See You At The Bar-B-Q

I've had bible thumpers and born-agains ask me time and time again if I was interested in spending eternity in heaven, and when I've said no they were baffled.

"But wouldn't you want to live in paradise?" they ask.

"Sure. But if it means I have to spend eternity with you, then it's not really paradise is it?"

I've always seen religion and it's focus on the afterlife, as a convenient way for some people to shirk their responsibilities as a human being. "I can turn my back on the suffering and misery around me and know that I will be saved and go on to greener pastures when I'm dead because I go to church every week and I've been re-reading the same book for my whole life."

Then, of course there are those nutjobs over at the Westboro Baptist Church. You know the folks who run GodHatesFags.com? They just hate everyone. Makes an old Gloomy Gus like myself want to go out and adopt an African child and start a shelter for abandoned animals. I mean, they can really suck the life out of a room!

And now, the WBC has released a music video of their hit, "God Hates The World".

Television Youth

The great thing about YouTube is the ability to relive your childhood in less-than-2 minute increments. Just watching the opening credits to cartoons and shows I was weened on brings on a wave of nostalgia. This is just a sampling. As you can see I grew up on a lot of fantastical junk. Explains a lot actually...

Spiderman


Flash Gordon


Battle of the Planets


The Banana Splits


Tales of the Gold Monkey


The Incredible Hulk


The Six Million Dollar Man


The Fall Guy

"Tell Me About That Novel You Been Workin' On"

Nearly ten years after I started writing it, after numerous computer crashes and losses and rediscoveries and false-starts, and at least 300 pages of semi-enjoyable prose, I have finally settled on a structure for my "novel". I use the quotes because it has become more of an interconnected collection of short stories/memoirs.

Now, the re(al)-writing begins...

The Illest Mother*!@#er From Here To Gardenia

Being sick in the summer sucks.
I haven't actually tasted a meal in over a week.
What's the point of eating?

There's about four other people in my office that are sick. The girl who started this all is feeling better now. Screw her. One co-worker is on serious anti-biotics and will probably get better before me. Screw them as well.

There's only enough room for hate in my thoughts right now. All the other space in my head is being occupied by excess mucus.

The other night as I walked to work in a cloud of Acetaminophen and Phenylephrine (aka Tylenol Cold&Flu), I realized that I can pretty much pinpoint when I moved to New York as the moment I stopped enjoying life so much. I don't know why, cuz I still love this city more than any place I've lived. But I've kinda stopped "living" since I've been here. I'm doing things I've always wanted to do and making progress in different areas, but it all feels so mechanical and empty. I'm only half here. My soul's moved elsewhere and I can't find it.

This is the funk I find myself in.
Being sick in the summer sucks.

Sense Memories

Drinking Red Bull when you're sick and congested tastes like jumping into a heavily chlorinated public pool and getting water up your nose. A bland anti-septic flavor. I am reminded of taking swimming lessons at the old Brandywine Inn across from the Downingtown Farmer's Market, as a child.

Several weeks ago as I was walking past Greenwood Cemetery, and smelled the freshly-cut grass, I was suddenly taken back to the summer of 1989, as my friends and I began working on our first "feature film" (on videotape). Always having delusions of grandeur, our first undertaking was a medieval sword and sorcery epic. As such we spent most of the summer dressed as knights and peasants, charging through backyards and fields with plastic swords and wooden shields. Every evening I'd have to shower off the wet blades of cut grass that caked my legs. It was a wonderfully fun summer, hanging with friends, running around like idiots, and capturing it all on video to watch again and entertain ourselves. Perhaps that's why I never finished the film and kept working on it for the following three years. It was too much fun to actually want to complete it and move on!