Griff Notes

Creature 1:7

2010-05-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

I wake up shaking.

He wasn't real. He was just a dream.

My jaw hurts, but after a quick probing of my mouth with my finger I can feel my tooth. It's sore. I have a toothache, but it's still there.

It hadn't been crushed in my mandible after all.

The blood hadn't erupted from my mouth as the vise-grips shattered my tooth with me still attached.

The nerve hadn't been severed.

I didn't pass out from the pain.

It was just a nightmare. Standard issue for me, but intensified by the throbbing pain in my mouth.

In 3 days the dentist can see me. In 2 more days he'll remove my wisdom teeth and lance the infection that is causing the pain in my mouth.

During those five days, the abscess in my mouth grows and the pain refuses to subside.

On day four I'll go to my bar.

I'll be hopped up on a few Valium given to me by Scuba Steve and well jollied by shots of Jäger that are bought for me by people that really don't have money to be spending on Jäger.

I'll be funny.

I'll recant stories that I've embellished to a slew of laughing friends and onlookers.

I'll keep a lit Camel Wide in my mouth and only remove it when the cherry is all but extinguished.

I'll make emotional connections with people that I never, ever intend on returning.

I can run this routine all night. I'm not even really aware anyone else is near. I'm on autopilot. I'm in immense pain and the witty retorts coming from my mouth never even register on my brain.

The Gunslinger would be proud.

As autopilot runs, the puffs on my wide get longer and longer. The pain in my tooth grows distant as cool liquor fills my warm stomach. I hold my liquor well, but the mask gets loose and whereas an outsider couldn't notice my inner depressions, it becomes more apparent that my story telling is starting to taper off and others are maintaining a more prominent position in the conversation. This breaks the group of a dozen or so friends into various directions. Some of them taper off and discuss the bands they want to form. Some of them are desperately working to seduce the girls that have had a few too many. Some discuss literature. Some discuss cinema. Some discuss religion.

I discuss my pain. I discuss it with my camel wide as everyone else slowly meanders away from me in a quiet gentle fashion.

On the fourth day, I am drunk.

On the fourth day, however, one person remains.

Through my blurred vision and steady smoking I notice her easing closer and confidently looking at me for another story.

She must have been friends of a friend of a friend of mine that was earlier laughing about the time I accidentally burned my ass with an overly fresh Burger King french fry that has left a mark to this day.

She stands there friendly, but she's not a prey. She's not the girl that I take home and discard. She's not giving the impression that she wants that from me...but she definitely wants something.

So we talk.

I open my charisma and feed her. She laughs, but it's not sincere. It's friendly and it's not snobbish but it's certainly letting me know that she sees through it.

Yes. The bullshit. That “it”.

On the fourth day, this girl talks to me with an intent I'm not familiar with.

After an hour she might as well be the only person in the bar.

After 2 hours she's not laughing.

She wants something and is afraid to ask.

After 3 hours, nothing I say has any effect. She has grown beyond the urge to hear me talk. She is focused only on the question she feels she has to present to me. I see this fact pouring from her vast eyes that seem to be focused somewhere at the back of my skull. Her intensity breaks through my mask and easily navigates the haze of my drunkenness.

That fact discomforts me to an end I can't recall ever feeling.

Say it.

Just ask me.

Ask me anything and let me block you out again forever.

Maybe I can take you home then. Maybe I can get you to laugh at my funny stories. Maybe I can make you think I'm artsy and talented and different and special. Maybe I can make you not love me. Maybe I can get you away from the monster you are trying to see.

But, apparently, she has already seen it.

After 4 hours and 44 minutes she asks me to kill her.

I think I'm going to need some more Jäger.

Creature 1:6

2010-02-08T14:07:00.001-08:00

FADE IN

INT THE TRAILER – NIGHT

The room is black, with the only point of focus being the glow of the gunman's pipe.

Don't move.

You just lay there. You stay calm and cozy. You get ready. You listen very closely to what I'm going to tell you and don't utter a word.

You don't think.

You turn off your internal monologue.

You listen real good, and if you listen good enough, you still die.

But it won't be tonight.

The sound of THE GUNMAN's revolver being sheathed is heard followed by a few smacks on his pipe as he lifts the apparatus to his mouth. Through the pipe's glow in the darkened room, a flat brimmed hat is apparent on his head. His eyes are piercing through the skull of our narrator as if the room were filled with sunshine, however they are sinister in demeanor and rest above a long pointed nose. THE GUNMAN lowers his pipe, once again darkening his face and pauses an uncomfortable moment before continuing.

Good. You're not talking. You're not thinking either. That's good too. Especially for a coward like you.

(pause)

Cowards like you, die quick when they think too much. You just let me handle the thinking right now and I'll let you get back to being a pathetic worm in a moment.

I'm really here you know. I'm not a dream. I'm not one of the delusions that parade in your mind. I'm not a fantasy even though I'm sure you could paint a fantasy in that warped head of yours that is every bit as awful as I am. You have a real talent for that, Boy, and I'm not going to deny it.

I admire your talent. I really do. All your talents. Every damned talent you have. It's just a shame they were wasted on a grub like you.

(pause)

I must not be a sane man.

A sane man that knew what I knew about you wouldn't let you're eyes rest in your sockets for another second. A sane man would remove them with a spoon. 2 heartfelt scoops and you're appropriate to your soul. You don't deserve those eyes that perceive so much so well. You deserve 2 festering sockets. You deserve it to hurt. You'd deserve that and anyone that knew what I knew about you would know it's true.

Yup, I must be out of my mind to sit in this room so calm with a maggot like you.

(pause)

So. I must be a real crazy.

He puffs his pipe and looks over the embers at our narrator as he continues.

You're still not thinking. Heh, that's good. Even that's bothering me though. It's just reminding me how cowardly you are. I don't think you're listening to hear me. You're just listening because you're a coward.

The gunman lowers his pipe, sets it on a nearby nightstand as sounds indicate that he has risen from his seat. The two steps it takes for him to reach the narrators bedside jingle indicating the presence of spurs.

I know you don't hate yourself. You really should, but you don't. You hate your life, but in that brain of yours, your ego wants you to wake up every morning.

You're just too chicken shit to do anything to turn it around.

Even too chicken shit to take her. That girl that makes everything right in your brain. All you'd have to do is take her, but no, the curse of you has to creep on her soul. Has to hurt her and all because your too yellow to be honest with yourself about who you are and what you want.

THE GUNMAN strikes the narrator with the back of his hand. The sound of blood hitting the wall is heard faintly after the loud crack of the slap. THE GUNMAN picks up his pipe, lights a match and relights his pipe as he leans close to the narrators face, the evidence of the strike is apparent as blood oozes from his mouth. His eyes are tearing and THE GUNMAN never removes his stare from the face of our narrator.

(pause)

THE GUNMAN offers a cruel chuckle as he finishes lighting his pipe and rises to his feet. After a few puffs he sets the pipe back down on the nightstand and begins to reach in one of his pockets. The clinking of a light metal object is heard as he continues his monologue.

I'm real asshole. As real as your pathetic pink trap here. I'm not a dream. I'm not you. No, I'm no overly clever Tyler Durden situation my boy. I'm in this room with you, you little shit heel.

In fact, that's the reason I'm here. We have a lot of work to do and it all depends on you knowing that I am a very real part of your life. No matter how short of a life it is.

THE GUNMAN springs his knee onto the narrator's throat. Gasping and choking noises are heard as the metal tool is fumbled with. In the darkness, THE GUNMAN grabs the narrator's face with his gloved hand and begins to pry his mouth open.

Know I am here. I know everything. Mine is the last voice you'll hear, but not tonight. Tonight, I get it through your head that I'm not a delusion or a manifestation or another Freudian nightmare. I. Am. Real. And Now, I want you to think.

I can't breathe. I can't struggle. He weighs everything. He has me incapacitated.

He is holding my face.

I. Am. Scared.

His gloved hand is a steel trap and it's squeezing my mandible. I can feel teeth rattling in his grip.

He wants me to open my mouth.

Resist.

I want with all of me to resist. I don't want him to do whatever he wants to do. He releases his knee's force on my throat just before I go unconscious. In this dark crypt he can read my breathing and knows the limit my consciousness can hold.

I fight for what seems like an hour.

I fight for what is probably a minute and change

I fight, before the metal contraption in his hand, wedges it's way into my mouth and clamps down on the rear most tooth in my bloody mouth.

His grip tightens and I am frozen in place. His knee lifts and I pant heavily, but I don't move. One move and he might rip the tooth from my mouth. I slowly surrender my hands.

I taste blood.

I feel pain.

I hear my panting through the blood in my mouth.

I smell his tobacco laden breath heavy on my face.

I see nothing.

But I know he's smiling. I know he's real and...somehow...he knows that I know.

I assumed that the pliers on my tooth would hurt as they ripped the roots from my mandible, but I was wrong. He wasn't pulling my tooth.

I have never felt more terror than when I realized that the pliers latched onto my tooth were not pliers.

They were vise-grips.

And slowly, they were tightening.

Creature 1:5

2010-02-02T06:36:00.001-08:00

Valentine makes a face that is full of happiness and pity, makes a noise that is full of happiness and pity, hugs my head with force sincerity and says, “Sweet Dreams, Brother.” before she goes back inside.
That's the only goodbye I need. I head home.

Under these pink sheets lies a very dishonest attempt at slumber. The sleepwear is on; my eyes are tightly closed; the fetal position is assumed; my cat is purring out a chainsaw lullaby, but tonight, sleep is hours away, and my imagination is holding me captive.

Cut to brain, I am in my dream home...our dream home. It used to be a garage that we have remodeled to resemble a small factory. The inside is clean and spacious and with the exception of a storage closet, 2 bathrooms and a space that used to be an office, the rest of the building is comprised of one large area that makeup my kitchen, living room, garage, studio, and bedroom...excuse me, OUR kitchen, living room, garage, studio, and bedroom.

And we love it.

The building is old, and to see it from the outside is to immediately classify it as a business that could replace your alternator or restore your Impala with the exception being that all of the windows are darkly tinted and no stray oil stains or haphazard paint jobs taint the brick of this little industrial palace.

There is no lawn, as is the fashion of most businesses, a small parking lot of blackest asphalt replaces the need for Kentucky Bluegrass and azalea bushes. Yard work consists of taking a leaf blower to the random leaves and pebbles that tumble in and banishing them into the kudzu on either side of my dwelling. I’m usually finished before I can finish a bottle of Grolsch.

