Wake Up Everyday That Would Be A Start

Ah YouTube, a boon to lazy bloggers everywhere. So in the spirit of cautious optimism I seem to be having in my life these days:



This is one of my favorite New Order songs--it has surprisingly sweet and direct lyrics, like Bernard is almost tentatively admitting that things are going well. And of course, there's that little bit of doubt near the end. Very on the nose for my state of mind.

I've Been Thinking About You Baby . . .

OK, so I know that maybe four people in the United States will understand how much this just absolutely rocks--The Twilights Singers have done a cover of Massive Attack's most recent single, "Live With Me." C'mon, how often does one of your top two favorite bands cover the other top favorite band?

OK, so here's the original Massive Attack version (though you will have to wait through 30 seconds of random prologue):

Orchestral, lush, and dark--it's red wine, dark chocalate and desire.

And here's the Twilight Singer version:

Just as dark, but slower, smokier--cigarettes, roses and passion.

These are the small things that make me feel whole on quiet nights.

Mushaboom

OK, so I haven't been on some self-pitying binge full of melancholy and darkness. Instead, I had a realization that, instead of working on a novel during this hiatus, I should instead be writing short stories--little creative outbursts that keep me writing, and instead of slogging through four months of hitting the square peg through the round hole, I get that accomplishment euphoria in a couple of weeks. I've finished one short story that I've sent to some friends for peer review--I realized it was a ghost story without a ghost, oh, and some quantum physics, halfway through writing it. I think I'll try something upbeat next. After I get a couple more stories out of the way, I'll start sending them to various lit magazines and see what happens. If I do get them published, then I'll have some lit cred to get some leverage for a novel.

In any event, I figure I owe whoever is still reading this blog something insanely cheerful for putting up with my absences. Here's the second (and better) version of the video for Feist's "Mushaboom." It's just so friggin' happy.

Incantations

Ah yes, here's the product of another self-imposed writing exercise, this time to see if I can write some Lovecraftian horror. The lesson learned? I'm not sure, other than trying not to info-dump is hard when your narrative depends heavily on dialogue. Bleah. Oh well.

Video from security camera #2, interrogation room #5A in Counterintelligence Field Activity station located in ______; 19:07 hours, April 11, 20__, ten days before discovery of the Ceres Object, three days before the Cincinnati Incursion, one day after the Lexington Hysteria:

The video is in color, but the walls are dark grey and the floor is concrete so that the video might as well be in black and white. As requisitions for higher quality recording devices have still yet to be approved, the video is of low quality such that the facial features of the subject and the two guards remain indistinct. (For photographs of the subject, please refer to CIFA File #1013AA Babel or the notes of Dr. G. Gustavson.)

The subject is seated in a plastic chair, hands cuffed behind his back and feet manacled to the floor. He is naked, and although the room is set to forty-degrees Fahrenheit, he does not appear to be suffering any discomfort. There are electrodes on various parts of his body that lead toward a machine at another end of the room. The subject is looking at the one-way mirror (framed at the right of the screen). On the top left of the screen is one of the guards in full body armor with his semi-automatic drawn and aimed at the subject’s head. The muzzle tip from the other guard’s sidearm located at the bottom left of the screen is the only sign of the other guard’s presence.

A voice off screen is heard. The quality of the recording is also poor. There is an underlying hiss of white noise.

“I apologize once again for these precautions. You understand that you make, well, quite a few people nervous. I’m sure that once you begin answering our questions, you will go a long way of dispelling our concerns.”

The subject speaks. “Dr. Gustavson, I’m not here to dispel any concerns. And even if I were, I’ve already answered your questions. You just aren’t listening.” Although the image is poor, there is a distinct feeling by several observers of the video that the subject is grinning.

“Well, maybe we aren’t. Please, explain it to us again. It doesn’t do us any good to have you in there like this, and it can’t be too enjoyable for you.”

“This? This is all irrelevant. Dr. Gustavson, did you know the Mayans invented the concept of zero seven hundred years before the Battle of Hastings, and almost a full millennia before the concept spread to Europe from India? This from a civilization that didn’t fucking use the wheel.”

