the smell of death

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I’m not sure what’s happened in my kitchen overnight, but it smells as though something has died.

I’m not sure where it’s coming from. I made peanut butter cookies last night. Could it be from the staling batter in the sink? The dishwasher was full, man. I don’t deserve the scent of rot for not emptying the whole thing late at night.

Sometimes, it feels like life is one calamity after another, a subtle and specially formed hell.

I fell on a skinny tree stump cut off at an absurdly pointed angle when I was eight and nearly died.

It’s becoming less and less of a question in my mind: did I actually die? Is this my hell? I mean, I stole some of those pink musclemen from a Toys ‘R’ Us when I was a child, but I felt horrible about it. Is that enough for the supposed god of mercy and love to sentence an eight year old to hell?

Or maybe I overdosed at some point. I’ve never done anything harder than mushrooms and LSD, but who knows? Laced with something? I drank a lot in my youth; maybe I aspirated out on the floor.

I don’t know, but every moment of joy seems calculated to serve as a reminder of what I’m losing as each new calamity piles on.

I think about death way more than I should.

Target: 500 words
Written: 316 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, Tucker Max
Comics: East Of West 13-15, East Of West: The World 1
Music: Know-It-All, Alessia Cara (what can I say?  I dig introvert anthems.)

dj got us

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I was thinking about the Super Bowl this morning. Not the whole Taylor/Kelce/who-gives-a-shit, but Usher.

The only song, in my opinion, worth being on that show, in fact, the one that probably could have saved that mostly homogenous and unknown set would have been DJ Got Us Falling In Love.

It would have sent the subliminal into the crowd, and maybe actually made that connection, instead of having most people thinking, “I’ve never heard this one” and wondering where the good songs are.

Personally, it’s the only song of Usher’s worth a shit, in my world, and one of his biggest, and he just skipped it.

I guess weird and dumb decisions always make me wonder. It’s one thing if you’re going for something different and you want to break out of a stereotype, but this is a pop star at the Superbowl.

Play your hits, dummy.

Like, if you want to get insanely arty or pretentious about it, then you need to transcend, like Cobain on MTV Unplugged or Lou Reed anything.

But a pop star? At the Superbowl?

Play your hits, dummy.

Target: 500 words
Written: 878 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, Tucker Max (I know, I know)
Comics: East Of West 9-12
Music: Knives Out, Radiohead

i guess i shouldn’t write at night

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Maybe late at night if it’s been a not-so-bad day, and I’m all keyed up and need a release.

But writing after a long day of a hard mental slog? It doesn’t leave much to be desired.

I had a thought about writing of wanting to be bigger than you are (on the inside! And not in the squishy, gooey, fatty way), but that’s too big for me now.

I am small.

My words are small. My works are small.

I am a haiku; flash fiction.

A one-shot comic.

A short story.

A novella, bordering on novelette.

What’s a novelette you say?

A book that wears heels and kicks up its legs in a line with its fellow works, all tits and fishnet, grinning to hide the awful realities behind it.

Target: 500 words
Written: 307 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, Night Valia (I did like it, but the near constant podcast references slowed it waaaaaaaaaaaay down, making me wish time was as weird as they say it is, and thereby I could skim through it a bit faster.  It got to be a bit of a slog.)
Comics: East Of West 5-8 (way, way into this)
Music: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, The Cure (I'd kiss you)

rats, kenneth

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I started off today thinking things were going to be bad. I was distracted, couldn’t focus, following rabbit trails.

That bass started in Rats and suddenly, I was deep in. Pearl Jam is my jam (well, one of them), and that early work?

Shit. Follow it with a little R.E.M. and damn, son, things are looking up.

Except.

They didn’t.

Stuck drain, VPN outages, and a sinking sense of being on the way to being completely fucked… that’s my real jam, apparently.

Seriously, maybe fuck today?

Target: 400 words
Written: 280 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, those guys
Comics: East Of West 1-4
Music: Kiss Essentials, Kiss (judge not, sometimes, you just gotta eat some popcorn, plus God Gave Rock 'N' Roll To You is straight Tao)

yesterday

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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, Radiohead

sixty-nine

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It’s day sixty-nine of good ole twenty-twenty-four and you know, it occurs to me, that all the things I’ve done in my life, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually sixty-nined.

Weird, right? I mean, I’m probably too fat to be on top, but I love cunnilingus, so I’m not really sure why I’ve never had a woman sit on my face.

Huh.

Things to look into.