The time I spend outside is usually spent on the building's flat top roof where I can sit for hours in my iron spring rocking chair, listening to XM Radio on a modest outdoor sound system and playing “That's My Car” as the vehicles pass on the not so busy, two-lane road. Occasionally I'll play a round of 9-ball against myself on my black and red outdoor pool table, even though I am terrible at all forms of billiards and once even skipped a ball off the table sending it flying through the segmented skylight that situates right over my bed, scaring the hell out of my cat who was, at the time, enjoying her fourth daily nap on my California King.

In my imagination, I looked down and shouted an apology to my furry familiar and at that, my wife who had been inside reading a Palahniuk novel laughed loud and joyously.

In my imagination, I laughed as well.

Sometimes, friends come over in the summer and we grill hot dogs and burgers on the roof as we tell dirty jokes, drink beer, eat copious amounts of popsicles, play guitar, and splash in a kiddie pool that I pull out when the temperature breaks 90º. Sometimes I even turn on a water sprinkler and we all play “That's My Car: Team Edition” under a cool drizzle and laugh about our equally happy and interesting lives.

For days when I play outside I can reenter the building by climbing down the steel ladder on the side of the garage and go through the front door. The door itself is solid black with a large minimalist brushed aluminum door knocker and standard doorknob / deadbolt combo also in brushed aluminum.

Never being an excessive outdoors man however, I usually enter the house by simply pulling my car into the former garage bay that is now my garage / kitchen / living room / studio / bedroom...excuse me...OUR garage / kitchen / living room / studio / bedroom. I step out of my gunmetal grey Audi A5 with the BBS wheels and black leather interior. Just like that, I am home.

I feed my cat, throw There Will Be Blood in the Blu-ray player and continue to design a picture of me as Frankenstein's Monster at my computer desk whilst waiting for my wife to come home.

In the building, in my mind, is home. The flatscreen on the wall is a nice 54” 1080p LCD connected to 3 gaming systems and my home theater receiver all of which are stacked evenly below. I have arranged all the electrical wires in the building with clips and screws that attach directly to the brick wall and only add to the industrial atmosphere of my dream home. If you are a fellow technosexual, you are constantly haunted by wires. Necessary evil. In my little imaginary version of perfect, I have found that simply incorporating them into the various beams and electrical conduits that skeleton my walls alters the state of said cables from standard wires that usually wind up dusty and clumped behind a person’s electronics like decaying android intestines to design elements that grid and help move your eye throughout the room. My wife laughed when I got excited at the idea of buying a baby blue HDMI cable as a decorative element for the house. She was highly entertained by that.

In my imagination, I am never happier than when I’m entertaining her.

This space, designated as the living room, is central on the north wall of the large-ish rectangular room. To the left of the TV are 2 framed posters, a one-sheet from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and a Limited edition Rob Zombie poster with silver accents. They are stacked vertically on top of each other with a consistent spacing between them and the ceiling, floor, TV and the other various artworks that are framed and extend farther to the left beyond the 2 main pieces. Their are easily over 50 medium to small paintings, doodles, pictures and reliefs hanging on this wall all framed in simple black or red frames. About one red frame per 7 black frames. Just enough to break up the space. This is generally the first area noticed by people entering the room from the afore mentioned big black door on the west side of the building. I suppose you could call this my gallery...yeah, that sounds nice.

I add the term gallery to my imagination and continue with the tour.

To the right of the flatscreen are a series of 6 floating shelves that are packed with various books, movies, graphic novels, toys, cds, videogames, LPs, knick-knackery, leaning photo frames, a bottle or two of cheap czech absinthe, and a music box that I gave the Mrs. once when we were on vacation at Disney World. It plays “Once Upon a Dream” from Sleeping Beauty when you open it and inside, she keeps several rings, a few sundries and a set of brass knuckles we got as a joke from the white supremacist pawn shop just outside of town. All these things are placed on the shelves neatly but in no particular order at all and it is all perfect portrait of the way we love each other.

Every movie somehow reminds me of her.

Every song is inspired by her.

Every princess I rescue in a video game is her.

I’m 100% sure she feels the same way.

Beyond the shelves is the door to the office.

It’s just an office. Normal and drab. With desk, calendar, pens, etc etc etc and it is a space just begging to be decorated in some amazing fashion, but in someway the normalcy is a nice way to break up the space. I’m sure we’ll redecorate it one day, but for now, we let this room alone and just pass through it as it contains the only door to the walk in closet resting behind the living room wall.

Under the TV, instead of a fireplace I have an electric heater installed in a hearth. Retro-futurist with a little steam punk thrown in. It’s a very clever object. I feel clever just thinking about it. She giggles every time I turn it on because I always squat real low and act as though I’m warming myself on a crackling fire instead of the soothing hum of electric warmth. On the hooks where a poker, chimney brush and shovel would normally reside we have long metal skewers with wooden handles that we use on cold nights to roast marshmallows over the clever electric fireplace whilst sitting on the silly fake polar bear rug situated in front of it.

Our friends think that we have more fun than anyone else on the fucking planet.

They are right.

The living room furniture consists of a large black couch that curves from directly in front of the TV to the east side of the building towards the gallery. The other side of the room is consumed by my oversized recliner that is covered in a grey red and black plaid pattern just like the interior of a MkV Volkswagen Golf (A FINE automobile), and a matching ottoman that my cat has declared her throne. The inside of the throne is hollow and I use it as a storage place for my remotes, video game controllers, and a secret pack of Camel Wides. My wife hates it when I smoke, but doesn’t begrudge me as long as I keep it under a pack a month, don’t do it in front of her, don’t do it inside, hide the butts and mouthwash before she needs some sugar.

I love that she doesn’t want me to smoke. That pack’s been in the throne, unopened, for years. The only reason it’s still in there is because it reminds me that I don’t even feel the urge to smoke just because of her whim. She has me laughing in the face of addiction. Her wish is my command. Happiness in slavery.

On with the tour.

On the eastern most wall touching the gallery are a series of waist to ceiling windows with large steel slabs that act as shutters when you slide them into place. These “shutters” can be pulled in front of all the windows in the building via a series of metal tracks and lock into place with a thud that I find satisfying every. Damned. Time. The locking of the shutters make the building completely secure and you will never have to question your safety from any attacks that might stem from alien invasion or zombie outbreak. The slabs are scratched and scuffed from previously being housed at my Uncle’s welding shop back home with the exception of a few sporadic magnets that she has scattered on the one closest to the kitchen. On the opposite wall, under an identical shutter closest to the door are few multi-colored permanent markers in a black Baphomet coffee mug. The mug rests on top of a writing desk we found at a thrift store.

It was a steal.

This desk is full of junk. Every home should have a desk full of junk. You know, the first place you go when you need a pen or tape or sewing needle and if the junk drawer gods are in a good mood, you’ll find the object you desire. On the top of the desk, in permanent marker I have drawn a large raven. My tribute to Alice and her adventures in wonderland. The markers are now used to write honey-dos directly on the shutter. Sweetening her requests are doodles that never fail to make me smirk. Every now and then she’ll spray some degreaser (kept in the desk) on her notes so that she has room to start anew and write some more. I am always kinda sad to see the shutter so sparse, but I am also healed in the fact that every time she cleans it, she immediately grabs the black marker and writes “I love you” as a starting line to the requests that will follow in the days to come.

The kitchen is blocked on a patch of hardwood floor in the southeastern corner of the building. She has full control of the kitchen’s decor and has chosen to go with a retro 50’s motif. Everything is white and seafoam green and wooden and glossy. It looks amazing. She looks amazing in it, then again, she looks amazing everywhere.

The small dining room table is just outside the kitchen under a window and in front of my car. The table itself is simple in design with a centerpiece consisting of a taller cactus beside a smaller cactus. The table can sit 4 but we only keep 2 chairs readily available. Both of them on the same side of the table so we both have the same view out the window and steal food from each other’s plate. Just beyond the table heading toward the gallery is a similarly simple computer desk that is setup to hold our laptop. She insists I work near a window so that I can occasionally peak out and exercise my strained eyes.

Opposite the kitchen corner is my studio space with a drawing table, easel, and set of school lockers where I keep my supplies. The easel is adorned with a half finished painting and like-wise the drawing table has a sketch taped too it that is far from completion. The entire corner is littered with doodles and magazine clippings and other various forms of inspiration. In-between the kitchen and the studio Is a door to my bathroom, a door to her bathroom and a small tool bench. A peg board wall holds a random assortment of tools on display that are used to make do-dads for the home, repair broken skylight windows and do general man stuff to my car. I’m no Bob Vila, but I love performing the occasional handyman task with my small arsenal of tools.

Between the studio and the writing desk is the bay door and usually, my car and beyond that, a night stand followed by our bed. The California King that rests on a platform of railroad ties about 2 feet off the ground. The headboard is also made of railroad ties and though it’s description sounds meager, it’s just about the coolest bed ever assembled, thank you very much.

The bedding is baby blue and charcoal grey. The pink is long gone. Good riddance.

Then theirs her. My wife. She’s home with me.

On the couch throw my arm around her as she leans against me to paint her toenails a movie is on TV and I can smell the chemicals in her hair.

At the dinner table she sits down next to me and steals dips out of my sweet n sour sauce, even though she has her own container.

In the kitchen, I creep up behind her and startle her. She laughs though her tears produced from chopping an onion and smiles giddily as she looks up and kisses my cheek.

In the studio I paint as she walks up cuddling the cat in her arms and says, “I love it.” no matter what I paint.

In the bed, we look up and out of the skylight after we make love. Making imaginary names to imaginary constellations as we laugh about the littlest parts of the day.

In the living room, I move the couch and pull the car in front of the TV. I put in Coraline and we both put on our 3d glasses. We have instant popcorn and whiskey with coke. We have a drive-in movie date and though she is entranced and wrapped around the stop-motion delight I stopped watching past the opening credits.

I can’t take my eyes off her. I adore her. Every instant I ever feel from this point forward I want to concern her. In these imaginary moments I know that if the remainder of my days were spent here in this place, breathing in the air that came out of her, then my life would be spent happy through all the misery life has to offer. If she is sad, then her sadness resonates in my heart, If she’s angry then the target of her anger has 2 enemies, If she wants, I will provide, but all she wants is me, and all I want is her and when she’s happy I know why I’m alive; To keep her that way.

And I know her. And I fucked up.

And it’s all my fault that none of this can never happen.

In half a second, my dream is gone. My awareness returns to my fetal state in the warm pink sheets. My eyelids explode open and I can almost hear the steal shutters slamming shut in their positions, in the building, in my brain. They keep her safe until I can return to the fantasy I wish was my life.

Right now, I'm aware something terrible is about to happen.

Someone's in here with me.

