A Friend In Need...

When my life fell to shit around me, and I was too lost in the questioning why, the one guy who was really there to help me pick up the pieces and figure out where their new place would be was Jay (not his real name). Two or three times a week, Jay was 'round my tiny cell-block apartment, helping me hang pictures, taking my mind off of things, telling me to quit overthinking shit, and when he noticed I was drinking my evenings away, offering other solutions.

There was no kidding one evening where Jay brought over his acoustic bass, a bunch of sketch pads and pens and pencils, a big CD binder full of his movies, and I can't even tell you what all else to keep me occupied for a time without the added enhancer of alcohol.

A few months later, while I was alone, and feeling low, I watched Reign Over Me. An amazing movie, Adam Sandler's best ever. Something clicked in me in the course of the movie, and I realized that Jay was my Don Cheadle. The guy who was always there to stop me from being self destructive.

And because I am at the point in my life, O my beloved non-existent reader (only because Google says you are, mind you) where I say what I mean without worrying too much about how it will be taken, I tell Jay, "You are my Don Cheadle."

And because his is, in fact, my Don Cheadle, he knows what I am talking about.

There's been a few situations, as you can imagine, where reminding him in public that he is my Don Cheadle might come across as gay. And I feel bad. Cause the dude is just making sure I am ok, and shouldn't be thought of as homosexual as a result. He's just my best friend. (Which brings up a topic to be addressed in a post for another time, O my beloveds.)

So I see an advertisement for the latest Iron Man movie, and I get reminded that Don Cheadle plays Robert Downey Jr's sidekick.

So I tell him, as we walk down the beach, that I have a new meaning for Don Cheadle:  Iron Man's sidekick (not, btw, that Jay is a sidekick by any means, and also I am so fucking far removed from anything remotely resembling a superhero that the idea is completely absurd!), and fuck me gently with a chainsaw if Jay doesn't turn to me and casually say:

"I'm Ok with the Reign Over Me Don Cheadle reference."

I pray that all of you who stumble across this bit of shit tangled in the world wide web are as lucky with your friends as I am.

Thanks for playing along,

Darth Sardonic

PS-I want all my exes to quit fucking telling me how proud of me they are.  You know who's proud of me? Me!! That's fucking who's proud. You guys are just hangers on! Maybe someday I will see myself clear to explain what has happened and where all this vitriol comes from, but don't hold your breath O my droogs and only friends.

razorblade security blanket

I gather the sharp shattered bits of my life, broken like a mirror, about me like a blanket of thistles and glass shards. I cuddle up close in it, wrap it tight around me, the nicks and nips of the sharp edges the facsimile of a life I once knew but had cast aside for the shiny plastic existence I was offered.
I take my blanket of self-doubt and self-loathing with me to the beach. In the dark of the late night the ocean is a hungry mouth that wishes to feed on the leftovers of the me that once was. I smile.
I can swim out until my arms give out or the sharks eat me. Considering the lateness of the hour and the day of the week and the lack of interest in what part of my life is falling to pieces on the tile of my tiny dirty apartment, it will be two days before anyone notices I am gone. The idea of already being gone before anyone would even notice the departure makes me smile further.
I walk to the lapping ravenous waves. My toes are ice-cold in the bite of the water. I look up at the sky with  bitter blood-red tears, swallow up the stars in the onrush of the surf of my sobbing, laugh in a gulp.
And turn to walk home.

I wish...

I wish I was an astronaut, so when you missed me, you'd at least know I was flying over you, looking down. I wish I was a superhero, so when I was gone, you'd could at least be proud of what I was doing. I wish I was a dog, I'd faithfully be at your side all the time. I wish I was an angel, and I would ever and always watch over you, and tuck you safely into bed at night, and kiss you whisper quiet on your forehead.

i'm not perfect, but i'm not an asshole...

o beloved non-existent readers, thou stalwart and strong, o tried n true. if you're still coming around this irradiated little bit of rusty tetanus nail in the grainfield of the world wide web, then maybe it is time you stopped.

because the story i have to tell today will not be a happy one. it will probably, in your minds; if i could presume to guess in advance what you might think of me, negate almost everything i have said in the past in this blog. i don't think it does, but i cannot for the life of me imagine that any of you who might still stumble past here on occasion would walk away from today's post thinking anything but "how could he have written all those other things?"

but first, a story. the wife and i are out one night with friends at a local nightclub, and i had been wanting to try a rob roy, so i ordered one, in my inimitable fashion. shortly after ordering, i went to the bathroom, and when i come back, my wife is livid.

turns out, the bartender brought a roy rogers instead of my scotch and sweet vermouth. turns out that in my absence, when my wife discovered the error, she said i was an "asshole" and that i could never order something "normal" n that she was sorry. all this to the bartender. or cocktail waiter. or whatever the fuck he is. the dick who shoulda brought me a fucking rob roy n not coke n grenadine. that guy. turns out, she calls me an asshole to my face a few more times for having ordered a fucking drink at a fucking bar. a place where, if the guy was unsure as to what was involved in a rob roy, he could've looked it up.

of course, i told her in no uncertain terms that i was in fact not an asshole for having ordered a drink in a bar that the waiter fucked up. i questioned her need to make excuses for me to a guy who obviously wasn't very good at his job or at best was having a bad night. a guy we don't know. a guy to whom we owe nothing. her reply was, "i'll just go wait in the car until you're ready to go home."

o my beloved non-existent readers, my droogs and only friends (who, no doubt, will no longer be my readers nor my friends after today), this started me thinking. this set into motion a chain of events that are irreversible and irretrievable.

because this isn't the first time something like this has occurred, and when i started thinking about it, i came to the conclusion that at least 60% of just who i am annoys the fucking shit out of my wife. she tells me all the time, in ways similar to the incident with the bartender.

n the more i thought about it, the more i thought: "i'm not really happy. i'm comfortable. i'm here because i have been here for so long." my wife and i had become like roommates, and, i might point out, roommates where one does all the work n the other complains that more isn't done.

and the fact that i am not home all day to do all the work has also brought all these events to a head. and the final result is that i no longer want to be with her. n i am honestly not sure why she has stayed with me so long either.

