Friday, December 23, 2011

Personal Politics aside...

Okay, everybody knows he yelled at his daughter on her voicemail. He's a father. He didn't get that whippy. Yes, his politics are borderline whippy lefty....Whatever. No one, with the possible exception of Mitch Hedberg on stage and Harold Lloyd on screen has made me laugh as hard as Alec Baldwin. Here are some great clips of the supporting role he had that few know about. He is so funny here....

Some sort of retribution


As a man who looks at the world through a lens that most find me crazy to gaze through, I am sorry I cannot exchange my world view, let alone my eyes.
I see things the way I do thanks to those who raised me and what I took from them.
I see far too many fucking people walking the earth who have hurt others in so many ways, don't seem to mind having done it, and carrying on as if the world were their oyster....

God damn it.

Yes, Michael MacCreary, (and hundreds of thousands of others) I am indeed talking to you. Those that are indifferent are nearly as bad as the perpetrators...
Poor Kitty Genovese, poor Teresa Saldana, I weep for them in my darkest nightmares...the ones that don't involve my own fears.
I do believe in eye for an eye....
God help me, I do, because knowing those conscienceless bastards are cavorting out there while those that burn inside fret about it, is just a further insult. Salt in an already bitter wound....
I can't abide...

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Memory Lone

It's kind of startling to me when I look at friends photo albums from back in the day.

Don't get me wrong, initiial reaction is usually something like "Ah! Look at you!" and then full entrenchment into memory lane ensues....

One night after the laughter died down, and people went home, and the computer was turned off, or the glitter faded, or whatever the fuck you want to call it happened, I scrunched up my brow. Scratched my chin. That one night led to several more afterwards that consisted of me digging.

There were times when I would tear through the small boxes of my extremely compartmentalized and segregated past, searching for photos, memorabilia, and ephemera. Desperately...one time, in tears.
I attended 11 different schools in 2 different states and 3 different cities....after I hit 14, my parents moved me 3 times. I went to 3 high schools in 3 cities.....those photo albums never had a chance. I haven't had a bff since the 6th grade.

Yeah, I know...fuck me, it sounds like whining, here's a kleenex, go away little match girl. I get it.
But this is what I do, this is how I exorcise demons. So the power of Christ is compelling me right now.
I don't have any mistakes in my past, because I never got the chance to make them. I never left any hearts in my wake, because I had no opportunity to break them. I can't share any great teenage love and loss stories that are now fodder for memory lane giggles. I don't have any buddies I can dial up and say "Bro, rememember the time....." and have the conversation end in gales of laughter and tear-stained cheeks.
That's a problem for me. A huge one.

Like Donald "The Great Fatsby" called it:  Yuge.

Above is the last known photo taken of me before I turned 19. I was 13.









Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Mid Life Crisis Disclaimer (Written December 2, 2010)

The phrase is generic and genuine and older than dirt.

I wear my heart on my sleeve.

Shit, it's a mantra for me. You can tell what I'm feeling by looking at my face when I walk into a room.

It's encoded in my DNA. I've never been able to hide it. Be disgusted by it, if you gotta.

I spill my purse like Ally Sheedy in "The Breakfast Club", man. I'm no mystery.

I've heard all the chatter before, and hell, for that matter it's been directed to my face....

"You're needy", "You're whiny", "You're a wet blanket on a kegger fire." I may be all of those to some, and to others I'm none of the above. If anything, I'm emotionally honest. Should I hurt, fuck, you're gonna know it.

Folks have discarded me and given me my walking papers electronically for this, and to them, I apologize for ruining their train of thought. Sadly, they've cast aside someone who will listen to them forever if need be. I work both ways in that department.

I hurt hard, but I love even fucking harder.

So....this is me. At 39. I like to laugh and absolutely love to make others laugh. I've always been that way, and will be forever. But when the need to feel down, or God forbid, even cry comes along, it's gonna show. And for that, I'm giving fair warning.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Friday, June 3, 2011

Astral Projection

Leaning on a weathered railing, staring out into the distance, which was a 3 AM, blackened sky, accented by wind through the trees and fireflies, I had a bit of a revelation.

I looked at my past in my agitated state, a past comprised of various leavings...self-induced, disease created, or flat out betrayals. Or a mixture of both....

I started to raise questions within myself and found it exhausting. The answer wasn't hard to find....I take the bullshit factors of my past, amplify them, and project them on to everybody else.

Sooner or later, everyone, is going to desert me, begin to hate me, blame me, or just plain glare at me and HATE.

This isn't healthy....
This isn't right....I am a good person. I have given, I have bled for others. I have been heroic and I have fought the good fight.

My nose is bleeding, but I still breathe. I stand on a rotting railroad tie at a crossroads....one turn is reality, the other is what I am led to believe by my own self-induced inadequacies and self-esteem issues....


Make a move, Rob.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The Philosophy of Mike Terry


I was thinking at work today about a movie I have seen a dozen times, and it caused a reaction I had yet to see in myself until this morning.....

"Redbelt" is the story of Jiu-Jitsu instructor Mike Terry. A "pure" martial artist who believes that competing, especially for money, "weakens the fighter".  His primary need in the world, of seeing the best in everyone and wanting to help them, has brought him nothing but financial problems and disdain from his wife.  She comes from a family of Brazilian martial artists taught by "The Professor"(played by Bruce Lee's prized Jeet Kune Do pupil Danny Inosanto), and steeped in wealth.

The actor who plays Terry is pitch perfect. Not only does Chiwetel Ejiofor come off as a fantastic hand to hand fighter, he's a brilliant actor with expressive eyes that can tell a story in and amongst themselves. You've seen him before as Denzel Washington's brother in "American Gangster", as well as in "Love Actually", "Talk to Me", and as a doe-eyed, benign-seeming, self-proclaimed "monster" in the film based on the "Firefly" television series, "Serenity".

One rainy evening, a peculiar incident takes place that sets the events of the movie in motion. Terry sees things start to look up, but as the film moves along, he finds that everyone is taking advantage of his good nature, to better and further their own financial agendas. No matter what the risk. Including the suicide of Terry's prized student, a police officer.

All of this puts Mike Terry in a corner where he agrees to compete to help his student's penniless wife, as well as himself and his own wife, who have financially been pinned between a rock and a hard place....

Mike Terry is a warrior, and he finds that the "big competition", of which he only fights on the undercard, is a sham. It is an event that is played out in front of the unknowing and Godlike "Professor" from Brazil, and includes fighters taking falls, and Mike's own teaching idea stolen from him and used as the centerpiece of the pay per view event.

Mike walks away, friendless.

Except for maybe one. A rape victim that he returned her confidence to along with, quite possibly, her life. When she sees Mike, staring at his shoes and walking away, she slaps him.

Mike knows now. A woman he helped through Post Traumatic Stress Disorder awakens him to the point that he knows he has become a victim himself with a chance to prevent that word from being tagged to him.

"Ripping it down" is what he decides to do. One of my all time favorite fight scenes ensues, that finishes with the most touching moment in martial arts movie history.

There's a scene where a security guard says to Terry, "Shame about Joe, he thought the world of you, Mike" He is referring to the police officer who had committed suicide over the previously mentioned string of events. Mike almost cries.

That's what made me almost cry this morning. I remembered how I idolized and almost deified my own martial arts instructors, as Joe did. I also saw in Ejiofor's eyes the agony that must come with that responsibility.

And the last thing that came pounding down along with my tears, is the world's ability to take those who trust, those who only see beauty in people, those who want to help and teach, and take advantage of them, and destroy them with their own love.

Mike prevents that....

I wish I could.