Eamon stopped before the formal gardens and straightened his tie. He was growing to hate these cold calls, the long walks to the front door, the stares of suspicious gardeners, the haughtiness of the inside staff. As he lugged his wares toward the castle he told himself to suck it up, he could be selling these vacs in Essex, quit whining, man up, smile, always smile.
June 2, 2013
Is your life sputtering along? Even at middle age are you still not sure what the hell is happening? Do you find yourself guessing a lot? Want a little help? Ok, listen up. You are living in a live environment where everything is conscious. Rocks, dirt, everything. So just act as if everything matters, because it does.
This site is sort of the opposite of a social site. It doesn’t matter what others think of what’s said here, it only matters what you think about that. I’m always speaking only to you, as opposed to a social site where one speaks to everybody, and then everybody speaks back and amongst themselves. Social sites are Times Square, whereas we’re more of a country estate with lush views, a swimming pond and privacy at every turn.
June 4, 2013
Ah, the glamour of days gone by... This was the ending summation of a long screed of how awful the modern world is and how the future is not cool or exciting, it's scary, it's dangerous, and the lunatics are running the asylum, all told to me by this person who seemed sincere and not at all deranged. Then this person launched into how glorious the past was and how far from that splendor we are now. Finally, he sighed and finished with, Ah, the glamour of days gone by...
June 5, 2013
I'm feeling pretty good today. Isn't that enough?
June 6, 2013
This is Bob's bomb. Bob built his bomb in his mother's basement. For years she has been yelling at him to come out of the basement and date some nice girl who loves missiles as much as he does. But Bob preferred to create horrifying weapons that would kill people he didn't know. Dating was out of the question. His mother could only sigh.
June 7, 2013
Ew, I just met a hipster with a handlebar moustache. The ends extended way beyond his mouth, were all twirled, waxy, greasy and gross. Looking at that monstrosity the words that came to mind were pompous, pretentious, affected, twit. Unfortunately, the words that came out of his mouth were, Isn't my 'stache the coolest thing ever?! Er, no.
June 8, 2013
I recently found an old screenplay in my files that I don't even remembering having written. Worse, it was damn good, and fresh. It had my name on it, but it was like I was reading it for the first time. How can I not remember this piece of work? And why didn't this sell? Why was it buried in a file drawer and forgotten? After much sane and rational thought, I have come to the conclusion that aliens are most likely involved.
June 9, 2013
Saw an adult couple and their child holding hands and walking in the mall. He was wearing a Robin outfit, she was dressed as Batman, and the kid was clad as Felix the Cat. All of them acted like being clothed in role reversing superhero latex and a non related cartoon character on a Thursday at the mall was the most natural thing in the world. And in a way, it kinda was.
It was as if Beelzebub himself was topside to snare some more souls.
Though you'd think one of his minions would tell him he's still smoking.
June 11, 2013
Goodness, folly presented itself and I bit like a fat man at an all you can eat. At first I was just playing along, it's a joke, right? ha ha, me thinking it would play itself out, we would all have a laugh, share some comradery, hijink's over, that's that. But it was no joke. Soon I was in all the way. Now I'm committed. This is a no win situation that will end badly. Damn!
June 12, 2013
On a drive in the country I pass a roadside table with a man and a dog sitting amongst a bunch of folk art. I stop to look over his work. One piece catches my eye and I ask him about it.
-- That's not for sale. This is for sale. This.
He holds up a collage that is not all that impressive.
-- But what about that?
I point to the piece I'm interested in and he immediately snatches it and puts it under the table.
-- That's not for sale.
I can tell from the way he talks that he is developmentally disadvantaged. Do I press him?
-- What about that one?
-- No.
-- How come you put all this art out here by the road if it's not for sale?
-- I need money for my dog. He needs surgery. Daddy wants to put Charlie asleep. He said I have to sell my things. But I don't want to.
He bends down to pet the black dog at his feet. Charlie meekly wags his tail and puts his head back down on the ground. Charlie has a huge lump on his back leg.
I ask him how much the collage is.
-- Twenty dollars.
I pull out a hundred dollar bill.
-- This is for Charlie. Keep the change.
He hands me the collage. I hand it back.
-- Sell it again to someone else. Make as much as you can for your dog.
-- Ok.
I leave the broken man and his broken dog behind, not that I didn't think about them for the rest of the day.
They're calling you, from the end of the hallway, disembodied voices, threats from the dark, screams in the night, cries for help. You move closer. Don't go! What are you doing?! Don't go! But you always do. That's why every horror movie ever made has a hallway that's calling you.
