Fortune Telling and Real-Time Travel

Though not a betting man, I could comfortably guess that most of you are at work right now. Or school. And after a nice spell of days off, too.

Not all of you though. I know I’m not. I tend to work the holidays though.

But there you are.

Here we are.

In this moment of time brought to you, more than likely, by boredom whilst near mindlessly scanning through social media. It happens. Just a bad habit, like smoking or masturbating on the subway. Well, maybe not exactly.

Nevertheless, it is here we be and be we shall. But being can make you think of what has, or might have been. It may stir pondering regarding where this all belongs, your life or just life in general, when it becomes a finished story.

We all wonder that. Where it all might go. The past comes up, sure, but the past is dead.

It is an imperfect human record anyway.

Things slip away.

That time I evidently nearly broke some older kid’s nose on the school bus because he was making fun of me. Or that other time we haggled over the price of microwavable stuffing in the only store left open on the block at four in the morning. Those were stories that I had lived, yet were only revealed to me years after occurring.

But the true wonder, I dare say, comes from what might still be. Maybe you have supernatural foresight of coming events. Maybe you all do, and are just intentionally keep me out of the loop. Which is a total dick move.

Still, I say with near certainty that we all go through time as it comes and goes.

And I also say, with slightly less but still pretty good certainty, that it is the best way to go. The less you know, the more you learn. And let me tell you folks, the more unpredictable, the better. Or at very least, the more profound. That may just be my opinion, though.

Unexpected circumstances have grown into a sort of forte for me. Personally and professionally, though I may be better at one of those categories more often than the other. But hey, practice makes perfect.

But which one among you has a top ranking memory that you saw coming? That you knew was going to happen as it did? And I’m talking about one of those swept off your feet or kicked in the ass kind of moments. The ones you could and probably did set as some sort of foundation for personal expansion. I dare to reckon that most of what you thought might happen in your life, just passes without much thought or concern. The big moments, however, maneuver through surprise.

A night out with friends no one expected much from yet is the one you still talk about all these years later.

Almost getting hit by a drunk driver.

The first time you ate cheesecake.

Someone important to you dying too young.

The day at summer camp you met your still best friend.

The one who got away.

If you don’t want to say things like that have changed you, they at the very least influence how life is perceived. Absorption of such phenomenon can take time. Sometimes, it can take a life time.

For example..

It may be impossible to fully understand the gift that is my daughter.

If luck is a thing, I’ve been granted vastly more than a king’s share. As I write, that little girl of my own flesh and blood is most likely gazing up the vast world in big blue eyed wonder, as smiles paint her face and laughter fills her body.

Or she’s filling her diaper. She’s only three months old, after all. Her hygiene skills are not very developed.

Yet, without ever knowing that she would ever exist, I now refuse an existence without her. And this will only grow as she does. It won’t be effortless though. She will turn sixteen someday, you know.

But this has not become a parenting blog just because I’ve become a parent. I’ve only been one for a few months anyway. Who knows how good I’ll be at it? I’ll give it hell though. Having good parents myself helps as a model, so I should be able to figure it out. Her mother does a damn good job at it so far. After all, they say it’s always easier when you love what you do.

So I say now, fire your soothsayer. And don’t go seeking another one. ‘Tis not worth it, friend.

Be it a blind, old wise man or a palm reading gypsy woman with a mustache and an apartment that smells vaguely of burnt rubber- it makes no difference. Even if what they said could even slightly resemble the truth, it’s not worth knowing until just as you need to. Who wants to ruin the surprise party? Or march right into the doomed fate you had worked so hard to avoid?

Prophecy might sound great and all, but I rarely hear of it being sunshine and roses. Just ask Oeddie and Jo. They were as able as headless chickens in missing the cleaver.

But the ol’ timey Greeks were a bit grim, so I would advise trying to dodge the foretelling of doomsdays as much as possible. Keeping the TV off should help with that.

I cannot say when the next time I write will be. It hadn’t felt right for sometime now and despite my hope for reinvigoration, I’ve dropped the ball before. But since the first short story I drummed up without being told by a school teacher, my mind has known it cannot go with trying to string meaning from the written word.

