something to eat...!
I'll pay you at another time...!!
Take it to the end of the line!!! (BEAT IT!!!!)


I've run out of (stolen) paper. I should liberate a ream from work today. I just hate carrying reams of paper in my backpack. Them shits is heavy, yo.

But what's the alternative? BUYING a few reams of paper at an office store? I've STILL gotta carry that shit home!

Ordering for home delivery grinds my gears, coz it means I gotta be home to receive it, which is always a pain in me gulliver.

My plan was, I had to get home to get the package ready for Lois to take on her trip. Also, I had to get to Sandy's house to give the package a whack with quinine. Plus, I knew Sandy was gonna get on my ass! Then I had the cooking to finish at home and I had to get Sandy ready for her trip!

Un-fucking-believable!

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

What's All This, Then...?

Good morning, Silent Lurkers. If I could tell you, I would. But I can't. Not quite yet. The world will reveal itself soon enough.

If you know already, you know what the hell I'm talking about.

If you don't know, this is just another obnoxiously cryptic entry.

I'm going nuts here at work today. I've got work to do but I've also got important phone calls to make.

Let's all wait -- calmly -- and remember to breathe.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

And the Embers Never Fade...

Are these the "dog days" then? The warm, muggy dog days of a dying summer. Which broken umbrella shall I take to work? Will somebody please invent an umbrella that won't twist into a bowtie with each shift in the wind? I'll pay $5.

FYI, all you Apple crazies: my iPod's still on the freakout. Each day, I need to sort it out. The company's got lousy support.

And yet...

A Tuesday Shuffled 5:
1. "All Nighter", Elastica
2. "Tired of Being Sorry", Ringside
3. "Crash Diet" (unfinished demo), Guns N' Roses
4. "Sweet Sweet", Smashing Pumpkins
5. "Low", Coldplay

BONUS SHOT:
"Red Hill Mining Town", U2

This is old, but I think it's really well done.

My mind is scattershot this Tuesday. Stay your distance.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Searchers


Two entries for Monday, you silent lurkers! Because my hands are idle and nobody's returning a fucking email today!

SEARCH FIELD: "i hurt when i think too much i love roadtrips i hate my weight i fear being alone for the rest of my life"

Autumn Winter

I felt it this weekend. The foreshadow of autumn. Autumn doesn't even feel like a full season in New York. It's just the prologue to a long, barren, insufferable winter.

Heat-waves and thunderstorms aside, I kind of developed an affection for this summer. It may have been those long, contemplative walks to and from the theater. The sunny walks home from work.

I have some fear for the coming autumn and winter. The cold brings back memories. Everything is new and I'm a new person, but you never can tell when memories are going to sucker-punch you. They hit so hard.

Year's not over, though. Shitloads to do yet.

Monday Mourning Shuffled 5:
1. "Suffer", Smashing Pumpkins
2. "White Trash", Marilyn Manson
3. "A Man is a Man", The Who
4. "Everything in its Right Place" (live), Radiohead
5. "Having a Blast", Green Day

BONUS DREAM:
"No Pride", Green Day

Friday, August 11, 2006

Blood & Rain

It came down torrential last night!

I'm at the Times Square Virgin Megastore and I just need to go home. My umbrella's leaking and my work clothes are soaked, but I just figure I'll head over to the Rockefeller Center subway station.

By the time I get down into the station, I'm fucking drenched. I'm standing on the platform, patiently waiting for my appropriate train. I touch my face and my hand comes away with blood. I've gotten a fuckin nosebleed. I dig through my bag and can't find any tissues. I end up tearing off a piece from the last page of a script I've got printed out and stuffing it up my nose. Wasn't working and I just know I've got blood smeared all over my face by now, and the thought of a trainful of people staring at me like I'm the Black Plague sickens me, so I fucking flee the station and head back into the rain with my leaky umbrella...

You can never find a cab in the rain, and even if there was a free one I knew I'd be a tough sell -- dripping with blood -- so I just start walking home in the downpour.

To make matters better, my iPod starts freezing up.

Rain is streaming down through the fabric of my shitty umbrella, blood is gushing through the crumpled script page in my nose, and my iPod is stuttering music in my ears like it doesn't remember how to play it. And all I can think about is what a wonderful world we live in.

Still trying to resuscitate my iPod today. Fucking thing thinks it's switched on "Hold". Won't even let me do a manual reboot. I've cleared it off, updated the software, and it's currently reloading all the songs (which should take hours yet), but I fear the "Hold" issue is still a problem. You're not on HOLD, iPod! I'm on HOLD! My whole fuckin life's on HOLD!!!

Christ wept, I hate glitch-ridden Apple products...

Thursday, August 10, 2006

The Best You Can Is Good Enough

Don't ask me why -- and I'm certain this too will fade in a few minutes -- but I'm feeling incredibly... optimistic this mourning...

Settle down, nothing's happened. Nothing's changed. Nothing's developed. Maybe it's the Thursday talking. Maybe I'm hopped up on the free hot cocoa from the machine at work. Maybe it's the fleeting realization that I tend to see things far worse than they actually may be. (Maybe I'm just like my mother -- she's never satisfied.)

But I'm feeling more at ease with where I am and what I'm capable of. (Understand that even as I type that, the feeling is slipping away...)

More writing this weekend. Mostly redrafting, but hopefully I'll get to some new material. Too many distractions and I can end up staring at my ceiling for hours on end. I need blinders for my train-of-thought.

Here's my

SHUFFLED 5 for THURSDAY:
1. "Intergalactic", The Beastie Boys
2. "Sail to the Moon", Radiohead
3. "Only Son", Liz Phair
4. "2 More Dead", RJD2
5. "Wake Me up When September Ends" (live), Green Day

BONUS TRACK!!!
"Don't Pass Me By", The Beatles

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Retro-Shuffler

A little bonus entry, because I haven't done this in a while. A list of the first 5 songs randomly shuffled by my iPod... no cheating by skipping over *embarrassing* tracks...