i'm not perfect. i can be a tool. i can be a dick. i am a moody fucker. i have a knack for saying something with the best of intentions but in such a way that it appears to have the opposite meaning. but i bust my ass to do my part in a relationship. n yes, i expect some things in return. n i believe i was being made to feel bad for expecting something in return for my hard work. i have a lot to offer. i'm a sweet guy, a good guy, a nice guy.

and i won't be taken for granted.

now, obviously the kids are still the most important thing in my life. my boys. my lego-building, video-game-playing, intelligent and handsome sons, who i frequently feel unworthy to father. it pains me to no end what this decision might do to them. but to be the kind of father i want to be, i need to be able to hold my head up high, i need to be happy. i can only hope someday they will understand that i didn't just do this for me, but for them as well, and that they will always be the most important thing in my life and that i love them dearly. i can only hope that someday they will forgive me of all my shortcomings.

if you feel the need to turn and walk away from this blog without ever looking back, i won't blame a single one of you. if you want to stick around, i've been a spotty poster at best, n i have no idea what the future will hold in terms of suitable writing material and laughs as of old.

darth sardonic

junk food

yesterday i had a long day at work. patients went long, i fell behind on the peripheral duties, and by the time i had clocked out at the end of the day i had nearly ten hours of being on my feet running around. i was exhausted, mentally and physically.

a half-hour drive home, fighting to stay awake. in the kitchen, i immediately see that no. 2 has been doing sentences. they read, "i will not use leftover money from the book fair to buy junk food at lunch." since no. 2 is in the other room playing, i am guessing he is done writing.

so my wife and i have a talk while i have a drink (she is already halfway down a drink of her own), and apparently, no. 2 was given a ten dollar bill to buy books at the book fair. when my wife asked for his change, he said he didn't have it. he told her he accidentally spent it. she said the only thing he might've "accidentally" spent it on would be junk food at lunch. he said that is what he had spent it on.

as she thinks about just how much sugary shit an 8-year-old boy can buy with five usd, she becomes livid, and makes him write sentences, then tells him he is grounded from games and tv for two weeks. he replies, "am i grounded from legos?" to which she answers, "no, you're not grounded from legos." and he cheerfully says, "well at least i can still play legos." she says, "glad you're seeing an upside to this."

"you need to have a talk with him." she tells me.

i decide i am gonna need a moment to decompress, sip my drink, and get in a calmer frame of mind to deal with the situation.

when i am finally ready, i call no. 2 in to talk with me. he stands in front of me, and i ask him why he blew the five bucks on something like junk food. with the idea of teaching him the value of money, i ask him what he could've spent the five dollars on that he might still have to show.

he looks at me with a strange sort of smile. his eyes are glittery, and his big buck teeth are on display as if they are holding back a laugh. i stare at him, waiting for him to tell me what sorts of things he would spend money on that last longer than a few minutes. he stares deep into my eyes and says, "it's in my pocket!"

and proceeds to pull a neatly-folded bill out of his pocket. "and two pennies!" and places them all carefully in my hand, while still smiling that weird smile.

deranged chuckles begin to pour out of me. i stare at the money in my palm. the chuckles roll in ever-increasing waves out of me. "go play, you're fine no. 2."

"wife!" i shout to her in the other room, "come in here and talk to me!"

we try to figure out why on earth he would willfully lie about buying junk food and then take the ensuing punishment when the key to freedom was in his pocket the entire time. the only solution we can come up with is that he was messing with us in some sort of elaborate and convoluted practical joke that is only funny to himself. all the while, the maniacal chuckles spilling from my frame.

if nothing else, it was the exact amount of the surreal to fix my day.

darth sardonic

memoirs (by no. 2)

found in no. 2's backpack at the end of the school year, and repeated here without any editing whatsoever.

October 19, 2010

I got my costume on Sunday. I will go trick or treating in my Incredible Hulk costume. You get your costume on and in less than two weeks you get ready to go trick or treating. You get your bucket and Poppy dresses as a zombie. I went to Boo at the Zoo dressed as Batman. [No. 1] dressed as Obi Wan Kenobie. You dress up and ring the doorbell at your neighbor's house and say, "trick or treat!"

November 9, 2010

How to make a pumpkin face:

First, you make the lines on the pumpkin. Then, you cut out the lines. Next, you cut the top of the head off the pumpkin. Finally, you have a jack-o-lantern.

Feb 9, 2011

One day it stormed. It was super stormy today. So we went to our tree house. It was stormy so I went to the house.

in other news, no. 1 has been diagnosed with aspergers, the knowledge of which will make handling him properly a little easier perhaps. i definitely will need to post further on that in the very near future.

i now have 13 followers, most of whom have never commented or with whom i have never interacted. why? where do they come from? what is it about this little hep b hypodermic needle in the park grasses of the world wide web that would attract followers in the first place?

thanks for playing along,

darth sardonic

Deep in the cell of my heart I really want to go...

some part of the scrawny, gawky kid who hated himself and never fit in still lingers within me, and that fucker has a knack for doing and saying the wrong thing.

this should, i spose, be a happy post about my graduation from community college with an associates of science in drafting design. and it is. but it's funny how whatever i write is colored by the mood i am in at the time. so it will seem a little incongruous when i say i am feeling a bit like a failure.

now, come back and talk to me tomorrow. all will be well, i will have cast off this funk caused by lack of sleep (i used to be permanently exhausted due to the kids not sleeping and now i am permanently exhausted because after i do what i have to do, i do what i want to do and there just isn't enough hours in the day.)

so, back to my graduation. i thought my grades in more recent times would be more than sufficient to bring up my cumulative gpa to graduate with honors. i had an abysmally poor showing at my first year of college, where i barely went to class let alone read or study. well, apparently how i do the math and how they do the math are not the same and i came in just below the "with honors" cut off.