June 14, 2013
I just love it when I go to a retail establishment and they have dogs or cats hanging out at work. It warms the place up and everyone seems friendlier because of the pets. Wal-Mart should drop those old greeter dudes and replace them with cats. Maybe that would help their image. 'Course I can hear their objections now: "You DO realize that if the cats unionize we're screwed?!"
June 16, 2013
This guy was telling me about all the pranks he had done to his younger brother when they were growing up. Now his brother, 27, a professional wrestler, decided that it was time for payback. While he's telling me his story, the guy removes his ball cap to show me a bad word, a very bad word shaved into his head. He quickly put his cap back on. "That's not all," he said. "He wrote all over my body with indelible marker. Words worse than what's on my head. Now no one can see me naked. I can't have sex until it wears off in like a year. But I'm already thinking of how to get him back. He's gonna be sorry." I asked him why he doesn't just let it go, a score settled. "Someone has to pay," he hissed. Whew.
June 17, 2013
The dogs have been waking up with the sun. 4:30AM. They stretch, greet the morning, then run around the house chasing each other and knocking things over. No one sleeps. So everyone's up 4:30. Good god, now what?
June 18, 2013
There was something different about Janet. The obvious thing was her frequent use of the peace sign, but there was something else...something one couldn't quite put their finger on.
June 19, 2013
Someone said I think too much. Is that even possible? I know that thinking too little or not at all is definitely doable, but too much? I'm sure one can worry and overthink a specific thing - anxiety and ulcers come from someplace, right - but think too much in general? That hurts my head. Perhaps these lads said it best: We don't need no thought control. Teachers leave them kids alone.
June 20, 2013
I managed to break our Cuisinart food processor. This brute lasted us 34 years. Too amazing not to order another one. It arrives and I realize the new one is virtually identical to the old model. In 34 years they managed to make tiny, negligible changes. The blades are even the same and the old ones still fit the new appliance. How many products come out of the gate so good that they hardly change in 34 years? That's old school.
June 21, 2013
Dear Hollywood, I couldn't give a rat's bum about superheroes, vampires and zombies. Make movies about something else. Yours sincerely.
June 22, 2013
What if you kicked the bucket and then are faced with an accounting of your life's hours? Would you like it if you found out you slept though 39 years of your life, spent 16 years, 66 days standing in lines, 2000 hours wondering what the hell is happening, ten years and a lost weekend being drunk, stoned or otherwise out of your mind, 44 months crying, two decades of wishing you were having sex when you weren't, and other such follies? Not me. Everything I did, I did, but lordy, I don't want to see statistics on it. That would just be cruel.
June 23, 2013
I know a man accomplished at so many things that it doesn't seem possible one person can be so blessed. Yet he got taken by a con man. He trusted someone he shouldn't have and got burned. The interesting thing about this is how it changed everyone's perception of him. Someone once thought to be so smart, centered and self-aware, wasn't so much. Amongst his compadres, opinions were reformed, attitudes adjusted, respect and regard knocked down a peg. Besmirched by a con man, he lost more than just money.
Have to make a decision about something. There aren't many choices to be made, and there's no avoiding it, but everything will change. Everything. Nothing will be the same. Nothing.
June 26, 2013
Went out to lunch with a chum. He ordered all this spicy food with garlic and onions and hot peppers. I remarked that he must be hungry. He said he actually wasn't but that he had an appointment to get his teeth cleaned after lunch. He said that the hygienist was an ex-girlfriend and when she broke up with him, she took their cat. He said he loved that cat. "So I'm going in with foul breath to make her job that much more unpleasant." Wow, a cat, intentional breath befouling and payback to an ex - this story had it all.
June 28, 2013
If you're an author or an actor or anyone else who puts a part of themselves out there in the public eye, and the reviews are nasty, merciless, mean, can you disengage from the criticism? Can you say that you satisfied yourself in doing whatever you did that put yourself in the public eye, and the opinion of others - no matter how valid - will not crush you because doing so would be letting other people dictate your worth and you say pish tosh to that? Good, because that's how you handle criticism. It's all predicated on you being proud of what you did; doing so puts you in control of the opinion of others.
June 29, 2013
For one summer I drove a team of draft horses in the only city in America where cars are legally prohibited: Mackinac Island, Michigan. An island in Lake Huron, it has banned automobiles for over a century. By that one act you get cleaner air, no noise, no fumes, no gas stations, no mechanics, no car dealerships, no traffic lights, no road rage, no drunk drivers, no accidents and no vehicular homicides. All those no's added up to one big yes for moi, as it was one of the best summers I have ever spent.
June 30, 2013
I shudder to think where we'd be as humans if we didn't have dogs and cats as companions. Why just imagine, we'd have to interact with each other, and who would we name Rex and Muffy, and what would we do with all those toys that squeaked and the catnip? No, it's better this way. Is too.
