A hundred days into this year and we’ve already had multiple collapses, blood issues and a totality.
Sometimes, I’d like there to be a totality inside me, either to end it all or to burn away all the shit. Blind it with a shining aura, a brilliance unendurable except with the darkest glasses.
But the world keeps turning, a disturbing number of people think a man who thought it was intelligent to stare directly at an eclipse is a genius and hate seems to creep further into our lives each and every day.
We need another revolution. Another love-in.
Where’s our John and Yoko? Our sexual revolution appears to revolve around people making sex tapes, where wearing bikinis on your social media is a viable career path.
Where’s our screaming punk? Where’s our Kurt Cobain, hitting the nerves of a generation so raw that it changes entire cultures?
Where’s logic? Where’s freedom? Where are hearts and connection and compassion and a basic understanding of kindness?
Where’s the less ineffectual left? Where’s the sober right?
Where the fuck is everybody?
Social media is madness. Our world is mad.
This has been your daily agonized howl into the void, unable to stand anymore.
Target: 500 words
Written: 191 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 21-24
Music: Villains, The Verve PipeSome music just moves you. I just finished writing and while James Brown and Night Train was cool, I definitely funked out more to Modest Mouse and Steam Engenius, because SO. FUCKING. GOOD.
My tastes range, and it’s fine. I don’t mind following up Minor Threat with Rihanna or Dean Martin with Henry Rollins. There’s nothing wrong with an Eminem and Beatles mix, or Pink Floyd and NOFX.
It’s all about being open, and enjoying the moment. Falling into it and letting it happen, letting it be what it is and letting go of whatever else is happening.
Music is the most powerful presence creator; there’s a reason we love it in all its forms. It speaks to something primal within us that just wants to live. Here, now, forever in the groove, connecting and commiserating with our fellow humanity, free from all the rest of the world’s shit.
Target: 500 words
Written: 209 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 5-8
Music: Vespertine, BjorkMy niece is a competitive dancer; she’s pretty darn good. I, on the other hand, do a passable white man at best.
I can sort of do the Carlton (and yes, I have a couple of favourite Tom Jones songs – probably the same ones as every other white boy).
I am a basic bitch.
But she is not. She is skilled to the point where maybe it could be a career. I’m not sure dancers make careers out of it for the cash, but rather, the love of the dance, the camaraderie, possibly even the travel.
And then, of course, a school. Teaching what can be taught to the willing and unwilling alike.
But it is the love of the thing that makes it worthwhile; it is a failure of our society not to reward the arts as it would any other profession. A dancer plays a role in society, with more love than some paper-pusher. It is refreshing to the soul, ours and the artist’s.
That’s worth something, is it not?
Target: 500 words
Written: 308 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Dancing Barefoot, Wil Wheaton
Comics: Rat Queens 4-7
Music: Venue Songs, They Might Be Giant (an entire album of hastily composed songs about the stages upon which they played on a particular tour? Well, then. Kind of brilliant, in a way.)My sister-in-law wrote a book. She’s been in the game longer than I have, and thus, has much better connections, and so, it was only a little surprising to see the quality turnout at her book launch tonight.
It was fun, good to see people I haven’t seen in a while, surprising to see people I have never seen show up in abundance.
The power of networking, I suppose, of actually talking to people in the flesh.
Me, I’m more of a one-on-one kind of person, and I’d rather be alone than not.
Still, it was nice to see that people will still come out to support people, even when they’re only loosely connected.
My dream is of a world that supports art for the sake of art, and that it doesn’t need to be commercialized or branded; it can just be.
That was a nice reminder that this can still happen.
Target: 500 words
Written: 196 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: East Of West 32-35
Music: The Vanilla Tapes, The ClashWe are off to see that baby bundle of toddler joy once again, on a long weekend celebrating my wife’s birthday, my Irish background and the fact of my granddaughter’s existence, a miracle unto itself.
Of course, that we’re here at all is a miracle of chance and collision, an order within the chaos, neither of which could have come without the other.
Target: 500 words
Written: 194 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, Tucker Max
Comics: East Of West 16-19
Music: Know Your Enemy, Green Day (I do - apathy and greed, consumerism and the overarching need to feed, feed, feed)Sorry about that. I guess maybe we’re not in a place where green apple splatters and sexual proclivities are ready to be discussed.
But…
This is the thing about this blog. I never started it intending to pretend to be someone else. I spent too many years full of shit and now, I am doing my best to transition into being someone who is honest, open and compassionate, who always makes the effort to see as many perspectives as he can, while not ignoring the simple realities of things.