But no writer wants to be a drag to read. At least I hope not. So I shan’t waste your time. Not while you could be ever reaching into the unknown, heart a-pounding and mind agape.

Just be ready to be unprepared.

Sunday Morning Thoughts 8.23.15

So here goes another attempt at this. Consider it the less than grand return.

It’s been over a year- and what a year it has been. Many a time before this moment, the lonely weekly post bearing this title has fallen short, and off track, and unappreciated by its fool of an author. You see, I’m very capable of disappointment, sometimes the sort reaching incomprehensible levels. Not only have a let down myself on a rather regular basis, the pain and heartache I have caused others in this life could border on emotional war crimes.

Yet, there seems to be a sort of insane balance. For as many times as I have been such a great disappointment- expectations were also exceeded and the young man, who is not so young anymore, achieved handfuls of accomplishments that were at the very least good, if not extraordinary. I’ve done a few nice things, while still other humans have thanked me intensely and intimately for actions I deemed to be “no big deal” or “just doing my job”.

So what does that mean?

Mathematically, I suppose that just balances out to average. Sadly, I find that to be immensely saddening, if not disgusting. It is another one of those disappointing personality traits of mine, but being average may be my greatest dread. Even talking about myself this much reflects only on a seemingly selfish nature that puts the rest of the world into categories based upon how they fit into my desires for life. It is narcissistic and vicious, and even worse, I sometimes rather enjoy it.

I cannot say that this has existed for all of human history, as I have only seen a sliver of it- but it seems to me that humans love to believe that things are going to change. They often hope that they will change for the better, but lately I hear folks saying a bit more of the contrary. Actually, a lot more to the contrary. They say the world has changed into a bad place- or from a bad place, into a worse one.

I hear talk about society failing and the world running out of safe places left to go. Some people fear radical Islamic extremists, other people fear rising oceans and climate change, while some are just hiding from the bills they have to pay. There are even those who live in constant terror of what happens in their own neighborhoods. You don’t hear many people talking about sunshine and roses these days. It’s doom and gloom, and in case you haven’t heard it on the news, we’re all going to die. And to make matters worse, a spectacle of business man/reality television goon who inherited his rather lavish lifestyle is attempting to become King America. And a good number of folks think that’s a good idea.

But I don’t need to tell you all of that. You already knew that.

What you may not have known is that today was set as my daughter’s due date. So you know, she has not arrived yet. She may be stubborn, like her father who pushed his own arrival on Earth two weeks past his own due date.

Hopefully she doesn’t keep this up for long. Her father already causes her mother enough strife, we don’t need the little one to push that any further.

Not that her mother can’t handle it. She can deal with most anything. I find it very admirable, when I’m not too busy feeling awful about my own lack of comparable courage. I haven’t had a little human growing inside of me, sucking the energy out every day as the spawn grows larger and stronger. Plus, I’ve still been able to have beer and sushi and soft cheeses which makes my issues seem all that much smaller.

So cheers to the mother of my child, she is a better person than most, especially myself, though she may never admit that. In fact, not admitting it, makes it all that more true.

But her and I can both agree, that we would very much like to meet this little human. I personally have a feeling her arrival will help make every thing seem easier. Other than crying in the middle of the night and soiling her diapers. Still, that stuff doesn’t last forever.

But.

Having a child so close to being part of this world, does not put me entirely at ease. It’s much closer to terrifying. Before all of this, I had set my wee little ambitious heart on trying to change the world for the better. Since that young boy set that goal, it seems to have only gotten worse. He didn’t have anything in this life that he needed to rush into action for. Now he does. Now I do.

No, I am not yet a parent but just the impending occurrence has got me to wondering as to why others seem to do as little as possible to make this future better. Again, I don’t know that their efforts exist or not, or in what intensity they do exist, but if people have been making babies since the first people started happening, and those people only want the best for their children- why has everything gone more and more to shit with each passing generation?