I lay there, wondering which of my senses triggered this disturbance. I heard no sound and saw no movement. I was simply laying in my room and generating heaven when I undoubtedly knew I was not alone. I lay there convincing myself that I have manifested this feeling. My conscious self was drowning in a sea of wanton thought and the feeling was simply a by-product of my awareness dying. I was struggling for breath and made one blood curdling cry for help. A cry heard in my adrenal glands and felt in every molecule of my being.
Yeah, that’s it. I imagined it. Yeah.

I lay 75% convinced, half amused and half wishing my glandular system had just let me drown in that wonderful madness. When I reach a state of 85% assuredness I close my eyes. When I reach 95% I hear the strike of a match and followed by a very feint smacking sound.

The confidence in my personal safety is 0%

Someone is in my home.

Someone is in my room.

Someone is watching me lay in my pink sheets.

Putting 2 and 2 together I try to quickly assemble the situation I’m in. A match and smacking noises. Obviously I’m dealing with a pyromaniac. A pyromaniac that plans to burn this simple dwelling to a mound of charred remains and get some devious sexual pleasure from watching my white scarred skin grow black and crispy like a marshmallow on a skewer over an electric fireplace in the building in my mind.

Then the smell hits me.

Someone is sitting in my room smoking a pipe.

This doesn’t make me feel better.

A thought, “Please, don’t let anyone be there.” repeats in my brain at a speed incalculable by non imaginary instruments as I slowly turn and sit up.

My room is dark. I have double blinds and 3 layers of chip-board over my 2 tiny windows. Normally, my crypt, as it has been jokingly called by more than one woman, is black and quiet and very suitable for sleeping, sex, and various other nocturnal ventures. Light is permitted via the ceiling fan or book light or television, but none of these were needed as I lay so vulnerably in that spot dreaming of my life with her. Sitting up, I become aware that a small, dim, red glow is piercing the darkness of my room. It’s the pipe. The glow is bright enough to illuminate a small wisp of smoke emitting from the heated ball of tobacco and also cast the the sickliest amount of light on the black gloved hand holding it.

The location of the light tells me that he is sitting down on a set of shin high drawers that are placed against the wall farthest from me. The light is my only indicator as to his position. I see no form. I hear only the soft crackle of burning tobacco. I smell the room being filled with the pungent aroma.

I am scared.

What does he want?

I am scared.

Who is it?

I am scared.

I can’t run, I can’t reach for a weapon, I can’t dive out a window, I can’t turn on a light.

I. Am. Scared.

When I hear the cocking of revolver from the space of the intruder’s other hand, I am 100% sure this room, will in fact, be my crypt.

Creature 1:4 The Wonderful Mask Machine

2010-01-28T06:31:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time, in a very flat forest, their was a machine that made wonderful masks.

Ugly Masks.

Pretty Masks.

Funny Masks.

Sad Masks.

Masks. Masks. Masks.

The machine made all kinds of masks, and people came from far and wide to see the machine's wonderful creations.

Everyone was so impressed with the masks, however, that they hardly ever payed any attention to the machine.

You see, even though the machine made masks that filled people's hearts with joy, the machine itself was old, rusty, dusty, and had lost many sprockets during it's stay in the very flat forest.

People loved the machine's wonderful masks, but their was NOTHING wonderful about the rusty, dusty, old machine.

Still, day in and day out the machine sputtered and spattered and steamed and screamed and made the most wonderful masks anyone has ever seen.

One night a great blizzard came and covered the flat forest in a thick blanket of beautiful white snow.

Every corner of the forest was beautiful and white...everywhere that is, except for the machines part of the forest.

Oh it was still covered with thick snow, but instead of being white, the smoke, oil, and steam from the machine had turned all the snow around the machine a dirty, greasy, black.

Pitch. Black.

The black snow stayed for many weeks and nobody would come visit the machine while it was surrounded by the oily snow.

One day, a pitch black snowlady appeared before the machine.

Instantly the machine sputtered into action.

BUZZCLICKCLICKPOWBANGZOOOOOOOOOMPOPFzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

And out of the machine came a wonderful smiley mask, that was truly beautiful and showed that the machine hadn't lost its talent during its long rest in the black snow, but the snowlady had no face, and wasn't impressed by the wonderful, smiley mask.

So the machine spattered on once again.

WHIRRWHIRRWIZZPOPbubblebubblebubbleKLANKFzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Many sprockets flew off the machine and many springs sprung out of place, but still, a wonderfully funny frowny mask came tumbling out of the rusty old machine.

The best frowny mask that the machine ever made!

But...

The snowlady had no face and wasn't impressed by the wonderful, frowny mask.

Not. In. The. Least.

KLANKTINGPOWPLOPFzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Grinning Mask.

TIPTIPTIPPIPPOPBOOMFzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Laughing Mask.

CRANKTONGBLAMBLASTFzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Crying Mask

KROOPPOOPDOOPDROOPFzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Kissy Mask.

But no matter what mask the machine churned out, the snowlady had no face and couldn't be impressed.

By this time the machine had lost many parts and was smoking badly from its crooked smoke stack but it couldn't stop until it had impressed the dingy, black, snowlady.

It began to steam and scream and spatter and sputter like it had done a million times before when suddenly...

...

...

nothing.

The machine seized to a sudden halt.

It had lost too many sprockets and sprung too many springs trying to impress the dingy black snowlady and even though it tried, it couldn't make another mask.

The machine.

Was.

Broken.

After many weeks, the black snow melted, as did the snowlady leaving behind only a large patch of dead grass in the very flat forest.

After many years, the broken machine rusted and rusted until it finally fell into a million pieces on the patch of dead grass.

Grass would never grow there again.

And black snow would never fall.

And the the only way you would even know the rusty, dusty, old machine existed, is if you were one of the lucky ones.

If you were lucky enough to see...

a mask.

Creature 1:3

2010-01-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

I'm glad I had left my guitar in my car.

Valentine was a most gracious host but southern tradition always dictates that if someone is cooking for you, it is only right to bring them something in return. Valentine is always satisfied with a song, or a notepad to write wisdom upon or sketch pad to doodle in. She wants her “Temple” to be a place where art is born. Often, she talks on the topic of starting a reservation, deep in parts unknown, for artists and thinkers to churn out art and thoughts. For now, her home was her reservation and she viewed it as a very matronly duty to keep her “family” productive.

At a Valentine dinner, a song is much more appropriate than potato salad.

I situate a friendly smile on my face too the point of dimples and walk through the door.

Imagine Santa's elves, freed of whatever debt owed to the old glutton Nick and left at the North Pole with nothing to do but tend to elvish folly and merriment. Remove all Christmas connotations from that thought and you'd have The Temple of Color. Valentine's home, which was currently a car crash of glorious smells and sounds. Valentine has become very skilled at creating a very precise arrangement of smells and sounds that somehow magically fills a room with her presence. I could walk into this room blind and still be perfectly aware that she was near.

You can feel her.

Traditionally when I enter the room the sequence of events is as follows:

1. Valentine makes a noise. It can't be spelled or described, it's just a happy noise

2. The rest of “The Family” say their greetings and smile my way.

3. All of the dogs start growling at me.

4. Everyone scolds their dogs.

Tradition, in this instance, doesn't fail.

I pay no mind to the scorn of these beasts as dogs have never been quite fond of me and hug Valentine's neck with one arm making sure that the tuning knobs on my guitar don't get caught in her hair. This hug activates my charisma and I make my rounds hugging necks, shaking hands and smiling like a jackass the whole time.

A few people are noteworthy here.

Jackson is Valentine's boyfriend. He's southern hopitality to a regal degree. With a blonde beehive beard that always gives me visions of a grand Civil War General that could have really turned things around for the Confederacy had he only been there. His eyes are dark and twinkle, his smile is persistent, and when someone speaks, you never doubt Jackson is listening. A truly rare and important quality. Most impressively though, Jackson seems happy. He seems satisfied with what he has and who he is. If I didn't feel welcome before, Jackson's handshake seals the deal and in that moment of welcome, I would probably jump off a bridge if one were handy. My hypocrisy shoving me hundreds of feet to my demise. I am an unworthy being. He's wasting his welcomes on a tragedy.

Still, It's always good to see Jackson.

Jackson enjoys working with his hands, Natty Light, the outdoors, and practical jokes that end with his penis being exposed..

After my handshake and greeting, Jackson turns back to Jim, who also extends his hand for a greeting. Jim smiles at me, but never stops telling his story. Jim is a well known conspiracy theorist and is apparently at the pinnacle of explaining to Jackson how the government is putting something in the water to make us want to go to war with all non-white nations....or something like that. Jim is as close to a mad scientist as I will probably ever meet. Even his wild-eyes and messy brown hair are the perfect condition for a man familiar with gene splicing and zombie virus. I don't imagine him spending his free time the way ordinary people spend their time...not that I have any room to talk.

Jim's not crazy, however.

Jim's smart.

Which I believe makes him better than just an average stoner rambling off stupidities. His arguments are sound. His research is valid and he speaks, although through a marijuana slur, with confidence and poignancy and even though he does get excited when he preaches, he never comes across as a lunatic and is always receptive to a comical aside from another “family member”.

Also, Jim does not give a fuck.

Jim likes hallucinogenic drugs, the guardian.uk website, seeing stupid people fail, and not giving a fuck.

Even though The Temple of Color has a very spacious living room, most of the guests choose to wander around the kitchen. Its small, which invariably leads to frequent collisions, but we are all comfortable enough with each other that it doesn't really matter. Even the random few I have never met before seem at ease in this confined space.

After a brief conversation with Jim and Jackson concerning George Bush's grandfather and the Nazi party (google it) I collide with Jackson's brother, Boo.

Now, Boo isn't what everyone else calls Jackson's brother, but after a lost bet left him with a very haphazardly shaved head that looked like a training accident in a beauty school for the mentally disturbed, Boo Radley is too perfect a nickname to not use.

I am quite fond of Boo and believe that Valentine would say we are “moons orbiting the same planet.”

Poor Boo.

Boo is funny and smart and good looking and many other adjectives that I would use to describe myself. Much like myself I sense that he has stains on his past he'd rather keep hidden behind a wall of charisma than expose to the rest of the family. The difference being that Boo has happy ending written all over him. Something about Boo lets you know that he has enough of what it takes to actually become his mask.

Which is the ultimate goal for all of us. Like it, or not.

Boo likes stand-up comedy, playing pranks on Jackson, Everclear and yelling at people walking down the street...nothing foul, just a random word to make people question their day.

EGGPLANT!

Something like that.

Boo is telling me about his latest idea for a comedy skit involving a redneck Muslim that has an Earnhardt 3 stitched on his prayer blanket (not his best stuff, but still quite funny), When I hear a curmudgeonly Ahem.

I turn around and see Charlie.