“This is all very interesting, but . . .”

“But you’re not paying attention. Our geography, our culture, our environment drives us. The Mayans invented one of the most accurate calendars in the world at the time our ancestors were painting their asses blue. But they didn’t use the wheel because there were no fucking draft animals in the Americas. The Japanese have a highly stratified society, so is it any wonder that you have to add five syllables to create a negative sentence and three different syntaxes exist depending on whether you’re speaking to a superior, your equal or an inferior? You want me to tell you how I did it, but you’re all so obtuse. What you should be asking is how are they different from us? From where did they originate? Even if you knew the language, that knowledge will not make a bit of difference if you can’t think like them.”

“Well, how do they think?”

“Dr. Gustavson, you know that they say. ‘If you have to ask . . .’”

“Please, none of us have expended the amount of time or energy in the area of . . .”

Subject sighs. “I think I have been patient enough. You’ve found the mounds in southern Illinois, in Lesotho and in Tikrit. You have linguists and semiotic theorists working on this. If you can’t figure it out for yourself, then you don’t deserve the knowledge.”

“I don’t think my superiors will be too happy about your answer or your attitude.”

“Do you want an answer? Really? Hmmmm, fine. I’m just spinning my wheels here anyway. Are the recording devices in working order?”

Dr. Gustavson begins to stutter.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure they are. OK, ready for the answer?”

Subject opens his mouth. The audio plays something like a growl or guttural whisper, then becomes inaudible. The video recording warps and then goes to static. After 2.4 seconds, the video reestablishes and, implausibly, is sharper and clearer. There are thin lines on the bottom of the screen (which are determined to be the blood of PFC Walter Hillard–his body has still not been found). Off camera is a hysterical giggling. (Dr. Gustavson will be found playing in his own urine. As of this date, Dr. Gustavson remains in a manic, hysterical state.) The guard in the corner is naked and repeatedly smashing his head against the wall.

The subject is no longer in the chair. He appears walking from the bottom of the screen, back turned to the camera, buttoning up clothing taken from one of the guards. He then turns to the camera and directly addresses it.

“I want you to know this. I want you to know that I came here voluntarily. Do you understand? I wanted you to know the significance of my findings. I gave you every chance, but you just wouldn’t listen. They had so much power, but they didn’t have intelligence as we think of it. They had no need of a binding internal narrative. They had willpower and a binding purpose as an adaptation from a chaotic environment where decoherence did not exist. They had no need for an internal self-referential model of themselves where every possibility existed, but every need to manipulate those possibilities. And they are coming back, and don’t like what we have done in binding the world to one, uniform reality in our image. I will be ready, but I’m afraid you won’t. I would say good luck, but seeing what happened to Dr. Gustavson, well, I feel very very sorry for you all. I’m leaving now.”

2+2=5

So President Bush has just admitted that the CIA did have a secret program to interrogate terrorist suspects overseas, and is now making a big deal about sending these terrorists to Gitmo for trial where they are presumed innocent and the rule of law shall prevail. I'll leave aside the Chris Rock quote I have in my head ("You supposed to you low-expectation-having mutherfucker! What do you want, a cookie?")

Instead, I ask this question: Whatever happened to "Terrorism is not a law enforcement matter"?* Kinda sad that the MSM probably won't point out the fact that ol' Shrub, by now stating that he is for putting terrorists on trial instead of indefinitely detaining them overseas, is in essence stating that Kerry was right.

*10/10/04 Quote from "Face the Nation" by Ed Gillespie, Republican National Committee 2003-2005 Chairman, criticizing Sen. John Kerry

Come From Way Above . . .

Yup, that's right. Even more prose!

To become an angel, you must forsake your past. Family and friends are no different than old clothing and forgotten toys, to be left behind as unnecessary remnants of a life from which you are supposed to move on.

