God... you're a funny bastard God....
I'm sure I'll get a lot of hate mail for that title, cursed as a blasphemer and lose some fans over it, probably by the same people that swear I'll go to hell for eating meat on Fridays yet hide and protect kid touchers the world over... but whatever, it feels like a weird morning already, so we might as well pile it on.
Besides, anyone that knows me will also know that despite the fact that I don't believe in organized religion of any kind, I am in fact extremely spiritual, so to get out of sorts over that statement is to completely misinterpret its meaning, which people do every second of every day. God IS a funny bastard, and the joke is on all of us, but today I mean that in every good way possible.
I've already mentioned in my post "A Deeply Personal Note..." (which many of you loved) that everyone of us must be able to express ourselves and feel like we matter to the world around us in order to feel well adjusted and good about who we are. And in my piece "A Real Man... A Great Man... and the Man Cave" I talked about how we all need to feel as if we are accepted for who we are right here, right now, exactly the way we are without having to do more or be more. (Though it was slanted for men, the same applies for women as well)
At the time that I wrote each of those pieces I was feeling really good, but in the days and weeks in between I found that I'd lost all of those feel good moments and fell into a deep down cycle, and this one was BAD, the worst I'd had since I was 19 years old and lost 35 pounds in a matter of three weeks. I know Ed Burns makes fun of the down cycle in his flik "She's the One", one of my favorite movies (I'm a big Ed Burns fan), but they really do exist for all of us.
According to Dr. John Gray, men and women alike go through a cycle where they go from feeling really good about themselves to feeling really bad and need new affirmations that they matter to the world around them and are accepted and great just the way they are right now every 28 days or so. (Amazingly like the menstrual cycle) So not only does the down cycle exist, but its normal for every one of us to go through it. Its just that some of us feel it more than others depending on where we are in life, how we've been taught or are equiped to deal with things, and our brain chemistry.
So what the hell does this have to do with God? Well, as I said, I was caught up in the worst downcycle I can remember in the past 15 years, which is saying a lot considering some of the things that have happened in that time. And just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, sure enough, one after another, I was put in position after position and given example after example to show me just how great I am right here, right now, just being who I am. And I was able to see, through the eyes of people around me, how much I do matter.
As always, I use experiences in my own life to try to get you thinking of similar experiences in yours. Isn't it amazing how something always seems to happen, as if it came out of nowhere, to bring us exactly what we need exactly when we need it? And it seems to happen every single time. We've all had this happen to us in our lives, the Rolling Stones wrote a song about it.
So last night as I drove home from dinner at a friends house, I couldn't help but reflect on all the of the things over the past couple of days that showed me just how much a part of other peoples lives that I am, and how much of a difference I really do make in those lives. Last night's dinner was one more way of showing it to me. And it all came just as I thought I had nothing left in the tank. It made me smile. And I couldn't help but blurt out as I got onto the highway....
God... you're a funny bastard God....
And here's another thing that proves the point of all I had to say today... my buddy who I had that dinner with last night... this guy is great and he doesn't even know it. He can't see it for himself. And I'd bet that I can say the exact same thing about YOU reading this right now. Its up to all of us to show each other how great we are, and how great we can be. Those of us that have people who do that in our lives don't need God, or the Tao, or the Force or the Universe, whatever you want to call it, to step in as much and do it for us. But it will if we need it to. It just waits till the last minute when we need it most. Its our job to make sure we get to people before they need it that much.
You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find... you get what you need.
And for those of you keeping score... we all need to feel like we're accepted for who we are right here, right now, and thats good enough without having to do or be more, and we need to express who that person in the right here right now is, and know that who we are and what we do matters to the people around us. But no matter who we are or where we are in life, every 28 days or so we're going to go from feeling great to feeling like crap, so it's important to surround yourself with people who accept you for who you are, allow you to express yourself, and show you how much you matter to them. Likewise, its just as important that you accept the people around you for who they are, allow them to express themselves, and show them that THEY matter to YOU..... its a running tally....