She's standing there with her arms up. She wants me to pick her up and give her a hug, but you wouldn't know it by looking at her face. She's looking at me with a look of sincere disgust or at least as much disgust as her 4'11” frame and adorable face can muster.

She looks like a beautiful doll that has been abused by a careless child and dressed like a scarecrow with a credit card. Shirt with a torn collar, thrift store jacket, sweatpants, some peculiar hair clip with tentacle like feathers, loooooong matted scarf and you would almost think that her entire wardrobe is based on a dare.

But, for her. It. Works.

I smirk as I see her look of loathing and she just turns her head to the side snobbishly to avoid eye contact. She knows if she looks at me too long, she'll smile and she doesn't want that. Not because it means she'll succumb to my sexual advances, just because it means I'll win. I sling my guitar to my back and pick her up in a hug that is friendly and aggressive, almost like a dog chewing on a squeak toy. I can feel her smile big, but she never shows it to me. This is the game Charlie has set for me. She's quick to belittle and berate and despise me...in the most loving way possible. If we are truly a family like Valentine says, she's definitely my little sister.

And she's damaged.

I hold her in the air for a few minutes with ease whilst listening to the rest of Boo's pitch, when her personality kicks in and she demands to be put down because I'm “Too fat for long hugs.”

I smirk at her jab and set her down.

She then introduces me to someone that she's obviously having sex with, obviously doesn't fit in here, and will obviously be gone in about a day or two.

Almost like a dog chewing on a squeak toy.

Charlie likes trouble.

Aside from Charlie's “squeak toy” Valentine has also invited over half a dozen “people of value” that do or are into something “obscure” and “interesting” and they will all be impressed by my charm and wit and I'll forget their names and faces every time I leave the room. I have no use for new friends. I feel guilty enough about the ones I have now.

The night goes on. I spend most of it assisting Boo in fleshing out comedy skits for the show that will one day make us famous, smoking pot with Jackson as we discuss Jackson's regulation beer-pong table he just built and the giant pirate/bull skull he wants me to paint on it, and listening to Charlie talk trash about her newest chew toy while he's in the other room fixing her a drink.

“He has hands like a smurf.”

Poor guy never had a chance.

This whole time I keep my guitar in front of me so I can poorly pick out the same tunes I always pick out every time I come over. Every so often I can sneak out alone on the Temple's patio, playing and singing a song or two too an audience of kudzu that festers to the right of the Temple like a green tide that will eventually wash us all away.

Everyone laughs at my jokes, everyone is genuinely invested in my well being, everyone here loves me and with that thought I realize that I'm completely distant. I'm watching all of this on a small black and white TV in a movie theater on the moon. Every laugh and comment is heard through a telephone, muffled by a fluffy towel. Every clear vision, distorted through the bad reception of my eyes. My words were scripted before I even left my house. My stand-in is here.

I'll be in my trailer.

It's not that I don't want to be here. I love it here. They love me here. It's not that. It's that I feel more like a taint on the ecosystem of my friends, my family, than a fruiting body. I am a psychic vampire. Feeding off the emotions of the people that care about me. I am kudzu. Out of my adoration for them, I only submit them my shadow. Everyone I have ever really cared about is now a Chernobyl victim. Feeling the effects of my manipulations for all time. Never trusting. Always afraid. You know that twinkle in a happy person's eye? I eat them and leave the box they came in.

Every. Single. Time.

And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. -Nietzsche

I'm pondering Nietzshe on the patio with a Camel Wide and my black guitar when Valentine walks up behind me.

“You're about to leave soon, aren't you, Brother Alchemist?” she says with a smug knowing.

“Yeah, I got work early tomorrow, Oh Soul Sista.” I say as I extinguish my coffin nail.

“You got time for a story?”

I pause, think about the abyss for a few seconds, smile and say, “Yeah, I guess I got time for a story.”

I set down my guitar as she pulls up the adjacent chair and gazes unto me.

Creature: 1:2

2010-01-26T14:32:00.000-08:00

I wake up afraid of what my brain has thrown at me and by my cat, of course, who is ready for her morsels again.

Yes Ma'am.

I'm usually late to work but my dream woke me early; I can actually enjoy shower this morning and watch Batman cartoons before I start my day at the print shop.

Make-in Cop-ees.

I'll see you in Hell, Rob Schneider.

I sit up in my bed. Pink sheets now in aftermath mode. My dreams keep my sheets from staying neatly fitted to my bed and my Mother usually uses the term “wreckage” to describe the results. I sit up and catch myself in the mirror. The term “wreckage” would still apply. I'm large, not fat, but large. Well over 6'5” and broad. No imposing muscle structure, but big enough to ensure my safety were I ever to carry a basket of food to my Grandmother's house at an unreasonable hour. My long dark brown hair is a ramshackle curtain hiding my unnaturally friendly face. A smattering of tattoos stand out starkly on my pale skin and suit my faux-badass look, and despite the few scuffles I have under my belt, badass is a far cry from my best adjective. I am a lover. Not a fighter.

If one were so inclined, one could look closely and you'll see a cross work of scars running from just above my elbow and creeping onto my chest. Most of these are self inflicted from my younger days of facing heartbreak in a less than healthy way.

Yes I was that sad sad boy.

I'll see you in Hell, emo-kid at the mall.

I sit and admire my war wounds briefly. They are reminding me of a Berlin road map when my cat nudges me. She's telling me that their will be plenty of time for self-admiration after she's been fed.

Yes Ma'am.

She's fed and I head for the shower.

I am too large for your standard shower and usually spend my showers laying down in the tub to get all of me wet. The hot water drizzling over me instead of powering down because my poor decrepit water heater won't last more than 20 minutes if I turn the pressure up full blast. The drizzle can last an hour or more and I prefer having a long shower. Something about it seems so...purifying.

I pretend that nothing exists on the other side of that curtain. I'm just a tall dude in a steaming, weak pressured shower, floating eternally in the void.

But I'm not.

I peak my head out from around the shower curtain and see the evidence. Despite being relatively clean my bathroom is ALWAYS trashed. I have another bathroom that I insist everyone else use. It stays in immaculate condition. No one is permitted in here. This is the swamp of an evil Troll. Woe to he that enters. Towels piled, empty soap boxes, dozens of empty shampoo an conditioner bottles, random brushes that have halos of hair encircling them and a sink with my red whiskers polluting it all make me feel strangely safe. I can also see a foot wide stripe of calico under the crack of the bathroom door. My cat has finished breakfast. My cat worries about me. So she waits by the door. Not wanting to interrupt but wanting to be close so she can hear me sing or splash and make sure that I'm okay in the room I always walk out of wet. She knows that when I'm in there for hours, I'm pretending nothing else exits. She doesn't think it's a healthy mental exercise but she doesn't really know what to do about it so she just stays near me and pretends to ignore me as cats are known to do. I know that means “I love you. Please, don't do it.”

The hot water is out and I gotta get ready for the day.

One shave, pair of jeans, black t-shirt and leather jacket later; I'm off to work.

I can hear Bill talking before I even open the double pane glass door. I give the greeting to all the coworkers, fill my cup with black coffee and sit down at my desk and begin my hard work on designing a wedding invitation for a young white trash couple when my phone beeps.

I make a font decision and pick up my phone.

Xxx-xxx-xxxx: Sorry about that text last night, I was drunk and out of line. You know you're awesome. I'm just being dumb. We cool?

Me: Of course we cool. I know girls are crazy ;)

Xxx-xxx-xxxx: hahaha.

I plug Mary back into my phone and yet it doesn't seem any heavier. Strange.

I continue with my day's routine without a second thought to Mary.

I've been so productive at work lately. I generally finish all my daily duties around 10:00 and use the leftover time to waste my time reading useless Internet news and watching bizarre videos. I am a big fan of videos with animals eating other animals...I can't really explain that. But their's something beautiful about a golden eagle grabbing a goat from a mountain side and flying away with it, or a turtle snagging a pigeon and dragging it into the watery depths, or an octopus eating a shark. Brutal. Lovely...I sense I've gone to far...please keep in mind that this rouses no sexual feelings or savage instincts. This is more of an innocent 8 year old 'WHOA AWESOME' scenario. The soul of a child in a man's body.

How do you get a clown off a fence post?

You hit him in the face with an axe.

That's the sense of humor we're dealing with here.

Anyway, the Internet is notorious for leaching all my attention. Recently though, I have been highly active in my artistic endeavors and have added many more personal design projects to my portfolio as of late. Like my 8 foot typographic tribute to my favorite film, “The Good The Bad and The Ugly” and my “Creature From the Black Lagoon” poster made entirely with the font Gill Sans. Being productive always puts a little hop in my step and I carry that hop with me to lunch.

Bill sees a set of free ears heading to lunch and decides to follow me.

So there I was man. Jackal concert. Front friggin row! And I was tripping. My. Face. Off, Dude! I mean, I'm looking at the lights like 'whooooooaaaaaaaaa' and smoking black and miles like they're Virgina Slims man! I'm tellin ya. You like hard music? Shit yeah I bet you do. With ya raggley long hair and him-hawin Tool shirts and shit, but I'm tellin ya dude. This has got to be one of the best concerts of all damn time! No shit dude. No shit.

I smile and nod and act impressed. really wishing I was impressed because something tells me that when I'm Bill's age I will have nothing more relevant than the stories of a bunch of concerts I went to that I'm sure were “The greatest shows ever”.

I enjoy a half dozen boiled eggs for lunch and nod and smile at all of Bill's stories never making much conversation beyond “What?!”,”No way dude”,”Man, sounds awesome” general responses. I'm not listening. Etc.

Through the white noise of Bill's speech inspiration hits me.

I had earlier just found a copy of the Ars Goetia from The Lesser Key of Solomon.

The book was supposedly originally written by King Solomon in the days of...well...King Solomon. Which would predate the birth of Christ about 900 years. The book describes in elaborate detail 72 high ranking demons in hell and gives the instructions on how to summon and control them if one were so inclined. Apparently King Solomon had some success at this and was kind enough to pass along the instructions to all of us not as wise as he.

Did he? Didn't He? Who cares? It's an interesting read and the pictures are the primary source of my inspirations.

Each demon has a seal, and the seals are neat-o. Neat-o enough to be the source of my latest art project.

I'm thinking giant cryptic demon sign with a gas mask? Yeah, gas mask...I like gas masks...and horns NO...antlers...yeah, antlers that'll be super neat-o and fill in that space in my kitchen nicely.

You have just witnessed the artistic process.

You're welcome.

You ever seen anything like that dude?!? I mean it's hard to top that!!! Four midgets! Count em! Four! What you ol' ugly ass think about that?!?!

“Whoa Dude, that's crazy.”