The path to become an angel, to leave onself behind, to open oneself to the Divine, is as individual and distinct for each person, though these paths can be overgeneralized into three categories. Some are led by the tried and true methods of sleep deprivation, of mob mentality, of physical and mental abuse alternating with praise and sympathy. Some are taught breathing exercises and meditation, to focus on everything and nothing and realize there is no difference. As there is a War ongoing, more and more are being led into the barracks, their heads placed in electromagnetic resonance helmets that directly induce rapture via manipulation of the parietal lobes. Except for the second grouping in which every so often a Principality and even one Power arose, those who arrive at the Waystation invariably only transcend to the rank of angel. If you need assistance in transcendence, you probably don’t have it in you to fly very far.

My path to the Divine was rather mundane. After a particularly bad break up, listening to Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song” over and over again, and finding myself tiptoed on the ledge of a Century City office building rooftop (and more importantly, being found by the security guard who had propped open the roof access to smoke a big fat joint of Mauwie Wauwie), I was given a choice of voluntary commitment and ongoing therapy or Transcendence. I loved my family and friends, all of whom wanted me to take the first option, but I realized I loved them in a way that I loved “Simpsons” reruns at 6:00 p.m. I know that might sound harsh, but that particularly bad break up was with a woman who with a love that felt like the fluttering of wings in my chest. After that, at least at that moment, every single thing in my life lost the sheen of importance. So I could either sit on a couch about shit that meant jack to me, or I could learn how to jump off a roof and soar into the air and not land as a 150 pound sack of meat, crumpling some jagoff’s penis substitute of a sports car.

The Los Angeles Waystation was located at the old Greyhound Station on 7th Street. Most of the homeless that had littered the streets were gone, having been among the first to enter into the Waystation to be transformed. Most of them were no doubt flying over Damascus, taking arms against Gadriel and the Sovereigns, or hunting down the Fallen or Non-Aligned (who, depending on the politician and faction, might as well be Fallen) in alleyways from Caracas to Wellington. When I entered the Waystation those months ago, I heard whispers that the Angels who floated above the entry, one black, square-jawed, and handsome, the other white, rugged and sandy-haired, both in bright platinum plating with Kevlar webbing, fiery swords and Glocks holstered, had been crackheads from the area who panhandled at the local McDonalds. Every so often, their fire in their eyes would alight, and they would perform some minor miracle on the few homeless who decided to stay mundane. Perhaps turning Chicken McNuggets into fresh strawberries, or providing moments of clarity, fifty dollars and a resume to a crack dealer.

Like all Waystations, the inside the larger than the outside, a strange phenomena that is necessary given the thousands of initiates who enter everyday, the tens of thousands who are housed and cared for until Transcendence. One the outside was a bus station that took up a square block of sun-addled concrete and weeds. But the inside was an elegant station of white marble doric columns, three story stained glass windows filtering a constant sunlight buttery in its texture, and a floor that seemed to extend hundreds of yards. I remember watch a show on Discovery Times with one of the Virtues, working with a quantum physicist at the University of Chicago, attempting to explain how this was possible. However, I got lost within the phrases like “static Planck measurement fallacy” and “dark energy substrates like rebar through concrete.” That small agnostic part of me smiled that there were those in the Hierarchy who sought answers after the first fall at the Battle of Antietam. Even when Raphael appeared on “Oprah” to proclaim once and for all that the world was not 6000 years old, and that the Bible was allegory (although Jesus did transcend), and none of the angels had any thoughts on abortion, there were still small-minded literalists who firebombed womens’ clinics and proclaimed only they knew God’s message.

The first step of a path was a questionnaire with 5000 questions. There were the standard personality type questions (At a party, which do you prefer? (a) To lead in the fun; (b) To sit back and people watch; (c) To hang out with your friends; (d) You’re just there for the free food). But there were some very odd questions (What does electricity taste like? True or false: The thought of warm oven mitts, wire mesh and orthopedic shoes excites me). The Powers who oversee the questionnaires take the time it takes to answer each question as well as the totality of the questionnaire into consideration.

