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.

You just keep me hanging on...

there are moments, o my beloveds, my tried and trues, my droogs and only friends, o thou faithful who keep stumbling back to this sodden, neglected little spitwad on the world wide web; when the wife is in l.a. for work, and the content of gin and dry vermouth in my blood is overshadowed by the ability of the extra cocktail onion to absorb it; when mark renton is dying on the screen to the dulcet strains of the velvet underground's "perfect day"; there are moments, o my beloved non-existent readers, when i aproximate what might be a rock bottom, and the tears swell, and in this moment of anguish and emptiness i free myself from the shackles of the cares of the day, and i put myself in god's hands, and my eyes open up like broken faucets and all the demons poor out of me like a wash of the soul in a backyard tub, and i am pinned to a line to dry in the sun.

i wish only the best and most beautiful for all of you out there.

oh, and better news and laughter tomorrow, my friends, si o si, come hell or high water.

darth sardonic

* the doorbell rings.

"shit, fuck." i curse, palming the tears out of my sockets with the heels of my hands, encouraging my face into a facsimile of something that belies a bawling, woe-is-me session seated lonely in front of the computer.

i believe in god, o my beloved non-existents. cause at 9 o'clock at night on a wednesday, in the dark, there on my porch, are some friends i haven't talked to nearly all summer.

and cause god knows i am a stupid cunt, and won't reach a hand out to pull myself out of my funk.

so he drops the perfect distraction on me at the very fucking instant i needed it. and now, instead of trainspotting, i find myself watching fanboys and every trace of that "rock bottom" i was empathetically touching a moment ago is all gone, and renton has gone off to die on someone else's tv for the evening, and i can honestly text back to my wonderful wife:

"yeah baby i am ok actually"

and you were here with me the whole time.

thanks*