How much better would we all feel if we all did that? Life would be one giant lovefest... YEEAAAHHHH!!!!
The BIG 5-o!
Sometimes you walk into a much needed special surprise, serendipity they call it. I walked into an open mic night and was greeted by an angelic voice. MAN can this girl sing. I'm going to have to find out who she is.
Today I bring you the 50th installment of our little project here. It doesn't seem like that many, or that I've been doing it for as long as I have now. I want to thank you for hanging with me and hope I've given you enough reason to continue to do so.
Strange things come up when
you google seach 50
And I've got to apologize, I'm distracted right now. Whoever this girl is her singing is resonating with my heartstrings and pulling me away from the page. If big things don't happen for her there's a hole in the universe.
.50 cal
I must look like I'm completely insane most of the time when I write. While I'm lost in thought I often stare off into the distance, unconscious of the fact that I'm even doing it. Its occurred to me that there are times when my gaze falls on another person sitting close by. I wonder what goes through their head when it happens.
"Who is this stalker and why is he licking his lips at me?" That's the cleaned up version of course.
I haven't invested in any 5 gallon drums, I promise. You would think people would stop using them by now, they're just so unoriginal. And they always seem to get you caught.
What the hell are they doing with so many of them lying around anyway? Are they saving the pieces for later? Maybe there's good money in it. That's the tasty meat in your sandwich. I'll have the special please, rare, thanks!
Open mic night, a guy singing about needing an angel.... I hear ya buddy.
Raquel Welch, So hot!
She's not 50 here, but was
still how when she was
Hey, check out this little piece of animation, its really cool. Make sure to watch the whole thing.
And if that doesn't do it for you, maybe try out this awesome game. Just be careful playing it at work, you can lose an hour to it without even noticing it.
Not for nothing, but the people playing this open mic are really freakin (clean) good. I'm at Sip This, as I often am. If you've got nothing better to do stop by and say hello sometime. The freak staring at you is probably me, though I can't guarantee it.
Ingrid Michaelson
The girls name is Kira Metcalf by the way, and apparently she's only 16 years old. That just amazes the hell out of me, she reminds me of Ingrid Michaelson. You should check her out on facebook at Kirasingsforkicks. A lot of what I do here is all about everyone else if I really enjoy what they do, because if I like it I think you will too. Though I have to admit.... looking up 16 year old girls on facebook feels all kinds of wrong, no matter what the reason is.
This is my favorite Ingrid Michaelson pic
Reminds of a girl I used to know
and look at those eyes
Change of venue, change of thought. Its needed about now. Let's pick this up in a different locale and see how it goes.
I just got a high five from a mentally handicapped guy. I know some people that would have punched him dead in the face for approaching them that way. Tells you about some of the people I know.
He's a Ra Tard
Not you Fat Jesus.
And how awesome is this next shot, Peyton Manning knuckle deep in his nostrils. He's digging for another Superbowl ring from the looks of it, cause it won't be happening on the field this year.
I'm taking the Colts in a Pick Em'!
You know, before you can start stuffing people in 55 gallon drums you have to know how to prepare the body. This next guy seems to be banging his way through the process, making a mess of things. But practice makes perfect, right?
Speaking of the Big 5-o.... damn... Barbie got OLD! She's looking like something out of a George Romero flik these days.
Alright, I can't stick with that as a way to go out here, so I'm going to go with something that's a little more me....
There we go. But enough of this screwing around. I've got to get some work done, and this just turned into a mess.
Tomorrow starts Comicon so I won't be around, but tune in next week for my report on that debacle. And in the meantime, and while I'm on the subject, check out the cast of the upcoming Man of Steel, it could be EPIC! And if you haven't seen the new Avengers trailer yet, watch it right here. Looks Sick!