After making a large printout of Buer's sign and stopping by the art store for some wonderful illustration board I head home and begin work on my latest cryptic creation.

I transfer the symbol by applying charcoal to the back of the printout, taping it on top of the board and carefully tracing the seal with a 1.3 mm mechanical pencil.

For a moment my imagination starts to churn out the idea that by doing this, I am actually completing one of Solomon's summoning rituals and President Buer will appear before me in all his horrible glory. The head of a lion with five goat legs surrounding it. This, of course allows him to move in all directions and probably much faster than me. I'm a lover, not a runner.

And oh, the egg on my face.

I have no sacrifice or dealings with the beyond other than a collection of creepy artwork that would probably only offend him even more. He'll then either take this opportunity to sink his hellish teeth into my neck and swallow my fat Irish head in one gulp or, even worse, take me back with him to the fiery depths where I will be forever tortured by he and the 50 legions of demons under his command.

I snap myself out of it and continue drawing away.

I get the symbol, gas mask and antlers lined out (I was right...super neat-o) and decide that all is composed well enough to call it finished for the night and sit down on the couch for a TV or video gaming session too return me to a world without demons and magic...which is kinda ironic now that I think about it...

My deep thought is interrupted by the phone.

St. Valentine: Oh great herald of the 8th pyramid! Festivities are in order at the temple of color. A feast for kings is all but laid. Fancy an inch to your waistline?

This is Valentine. My most hippiest of friends. Loosely translated she's telling me that they are cooking at her house and my presence is requested.

Valentine prefers this to your standard text. It's coded in the language of her. If it gets so obscure that you have no clue what she's saying, it means you're not close enough to her to understand. The better you know Valentine, the better you can interpret these things. She's never explained this to me...I doubt she's even aware of it...but it's the truth, and quite surprisingly to me, I have been fluent in Valentine's language since day one. This has never seemed strange to her. She believes in the energies that pull people to one another and accepts our ability to interpret each others true meanings as some universal thing that connects to the ultimate gizmo and attaches us through a do-hicky in Saturn's outer ring.

My cynicism/skepticism has never pushed her away. She is as entertained by my lack of hippy as I am her abundance of it.

Never has their been sexual tension between us. Valentine knows horrible me and is wise enough to keep her distance whilst still wanting me to attend every one of her obscure gatherings due to my sense of humor and ability to make people feel comfortable no matter their inner or outer turmoils.

It's just what I do.

Plus her food is always good.

Me: Yellow Circle.

St. Valentine: Lightening Bolt.

Television will have to wait.

One hair brush, mouthwash and fresh shirt later I'm on my way to Valentine's Temple for a night with my friends.

As I leave, I scrub my cat for good luck and she purrs with emphasis. I take one final look at the antlered gas mask in front of Buer's mark and once again consider the fancy of him reaching from the seal with his hell-mouth and pulling me away. Never again to call my mother or adore my cat or make balloon animals for my nephews and niece or write a song on the guitar...

or drink till I forget who I am...

or drug till I forget where I am...

or womanize till I forget what I am ...

or waste away...

or get smaller...

or burn out...

or fade away...

never again having to face the guilt of throwing your life in neutral...and flooring it.

I'll see you in Hell, me.

I snap out of it.

One leather jacket and I'm out the door.

Creature: 1:1.5

2010-01-26T06:05:00.000-08:00

I dream about being in a space. There is a wooden table and a me and me has a meat cleaver in me hand. Light shines from overhead and I look perplexed, but not scared in the least. My facial expression never changes as I crane my neck to examine the cleaver as I curiously fondle it in my hand. Then I expectantly and ferociously swing the blade down on my opposing wrist. Severing my hand from my arm in one swift chop.

My face is winced, but there is no blood. I peek down not to see meat and bone, but I appear to be made up of some sort of processed meat. Like a Vienna Sausage or Spam. I lift up my nub to examine it. I now look concerned, but not scared.

I'm not scared when I chop off my forearm, my elbow, my bicep, my deltoid, my foot my legs and rest the blade finally, peacefully in my sternum.

I am a meat sheath.

I am a completely stoic torso of a man and I'm not scared in the least.

I only get really scared when I wake up.

Creature: 1:1

2010-01-25T10:51:00.000-08:00

Earlier today I was dropping my 3 kids off at school and about to head to the store so that I can pickup milk so that my wonderful wife of 7.4 years could make her family famous 7 layer chocolate cake for our church's covered-dish social...wait...no...that's not me.

I'm not that guy.

That's the guy I'm supposed to be. Maybe even, the guy I want to be

But. I. Ain't.

No wife. No kids. No mini-van. No church.

No church a lot.

I am the guy that stalled.

The guy trapped under a mountain of debt that is keeping him locked in a state of arrested development. Still having his 90's Era long hair and a Hot Topic frequent buyers card. The guy that is still wearing a Nine Inch Nails shirt and jeans as his dress uniform for his 30th birthday party. The guy that still brings home girls from bars and yet, too broke to take them somewhere nice. The hope being that a relationship will start and he can have that home and wife and kids and life.

I have to get love quick. I've fallen in love dozens of nights knowing full well that when the night is over, my love is forever lost. A victim to my charms, to my unattainable dreams, to my ego...my vicious ego and to my shame.

I'm that guy.

That guy does have a job, however.

Bill is in his early fifties. He's been working offset presses for 17 years and working the in the shop with me for the last four. He always looked like leather, with the tattoos he'd gotten in 'the clink' now, nothing more than blue blurbs across the animal hide of some bizzare Indian redneck. In the past, Bill grew up poor, went into the Marines, got out when his time was up without ever seeing war, kept the same friends through high school, went to prison, got out, and did whatever until he met me. Bill talks constantly, but it's not in the way that makes you want to staple something to your face. His stories are usually laced with face words (So, here comes Santa in a raggely ol sleigh and 4 kludged out whitetail...), racial slurs (So, my wife and 4 other koons went to Crow's nest last night...), and general redneck insanities (So, she's callin me a-sayin 'Deddy! Booger shot my dog'!!!) to be listenable, and, more often than not, at least semi-entertaining. And his stories were rattled out in what remained of a voice. The husk of a voice. A voice attacked by years of cigarette and meth and reefer smoking, by years of nightly screaming matches between him and his 6 daughters and wife, and most from his inability to stop talking. He sounded like a toad.

Which I always enjoyed the hell out of.

Today Bill is not on the ball however, and he is rambling about some foreclosure or repo in which he had to tell some bank to “kiss his smelly ass”.

Naw dude! I really told em that shit!! For real! You think I'm liyin' but huh, yeah, it happened!

I believed him. I was just distracted.

Earlier this morning I was laying in bed with Kristy and for now, I love Kristy.

I met her at my bar, made sure she overheard a story I was telling and made her laugh all night, offered her a night of free movie watching at my place, and then had sex with her. I have about 7 hours of interaction total with this person and much of that was sleeping, but I'm not lying. I love her. For now.

I remember how she laughs, how she looks in her overdone makeup, how she tells me about 'loving weird movies like American Psycho', how she seems sincere, how she seems like she may be dumb but she's not. She gets the weird references. She knows a few good books. She had a nerd brother so she likes nerd stuff. She's a 10. This morning when I dropped her off in one of my t-shirts and an Egg McMuffin (parting gifts) she smiled and hugged my neck and said her goodbyes without seeming morose. She won't want a return call from me. If you drop a girl off at her house and she doesn't seem a little sad, then you just had a one-night stand my friend. She doesn't want to be with you. She just wanted to be with you. She'll respond to texts from now on but she will never answer a phone call. I don't even try. This is when I start getting over her.

I'll be 100% over her at around 3:30p.m.

No hard feelings. We will joke and be friendly when we see each other out. We will facebook flirt. Once in a blue moon, she'll come home with me again, but that's all. My reputation keeps me in a lot of beds, but very few hearts and this has worked out well for the last few years.

Which is the saddest fucking thing I can imagine.

I shake it off and start listening to Bill's latest story.

So yeah, she came with Shorty Craig to see me one time in the clink, right. So, I says to Craig that I can get her on the list and I really liked her and she seemed cool as hell or whatnot and that good woman came to see me e'ry damn week I was in that hellhole. And that's where we got married! I ain't bullshittin you! In the clink!

Sounds romantic to me.

When I get home my cat reminds me that she needs to be fed, and not the hard stuff today. Just the canned stuff.

Yes Maam. I love being my cat's butler. A constant reminder for me to stay humble...at least to her.

After a few well placed scrubs on her calico butt, I feed her and walk back to my room. I put on my sleep/workout shorts and dark grey wife beater and in casting off my jeans notice the residue on the pillow. The Makeup Ghost. A smeared representation of the night before. I can smell her in the bed.

I take off the sheets. Take off the pillow cases. Throw them in the washer and get over it. When you have a 3 year relationship and you're not really over it you gotta throw it all away. Photos, poems, love notes, dead flowers, ticket stubs, they all gotta go.
I call it laundry day.

I replace my sheets with the spare set that my sister left me. All 100% victoria secret pink. She thought it was a great joke. I do too. So I use them as my backup whilst I erase women in the washing machine.

I draw, write, play video games, eat, beer, and camel wide before I nuzzle into that snuggly pink bed and turn on cartoons for me to sleep to. In the dusk of my consciousness I check my phone. 5 missed calls. They are all bill collectors. And one text.

Mary: I never knew you were the biggest asshole on the planet! Forget my number ASSHOLE!

I delete the message, delete the number, and snuggle deeper into my warm. Pink. Sheets.

Creature: Introduction

2010-01-20T10:37:00.000-08:00

I have always preferred Camel Wides. They seem to fit my large stature better than the average cigarette. After having a nearly exclusive smoking history with Camel Wides, I am immediately aware that the cigarette I am now smoking is definitely not a Wide.

I know this even despite the blindfold.

Smoking is a tidal activity for me. The ebb and flow. The nicotide comes in and I'll chain smoke, shelling out clouds and rings with a nonchalance that would make Mr. Caterpillar fear for the future of my bronchial alveolar and sometimes the tide would sink back and the very thought of a cigarette would make my overly sensitive stomach churn and heat up and I can almost feel the ulcer forming in it's lining. Even the smell would repulse me, when only a week earlier I could smoke a wide from start to finish and never even take the damned thing out of my mouth. At the time of the crest, the cigarette would sooth me and yet activate me at the same time.

I am the sniper.

Likewise, when the wave subsides, wides send me into a trembling fit and I'm useless for about 15 minutes, the general span of a cigarette's effect. These phases seem to be triggered by nothing. Seasons, emotions, moon cycle, alcohol level, cool factor, nothing seems to affect it. I never feel like I NEED a cigarette even if sometimes I may desperately WANT one.