Next was a physical battery. There were stress tests, laps around a track and in the pool. There was lifting of weights and throwings of balls. I was prodded and poked. Electrodes were attached. Blood was drawn. Probes were, well, inserted in areas where things are normally ejected.

Kicking the Dirt

OK, here's the result of a self-imposed writing exercise--just flat out write without thinking or editing for thirty minutes. What the hell is it with me and the Central Valley?

“Aw fuck, man, you know there are people who go to college to do what we do?” Cal asked, coming out of the restroom, thumb and forefinger to his nostrils, trying to get every last snort of the blow.

I didn’t bother to tell him that those people were most likely at the San Moritz catering to all the beautiful and plasticized rather than at the Motel 6 off the Buttonwillow exit running the Visas of doughy families on their way to Disneyworld and truckers with battered porn under their seats.

One of these days, I gotta ask Cal where exactly to find blow in the Central Valley. This is crystal meth land, sunbaked and cracked full of hicks shouting “White Power” while cooking up chemicals that could bring down a federal building if you’re not too careful, cooking them up as their toddlers go underfoot sucking their mouths on empty beer bottles. There aren’t any power brokers or aesthetic effetes here.

“Goddamnit, there’s gotta be a way to stop some of that shit from going down my throat,” Cal said. “The guy who figures out how to stop that will be one rich man, I tell you. Hey, anything sticking out?”

“No, man, you got the shirt all tucked in,” I replied.

Cal is a thin, wiry little fucker, and vain too. He told me the reason he’s not a crankhead is that he doesn’t want his teeth all yellow and shit. “Gotta look good for the ladies, know what I mean?” He figures that he and his ratty ass brown ponytail will save up some money from this gig and eventually head down a 120 miles south to Lalaland. There, he’ll get a recording contract. That’ll happen when the world clamors for coked acoustic renditions of Bon Jovi, but hey, a man has to have his dreams and I’m not that much of a dick to tell him he’s full of it. So I keep to myself that I used to live in Los Angeles, and that it is chock full of people with voices that could make angels cry busking on the Promenade for singles and living in shitholes.

At two in the clock in the afternoon, there ain’t jack to do. Check out time is at noon, and the type of folks who stay here are straggles who’ve been on the road too long while too cheap to splurge for the Holiday Day in two doors down. You don’t get those folks until eleven at night. So I get back to running totals from last night for the fourth time and trying to ignore that greasy feeling in my gut that comes from trying to digest my fifth Carl’s Jr. burger in a week.

7844; 22.7; 29.75

Number of songs on my Ipod after finally copying all my CDs + a few albums I downloaded from ITunes (note that there were many songs I decided not to copy from my CDs); Number of days it would take to listen to all the songs on my Ipod straight through; Number of gigabytes taken up (good thing I got the 60 gig Ipod).

Um, I guess you can say music is an important part of my life.

Burnout

Incompetence should be a godsend if found in an opposing counsel. Incompetence should make your life easier–you don’t have to do hours of research and critical analysis to come up with a reply because stupidity speaks for itself. All you have to do is point it out. Really, most of the effort that you spend in dealing with opposing counsel’s incompetence is spent trying to figure out that exactly the jackass is arguing. Demolishing that argument is simple after that. Incompetence manifests itself in blown deadlines, dumb admissions (“well, my client does not dispute it hasn’t paid the money”), logic that smacks of effort (“my corporate client does not owe any money because the high level corporate executive who dealt with day to day operations had no authority to enter into the contract”), misrepresenting the law whether by intention or negligence (“those cases hold that there is no contract even though the court in those cases said that there was a contract in these same circumstances), and just plain poor writing and structure.

And yet invariably, lawyers including myself would rather deal with a whipsmart opposing counsel who can give as good as she gets and will force us to actually do work than the mental midget whose work is the legal equivalent of walking out the bathroom with his fly still unzipped and wet splotches all over his pants. I used to think this was due to professional pride. I don’t want myself associated with Corky the Very Special Lawyer. But that sort of shame by association only exists if you care about clients, and as almost every lawyer will tell you, the worst thing about lawyering are the clients.