small matter. i was still excited (in my ben stein kinda way) to be graduating, and proud of myself (in my self-deprecating manner) of my accomplishments. it felt good to walk across that stage in my robe and mortarboard, tassel tickling my ear. it's taken me an incredibly long time to sort of "come into my own" so to speak, and my graduation ceremony was a sort of culmination. and i got to have my wonderful, lovely wife (who told me i was the hottest guy up there) and my two boys (who cheered and kept shooting me thumbs up or double index finger pistol shots combined with winks) there, and that was at least as important as getting the diploma in the first place.

i am looking for jobs, but the prospect looks bleak around the area, so further into summer i may look for a job on base that is unrelated to my actual degree but that would at least afford me a paycheck. can't be too picky these days, can we?

i don't know what to say about the tiny misfit riding along inside me. i'm never gonna be fully rid of that guy. and i couldn't be, or i would cease to be me. i wish i could suppress him more. but then, again, i would cease to be me. as i said, this too shall pass, let's focus on my graduation.

darth sardonic

buying a copy of catcher in the rye to leave the house...

i'm not a conspiracy theorist. i don't believe 9/11 was engineered by big businesses worldwide. i doubt truman did deals with aliens. i have trouble imagining the freemasons constructed every aspect of the burgeoning government of our fledgling nation to secretly control this country from behind the scenes.

but this whole "bin laden's dead" thing seems just a little too trite and easy.

first of all, in my opinion, it doesn't make a shitlick of difference. there's probably another 50 guys in turbans and beards ready to take his place and engineer another attack against us. know why? cause we have been fucking about in their country and blowing up their families for no-shit nearly fucking ten years now. and not just their country, but iraq too. and thumbing our noses and tossing taunts at iran. and threatening to beat up pakistan if they didn't let us enter their country looking for bin laden so that we could fuck about in their country and blow up their families as well.

but all that aside, right? i mean, for nearly ten years we didn't have the foggiest where bin laden or most of his next-in-commands were, and actually thought they might've all hightailed it to pakistan (see above paragraph) and all of a sudden, with little warning whatsoever and seemingly overnight, we know exactly where he is, and have shot a smartbomb in there to blow him to bits, then collected a piece of him off a wall and checked it against his dna (what? when the fuck did we get bin laden's dna prior to killing him to have something to check against?) to make sure he was, in fact, dead.

seems a bit like a publicity stunt created by politicians who are really none too popular right now (let's face it, with anyone who doesn't have their head buried in their iphone, no one who considers themselves a politician in this country is very popular right now, regardless of affiliation) to try and boost some ratings.

i mean, why didn't they bring him somewhere to stand trial? like hussein.

but let's pretend for a moment that he really is dead. and that no one else is champing at the bit to take his place. can we bring the troops home then? from iraq, too? (i mean, what the fuck are we still doing there really? besides still dying off?) we should be able to. i mean, our purpose was to get bin laden, alive or dead, and we have, apparently, gotten him dead, so let's fuck off then. mission accomplished. job well done. pop the corks and light the cigars. ding dong the witch is dead.

somehow, i seriously doubt this will bring our soldiers home anytime soon.

thanks for playing along, o my beloved non-existent readers.

darth sardonic

well, it's been a bit...

i don't really have any sort of literary plan for today's post. but it has been a little while, so i am really trying to be as good as my word and update this for all you beloved non-existent readers (all three of you, which i think have taken to switching off, which means only one of you for this post and the next, and someone different for the next two!)

well, as you have no doubt heard, the military is getting paid. they stole the money from schools and god knows what other important places. i can guaranfuckingtee that none of the senators or congressmen offered to take a paycut to make sure the military members and their families would continue to receive the pittance we do to keep this country safe for the acquisition of more oil.

i am scared for next year's election. one of the favorite runner ups for the republican party sounds like a borderline nazi. i seriously doubt obama will even be picked as the democratic candidate, so annoyed is the general populace with how little he has actually done in his presidency. (all these people have conveniently forgotten that the only thing dubya had done in the first couple years of his presidency was take more vacations than any other president in the history of the united states of america!) i am not saying obama is amazing. he's just... there. he gets the honor of being the first black president.

but in the meantime, the country is polarized. it feels like it's borderline civil war again, except this time it's democrats against republicans. and no, the tea party is not the answer. those guys are considerably more right wing than the majority of the republicans, and i can only foresee book burnings and youth rallies in our future, followed by marching those of ethnicity onto cattle cars to roll off into the night.

i said this last election, and i am saying it again: we need a strong president that will focus on the shit going on at home!! someone who will repair the rift between conservative and liberal, and really work on fixing our economy, lowering the deficit, and restoring us to the united states of america, not the divided states of america. iraq is fine, they can manage. bin laden is no longer in afghanistan. let's forget those guys, let's let them run their own countries in the way that they see fit because, hey! let's be honest: we're in no position right now to be pointing fingers and offering advice in how to run a country.

in news on the home front, no. 1 is going to be repeating the third grade. it's not cause he outright failed, it's because he only barely passed. and it is because a) he still struggles to pay attention enough to grasp all the concepts he has had thrown at him (concepts that weren't thrown at me until the 6th grade, when i was fucking 12! everyone seems to think that feeding all these kids algebra and science and shit so young is good for them, but i am not convinced!) and b) his rebellious and headstrong nature makes him think he is always right in how he does things. the kid is smart. he's got the brains. he lacks maturity. and my wife and i need to revamp our thinking so that failing isn't considered such a horrible thing so much as a stepping stone for learning from mistakes and attacking the problem with a renewed vigor. i am pretty sure there is an einstein or ghandi or tony robbins quote that would be appropriate here, something along the lines of failure being part of success or something.

i am nearly done with classes, and maintain my 4.0 average, and will graduate with honors and then be forced to quit being lazy and find a job and work for my daily bread.

and there isn't much else to tell around here lately. life goes on, we keep smiling, and i just don't have as much clever shit to say as i used to.

darth sardonic

where'd the money go?

this is the second time this has happened that i can remember.

once before, during the clinton administration, and while i was active duty, it seemed the government had misallocated its funds, and was threatening to not pay the military. that lasted a couple days before they figured it all out and everything proceeded on as normal.

at the time, i did stand up comedy, and made a joke about how they were going to make sure the postal workers got paid because they were known to go off with semiautomatic weapons when stressed, but the government was forgetting we had jets, bombs, and tanks.