Until. This. One.

This one, I NEED.

More than I need food, or water, or love, or family or, most ironically, air.

I need this cigarette because I'm being killed and there's nothing but smoking to do about it.

2009 Movie Reviews for your Ugly Ass Face!

2010-01-06T11:29:00.000-08:00

One of my resolutions for 2KX is to start blogging again.

You lucky devils.

Here are Griff's top 10 movies for 2009! Please feel free to comment and disagree and cause a ruckus. I love that.

And also keep in mind taht I missed A LOT of movie this year due to lack of funds and transportation so don't go throwing "The Hurt Locker" in my face just yet :)

Without further ado...

10. Drag Me to Hell
Not many people will agree with this.

Screw. You.

This is daddy's list.

Drag Me to Hell is fun. Fun to a degree that will make you retarded for about an hour after watching it. Oh to be retard happy every day! It's Looney Tunes packaged beside Texas Chainsaw Massacre in a Peterbilt driven by Sam Rami.

Now that's a ride!

My only beef with it is it relied a bit much on CGI but it's forgivable because I got to see an anvil fall on someone's head in a mainstream Hollywood feature!

You don't have to drag me to Hell. I'm ready whenever you are!

You buy the popcorn.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wowwwwwwww. This movie purdy. And funny. AND smart. AND AND AND...hell. It's just good! Great story by Roald Dahl with a even greater execution by Wes Anderson this simple tale works AMAZINGLY well with Wes Anderson's subtle illustrative style of storytelling. I really hope that this isn't the the last stop motion venture that Anderson walks on because it is simply his best movie to date. Now, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums come close and he will be getting movie ticket money from me next time no matter what he throws up on that big silver God, but this film is just too good not to expound upon.

I REALLY wish he was doing a stop motion Alice in Wonderland, but I know that won't happen...even tough it would be...Fantastic.

Coraline
Dear Mr. Gaiman,

I love you sir. I wish to have your babies.

Bests,

griff “THE EMPIRE” smith

I love this story. I love the world that is created. I love the visuals, the themes, the allusions. The inside of my brain looks and plays like this movie.

I have devoted much of my life to a love of children's literature and it's obvious that the makers of this film “get it”. This movie bears the burden of CENTURIES of thematic elements and is as faithful and poetic with them to a degree that the Brothers Grimm would put down their cheddar wurst and say, “Aus es güd, ya!”

Ya! It's very güd!

Star Trek
This movie SHOULD NOT be as awesome as it is, but dammit it is awesome. Freekin awesome. I hope George Lucas stopped counting his ill-gotten gains long enough to watch this movie and have it shrink his manhood a little.

This movie made Star Trek cool.

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD THAT IS!?!?

Now, I've been a Trek fan for just about as long as I can remember and I understand what comes along with that (not a lot of sex) but this movie boldly went went where no Trek film has gone before.

This movie went cool.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go clean my tricorder...dammit.

The Hangover
This is one of the funniest movies in recorded history. One of my top ten favorite comedies of all time. Maybe top five and before you can say that it's just a raunchy sophomoric comedic brain killer you need to put down the coloring book and listen.

The BRILLIANCE of this movie is that it allows your imagination to fill in the gaps. It hides the monster from the movie. You only see glimpses into the the night that holds the core of the comedy. Whatever you can imagine is FAR funnier than what would actually come into play. This makes the film a very personalized experience for whomever watches it. It's a really smart way to approach the ridiculous humor that completely spackles it.

And no Mom, you're still not allowed to watch it.

Paranormal Activity
Ho. Lee. Shit.

This movie is scary. Mean scary. Not nice scary like Rob Zombie's Halloween starring Griffin Smith. Mean scary. Rosemary's Baby scary. Having problems sleeping scary.

Goooooooooood movie.

Watch it alone, at night and get mad at me for telling you too.

If you get too scared, just ask and snuggles will be provided...not by me...I'm no snuggle slut, but Zsa Zsa is always down.

Inglorious Basterds
“Actually, Werner, we're all tickled to here you say that. Frankly, watchin' Donny beat Nazis to death is is the closest we ever get to goin' to the movies.”

And it's some of the most fun you can have at the movies.

Tarantino does it again and again and again in this shit-kicker of a movie.

This movie works. The characters, the actors, the story, the cinematography are all home runs and if Christoph Waltz doesn't get a best supporting nomination for this movie then everything must die. He acts so well that it'll make you throw a shoe at the movie screen.

Trust me. I did.

Avatar
It's been a good year for smart Sci Fi. Avatar is an experience. James Cameron once again proves that he can sequence action better than anyone out there and wrap the whole package up in a 162 minute eye-orgasm just because he thinks we've been good.

Thank You, Daddy.

Oh and the story is amazing as well. Preachy in a lot of areas but not in a bad way. Yes it's a total Pocahontas story but in a way that will make you're third-eye cry. Not in a sad indian on the side of the road kinda way...

I sense my metaphors are growing wild.

Let me wrangle them up by saying, if you haven't seen Avatar, get off your ass and see it TODAY! Don't deprive yourself of the greatest 3d experience to date. If you wait till the dvd release you WILL regret it and imagine how ashamed you'll be when your grandkids ask if you saw it in 3d and you gotta say, “Nooooo, Pappy was a loser.”

Don't suck.

Go see Avatar.

District 9
District 9 isn't for everyone. You have to be susceptible to emotional shifts. You have to be smart. You have to like robots and aliens. You have to “Get it”.

Now that I have laid the “Emperor's New Clothes” framework around this review, District 9 kicks ass! A film that manages to make such character shifts and sociological intricacies and still puts a guy in a mech with a gravity gun makes my nerd bits tickle.

Beyond stunning effects and action, District 9 made me think. District 9 made me a better person because it showed me how not to look at things and people by blatantly rubbing my nose in how I currently look at them.

Thank you District 9 for your dirty comedy, political commentary and bloody action. District 9 is an instant cult classic. So if you have a brain, a heart and hard-on for nerdiness then I'm sure we're seeing eye to eye on D9.

If not, then hit the bricks Dorothy. Go watch Transformers 2 and eat some glue.

1. Up
Up is a dream.

100% deadly imagination, saturated in everything that is good. I can't think of any part of this movie that is less than wonderful. If you don't feel, at least, the PULL to cry in this movie then you have no soul.

You might want to write whatever God you prescribe to and ask for another.

Maybe I'm just a mushy assed romantic but this film magically captures life, love, and loss in a world that is very different from our own. It's genius lies in using our base human emotion to completely wrap us in a world where dogs talk, snipe exist, and adventure is just a couple of balloons away.

I can watch this movie and feel alive and life, after all, is but a dream.

Republicans and Abortion

2008-11-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

What with everyone having election erections now-a-days, I figure its time to offer my enlightening nature on the subject of republicans and abortion.

Now, despite my long hair, low-income and generally liberal views, I am NOT a Democrat. I think that the 2 party system is doing its best to ruin this country and I whole heartedly support a V for Vendetta style solution. Lewis Black said, “The Republican Party is a party of bad ideas and The Democratic Party is a party of no ideas.” and I think I can agree with that, and the sooner both these parties are dissolved, the better we'll all be.

So, I'll bust the Democratic party next for it's blatant laziness, but right now I want to share some facts about the Party of God.

Republicans legalized abortion.

Why doesn't anyone talk about this?!?!?

See up until 1972, Abortion was generally illegal with a few exceptions here and there, but still considered a no-no. Then Roe vs. Wade happened and the Supreme Court said that the government can't interfere with abortion in the first trimester.

Who wrote and passed that Bill?

A Republican justice (Harry Blackmun) appointed by a Republican president (Nixon). The court's majority consisted of four Republican appointees and three Democrats. The dissenters were one Republican (William Rehnquist) and one Democrat (Byron White) and in the end we know what happened. Abortion was legalized.

Now, if this is going to change this, it's going to be by congressional amendment, but for some reason we elect presidents by their stance on abortion. This is strange because a president would have dick to do with the decision. A president against abortion is as significant as him being against low cut v-neck shirts.

Which is something I can totally get behind.

By the 20th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade the Supreme Court had eight, count 'em 8, Republican appointees and the original Democratic dissenter (Justice White). That court upheld some state regulations but explicitly upheld abortion as a constitutional right.

Abortion was legalized and kept legal by black robed Republicans, not by a Volkswagen bus full of weed smokin Democrats.
In Congress, Republicans could complain that Democrats thwarted efforts to curb abortions. But then that excuse ran out. From 2003 to 2006 they held both houses of Congress. And the White House. And the Supreme Court. And I'll be damed. Abortion is STILL legal.

Big. Surprise.

You'd think something would happen after all the talk (see: Bullshit). They could have set up a law case for the current court with seven Republican appointees to use to reverse the 1972 decision. But it ain't happened yet and guess what folks, it ain't gonna happen.

Now, I am a pro-choice kinda guy. I am not here to say abortion is right or abortion is wrong all I am saying is that on this issue, Republicans are full of shit.

Abortion has been very good for Republicans running for election. They wave their morality flag as much as they can and Democrats are too spineless to call them out on it.

It's been 35 years and the GOP has done NOTHING but legally support abortion and claim that its evil with every other breath. Are we too stupid to see this! People who supported President Bush for what he said about abortion now have an unnecessary war, torture, and secret prisons on their consciences.

And abortion is still legal.

That means your votes not only “murder” fetuses and embryos and cells but actual innocent human beings with names and families and phone numbers and video game consoles and Sears Cards etc.

Republicans think of abortion as an issue to run on, not to act on.

Big surprise. The modern politician is all mouth and no fist. Well, I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more, and neither should any other American! This isn't localized to Republicans or Democrats or Abortion or any other issue. This is typical of every politician in every party on pretty much every issue!

Democrats say they are against the war, but guess who controls the house and the senate currently? Guess who passed the surge? Those peace loving Democrats have bloody hands just like the Republicans and the only excuses for it I can think of is corruption or chicken shitedness.

So folks, lets leave the issue of abortion out of the mouths of politicians. BOTH parties know that it is too sensitive an issue to do anything about and even though much talking will be done, little walking will happen on this issue because action might actually get something done, and we can't have that now can we?

(sarcasm)

Read on it folks. That is my soapbox for now.

Next blog should be a lot lighter, probably dealing with my love of boobies or something.

And I do love boobies.

I design shit for a living!

2008-04-29T12:27:00.001-07:00

I’m back and I’m pissed!

In later blogs I will touch on subjects as lowbrow and exciting as Wrestlemania and as highbrow and unexciting as my lack of blogging, but I’m afraid all this will have to wait until after I explode a little on the subject of art.

This has been a long time coming.

Ok.