Target: 400 words
Written: 721 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, Cranor/Fink
Comics: Tokyo Ghost 5-8 (this might be the best comic series I've ever read.  Top five, for sure.)
Music: King Animal, Soundgarden (you know what, pretty darn good for a late stage reunion album)

tedium

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So, the new training is SO. FUCKING. BORING.

I like to think I’ve lived a life free of trauma, though not drama, though it often feels like a trauma lurking around the corner.

Something repressed, guiding my moods and thoughts subconsciously, ready to jump out and smash the dinner spread just as I’m about to eat.

It feels like I’m barely allowed to eat, and alternately, stuffed of the point of nausea and vomiting.

Fucking mental illness… it’s a real son of a bitch, and the sneakiest motherfucker you know.

Target: 400 words
Written: 234 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, Joseph Fink/Jeffrey Cranor (did I spell that right?)
Comics: Tokyo Ghost 1-4 (FUCK.  YES.)
Music: Killer Kills All & KillYrIdols, Sonic Youth

okay, this is boring

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And I don’t just mean this blog, but let’s face it, this blog is, in fact, boring.

Listening to me, a know-nothing-nobody opine about shit he really doesn’t understand and whine about everything else… how can that be fulfilling?

How can it be entertaining?

Listen, I know the whole concept of “being a brand” and all that, but I genuinely don’t give a fuck. I am what what I am. My brand is…

Fuck off and leave me alone.

But also be nice to each other.

See?

Branding.

Target: 400 words
Written: 189 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, the Night Vale guys
Comics: Punk Rock Jesus 3-6
Music: Kill The DJ, Green Day, Closet Monster, Killed The Radio Star

zoned out

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I hate days like that; nothing to do, then no time to do the things you want to do when you finally get the free time.

There’s nothing worse than all the time in the world tied to something boring, followed by all your free time chewed up by circumstance.

The frustration is real.

Target: 400 words
Written: 288 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Practicing Mind, Thomas Sterner (everything The Power Of Now should have been, without Tolle's excessive ego and messiah complex - simple, humble and practical - I get the same feeling out of this as I do the Tao Te Ching; they now occupy spots next to each other on the shelf)
Comics: The Wake 9-10, Punk Rock Jesus 1-2 (fuck yeah)
Music: Kill Kill Kill, Anti-Flag

full moon?

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The day was perfectly fine until I left the grocery store. First, my batteries fell out of the cart, and the box broke open, sending batteries sprawling across the sidewalk into the torrential rain.

Then, as I went to take my very full cart down the ramp and across the parking lot, a black Charger pulls up and blocks the ramp. And stays there. I had to knock on the idiot’s window to get him to pay attention to the guy standing in the middle of a thunderstorm will a full cart who probably isn’t going to be able to get it down the curb.

He moved. Grudgingly, from the look of it.

I slog out to my van, load it up, put the cart in the cart return and hustle back to my car, rain streaming off my sodden coat.

I get in, plug in my old school iPod nano and cue up some hard rock. I put it in reverse and…

A tan SUV pulls up behind me and stops.

Okay, whatever. Probably just waiting for someone to back out or something.

Except… no one’s moving. None of the other cars are even running. Plus, there are numerous empty spots because I’m one of the very few dummies to grocery shop during a storm. Like, at least eight different options within fifty feet, including on either side of me.

I look at the woman in the window. She’s screaming. Literally screaming. At me.

I can’t figure out why. I haven’t actually moved yet. Not even an inch. Then, I realize, because she rolls down her window and keeps yelling…

She wants my spot. Apparently, I’m keeping her from getting into that spot.

The spot she’s blocked me into.

Never mind that there are at least four open spots on the other side or that BOTH SPOTS on either side of me are empty. Never mind that I’m not on a bicycle, and there’s zero percent chance than my Grand Caravan is getting around her without an eight hundred point turn.

She doesn’t like my suggestion that if she wants my spot, she has to let me out first. I thought it was reasonable, but apparently, it demanded a response of slamming it into drive and tearing off into the parking lot. I think if it wasn’t raining, her tires would have squealed.

I don’t know who shat in her Corn Flakes, but I hope there’s some reason for what was clearly some kind of mental breakdown – both from a logic and an emotional standpoint.

Lady, wherever you are… smoke some weed or have a White Russian or something. Get laid. See a therapist.

Because that spot… it ain’t worth the aneurysm.

Target: 400 words
Written: 876 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Practicing Mind, Thomas Sterner
Comics: The Wake 5-8
Music: Kill 'Em All, Metallica (I swear, not planned)