there is a similarity between then and now: both of these seeming lacks of money (i say seeming, because congress and the senate are still getting paid--or, not to put to fine a point on it, they are making sure they pay themselves!) occurred when there was a democratic president and a majority of republicans in the house.

one big difference this time around is we are still recovering from one of our worst economic slumps in history. nearly as bad as the great depression.

and they are talking, even more now than i remember then, about making mission-essential military members work without pay.

here's the thing: thing 1) if the military isn't getting paid, what is to keep them doing the job they signed up to do, namely protecting the country (to and including the politicians who repeatedly fuck them in the ass)? what is keeping young guys who haven't seen their families in months in trenches in afghanistan from just tossing down their guns, and leaving for home? thing 2) with the government in an obvious shambles of late, and the country not doing so hot right behind it, and in this age of separatism and right-or-wrong and never any gray area, what is stopping a group of military folks from doing just exactly what i joked about when clinton was president, and effectuating a military coup?

and most importantly, how on earth to rich, fat, corrupt politicians expect to continue getting away with the shit they have for however long, if the military isn't getting paid? that's like telling your personal bodyguard, "i'm sorry, dude, i spent all my extra money on cocaine and whores this week, but you've got a contract with me, so you need to keep people from harming me, all for no pay."

i am already learning korean, i should add mandarin and cantonese to the list.

darth sardonic

life is unfair

sometimes i think it is unfair how deeply i feel these things. perhaps i should've never had kids. perhaps i should've never fallen so deeply in love. perhaps i should've never kidded myself about my own worth in this vast universe. perhaps i should've listened, and accepted these dark moments that well up in my life.

now, allow me, o beloved non-existent readers; allow me to wallow. if you've been listening to this discordant little note in the great symphony of the world wide web for any length of time, you know the bend in the corner is coming soon.

and no, because some of you will worry, nothing is wrong between me and the wife.

but i am feeling the stresses of my life, o my beloveds, my droogs and only friends, o thou ptitsas and malchicks who keep coming back here and tolerating my incessant whining.

the oldest, apparently, is too smart for school. he can't be fucking bothered. schoolwork gets in the way of more important things (i.e. video games, drawing, writing stories, and building lego creations that are mind-boggling in their detail.) and while all those things in and of themselves are also amazing and have their place, i have to sit across the table from a surly, glowering nine-year-old and explain to him that if things don't change, he will be repeating the third grade, and then watch him shrug like it's no big deal.

and after futilely fighting that battle, i get to drag myself, exhausted and sapped of energy, to my own classes where i was promised several hours to work on a project to find out the teacher changed her mind, and in fact, i will indeed be going back to the school for most of tomorrow to get the project where i want it to be.

it is time. it is time for the overwhelming sense of failure to bear down on me like a stone might weigh upon a swimmer's back. i will flounder. i will sink. i will accept my fate.

perhaps i don't deserve these gifts. perhaps i am not one to the task. perhaps i never was.

and i have always secretly held that when the drowning man accepts his fate, he reaches an enlightenment beyond our ken; a simple peace and glory in knowing that he will in fact die at the bottom of the ocean with lungs full of water. and he will smile as it happens.

but you know what? i also believe in some supreme spin doctor who is turning this universe on its axis. and i believe that that motherfucker, for whatever reason that is beyond my ability to comprehend, that bastard believes in me. that son of a bitch gave me all these goddamn gifts in the first place.

and i don't fucking believe in going down without a fight. ok, maybe the sinking swimmer reaches some fucking enlightenment. good for him. i am just too fucking thick for that shit. i am the dumb cunt who will fight it till the very last breath is ripped from my lungs and then spend the first few weeks in heaven bitching about it.

fuck these tears that course my cheeks. a means to an end, nothing less. and i am not drowning, i just need the sun to shine again, i just need to feel that this momentary lapse is over and i am standing upright and tall again.

life is unfair. that might be the whole fucking point. and i don't have anything i have without being the luckiest dumb twat who ever walked the face of this whole green marble in all its history. westley said it best, in the princess bride: "life's not fair, highness. anyone who says differently is selling something."

a few more hours of listening to codeine, and crying, and i will have sorted which parts of the stone belong to me, and which parts i need not carry, and i will kick strongly to the surface, and exuberantly shout: "look at the pretty rock i found at the bottom of the ocean!"

thanks again, o thou, the long-suffering, for allowing me to get there on my own.

darth sardonic

a political rant, kids!

i know i owe you other posts that i have previously alluded to, but i haven't done a nice political rant in quite some time. again, this is a political rant, and i know a few of you non-existent readers don't like those, so give this a miss. or read it and call me horrible names loudly at your computer screens, it's a free country.

here's the deal: i have been thinking alot lately about our country, and our governing body. i have come to the conclusion that absolutely no form of government actually works indefinitely. because governmental bodies are ideals, and, unfortunately, the world is populated with human beings.

what's that mean? well, let's look briefly through history, shall we? (we're gonna anyways, might as well play along.) there are some basic governmental ideas: monarchy (royals are the rich elite, whose problems have nothing to do with the common man who ends up actually making their country run. add to that the fact that they are generally encouraged to keep the bloodline pure, and eventually you have imbeciles who are married to their cousins trying to run a country full of people they cannot relate to in any way shape or form.), fascism (one guy runs the show, and eventually even his close friends get sick of his shit, and someone offs him, and steps into his place, ad inifinitum--and again, the man upon whose backbone the country runs has nothing in common with the guy running the puppet show.), communism (the only two countries left that claim to be communist are cuba (a dictatorship actually) and china (the most capitalist country in the known universe). all other communist countries gave up the ghost quite some time ago.), democracy (which i personally have been watching tank for the last few years.) and socialism (which might be the one governmental style that goes about its business quietly and actually offers everyone a chance at having a decent standard of living.)

we, the people of the united states of america, in order to form a more perfect union, wrote the declaration of independence and the constitution. we had amazing ideas. they were revolutionary for the time. a government by the people, for the people?!!? these guys are batshit crazy.