If a 10 year old cuts your yard. You would feel guilty if you didn’t pay him.
If someone paints house you pay them or at least feel the urge to do something nice for him.

At the very least, you acknowledge that it’s work done for you and that there should be an appreciation of the work the other person put into it.

If I LOVED to wash cars, I’m sure you’d still feel a little obliged to invite me in for lunch after I washed yours.

Hell, we even pay prisoners to stamp license plate.

So why, WHY, do people assume that I will draw/paint/design/sculpt/tattoo them like it’s my damed honor to do so?!?!?

Yesterday I designed 2 entire restaurant menus in the time span of about 8 hours, which is REMARKABLY fast, and not to brag, but the thing looks great for making something out of nothing in 8 hours all the while compensating for the lack of communication skills of my client…or that is it WOULD’VE looked great if he didn’t decide to completely change everything around along the way.

Whatever, another portfolio piece flushed due to a client paying me for my advice and not taking it.

When it’s done and it’s time to pay the pigtailed piper, my client tells me through his broken Engrish …yes I said Engrish…that he thought my design work was free. Which is a codswalloping LIE because I tell EVERYONE about my set up charges and if I work for you for 8 hours then you’ll pay for 8 god-forsaken hours. Even if I didn’t tell you, wouldn’t you think it to be a given to at least offer a thank you in the form of a meal at your doomed little restaurant?

Nope, they just assumed that I designed that menu because I had nothing better to do but cater to his every design wish, and changing my design completely along the way. Turning what was a great menu into a mediocre menu because everyone thinks that they are a designer/artist.

I hope you turn into a pillar of salt if you believe that.
I didn’t go to school to be a teacher and even though I have taught private art classes, I don’t call myself a teacher. I have cut grass but I’m not a landscaper. I’ve been in fistfights but I’m not a fighter. I drink but I’m not an alcoholic…but if this shit continues I just might decide to change professions and town drunk is looking pretty good!

But don’t think that one incident has turned me into a curmudgeonly pile of Griff. This sheep-shit tactic happens EVERY DAY!

From classic hits like, “Hey man, can I get you to do my business cards.” To the time tested, “Dude draw me a monkey!” To my personal favorite, “Hey Griff I want a tattoo of a skull with a snake coming out of it’s eye, on fire, dagger going through it, with the Tasmanian Devil driving a go kart over it, wearing a confederate hat, and the General Lee jumping over all of it! WHADDAYA SAY BROTHER?!?!?!”

… that isn’t my work btw.

Look, I’m not unreasonably snobby. It’s not all about the money, despite what P. Diddy says. It’s about the respect. People are quick to tell me that I can do something and it’ll be easy. Well then you freekin do it! All it takes is, “Hey if you draw me that monkey, I’ll make you a cake!” or something to that effect. HELL ANYTHING! Yes cash is always best but I’m not one to snub sexual favors either.

You know, whatever you have lying around. ;)

The bottom line is this. You won’t find a doctor to cast your arm out of the kindness of his heart. Don’t ask me to design you a tee-shirt just because you feel that I “love to do it”.

Bottom line.

It hurts my feelings.

:(

THEIR! I SAID IT! I’m a sensitive- artist-crybaby-overgrown-emo kid!

But dammit! After 7 years of school I like to think that I’ve earned the respect enough to at least have people pay for my work with dessert or fireworks or something!

After all the time I’ve spent over a drawing table or in front of a Mac, or tattooing a pig ear I feel that even though I may not be the greatest, I’m at least respect worthy.

Just like your gardener, doctor, plumber, mechanic, cable repair man, florist, mortician, ferrier, airplane pilot, insurance salesman…FOR GOD SAKE GIVE ME THE SAME COURTESY YOU GIVE YOUR INSURANCE SALESMAN!!!!

Look, I do little art related things for my friends all the time, and as long as I know it’s appreciated, I have absolutely no beef with it. Yes, I have drawn monkeys, and photoshopped prom dates out of pictures, and removed blemishes from your son’s crappy yearbook photo and as long as I know you’d be happy to return the favor for me in your own way sometime and I know you respect what I do then it’s all gravy baby.
But to all you mouth-breathers that happen to see me in Wal-Mart once every 2 years and decide that I could easily tattoo a seven headed dragon fighting the god of death on your boyfriend’s deltoid, free of charge of course, you can get an infection in whatever crevice you choose.

So this is my return blog.

Long live the King.

Crab in a Glass Shell

2008-01-31T08:48:00.001-08:00

I'm normally not the type to get all google-eyed over an image but this thing entrances me!

Beautiful and beautifully symbolic!

Enjoy!

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!!

2008-01-28T08:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to go see There Will Be Blood.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

It is a movie I am going to buy and watch endlessly. I think I have just watched a movie that will sit on the top 10…maybe top 5. Daniel Day Lewis is one of my favorite actors and he has NEVER BEEN BETTER. I don’t think that the movie will win best picture, but it will score an Oscar for Lewis.

Kudos (or "props" as said in tha hood) to almost every inch of this movie. I think the main reason I adored it so much is the way I can relate to Daniel Plainview, Not with the oil or drive drive (Jesus I WISH I had his drive) but in the way he hates everyone and just wants enough money to go away.

Isn't that a pleasant thought.

PLEASE go out and see this movie.

Or I will DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!

Coffee

2008-01-25T10:29:00.000-08:00

I’ve always hated coffee.

Not just the taste that bears a striking resemblance to bark (I’ve never tasted bark, but I imagine that it tastes like coffee) but I hate ANY food that is hot. I find myself putting food into the freezer immediately after its cooked and enjoying a premium lukewarm meal. So, shoveling coffee, which is equal, temperature wise, to magma nestled deep in the earth’s fiery core is not for Griff. Yet, even the heat is tolerable, and no reason to hate this deep brown concoction.

The absolute worse thing about coffee is a coffee drinker.

It pissed me off to an infinite degree to hear people whine and bitch and moan and completely unable to focus without their “morning cup.”

IT’S JUST A DRINK!

Nobody acts about milk the way people act about coffee. It’s obsessive and it’s annoying to have the ghost of coffee floating behind someone’s eyes when you’re talking to them. I hate coffee shops with their pretensions ass-clownery and people who feel “artsy” because they can order a double French vanilla mocha chino latte grande with cream and lizard feet or whatever the hell you pay $8 bucks at Starbucks for. I see you jerks and it makes me sick.

I’m even more sickened by the fact that I now like coffee.

Lord, why hath you forsaken me?

Not just that prissy stuff either. I love black coffee, blacker than the heart of the devil himself.

I guess I’m sweet enough. :)

It must be a job that starts at 8:00 in the morning and ends at 10:00 at night. If I want personal time I need help.

I NEED HELP DAMMIT! IT’S NOT MY FAULT!

Energy drinks are fine but I loathe the fact that people in my generation need to drink about five before they can be motivated to do anything. Black coffee has a lot less calories, sugar, and other things that can ruin a 10-year reunion that energy drinks have in mass quantities. It’s cheap. It keeps me awake. It’s terrible for your heart, but Adderall has already made sure that mine is paralyzed and 3 sizes to small anyway. Who wants to live forever? Not me.

I’ll take it black.

So, I’m sorry I hated all you coffee drinkers. I’m still not going to do the whole coffee shop thing because of the yuppie scum factor, but I can no longer give my spiel about coffee being “just a drink.” It’s good, dammit! It’s good to my face! I NEED IT!

I need my morning cup.

*Cry*

Courtly Love

2008-01-25T10:26:00.000-08:00

I’ve always loved Dante.

I read Dante’s Inferno when I was 12 and I reread it about once every 2 years. I think it will permanently reside in my literary to ten. I love his sculptures as well, mainly due to his extremely dynamic in potential energy.

It’s bitchin.

But I think the thing that has always intrigued me most about Dante is Beatrice.

Dante only met Beatrice twice in his entire life, and the meetings took place over a period of 9 years. They met twice in 9 years.

2 times.

9 years.

Yet, Dante claimed, Beatrice influenced every aspect of his life.

It’s all so stinking beautiful.

It’s, what they called I the middle ages, “courtly love.”

Courtly Love - a secret, unrequited and highly respectful form of admiration for another person.

I think most guys today can relate to this in some sense.

When I was in kindergarten, I remember having a crush on a girl who I NEVER spoke to once. Yet, I thought about her every day and even when I moved to a different school, the vision of her and her “My Little Pony” quilted jacket stayed pleasantly in my thoughts for many years.

By junior high, I had found another courtly love and because we both finished our tenure at the same school she, to this day I still have much “courtly love” for this person and she is none the wiser.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

When I moved to Auburn I discovered yet another courtly love…does this mean I’m a polygamist of some sort? Anyway, same deal, I don’t want ANYTHING from these women other than what I already have from them.

Sweet, Sweet, existence.

These women do not intimidate me at all. I have asked out/dated girls who are “prettier,” I love talking to new people, and rarely find it hard to strike up conversation with anyone that looks even slightly interesting. I just choose not to seek relationships with these women, because they are perfect in my fantasy of them.

They’ll never roll their eyes at a stupid joke even after they’ve laughed at a hundred others.

They’ll never nag me to do something that they themselves are too lazy or scared to even attempt.

They’ll never question my intent or think my emotions are any less valid because they’re not the same as hers.

They’ll LET me do nice things for them.

They’ll listen to me AND hear me.

They’ll never use guilt.

They aren’t my cupcake.

They are my icing.

The perfect girl is not a girl I need.

She is a girl I want.

So, this blog isn’t a sad, pathetic plea for a woman…I HATE that shit and I’m doing better than ever in my little tattoo shop on the plains, thank you very much.

It isn’t a knock on my exes or “friendly friends.” I’ve been overly blessed with my past romances and have loved/been loved by some amazing women.

…in amazing ways ;)

just kidding…

;)

This blog is more of a tribute to the women that mean so much by just being.

They’ll never know how much they mean to this pig-tailed giant. They’ll never hear the songs, or see the drawings, or read the poems, or be aware of how they brightened a thousand of my days just because I once saw one of them in the hall and the way the sun touched their hair through stained Straughn windows was…perfect.

Dante would say

"La gloriosa donna della mia mente"

"the glorious lady of my mind".

So, I’m telling all of you, without telling any of you.

Thanks.

And people say I’m not romantic.

ARE YOU FUCKIN CRAZY!

:)

27 and the Death of the Empire

2008-01-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately, not in that all encompassing way, but in a more personal way. I’ve been considering my own death recently.

Now, nobody panic. I’ve got no major health problems that I’m aware of, no enemies that hate me enough to want me dead, no immediately dangerous addictions (but I’m working on it ;), and suicide is NO option for an egomaniac like me. Myself. I. The Empire. So, I’m not planning on snuffing it anytime soon, but I do live next to a college campus and I do drive fairly recklessly. So I’d like to take this time to announce to the world how I’d like my funeral to be arranged.