No, I think what drives me bugfuck about incompetent opposing counsel is that, more often than not, they get away with it. There are a variety of reasons for this. In state court, most judges come from a pool of attorneys from small to mid-sized firms of the variety that have no lawyers from BigLaw backgrounds. These small to mid-sized firms don’t have the same resources as BigLaw, and their lawyers, by the ratio of lawyers to cases and the lower quality of the cases, do a lot of shit on the fly. The pool of law students they get aren’t exactly creme de la creme (if you’re Order of the Coif, are you going to choose BigLaw willing to pay you $140,000 off the bat to be in a cog in the wheel of multi-million dollar matter, or SmallLaw paying you $40,000 a year to deal with slip and falls?) Though there are idiots in BigLaw (because how good of a law student you were does not necessarily translate into how good a lawyer you will be), the mix of a load of crap ass cases in these smaller firms, the cost benefit analysis making it rationale to be quick and speedy on a low-value case as opposed to rational and smart, make for massive amounts of incompetence. (I should note, I am overgeneralizing, and in this overgeneralization, I am not including a subcategory of small firms whose members came from BigLaw–they tend to carry over that weird feeling from being a BigLaw associate to, you know, spend time on a case, even if it is a low value loser of a case).

ANYWAY, so most of the state court pool of judges come from these small to mid-sized firms where expediency and what necessarily arises from it (bad logic, bad research, bad writing, and bad case management) unfortunately are prevalent. To put it simply, incompetent opposing counsel often get away with their incompetence because state court judges incompetent opposing counsel. On one of the cases I was on, I had opposing counsel admit in court that he blew a court-ordered deadline, but the judge didn’t do squat. Opposing counsel then admitted after the hearing that if he were the judge, he would have sanctioned himself. Other lawyers I’ve spoken with said this particular judge isn’t that bright. Sigh. And I truly got the sense from the hearing that, even though the judge had set the deadline which opposing counsel blew, the judge himself had blown deadlines as an attorney. After I mentioned that opposing counsel was simply using delay tactics, the judge stated, “Well, that’s the risk your client takes when suing someone.” And you wonder why people think the system doesn’t work.

Now, not every judge is an incompetent SmallLaw boob, so that doesn’t explain every single instance of an incompetent lawyer getting away with it. Sometimes, an incompetent counsel is so incompetent, the judge is just in disbelief at first, and when the air clears, the judge just doesn’t want to deal with him.

We’ll call this particular opposing counsel “The Limper.” The Limper has a pronounced limp and a slight hunched back (or at least it looks that way, as his left shoulder noticeably droops). He has dark, slicked back hair with a barely trimmed beard. Think a sleazy version of Daniel Day-Lewis in “My Left Foot” His voice is phlegmatic and slurred. He sounds like Froggy from the Little Rascals coming down from a bad meth trip panhandling for change in the stink of his own urine of a downtown freeway exit.

So when he shows up in court after improperly trying to dismiss the judge or failing to file an opposition brief, what the judge sees is not a professional who has passed the State Bar and thus really has no excuse for disregarding the law, but instead a cripple in a bad suit who apparently has a speech impediment and who looks two days away from being out on the street. And so the judge treats The Limper with the same kid gloves he treats any ignorant Joe Citizen representing himself, gives The Limper an excuse (“oh, you must have been waiting for me to rule on my dismissal before you filed an opposition,” to which The Limper croaks “That’s exactly it, Your Honor”) and an opportunity to file an opposition. And yet the deadline comes and goes, and the Limper via his partner files with the court a request to yet again move the hearing, this time because the Limper is sick.

Now, a lot of attorneys would just roll their eyes, show up at the hearing and simply tell the judge that this is bullshit. But I’m a vindictive bastard with a low tolerance for this crap, so I write a written opposition to this request for a continuance, explaining that the Limper has failed to file opposition and then failed to show up at hearings in three other cases. At least the judge finally gets it, and sanctions The Limper and continuing the hearing on the condition that The Limper provide proof of his illness. And lo and behold, the day before the hearing, The Limper serves the office with a Notice of Non-Appearance claiming that he’s going to be in Hawaii for trial, so he can’t show up at the hearing in Los Angeles. And a quick call to the United States District of Hawaii confirms that actually, there is no such trial. The Limper has perjured himself, which I inform the judge.