but look at us now. there is no more by the people for the people in our democracy today than there is in my morning coffee. that's because my vote counts for so little, depending upon the state in which i reside. but, even if my vote counted for alot. even if the us tallied up every vote of every person and counted it as one and the president was picked by a majority of people nationwide, what? still not working exactly as the founding fathers had hoped, and here's why. to run for president costs money (it shouldn't, but again, we are human beings, greedy, selfish, and bastards all around) and the only people getting money to campaign and get their names out there are the people being backed by their parties. and their parties get the money from special interest groups. big tobacco, big business, the oil companies. people with money who want to get away with murder and who will give you money to make sure they can continue doing what they have always done. which is fuck us in the ass, and line their pockets.

once the president gets into office, he/she doesn't do shit anymore. well, unless it serves some need for them and/or their special interest groups. what has obama done? not much. tried to push through a nationwide healthcare bill that was deemed "socialist" by the blind majority and therefore considered "bad." dropped some stimulus money in apparently the wrong places from where i am standing. he will go down in history as the first black president of the united states of america. unlike dubya, who i still feel fucked us soundly in the ass while drawing in coloring books as he sat on the toilet, obama will probably not be voted in for a second term.

and if you squint enough, if you let your vision go blurry enough, what's the difference between the democratic and republican parties? if you see past the rhetoric and he bullshit, and the stuff they say to make us like them, are they any different? no.

but our other option is the american nazi party. i believe they are calling themselves the tea party for short. these guys, oh jaysus. they want to go back to the original constitution. women, you should hate and despise this party as much as the minorities already do. you know why? because the original constitution treated you (along with the blacks and indirectly any other person of ethnicity) as 3/5's of a person. you will lose your vote (well, you probably won't cause they really want and need it to get anywhere, but you can see that the point i am making is there is absolutely no way to go back to the original constitution without traveling back to the late 1700's. as far as the original intent of the constitution goes, well, i think we are doing our damnedest to keep that alive as is. the only thing that might improve the situation is if we took money out of politics completely. not gonna happen.)

the original tea party was a protest against exorbitant taxes and tariffs place on us by great britain, and spawned a revolution. you know what countries that have a revolution against their own existing government end up with? communism or fascism.

sorry, ladies and gents, no answers here, really, just worries and loudly spouted words delineating what should already be obvious.

darth sardonic

2011

*darth walks in and looks around*

oh, oh my god. it reeks of neglect and decay in here. damn.

*darth walks over to the windows and throws open the blinds. light floods the room*

good lord, look at the dust! oh my. and who pissed in the corner over here??!!?? that's just sick and wrong.

*darth grabs a broom, a pail, and a duster. he puts on an apron (and i think you out there, the non-existent readers who would particularly find that amusing know who you are!) and begins to set about the difficult task of tidying up*

someone left a shoe. and who do all these rum bottles belong to? pigs, the lot of 'em, geez.

*darth lugs several overstuffed bags of trash outside the door. he brings in paint and brushes, lays down a drop cloth, and sets to restoring this blog to its former glory*

well, i think we all know; me, and you, the remaining non-existent readers (i have 11 followers! 11! most of whom i have never talked to, received a comment from, or even know anything about!) that when i say "former glory" i might be overexaggerating some. and i don't think overexaggerating is even a word, as the "over" part is already implied in the very word "exaggerate" so seems like a bit of a ridiculous hyperbole to tack them both together...

where was i? oh, yes. i still write. some. in my head more than anywhere else, of course. apparently 2010 was a bit of a bad year for me, blog-wise at least. i dunno.

but i do know that i need to clean out my pals list yet again. and i need to frequent this little tetanus nail in the playground of the world wide web (and yep, i keep coming up with less-than-savory euphemisms to describe this little blog i have nurtured like a malevolent mutant cat o! these many years now) a bit more frequently.

for now, i am gonna get back to dusting this place, but i am writing (in my head) a couple blog posts; one about my mother, and another about the inherent voyeuristic tendencies in writers, that i will share very soon, along with whatever other vomitus that spills forth from my awkward, demented, and yet well-meaning imagination.

to those 11, and to you the true non-existent readers (and a few of you are both), thanks for sticking with me, and i hope to make 2011 the best year yet!

as if i was running for president or something, geez.

darth sardonic

lucidity has its price

if one strives to truly be self-aware, then life; and everything in it, is a highly complex thing.

the human mind simply cannot accept and process the sheer magnitude of the gray scale that then presents itself. boundaries must be drawn for the sake of sanity.

not everything can be forgiven; not everything can be despised; not everything can be loved; not everything can be remembered.

there are different versions of the truth; and one is no less true than another.

sometimes i choose to leave the glass empty on the counter.

i can be benevolent and magnanimous and in the very next breath vitriolic and selfish.

why did the gods bless us with the ability to see an array of colors if we are supposed to look at everything in either dark black or stark white?

this is not a missive; this is not a manifesto. this is not an answer; this is not a question.

this simply is.

lying through my teeth...

it's not really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

life is a rollercoaster, with its ups and downs; its highs and lows. the only sure thing is that the biggest highs are precedent to the massive lows.

not that lows are always bad. in fact, in a rollercoaster, the lows are the part that gives us the greatest exhiliration, ripping the screams from our mouths, tossing us into loopty loops and twists and turns that cause us to laugh out loud. the highs lure us into the complacency that make the lows twice as exciting. or twice as agonizing.

to say that my wife and i are perpetually happy isn't really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

sometimes our relationship is one of complacency. the day to day takes hold, the classes, the job, the doctor's appointments for the boys, homework and parent/teacher conferences. this is not unhappiness, it is mundanity. it is life.

to confuse my analogy a bit, i consider these the lows in the rollercoaster of our existence together; my wife and me.

these lows generally coincide with highs in another part of my life. in this case, the band, big dumb animal. in the somewhere near 8 original songs we have mastered and perfected. in the hours spent with s the drummer and s the guitarist in the garage drinking and playing through our setlist and laughing and the euphoria that follows a rollicking rock song performed to perfection when three distinct individuals read each other's signals exactly and the song thrums to its climax in such a way that makes the heart beat faster and the fist pump involuntarily, ending in a steady hum of that final guitar chord that wrapped everything up so magnificently.