Maybe I’m thinking too much, or in the wrong kind of ways, but I would call myself a failure as a human and more importantly, as a parent, if I left this planet worse than when it was given to me. And no, that’s not just an environmental thing for anyone trying to brand me as tree hugging liberal. And no, it’s not because I think Hilary is just a bad a choice for “leader” of this nation as Trump, for those who might want to think of me as some sort of closed minded conservative. I know how you like to operate, internet.

That being said, I do think we should be kinder to the Earth, if we want to make it last and I do think we should apply a little more intense thought and rationale to selecting our elected officials, no matter how angry and fed up we might be. I do think that all lives matter as much as the people living them choose to value theirs and their neighbors. I think anyone who says their god is loving, but also wants you to kill people is not thinking with their own head. I do think we need to try harder and learn more about ourselves and each other- but I don’t think that this is a unique point of view.

It’s easy for me to stand on the internet soapbox and tell you all about my views, but I don’t intend to stop there. The difference is, that I now have someone to live for that means more than anyone else. She will mean more than any friend, family or romantic relationship has and I owe her the best life I can provide. I owe her a future, as do all of you. If you’ve been alive long enough to spend money or vote, you’ve been alive long enough to help make the changes everyone loves to complain about. I’m guilty, but I am now newly motivated.

I opened this post with an explanation of my great lack of perfection. That is because perfection is a myth, and one of the most harmful myths in all the history of man, (and women). No one is perfect, nor is any place or any time. Perfection is stagnant. Progress and regress are all that exist. Things do not stay, they always change. Yet where they change are up to us. Or so it is for us in the third dimension.

So for my little girl, I will try to make progress.

Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things

You can stare at the fingerprints on the edge of your rocks glass until they mean something.

You can look at the patterns the light leaves inside your closed eyelids. You can sit and sulk and daydream about things being other than how they are. You can wish you’d done better. Been a better person. Tried harder, or tried something different. You can dwell on all the things that are not, while ignoring the things that are.

You certainly can. I know I have. I’ve gotten very good at it. Too good, I fear.

I know, I know… It’s been a while. A very long while since the last time I’ve written anything here. As a young man, just shy a quarter of a century, it’s hard to believe I’m able to say that I used to write a lot. I’ve written poems and songs and essays and short stories. I’ve written a whole novel, a complete first draft, that I’ve ignored for months. I used to act, too. Lots of plays, funny and sad- Improv too. Hell, I used to do stand up comedy. I opened for someone currently on Saturday Night Live, what seems like a lifetime ago.

Very few men my age get to say such things. Not that it is any sort of blessing. It may only mean that the peak was too soon. That it’s all been used up. That there is nothing left. It may mean that, but I certainly hope is does not. The younger man I used to be most definitely does not. But he might have been better than I am.

Yet…

If there is one thing I was brought up to despise, it is a pity parade. And even with the sacrifices made, willing or otherwise, I am here, at this very particular moment in time. I hold my baggage, as do you, if you happen to be bored enough to read this.

Sensationalism was never my forte, and I cannot pull myself to do a “top ten things that 20 somethings feel about blah, blah blabbity blah”. You know, that shit websites love to pick up and litter across your social media addiction. I won’t be reposted by Huffpo, or Buzzfeed or anything of the sort. I won’t even be reposted by my friends, most likely. Maybe a dozen people will read this. Maybe less. Maybe no one. But I don’t write because it helps other people. I write because it helps me.

A year, and a few days. That’s the last time anything new was published to this lonely blog narrated by a boy struggling to learn how to be a man. A year ago was a different world. My hair was longer and my eyes had seen less than the ones resting in my skull now. I wasn’t obliged to do much for anyone unless I felt the inclination. Not now.

Now it’s my job. It’s my job to help people, strangers, in whatever we’re called for. That would be myself and the men I work with. We never know when the tones go off, and it doesn’t matter what we were doing. All that sound means, is that it is time to go. But that is my profession. That is how I earn my living.

Further than that, is even more profound. Further than that is the only thing that will really matter to me. You see, in a few days, everything will change. In a few days, really at any moment, I will be a father.