Now, if I were the judge, I’d set an Order to Show Cause hearing on why this fucker shouldn’t be sanctioned and reported to the State Bar (and it turns out, the State Bar has already sanctioned the Limper, which would mean another disciplinary report who really fuck up the Limper’s probation). Now attorneys may misrepresent themselves to the court on time to time, but this is a rather egregious example of perjury. Shit, does the Limper not realize a quick phone call to Hawaii would reveal that he was lying?

But I’m not the judge. We prevailed, which was great for the client. I’m not complaining about that. However, I got the feeling that the judge just didn’t want to deal with The Limper’s shenanigans. If he or his clerk made a simple check of the State Bar website though, I’m sure The Limper would have more to worry about than telling his client that he needed to cough up more money.

Spies Like Us

OK, this freakin' scenario has been running through my head for the last few months. That's right, it's yet another prose exercise by yours truly. And there will be more, bwahahahahaha!

Kingman is New Delhi is Mombasa–pitch black nights drenched in heat, cheap motel rooms seeped with yellow flickering lights, moths and little lizards scuttling about warped wooden floors and chipped walls. The confluence of the heat and the sepia lighting made these nights amber-like. They were scenes encased in thick, languid memories. In these memories, in Port Moresby, in Caracas, in Little Rock, during these interchangeable summer nights, Lawson would be stripped down to his boxers, pencil scribbling whatever needed to be conveyed at the drop off. “The birds for the tea garden will not last. Please inform the guest that we will be having jasmine instead of Earl Gray.” “The tractor is overpriced–the gears are too old and the parts are worth more than the whole.” But now, he didn’t even have the scribbling of cryptic notes the pass the time away.
Not only was Peter Lawson a traitor, he was a seditionist and a traitor.
At least that’s what the President and his New Covenant Administration, just elected for a fourth term, believed. A rational government would spend its intelligence resources in attempting to win ongoing conflicts and to prevent additional ones. But zealots are, by definition, irrational. So the New Covenant Administration was going to expend its intelligence capabilities on tracking down every single operative who dared disagreed with administration assessments, who provided intelligence that contradicted the inner sanctum, or who just wouldn’t be bought off. This hunt was ongoing, even though the President had bogged down the country in Syria and Iran, in police actions in Venezuela and Cuba, in militarized missionary actions all throughout Africa and a newly friendly China.
Lawson still had friends, though. More importantly, Lawson still had money to keep those friends. At about thirty minutes before midnight, there was a hard knock on the door, followed by two softer knocks. Outside was the local constable, Muenda Kibaki, thickset, sweating and grinning.
“Ah, Mr. Halliday,” Muenda said, “I hope you are enjoying your vacation, though I still don’t see why you don’t stay at the Hilton. Surely, you would be more comfortable in air conditioning and fruited beverages with little paper umbrellas and plastic monkeys.”
“All right, smart ass, what’s up?” Lawson replied.
“Well, I felt you should now that there is an young American causing such a stir at the Hilton, making his feelings known about the current American administration. This is upsetting the businessmen and the missionaries. Perhaps you might want to discuss matters with him?”
“Hmmm, loud and young, you say? Probably has spiked hair, piercings, t-shirt with Che Guevara?”
“Actually, he is wearing a t-shirt with Hugo Chavez, but everything else is accurate.”
“Thanks, Muenda.”
“No problem at all.”
Lawson was about to shut the door, but stopped and asked, “So, have the Bible studies started?”
Muenda sighed. “Why yes, they have. I will tell you that I think the Spirit would be more likely to enter me if those smiling bright young men and women in the white shirts and black pants were not accompanied by marines.”
“No shit, eh.”
“No shit,” Muenda agreed.
Lawson spent the next few minutes packing getting his belongings, and even though it was a blessing to him, fuming about the incompetent Judas Goat at the Hilton. Preachers, by definition, make shitty spies. Lawson guessed it had to do with that messianic urge of preachers to spread the word, and destroy anything that didn’t fit with their interpretation. Even when they’re pretending not to be preachers, that urge to shout, to prostelytize, to call attention to themselves, still came through. And calling attention to oneself was not an option in a career that required being the background. Young New Covenant Lackey at the Hilton, though doth protesteth a bit too much. But where there was a Judas Goat, there was someone waiting at the other end of the tether. It was time to get out of dodge.
Whenever Lawson left a town, he entertained the thought about going to Zurich, getting a total make over from the molecular level upwards. Then Lawson would not be Peter Lawson, blond, blue-eyed Midwest boy who went to Ohio State with a B.A. in Poli Sci, Georgetown Masters in International Relations, and former operative of the CIA, but instead, George Halliday of Windsor, Canada, brown-eyed, sandy-haired graduated of McGill in French History and mild mannered accountant. Stem-cell research had progressed extensively since the New Covenant banned it in the United States. After Canada signed a Joint Defense pact with the Russianized EU, the Canadian CSE made it known that George Halliday would be more than welcome in their employ.
And yet every time he left a railway terminal, a shipyard, an airport, Lawson would head to the nearest cheap motel, reestablish old “friendships,” and wait. Perhaps hope springs eternal.