even the momentary lows of a pourly-performed song are their own version of highs, punctuated with humorous and harmless ribbing: "i fucked that one up." "yes, yes you did. have another gin and tonic, lush."

and without instruments in our hands, these highs are continued in conversations only found amongst those select few who are truly kindred spirits that fate or god or the universe has inexorably pulled together to be present in each other's lives at this time.

and this is how guitarist s and i found ourselves having a drunken conversation at a cuban sandwich joint in downtown ybor city on a random tuesday night as we waited for it to be time to watch roger waters perform his legendary "wall" concert.

this is how s told me he had been talking to this old friend of his for some time, how he felt connected to her, and she to him, which was really saying something considering what they had both been through individually prior to the moment they began talking again. and he isn't just whistling dixie. i can't speak for her, but personally, i have watched s battle with himself over the loss of his wife to another man, the woman he expected to be with forever. the woman he would pine over (until this sainted friend reentered his life) and with whom he would share custody of his daughter, the apple of his perhaps tainted eye. i know how huge this confession is. i know how hard; how tentative and unsure and yet needing-to-be-there-so-badly it all is for guitarist s. i also know how much i have moved into his inner circle of closest friends as he shyly, watching closely for my reaction, admits they sleep together--

"till our phone batteries die."

in the back of my head, i hear the death knell. not of my dearest friend and kindred spirit, s. but of something that i selfishly think of as all mine, even though it involves two other individuals.

the woman who has made s believe in love again is some 3000 miles away, in arizona.

and i know that big dumb animal is terminal.

what i didn't know is that the doctors would give it such little time.

it's been months since we have met in my garage with drinks and a plan for wowing audiences. life for one or another always gets in the way. we were on the verge of playing our first gig of all originals complete the three of us on our own instruments in front of a real (and not culled from friends and acquaintances) audience.

but chances seem good that s will be in arizona, perhaps for good, the end of this month.

this low in big dumb animal's rollercoaster coincides with the high; the rekindled spark, i think is the popular phrase, between my wife and i.

when s breaks the news, i am all for it. through our many and varied (and often inebriated and uncensored) conversations, i know this is something he must do. and i want him to. and i am always a proponent of love.

i tell him, "dude, this is your fucking happiness. if you don't play this hand out, you will regret it the rest of your life."

it's not really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

because i am happy for him, and i really want him to go, and see where this fork of his road takes him. but in the same breath, this fork takes him away from me. and i wrestle between the selfish desire to have this friend who actually gets so many aspects of myself that no one else would, and whom i get in kind be truly happy, and the selfishness of having him here, and available, and in my garage helping me see through the boring patches of my own life with a placebo excitement that can be derived from a small group of like-minded individuals playing music together in a way that most bands only dream of.

i pass a couple days being sad to the point of tears on the inside, and smiling on the outside.

until my wife asks me about something seemingly innocuous. at ten thirty at night. as we lay in the dark bedroom, my fingers against the skin she feels is "too fat" but which my body only registers as electric and smooth and pleasurable and i laughingly say a sentence that is light and airy. that leads to a comment about s' impending move. that leads to a half-hour discussion of how happy i am for him and at the same time so unhappy for myselfish self.

it's not really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

and she laughs when i say that i would be lying through my teeth if i didn't say that it just plain sucks ass that he is moving, for me. but she also knows it's the truth when i say that i am happy as can be for s.

and in that simple unplanned spontaneous shared conversation when both of us should've by rights been sleeping, i worked out my issues with the demise of something that was beautiful and as ephemeral as the final big plummet/loopty loop/twisting spiral that precedes the braking, clicking entrance back into the terminal of the rollercoaster, followed by the laughing, adrenaline-fueled conversations of the individual experiences that brought the different riders to that spot at that moment.

thanks for playing along.

darth sardonic

and o thou beloved non-existent readers, thou stalwart though silent few who continue supporting me even as i myself only pass by this rusty nail in the sandlot of the world wide web on occasions when i am seeking answers only i can give, should you seek to see big dumb animal at the height of their career, performing their greatest hits as if there were no tomorrow, ask me how, and i will point you in the right direction.

if i've said it once...

i have said it before, and i will say it again: i am one lucky motherfucker. i remind myself of that daily. that is not to say that i haven't had rough times in my life. times where i wanted to cash in whatever chips i had left and call it quits. times when i wondered where god was hiding that he could no longer see me and the mire of shit i was wading through. but i have always had the good fortune to come out the other side clean and smelling like roses, and beyond a little experience, unscathed.

i see others around me. some who are in something that for me counts as a real trial. my friend melly, same age as me, battling cancer, for example. family members who have battled cancer in the past. people i never got say proper goodbyes to, perhaps, and with whom i may never get the proper closure, until the day i tearfully remind my own loved ones that, regardless of what was going on at the time, i have always been one lucky motherfucker, and then transfer from this existence to the next, where i will meet them again, and say the things i should've always said, except that you think you have forever to convey those feelings that will hit you at midnight on some random thursday a good ten years after you have missed that opportunity.

and i consider myself doubly lucky that i have this awareness of my own luckiness. now, o my beloved non-existent readers, this is not me tooting my own horn. i didn't always feel this way. there was a time when the world was fucking falling apart if the girl i loved didn't love me back. where something as simple and insignificant as that would have me throwing in the towel. i hate to admit it openly, but yes, i have matured. i have realized just how fucking precious this gift we call life is, and just how much of it i have been blessed with.

and again, it may sound like it now, but i am not tooting my own horn. i am not full of myself. if you, the beloved non-existent reader, have been here more than twice you will know this is not my style. i am just a guy, trying to make it happen, trying to be happy, on this little blue marble in the big fucking universe that looms over us every night.

i am trying to remind us that those people who make us aware of just how lucky we are need to be reminded that we have noticed. that we are there for them. that when they wade through that swamp of shit we will be the ones putting out a hand to pull them free, clean and smelling like roses; so that they too may stand on the edge of some cesspool and drag the next lucky motherfucker free with a warm hand and a smile.