Pardon me, that took a moment. I needed another sip and stare at the fingerprints upon my glass. Fingerprints that leave behind DNA. The same sort of stuff that has been brewing another person. A person who is part me, though I hope she will be spared all of my poor qualities, as many as they might be. But I’m not here to talk about her. I won’t speculate about her, as she is not here yet. And I will not talk about circumstances, as they are not business of yours.

Just know that while you read this. To those who are parents, I am only on the cusp of understanding. To those who are not, know that it is not something that you cannot even pretend to understand. Just be grateful if your parents were good to you. And if they weren’t, know that it is the largest burden that our species faces and it is most certainly not for everyone.

But that is enough about that.

I don’t know exactly why this was the moment I chose to write again. It may be desperation. It may be that the time is right to reinvigorate the lost passion. I cannot say for sure. Yet, I am writing just the same.

I don’t have the answers. If you were hoping I did, I apologize. I don’t know if anyone does, but everyone has their own slice of the universe. We all have our own lives. Our own pasts and presents and futures. We mat share many of those, but no one shares them completely. Our singularity may be a curse, but it is the one thing that makes us undeniably human.

I hate to leave this so vague, but I cannot truthfully give you anything more specific. I will keep trying. I will try and keep the promise that I made to a young man who shares the skin I’ve worn down. But all I can do is try, as that is all any of us can do.

If anyone told you they have the answer they are a liar. If they told you that they didn’t know, know that they told the truth. I will try and write again. I cannot guarantee that it will be worth reading. I will guarantee that I will try and make it worth your while.

Until next time.

Intervaled Insomnia

A dream was had,

In between

Bits and tads of sleep

Vu’ed Deja

At the age of

Aches

That should not

Be had.

 

Mad?

I used to get

(And still)

 

Sad?

At times

Now always somewhere

But no such time for fret

 

Regret?

Inevitable, you see

When what once was

Becomes belief

Of what is wished

To still be.

Such sanctity defiled

For vile

Self deprecating assurance.

 

But this dream

(As this poem originally schemed)

Seemed to deem

Visions of you,

Above all else.

There was touch

Though ‘twas memory

To feel

How you

Once felt

Sweet,

And smooth,

And soft-

Or so such nocturnal visions

Pulled so taught.

 

Until waking

To the blinds of staggered light

For despite

All my tardy might

In my arms rests nothing,

Lies no one,

Not you,

The soul these arms

Used to know.

Oh Captain! My Captain, Goes Down with the Ship

“Reality: What a concept!” – Robin Williams

I didn’t know him more than most of us ever did.

I knew him from the screens from which I would watch him as a kid. I watched him as I grew into a man. A boyish man, but a man just the same. I idolized him. I am a comedian, though currently in a slump of performing. I am a comedian, among other things, as he was. Robin Williams inspired me for as long as I can remember. He made me laugh like no one else did when I was a kid. He was Mrs. Doubtfire, John Keating, Rainbow Randolph, Patch Adams and Peter Banning, to name a few, and yet so many other things. He had a fire that no one could compare to and that no one ever will. But fires that burn hot, will burn out faster.

Although I’ve never seen Robin in the flesh, I have seen some go by their own means in the flesh. I’ve watched the last moments drip from a soul who chose themselves their means of exit.

It is ugly.

To say it is sad would rob it of the true tragedy that occurs when it happens. I’ve seen the ripple of hurt it causes. I’ve felt it. To blame myself, most would say, is too much. But I’m a comedian. Too much is what we do. It is our burden to bear so that joy, if only for a moment, could be had by others. Our friends, our families and our lovers and more. Yet the better you get at it, the more you end up doing it for strangers. They come out to see you. They pay money to give you a shot to take away their own pain, if only for an hour or so. Yet any thanks you give them, any thunder of applause or roar of laughter will not be enough. It doesn’t last, you see.

To say that I knew his pain would be grossly incorrect. But I do know my own pain and I do know my own moderate success and how fleeting it can feel as it goes. Some nights, after a show, the feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment can fall from you faster than anything you’ve ever known. When the theater empties and they all go off into the night, it is only you and those thoughts, dark as they might be. Those thoughts that first propelled you to the stage, that threw you in front of that microphone to pour your own tragedy that you’ve twisted into entertainment. That you’ve twisted into art.