Psychos and Coco Puffs

OK, this wasn't the original Chuck Klosterman-like entry I wanted to write, but what the hey:

My friends used to wonder whether I created drama wherever I went, or if drama followed me around. Now, the whole heartwrenching clusterfuck that was a Certain Someone that has me in therapy (without any pharmaceuticals yet, thank you very much) was what made everyone, including myself, think that I inevitably create the drama in my life. On the surface, this makes some sense. My pal Dubois thinks the creative inclination comes from people who want life to be something else–not really a dissatisfaction with life, but instead the ability to see other possibilities in life. And all those possibilities just happen to be better than whatever routine counts for the aspiring artists’ life. Thus, entering into an unwise, unhealthy relationship with a woman who was unhappy with her then current relationship, a woman significantly younger than me, a woman who I worked with and related to the boss, might have been a mind-blowingly big fucking mistake. But in that artist’s calculus, the excitement and inevitable catastrophic results of bad nights, worse phone calls, and even worse scenarios that ran through my head of easy roof access and the properties of gravity were all much better than the ten hour daily grind of getting in pissing contests I had no vested interests in (better known as the legal profession) and going home to beer and internet porn. (Though I still have to say, there was a brief time where a Certain Someone and I loved each other very much. Plus, the sex was oh so very good.) So, the theory goes, is that I get myself tangled into bad drama because bad drama is better than no drama.

But now that I have more time again, and that I’m writing again, I’m beginning to think that this explanation might be a bit, well, if not facile, at least incomplete. This is because throughout my life, I have had plenty of completely tweeked, wholly unmoored, unstable people enter into my life without any volition from yours truly.

Back when I was in high school, I met this girl at a high school Model U.N. conference (hey, you guys know I was, am and forever will be a geek). I think her name was Becca. She wasn’t unattractive. Look wise, she’d be the type of plain girl a relative might set you up with, you’d sigh inwardly with disappointment when you met her and resolve to grin and bear it for your Aunt Priscilla, and then after three or four drinks, make out with her like a crazed mink and then both of you would be really embarrassed afterwards and vow never to talk about it again.

But ANYWAY, I spoke with Becca for maybe thirty minutes total at the conference. She went to high school in a township all the way at the other end of the county, which might as well be in another state back then. I have no idea why we exchanged numbers, but we did. And then we didn’t speak to each other except for brief five minute conversations about nothing. Oh yeah, she had a beau anyways.