none of us are perfect. none of us are happy all the time. i am learning to forgive. i am learning to forget. but happy is the man who is surrounded by the kinds of people who stand ankle-deep in putrid waters (or better yet, come in to the armpits to walk a bit alongside) to cheer us on to whatever finish line awaits us. and i, for one, must say: happy is the man who knows just how fucking lucky he is; just how blessed; just how gifted and happy and cared for he has been his whole life, and how important it is, as one who is a lucky motherfucker, to pass that luck along. how important it is to be willing to wander the swamps lending hands.

i pray, o my beloveds, for i know you are still out there; still wander my way when you find a quiet moment; that you also will pass this along. that you will reach out to those around you who are in need; that you will thank your lucky stars, or god, or whatever power you submit to and in the same breath reach out to the others around that need that.

we are all in this together, and there is nothing more god-like and divine that realizing it, and sharing it.

darth sardonic

teachers...

a friend of mine on fb linked this video from youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU&feature=related and i began to think about the teachers throughout my formative years that inspired to me to do something greater.

sad to say, some of the names have been forgotten. but i remember every act, and how it affected my life.

i had a young kindergarten teacher with long brown hair who taped my mouth shut till recess once. (in retrospect, she had probably warned me over and over and over again to be quiet, and i just wasn't paying attention.) at the time, i was embarrassed, appalled, and angered. but i tried in the future to not yammer on quite so much. this is the same teacher who hugged me for what seemed like hours after my first attempt on the monkey bars which ended with me covered in mulch and crying (or, at least, once i had gotten my breath back.)

my first grade teacher had a sort of page-boy bob haircut in blue eyes, and told my mom that i was showing incredibly advanced talent in art and drawing, and that she should keep pens, pencils, and a never-ending supply of paper handy. my mom still proudly tells this story when she shows the plate that was made from the drawing i did of the pink panther and the inspector. i still draw and paint.

i had a second grade teacher, probably middle-aged with curly hair, who all but checked books out of the library for me. i still love to read. she also let us write and enact elaborate plays (mostly stolen from star wars) to our hearts content and which usually involved the majority of the class, and to which only she, and possibly one or two other teachers on break, would be audience.

my male third grade music teacher pretended not to notice that singing peter, paul, and mary's "leaving on a jet plane" would cause me to cry and cry.

mr. jensen let me draw in class. he even gave me sheets of the expensive carbon paper, and if i drew something suitable and he liked it, he would mimeograph them and hand them out to the whole class to color during quiet times.

mr. weller (who looked a little like chuck norris) indirectly taught me that it is ok for grown men to cry, cause he had trouble getting through the last chapters of where the red fern grows. he would later be my cross country and track coach, and would inspire me with his personal interest in my life outside of sports and the classroom. i have actually tried to find him and contact him, as he once said when i was a junior in high school that if i ever wrote a book, he wanted a signed copy.

mr. steffens would read the short stories i wrote at home or outside of class. he would offer constructive criticism. he still teaches and is the high school librarian at my old high school. he read several chapters of The Unfinished Work when it was still just more of an idea than an actual book. he was perhaps the first teacher who really made me feel like my stories and writing would be interesting to someone besides myself.

mr. mccree most recently helped me to realize that while i write prolifically, and am not a bad writer, i still have much room for improvement. he has also proofread at least two of the chapters from my someday upcoming book, Pierce County.

but the teacher that i will never forget, and to whom i dedicated a whole chapter of The Unfinished Work, and who i liked the least and for the longest was mr. bruce graham. he seemed to hate us students. me in particular. and i never passed any of his math classes with anything higher than a b- (geometry, and all the algebra classes i took with him were straight c's.) but on the day when i aced my college algebra class, and was smiling and dancing around and thinking, "fuck yeah! never have to take another math class ever again in my life!" i immediately wanted to run out, and be able to show it to mr. graham, and tell him, "thank you, sir. and i am really sorry i was such a bastard to you for so many years."

without our teachers we are nothing, and we generally, as a society, treat them like shit. thank a teacher today.

darth sardonic

metaphysical fiction

i am like the breath through a harmonica: sad, and lonely. my toes still try to dig into the soil, afraid to let go. afraid to change. afraid of what lay beyond the tops of the highest mountains. beyond the increasing hole in the ozone.

afraid, perhaps, of what becomes of all that remains of me when i sever ties with the mud and dirt and the crawling worms to explore the vastness of space without bounds.

but the sun is warm. the sky is blue. my skin is raw. and i need to sail beyond the swirling pain of this existence.

and i let go. at first i only see my yard. the green grass, needing to be mowed. the tree preparing its leaves for a trip just as far in the opposite direction of my own. mossy rocks. crawling beetles.

i spread my arms wide as i pass the top of the fence and begin to see my neighbors and their unmowed lawns, their shrubs, their dying flowers.

i kick hard, like a swimmer evading a shark. these are known to me, familiar; i long to pass beyond this to the unexpected, the unprecedented, the unknown.

the tops of the trees give way to the tops of mountains, and i see the lonely few who travel to these heights to see god and still fall so short. i sidestroke past them on my own rapid trip to the center of my being and the center of the universe.

my being begins to flake as i leave the atmosphere; not due to the extreme cold, for i am no longer capable of feeling it, but as i push past each lightyear into galaxies beyond the scope of our technology, my self is beginning to give away to the forces that have no play on the planet i once called my own.

tendrils of my self wind away like loose threads from an old sweater; warm, fuzzy, and pulling my form into formlessness. these tendrils intertwine with those of my father, and my father's father, and my father's father's father. the familiar stars wind down to holes punched in a frail piece of black cloth as i am now drug by the cosmic fabric into a gap like a patch to fill a void and lose all sense of self in a mesh that becomes a blanket that warms a baby as it sleeps in its crib.

darth sardonic

Tell me all your thoughts on God?

...'Cause I am on my way to see her.
So tell me am I very far?