To keep things light, however, I would like for this blog to be read to the soundtrack of this dancing banana.

Let’s start with my thoughts on death.

I’ve been lucky to have never been afraid of death. I’m afraid of the process by which it might happen…but never afraid of the nonexistence which comes with death.

Example:

I would be afraid if Buffalo Bill had me trapped in a hole in his basement, rubbing lotion on my skin because he was about to remove it and make a suit out of me.

That’s scary because skin removal and being custom tailored can’t be a pleasant thing!

I wouldn’t be afraid of the chair, or nuclear war, or having a heart attack whilst bedding my 18 year old super-model girlfriend in the back of a 1970 Chevelle SS…in fact I think I’d like my obituary to say just that.

If any 18 year old super-models out there own a 1970 Chevelle SS and are interested in helping an old man fulfill his last wish, just contact me via Myspace’s wonderful messaging system.

I digress.

The banana’s probably done singing by now, so try this while I continue.

I don’t see death as a big sacred thing. Everyone treats death like it’s SO special. How can death be special? EVERYTHING dies! Not just everyone, but everything. Flowers, fungus, badgers, bees, bacteria, Elvis, roaches, dinosaurs, mold, doggies, kitties, ponies, ferrets, King Kong, and best of all, Humans, will all die with the only exception being Keith Richards.

If you own a t-shirt, then it is more sacred than death because you will have experienced something that most living things never will, the cottony heaven that is t-shirt ownership.

That being said, I hope that my last wishes will be carried out with the understanding that death never really meant that much to me and if you ever cared you’ll see that these wishes are carried out.

First off, I want everything that can be donated to be donated. Give my pigtails to locks for love (If my hair hasn’t fallen out by then…who am I kiddin…that’ll NEVER happen) give my viable organs to those that need them, with the exception of my eyes and stomach, which I wouldn’t wish on ANYONE, ditto with blood and other fluids.

*Chuckle*

Fluids.

Hell, if someone wants a saddle with a neato gun pattern tattoo then stitch it up! I’ll be dead and won’t care. The key here is donation. Give my teeth to witch doctors, give my scrotum to someone that needs a REALLY big coin purse, and make sure my bones become one of those swell stand-up skeletons in a biology class somewhere. You’ll know it’s me by the steel plate and the enormous feet.

Come to class and pay your respects.

No matter what make sure that as much of me as possible goes to help in ANY WAY someone that’s still here and needs something that I have no use for any more.

Time to lighten things up again.

That being said, I’ve done my research, and know that science will either not use all of me, maybe none of me if I’m too old so that brings me to round 2.
Cremation.

Ashes to ashes and all that jazz.

Cremation is the best way! It’s cheaper and more environmentally friendly than being entombed like some kind of pharaoh in a concrete vault whilst you slowly turn to sludge in your J.C. Penny’s suit.

Maybe that’s just me.

Beware however! I wanted to be a mortician for a LONG time and changed my mind when I discovered how crooked the industry is. So, here’s the instructions to help avoid the high prices that might be incurred upon my demise.

No embalming. Yes, they still try to talk you into embalming even when you’re going to be oven roasted. No thank you, I’ll go with all my standard issue fluids if you please.

*Chuckle*

Fluids.

No clothes or prepping. They usually try to talk you into cosmetics and fancy clothes before you hit the furnace.

This.

Is.

Stupid.

Throw my ugly naked carcass on the slab and run me through! I don’t want any polyester or eyeliner mixed up with my dusty ass anyway.

No casket. In the biggest “what the hell” of them all, they also try to get you to buy a casket to burn with you.

I’d make a joke here, BUT IT ISN’T F’N FUNNY!

In your moment of grief you get talked into spending THOUSANDS on a box to be melted with your sorry butt.

No thank you.

I don’t need it and my loved ones SURELY don’t need it. Don’t even let them talk you into the cardboard box for the incinerator, which usually bears a price tag of $600.

For a cardboard box.

Yeah.

Oh, and they also charge around $300 for a “transportation vessel” to carry your ashes from the crematorium to your house which is also…another cardboard box. So, when talking to the morticians be sure to bring an industrial trash bag and a large Tupperware container. By law, they HAVE to use it. It’ll save you enough money to buy a Wii. Which I’d much rather you do than drop 3 bills on a cardboard box.

That always cracks me up!

Anyway.

That takes care of everything except what to do with the ashes.

I really don’t know…I would LOVE to be put in the A/C of my brother’s car so that I will get the last laugh in this ongoing car feud that we have going, but I doubt that anyone one will have the balls to do that.

*cough*cough* Kellye Wayne *cough*cough*

I don’t really want them spread anywhere because I was never that fond of the “Not-Indoors-Place” but I don’t want to be sitting on a shelf somewhere either. Maybe just slowly smuggle me into several movie theaters. They never clean those places and my loved ones will feel like they can watch a movie with me whenever they like, yeah…that sounds nice.

High-five!

As for memorials or whatnot, that’s more for my friends and family than for me. It’s a way to get closure on what will surely be the monumentally life-numbing tragedy that is my death. So, do whatever you like! Have a skating party for all I care. I won’t be around to witness it so do whatever it is that will satisfy the mourning and then continue on your merry way with the pocket-full of cash that I saved you on my passing. Just make sure that the typical southern thing is done and make LOTS of food and bring it to my Wife/Momma/Sister/Brother, whoever is most appropriate at the time. Lots of fried chicken, that’s my favorite funeral food.

Man is I hungry.
I’m honestly not saying all these things to be humble or elitist or smug or anything like that. My idea of a successful life is in my memory. If I lived the way I wanted to live, then after I die, the mention of my name will make people remember more fond things about me than horrible things. I want to be missed, don’t get me wrong, but I want those tears to fall from smiling faces as they say, “Remember when he got naked and jumped in the pool during the tornado?” or, “Remember when he went to the hospital and the Doctor gave him a prostate exam?” or “Remember how he threw things when he laughed” or “Remember when he tried to steal the Star Wars Toy from that kid in Burger King?” or “Remember how he hated Xmas?” That’s what’ll mean the most to me. The hope that I can live my life knowing that I’ve made a few other lives better by knowing me.

I think I’m doing ok so far. I certainly am trying.

Well, I think that about wraps this up! Thanks for reading and if something horrible like a piano falling on me happens, just follow these instructions and I will surely rest in peace with the knowledge that you have done right by me…now lets see that damn laughing baby one more time!

-G

Regret (Version)

2008-01-25T10:08:00.000-08:00

A poem!!!

About growing older and knowing it.

Enjoy!!!

Regret (version)
I’m a reflection
a déjà vu
just a crippled little memory
of maybes and what ifs
of all the maybe nots
lots of of maybe nots

In a different day
In some different play
but not enough reason to really hold on to
and now you’re just like me
a destiny

the dreams of days
the older ways
the never stays
decay away

nothing ever happens quite like you plan
didn’t quite happen did it little man?
nothing ever happens quite like you plan
didn’t quite happen did it little man?

and now it’s clear
you finally feel
all you hold dear
is too fucking real

God looks down smiling
so smug and pissed and takes a little more than he gave
because he just wants to
ain’t it always the way
ain’t it always the way

While I’m stuck in the mouth and chewed so cold
I would’ve never thought I’d fall into the fold
Like back at the beginning
Marching
Crawling

but when its done
when it’s no more fun
The time was spent
and warped and bent
my fangs set free
so that you could be

nothing ever happens quite like you plan
didn’t quite happen did it little man?

and now it’s clear
you finally feel
all you hold dear
is too fucking real

try to stop it but it’s still gonna happen
Try to stop it
But…

Mawwiage

2008-01-25T09:54:00.000-08:00

You know, I had never really thought about gay marriage enough to develop concise feelings on the matter, but since I’ve been asked for my opinion on the matter a few times here recently, I felt the need to form that opinion and then post is and move on with my miserable existence.

First of all, most people believe that marriage is a sacred union between 2 people and the deity of their choosing. Unless you’re an atheist, then it’s just a sacred union between 2 people…or If you’re agnostic then God might be there or maybe not or maybe he’ll just send his brother Craig or…wait…I’m digressing. Anyway, I would assume that most people get married with love or shotguns being the main focus.
So I’m not asking why the government won’t let gay people marry, but why does the government have to be involved in marriage at all?

Well?

Why does the government have to be involved in every. Single. Stinking. Aspect. Of our lives?

I don’t understand why married people receive tax benefits over single people but more importantly I don’t like the fact that I have to get my marriage approved, taxed, and/or logged into Big Brother’s ever growing, squid-like brain.

“I love this girl. Is it ok if I marry her Mr. Government?”
Stupid.

Have none of you ever thought about this?

“What about if a person dies? Who gets what?”
It’s called a will. They aren’t new. You can get ‘em online now and a will will also handle that life insurance question too. Guess what? We don’t need the government clouding up any of this.

“Maybe it has to do with divorce?”
Nope, divorce should be settled as a lawsuit in which the ownership of goods and money are in question. These happen all the time. See: Judges; Wopner, Judy, Mills Lane, and (God forbid) Joe Brown.

And on the subject of divorce, why on earth is it an option on most multiple choice scenarios?

Check one:
Single
Married
Divorced
?!?!?

That’s like constantly having to tell people that you’ve made a mistake. That’s not right. What if the employment status read:
Employed
Unemplyed
Fired

Shit… I got off topic again.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that the government should have NOTHING to do with ANY marriage period! I don’t care if a guy wants to marry a goat, if you can get the thing to say “I do” then have at it. I think that this country has much bigger problems right now, not the least of which is…well, I’ll keep that opinion to myself and just quote the great 70’s civil rights legend, Dolomite.

“Stick it to the man.”

You may kiss the bride.

Diary Excerpt: Setting the Tone

2008-01-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

"Colors are enigmatic to me.

Not the actual perception of colors in your head. Your brain defines all things and of those things, I'm sure, colors compute a very small percentage of those perceptions. But like defining a time like 'the present' you can't accurately define any color. Is grass green? OR is antifreeze green? Is my grandmother's hair grey? Or are nimbus clouds? Is brown in Zsa Zsa's patches of fur? OR is it in the ground. I never know when i see a REAL color. My study in art has even furthered altered my perception. Blue can be calculated in numbers by CMYK, RGB, PMS, LAB, Hexachrome, and dozens more. But what was the first blue to be blue? Sky or Berry? Ocean or Eyes? A dead man's lips or a living man's veins? I have only one absolute in my questioning of color.

Blood. Is. Red.

And their will be blood."