Then, when I went to college, things got scary wiggy. The summer after my junior year, she got my number from my folks (who must’ve been ecstatic that some random chick was asking for me). Now, at this point, I hadn’t spoken with her for about three years, and the sum total–both in person and on the phone–of my conversations with her was about 45 minutes. Becca called me out of the blue, and for the next two weeks over some really intense and (for her) personal conversations, she informed me that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder but that she refused to take her medication. She informed me that she dropped out of college because it was too much pressure. She informed be that one of her friends passed away, which then led her to tearfully ask what was the point. All this with a guy, me, who previously spoke with her for 45 minutes total. Holy fucking shit. You can’t tell me that I created that piece of drama.
Hey, I too have made the tearful intense psycho phone calls, but that’s generally with people I’ve known for years. But I can’t imagine calling up some random person I met at jury duty last week and waylaying all my personal crap and darkest thoughts on her. That takes some massive instability, instability that even I don’t have.

And that wasn’t the only unstable person in my past–there was Hunter, who looked like an average white guy from Virginia who ostensibly wanted to talk about Curve, the Pixies, Echobelly and shoegazing music but ended up ranting in such a depressing manner that made Robert Smith look like an Up With People dancer on a prozac/paxil cocktail. There was Spaz in law school who believed with such certainty it could only be pathologic that every single woman who walked path wanted him and his greasy ponytail. My first year roommate law school turned out to be a schizophrenic who stopped taking his meds a month before graduation (and had to be escorted out of finals by security due to his erratic behavior). Oh, and let’s not forget my stalker a couple of years back, who talked to herself and believed that Richard Gere and Tom Cruise were misappropriating her astral image for their own nefarious purposes.

Certain Someone was my own damn fault, but Becca, Hunter, Spaz, Schizo and Stalker? I can’t control who meets me. And yet, at the same time, it is rather disconcerting that some twigged person’s unstable orbit enters mine every two years. Maybe I should take solace that it isn’t just me who feels unmoored, adrift every once in a while, or that I don’t always create the drama around me. Or maybe I should move to some shotgun shack out in the desert, away from all the freakin’ wackjobs.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I spent the last hour composing a Chuck Klosterman-like entry on my somewhat involuntary hiatus from OceanGig (there's no work since the main partner has been either preparing for trial or in trial the last five months and has not been able to hit the pavement, but on the plus side, they're keeping my position open and want me back when things pick back up) dealing with Ipods, high school memories and music on myspace, but myspace deleted it! Next time I have an urge to write, I guess I best put that sucker down on Word or WordPerfect first. Sheeeeee-it.

Advertising Looks and Chops a Must

After Marty made an unwise decision to trim his hair by his lonesome this weekend, what did Marty's hair most resemble:

1. The hairiest Mohawk ever;
2. The laziest Mullet ever;
3. The latest chic sweeping womens' penitentiaries.

You Do It To Yourself

OK, so you can view this as an abstract and thoroughly obtuse answer to why I've been away, or as a really brilliant example of video storytelling. Either way, just watch it until the very end. I promise I will be back, but I still need to rest for a bit.

Cinemaroma

So being content at work makes for a dull month, though hey, I'm probably going to start therapy soon so that may make for something interesting to say. In the meantime, here's a film geet meme via lawgeekgurl.

A. Pick 11 of your favorite movies.
B. Then pick one of your favorite quotes from each movie.
C. Post the quotes on your blog.
D. Have commenters guess what the movie is.
E. Either strike out the quote once it has been correctly identified or place the guesser’s user name directly after the quote.
F. Extra points for knowing the actor or character’s name.

1) Hey Jenny Slater. Hey Jenny Slater. Hey Jenny Slater.

2) She betrayed you and you never understood why. And you kept on loving her.

3) I thought you said, "You OK Spider."

4) Do you shee the beasht? Have you got it in your shights?

5) Okay. But dogs CAN look up!

6) Feelings can creep up, just like that.

7) Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

8) All in all not a bad guy - if looks, brains and personality don't count.

9) My mother? Let me tell you about my mother.

10) Love is all a matter of timing. It's no good meeting the right person too soon or too late. If I'd live in another time or place, my story might have had a very different ending.

11) Well, I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.