"is it true?"

the intensity with which the boy asks me this question, the burning need to know, to be reassured, causes my throat to tie itself into a knot, making my eyesockets burn.

the evening was any other sunday evening. the kids need baths before they go to bed, in preparation for another week of school. as they climb into the tub, the younger one asks what has happened to all the bath toys.

"we threw them out, buddy. they were old, they were yucky. you didn't play with them anymore."

as my youngest insists that he liked them, the oldest is quiet, turned away. behind me, my wife says, "oh, buddy, what's wrong?"

and my oldest turns, his big brown eyes filled with tears. "you could've at least talked to us about it! you shouldn't've just thrown them away!"

i'm taken aback. i couldn't possibly have expected this reaction. as i get them in the tub and help them with the soap, my oldest goes on to say: "it's not just the toys, i am upset with life! i am mad at life cause we get old and then we die."

and oh, the conversations you never want to have with your children. the things you never want to hear, the things you never want to say.

i say, "oh buddy, yes that is true, everything gets old, everything dies. it's not the dying, it's all the living we do before then. we get all this time together that we should enjoy."

the tears are coursing down his cheeks now, and it is clear this is something that has been eating at him. he has been asking me about the soul recently. about heaven. and because i want him to go with his own ideas of the soul and heaven, to follow his heart, i am loath to offer too many details. "i want us to be together all the time."

"we'll all be together again in heaven, and then we will have all the time we want."

"is it true?"

suddenly, i am not sure i am one to the task of helping my son deal with his angst towards death and his insecurities as to heaven and where he goes. i feel tiny. i feel insignificant. i feel if i do too much talking, i will burst into tears and he will misread my emotions as a disbelief in what i am telling him.

but i know there is a heaven. i know we go there. i know there is a god that loves us and wants the best for us, and i have talked with him many a time. how do i know all this? well, i have just known, without any reason, ever since i was a little--

"what does your heart say? do you know there is a heaven where we will all be together again?"

he nods, still staring into my eyes with an earnestness borne of needing a confirmation that what he already feels to be true really is.

he wants to see grandpa lloyd again. he misses him still, though it has been several years. he isn't ready for grammy or nana and boppa or mom or myself to go yet. he wishes his soul would let him go to heaven for a visit, so he can see grandpa lloyd, so he can see what heaven is like. he is still crying when i put him to bed, and i am too as i reassure him that grandpa lloyd is fine and probably gets to see how we are doing. he confuses the death of my own father with the death of grandpa lloyd and inadvertently reopens a wound i thought had healed completely; a wound that i thought had ceased being a source of pain. i reassure him that we will all be together in heaven when the time comes, and that it is more important right now to enjoy the moments we have together here.

he is asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.

i can't even relay the conversation back to my wife without choking up and lamely spitting out unfinished sentence fragments. in her typical sarcastic pragmatism, she asks me, "what the hell is wrong with you guys?" and causes me to laugh.

but i mull this over in my head the rest of the night. these are similar conversations i have had with myself. i was afraid to talk to anyone about my own fears and confusions towards life and death and heaven and god. and now my oldest is going through a similar phase.

and while i ultimately feel like my efforts to reassure him are lame attempts and sputtered trite answers, he has felt confident enough in our relationship to open up to me, to share his concerns. our relationship is such that he feels comfortable coming to me to discuss the greater things of life and death and the universe.

and for that, i am forever grateful.

darth sardonic

A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

i've mulled this post over in my head for a few days. in the past i have been a bit reactionary; running straight here to whine like my world is falling apart because i didn't get some job or some whatever that i was really counting on, and then alluding to the ensuing inebriation.

i applied for an extension to my gi bill (it ended 1 august--ten years since i separated from the air force) under the idea that i had mitigating circumstances (i.e. the need to be home as at least one of my kids due to their special needs and appointments for seven years).

maybe it's because i had sorta already decided i wasn't getting it. i hoped i was, but some part of me knew. turns out, they only do extensions for medical reasons if i am the one with the medical situation, not a family member.

now, here's the part where i turn away from doing my usual whining and puling. i got the rejection letter, sat down, and thought about it. where has most of my gi bill gone? guitars, basses, parts for said guitars n basses, lighting for the bandroom, pipes and accessories, trips to get my tattoo worked on, and alcohol.

i was at least savvy enough to save my last two gi bill checks, and they more than cover tuition and books for this semester and next (also my last). so the really important thing, my education, is covered. furthermore, i was awarded a pell grant (it won't be much at all, but still...)

and then i thought about friends of mine who live at home, and who make the pittance they get from scholarships or the pell grant last them a whole year while they attend school. friends who have been driving the same car since they were teenagers and just limping it through. friends who haven't gone to the theater to watch a movie in years because ten bucks is just too much to drop on something not necessary.

i have said it once, o my beloved non-existent readers, and will say it again and again: i am one lucky motherfucker. my bills, they're covered. i don't have to worry about where my next meal will come from. i have everything i need, most things i want (and an unfairly amount more of the things i want than many of my friends--but my wants list is so fucking huge, o my beloveds!) and i have a support system behind me that has my back come hell or high water.

and i have spent alot of time and energy on things that are fun, that make me happy, but aren't necessary.

so it boiled down to this: no more alcohol whatsoever on the weeknights (and i didn't even do an exorbitant amount on the weekend. our friend e and i were watching "true blood" and i had a scotch, went into the kitchen to make another, waffled, and ultimately walked back out with a big bottle of water), this weekend was my last big binge on ebay. and my wife has been gone for a week (traditionally a time when i would drink more and buy more frivolous shit on ebay, or wherever else!)

this denial is an opportunity for me to exercise self-restraint, something i haven't been very good at all lately.

my tattoo might have to wait some. i don't need to drink all the time. i don't need anymore bass or guitar parts right now (i actually need to sell a bass and a guitar really).

and this is spilling over to other parts of my life as well. i haven't been as interested in porn of late. i am ok with a good book, or a movie, i don't need to be out painting the town red.

now, in all fairness, o my droogs n only friends, these are the cycles i go on. this isn't going to be a new lifestyle. but for now, and under the circumstances, i need to buckle down to saving my money and spending it wisely on the things i really need rather than the things i desire.

is that growing up? i sure hope not.

darth sardonic