A softy without blinders.
A man of honest assessment, without pretense or bullshit.
Because I don’t want to be an icon. I don’t want to be a role model, though I know, if I can live the way I would like, it would inevitably set an example. Of course, every way anyone behaves sets an example; whether it’s a good one or whether anyone follows it are separate questions.
I want to be honest, and that means warts. That means too much information. That means nothing is out of bounds, save the desires of those around me not to be discussed (filtered where appropriate). I respect the privacy of others. I am a private man myself, despite my admissions.
I don’t want people all up in my business, but neither do I want to hide my foibles.
I suppose I shouldn’t hide my successes either, but damned if I won’t try to downplay them; I don’t live for praise. I would just like people to be able to see my work.
I’m not a good networker.
These things are all true.
These things are all filtered, as is everything.
Cognitive filtration is automatic.
Target: 400 words
Written: 341 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Welcome To Night Vale, Cranor/Fink (Fink/Cranor?)
Comics: Tokyo Ghost 9-10 (seriously - maybe the best comic of all time. It deserves to be in the conversation with Watchmen, Miller's Dark Knight, etc.)
Music: The King Of Limbs, RadioheadI guess I’m doing something right, because I’m being trained on special tasks yet again.
It’s funny, when I was younger and more oblivious, I knew I was a hard worker and a smart guy, but I didn’t believe in my own fallibility; it was a problem.
When you won’t accept that you’re a fuck-up who can be lazy at times, no amount of nose-to-the-grindstone and feeling responsible for everything around you will help.
Now that I am older and officially know that I am imperfect and know very little about pretty much everything, I feel like I’m not being responsible enough.
And now I feel like it’s okay not to be responsible for everything.
Is wisdom actually saying fuck it? Let’s do what we want and let it ride?
Is true wisdom giving up control and accepting the peace of kicking back with a whiskey sour?
As the song says, “All I know is that I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t know nothing.”
Target: 400 words
Written: 2296 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: If Chins Could Kill: Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, Bruce Campbell
Comics: Chrononauts: Futureshock 1-4
Music: Kick Out The Jams, MC5I’ve taken to watching old movies (Stanley Kubrick’s early work) and (an) old TV show (The Adventures Of Superman) and I’ve stumbled upon Paths Of Glory.
I think we’re all more familiar with Kubrick’s bigger works, but Paths Of Glory is, I think, where we first saw how brilliant he could be. I mean, Fear And Desire had hints, but it was amateurish, early stuff, done on the cheap. The Killing and Killer’s Kiss were… okay. Kind of generic noir, to be honest, other than maybe the fight in the mannequins. Heist movie was not his forte; there wasn’t enough philosophy behind it. He disavowed Fear And Desire, but it was my favourite of the pre-Paths Of Glory films.
An exploration of human psychology, even done with clumsy hands, is always interesting. Some of the best movies come from B movies; for sheer entertainment or from sheer gall; the audacity of a movie about aliens or swamp creatures or men with brains on the outside of their heads to really take a swipe at the human condition.
But Paths Of Glory might be one of the best commentaries on war ever depicted in a movie; revolutionary for its time. It’s nothing short of brilliant, and not just because they’ve managed to capture the fact that Kirk and Michael Douglas are the same person.
If you get a chance, watch it; for its time, the scene where they try to take the ant hill is an pulse-pounding depiction of the futility of trench warfare; the disjointed juxtaposition of these trenchmen versus their generals, sipping cognac and throwing parties, is tremendous.
It reminds me of what I always think whenever countries want to go to war and what I would say to any leader who asked.
You first.
Target: 400 words
Written: 277 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: If Chins Could Kill, Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, Bruce Campbell (funny thing, synchronicity, and the overlap of Kubrick and the Evil Dead)
Comics: Chrononauts 1-4
Music: Kick, INXS (one of my all time favourites)No rest for the weary. No breaks for the forlorn.
No quarter given to the depressed.
Life is a cruel motherfucker. Part of me wonders if I died when I was younger and this was my own personal hell, offering me chance after chance for happiness, but then inflicting such insecurity and depression to fuck them all up.
Life gives us joy only so we know the pain of taking it away (thanks, Kelly).
Life shows us joy so we know what we’re losing.
Target: 400 words
Written: 1030 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Fire Starter Sessions, Danielle Laporte
Comics: Nailbiter Returns 2-5
Music: Various non-album songs, Tragically Hip (my personal muses)