Now, let me say this. We are all part of the problem. We will get sad because a man who made us all laugh not only died, but decided to do so by his own hand. Yet, we (and I include myself) do almost nothing to make this world that so many, big and small are opting out of, any kind of better. All over the web people recall the laughter and warm feelings that a man on the the stage and screen had brought us. Yet we sit on our hands about fixing any of it.

If he thought the world was worth staying in, Mr. Williams probably would have stayed in it. You cannot say he did not try to do his part with whatever he had at his disposal. He did, and although I cannot say for sure, I will be so bold to take the guess that he felt as though he had failed. Whether he thought he failed himself or something larger does not matter. In the end, he felt and believed so strongly, that he failed. Our laughter fades and sooner or later, we’re back to our pettiness.

And trust me, pettiness is the privilege of those of you who can read this without a translation. Because outside of that spectrum, is suffering that we cannot imagine. Even if you see the pictures and stay slightly tuned to the news, you do not understand. WE, do not understand. We don’t live in a war zone. We concern ourselves with what we are going to eat today, not if we will. We have water that we waste flushing down the drain every time we take a piss. We don’t die by the hundreds from disease, or famine, or war.

No. Not us. We die from getting too fat. We die from getting old or taking too many pills that were supposed to make us happy. We die from smoking, or drinking, or drugs, or driving faster than we should. Rockets don’t bother us in our schools, our homes, our hospitals. Viruses don’t rip through our villages and towns. Religious maniacs don’t trap us on mountain tops to wither and die, or line us up in a row to be torn down by bullets and bombs. We die from gluttony much more often than from true tragedy.

I’m not naïve enough to think these words I’ve typed up will make anything that much better. I’m also not naïve enough to think that pouring a bucket of water over my head will cure a disease. A few dollars might help it along the way but it is the person losing sleep in some laboratory that will ultimately fix the problem. He or she, of course, will not get that much credit. After all, it is Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the dime, not Albert Sabin.

I don’t mean to guilt everyone though, at least not more than I mean to guilt myself. For even though I’m saddened by his loss, Zelda and Cody and Zachary are more upset than we’ll ever be about it. We can’t understand the way they do. We all idolized him, but to them, he was real. He was Dad. And what do you do when Dad gives up? I know I can’t say.

I’m lucky. My father hasn’t given up, even with all the hurt he’s seen. The least I can do for him, and Robin, and all the rest of you apes, is take what ever skills I’ve got and make a better world out of it. That’s what he did for me, some sad punk kid he’d never met and never will. My only hope, is that I can do just a little bit more for those who come after me.

Stringing Sayings

Words can trickle,
Be fickle,
And cause pain.
Toss blame
Bring shame

Claims humans make
Promises break
Hearts shake
And quiver
And shatter

Hands can sew tatters
And touch skin
But words can go within
Without doubt
Or with it.

(In fits of rage)
Remorse
And passion
Make bedmates
Of a fashion
That timid souls
Cannot bear
Or cannot see
If that’s how
We choose to be

Be see
And hark!
Now listen to me
Yes you,
Thee.

For the words
Can wander
And meander
But no slander
Shall fall from beyond my teeth
For when I speak
I mean to say
Thoughts I’ve buried
Tried to make dead
Inside this head
This skull
(This soul)
Owes all to you
And will
Until this body,
An organic space ship,
Withers
And wanes
And grows old

Or so goes the story
These words have told

Sunday Morning Thoughts: 8.3.14

A great man died not too long ago. They cooked him up and put what was left in a box with a big picture of what he looked like when he was so full of life. Humans have some strange traditions. This happened yesterday.

The box and the picture rested before a pious stage, in front of hundreds of humans who’d come to say goodbye. His wife and children were right up front. Off to the side sat and stood over one hundred men in the uniform that the great man in the box once wore. A uniform that I myself might be wearing soon, as my father did for most of his life.