REVENGE OF THE SHUFFLED 5:
1. "When Doves Shit" (not actual name), by Fuckintosh
2. "The Grasshopper Unit (Keep Movin')", by The Beastie Boys
3. "Saturday Morning", by Eels
4. "Please Take Me Home", by Blink-182
5. "Through with You", by Maroon 5

BONUS TRACK (as an apology for the Maroon 5)
"Smells Like Billie Jean", by Smash-Up Derby

Whoa... that kinda sucked...

FUNNY!

Buon Fortuna

As I left the office yesterday, I found a $20 on the floor in the lobby. Finders keepers, suckas! A sign of better things to come?

If only I believed in things like "luck" and "fate" and "god"...

What is with this psychotropic mental rollercoaster I've been on in the past couple of weeks? This must read like a neverending descent into madness.

It does feel like autumn out there. No need to roll up the sleeves when I stepped out this mourn. Perhaps it just feels like autumn in relation to the horrific heat wave that dominated the past several weeks. The temperatures drop to remind us of where we are heading. Somewhere far, far colder...

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

There's No Need to Argue Anymore

Woke up this mourning and it felt like winter. Like we'd tripped past autumn and landed dead upon a lonely day in winter. The kind of day it's hard to drag yourself out of bed.

But I'm going to work today. Because the value of calling out sick a second day in row will not outweigh the value of imposing myself on the world. Yesterday wasn't so grand.

Plagued by strange dreams and nightmares. Jennifer Beals. Alligator-shaped demons in hell.

I know what I need. I need sun on my face. I need to force myself to interact with others. I need to get a list of things done this week. Hell and/or high water. If you can't be with the one you love, honey, lower your expectations...

Monday, August 07, 2006

Flores Para Los Muertos

Sick days taken after weekends or holidays raise red flags, so if you're going to take them they'd better mean something.

Didn't really plan on calling out sick today. Didn't need to, per se. I'm awake. Perfectly capable of getting my shit together enough to make it to work on time. But I know when my body's run-down. My immune system's shot and I was trying to gently ease myself back from the brink over the past 3 days, but ultimately I didn't let up.

No fucking smoking today. This time, I mean it. No booze, no smoking, no matter how much better I start to feel. I'm going to clean up my apartment a bit and get some non-blog-related writing done. Perhaps pay a visit to the gym for a cardio-boost.

You know what's going to happen, don't you...? A few years -- ten years, twenty years down the line -- everything's going to be beautiful for me. Wife, kids, career, finances. And then I'll drop dead. Because of all these self-destructive years when nothing was working out for me and I lived as if there were no tomorrow.

...

... okay, maybe 1 or 2 cigarettes today...

... fuck the future... I'm sad right now!

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Hell is Hot (or, "It is Hot in Hell")

Not to dwell on this, but it is fucking disgusting out there! Walking one block feels like three because of this bezoomny heat!

I had to meet someone at a BLOCKHEADS last night -- and I'd never met the chelloveck before -- and I went to the wrong gloopy BLOCKHEADS...! So, I had to traverse the avenues westward in this bezoomny heat and I swear, Oh My Brothers, I thought I was gonna snuff it!

Yet, I still walked home after it all. You know why?

Because that's what I fucking deserved.

In other news, I've managed to over-complicate my weekend because that's what tiggers do best. Cry, little sister -- Thou shall not kill. Somebody save me from myself.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

And the Days, They Drag On...

I *did* end up walking home from work last night. That's how little I care for my well-being. By the time I got home, I was drenched in sweat. This heat wave is inhuman. I work in a temperature-controlled environment and go home to a decently air-conditioned apartment, so one miserable hour of exposure to the heat is little to complain about. But would you rather me complain about loneliness and depression some more? I didn't think so...

In other news, I am sooo lonely and depressed!!!

[HA HA -- the truth is funny!]

I'm writing/redrafting like my life depends on it. Because it does. Contemplated calling out sick today so I could get more writing done, but I need to horde my sick days. People are waiting on scripts, but I've still got bills to pay and my checking account is in the red.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Hell on Earth

Sorry, folks, you're just gonna have to deal with 2 entries for Tuesday so I can rant about the weather...

As most of you know, Misanthropy Central is based in NYC, and it is hot as Hell's Boiler Room up in here. How are people not dropping like flies on the macadam?

It is OBSCENELY hot out there! It's like someone opened a portal to hell and left it wide open. Demon spirits are swirling through the air. Small children are spontaneously bursting into flames. (My point is, it's really fuckin hot!)

Suddenly not sure if I'll be able to take my long, contemplative, Bill-Bixby-esque walk home after work tonight. I may be a masochist with a death wish (or at least a death crush), but the human body has limits... and I need to ask myself if I really want to test them on a Tuesday night...

I've Gotta Outrace the Speed of Pain

The tattoos I got on my hands last Friday were particularly painful, due to the concentration of nerve-endings on the hands. And the proximity to bones. But that's part of getting a tattoo -- they say you've got to earn them...

The tats are relatively small so the whole process didn't take that long. When the pain grew excruciating, I just thought to myself, "This is what you deserve..." and the pain quickly abated. I'm not sure what's more fucked up: that I should think this way or that thinking this way actually helped me manage the pain.

Okay, so I'm fucked in the head. Big surprise.

honestly-whogivesafuck.blogspot.com

People ask me what these new ones signify. I'd rather people just figure it out than make me explain it. They mean a lot of things to me. They belong where they are. The idea came to me and I just knew...