But that great man is now a dead man. Many would say that great men die every day, and maybe they do. I just never knew all those other ones. I knew this one, though he probably wouldn’t even recognize me today. I was just a kid when I met him and haven’t seen him for years. I had hardly heard about him getting sick but it happened just the same. It went quickly. Poison, you see, that he got helping to clean out that pile of rubble that killed so many over a decade ago. If you’ve been paying attention, you’d know that stuff has still been killing people years since those buildings collapsed.

This great man was not even the only one I’ve know in my life to be killed by the rubble, in one way or another.

But to us living, the death of a man such as this begs questions. In fact, it demands certain questions about our lives and our legacies. After having been to a few such events this year, I’ve run myself through the ringer of what all this life business means. It’s sad for me to admit, but I’ve been going about parts of it all the wrong way. Perhaps the greatest issue I’ve found myself falling into is wishing I could go back to change something. Now I’m sure you’re thinking, “well Brian, doesn’t everyone wish that they could go back to fix something, or stop themselves or someone else from doing something?”

And I would have to tell you that you are right. Even among the greatest of men and women, I don’t believe a single one lived a life without the tiniest regret. But my particular issue has to do particularly with me and this inability I have had to see the present because I’m too stuck on something behind me. It was such a perspective that plagued me until quite recently and although I keep wishing I could go back, I know it would be for naught.

But cheer up gang, I’m not here to be grim because that is not how I choose to deal with such business anymore. I was brought up to deal with death through celebrating life, so that’s what I do. And after years of conditioning myself otherwise, I have broken that whole deal about wishing for the past. Although I’m not quite a perfect practitioner, I am certainly putting forth all the effort I can muster away from wasting time and wishing away the present and future for what has already been.

Does that mean things I used to have will be gone forever? No, it does not. Or at least I believe. We can’t go back, this much I know is true. But we can go forward and anything in the future is possible, or at least the dream of it is.

I have regret, trust me, I do. I used to be ruled by my regret. Yet, I’m too young of a man to let that go on any longer. Sure, happiness is an abstract concept and based totally on conditions but that in no way makes it so far-fetched that it’s out of reach. It’s only out of reach if you make it out of reach. I don’t want to do that anymore. I’ve played that card and it holds nothing but emptiness. Great men do not stand in the way of their own happiness. I want to be a great man. I have to be, as I was told many a time yesterday by all those men in uniform, I have very big shoes to fill when my turn comes. And here it is, comin’ around the bend.

Time Machine

(Eyes)
That glitter,
That gleam-
A plot,
A scheme
To mend
What was broken
(Foolishly)

A token
A thought
A bundle of words
Left unspoken,
For now.
But how?
Oh how?
Does one go back?

Cannot,
Words not forgot,
But two
Can go forward
(One hopes)

Subway Name Days

Oh!
Woe would be me,
Between Asians so sleepy,
On anniversary
Of falling into this world

Woe would be,
You see,
If it were not me
Mr. Lucky
(If such a thing could even be)
As I, despite deserved justice
Have not been discarded
In fact, rewarded!
For the fool I am
But better,
The fool I try to be

Boldly attempting
To balance glee,
Or its subsidiaries
Against the ache
And pain
And breaking of heart
I have made

So cheers to me
Twenty years plus three
For having something
People seem to redeem
Or at least to thee
Who matters most

So to you,
I give this toast

Bad Jokes that Make Laughter

Elephants
in white rooms,
And old Sammy’s writing tomb
Thoughts that loom,
Of days once blooming
Before losing.

Perchance the silence
Will turn to talking
And walking,
For the sake of stalking
A few hours more alone,
Yet together.

Canine physicians,
Those living musicians,
We danced a night away to
Like Marvey made those Irish do
With lives so sad
Yet inspiring-
The urge to retire,
Specifically,
In someone’s arms,
Or someone in mine.

Time-
That bastard,
Cast so far away
Decided not to stay,
This fool, named I
Made beauty cry
To try,
In vain,
As was known,
To romanticize loneliness
And pain.
To what gain?
None.

Come-
To remember
Hammock rides,
And the passing tides
Of pages
We young sages had shared.

But one in particular,
Still drunk on rage
At no one,
For nothing,
But the self
Cries for help
And gets still,
Beyond his fill,
Of what is deserved.