2011 NYC Comicon - Doing it Right
I stopped dead in my tracks at the end of the aisle, my head turning back towards the direction that I'd come. After completing one full lap of the Javits Center the 2011 New York City Comicon had degenerated into looking for random things to take pictures of. There was nothing there that made me stop and say to myself "Whoa! THAT I have to see!"
And then something caught my eye, or rather, someONE. I walked passed, but that vibe stopped me, something I hadn't felt since....
I shook it off, or at least tried to, but we all have those things that catch us in a certain way, the right way. After two more steps toward where The Man had wandered ahead I knew that I had to go back. I've been to a lot of conventions, met a lot of people, but I'd only gone back for a picture with a person one other time. So this meant something.
She was nice, and let me take a shot of her despite the fact that I had asked in an inaudible mumble. That's how I remember it now anyway. Looking at her, I was gone, unable to form a coherent thought. And when I saw how she looked in the photo I melted. I tried showing it to her in the camera, I needed her to see, but again with the mumbling. All I can recall was some head shaking and gorilla noises that caught in my throat while she handed me a card. And that was that, The Man pulled me into another conversation.
It wasn't enough. I can say every way I feel and express any thought or emotion that fills me with a pen and piece of paper with perfect clarity and without trepidation, but talk to a woman who catches me that way and it all goes to hell. There wasn't much of a decision. When you notice something special in a person they should know it, so I printed the picture, in all the ways that it touched me, and I decided to make sure she saw what I saw in her.
Getting ready to go to the event the next morning I finally looked at the card she'd placed in my hand for the first time. I had no idea who she was working for, what she was selling; I could have been walking around with pamphlets for gay porn hanging out of my back pocket and I never would have known it.
When I saw that it was for instigatorzine, a bi-monthly magazine that gives new writers and artists an outlet for exposure I was amazed. As you know, that was the very same angle behind The Mad Doser Presents. My second book, A Loaded Portrait, was put together to test the eBook format for that very thing.
The card also, smartly, had the booth number where I could find them again printed on it. It was something that I hadn't seen anywhere else during the entire show. There's no way I ever would have found them again without it.
When I happened along later that day she wasn't there, so I talked to the person who was, Keith Chiappone, Co-founder and Editor-in-chief of instigatorzine. Being that this was a racket that I had heavy interest in myself there was a lot to talk about, and Keith couldn't have been better explaining the history of instigatorzine, displaying their products, and what they were about.
Keith Chiappone
What caught my attention most wasn't even the fact that they pair artists with each literary entry (the art directly corresponds to the theme of a written piece). It wasn't that they cover all genres. What struck me is that here is a company that's doing everything the right way.
I know that I can write, but like many people out there I have the hardest time getting anyone to take notice, at least not on a scale that allows for doing it professionally. The entire purpose for doing shows like Comicon is to be seen on a mass scale. Vendors spend thousands of dollars securing booths at the show, bring in all their wares, but then stop short of hiring a model to put butts in the seats. They end up being one more boring table easily passed by.
Of course, getting noticed is only part of it. Once people are paying attention its up to you to keep it. Which means having a quality product worth buying into and a man (or woman) behind the plan with the passion, knowledge and engaging personality to get them into it just as much as you are.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen people do one while totally disregarding the other. They all end up the same way, not standing out from the rest, and the 2011 New York City Comicon was full of them.
This image is different than the 1st set of eyes, if you look closely
As I explained to Keith, I never would have noticed them if it wasn't for the girl I needed to have a picture of. She got me hooked. Then they did what they had to in order to make sure you knew exactly where to find them again. Once I got there I got a table full of a variety of their work, stuff that was different than what anyone else had (which is what I look for) displayed before me with that engaging and knowledgeable young man drawing me into their world.
And I have to say, I'm in. For three days now I've been thinking about writing a new story just to submit to their magazine. And I'll be subscribing here just as soon as I'm done writing this piece. I believe in what they're doing because I've been there myself, and because of how well they do it, and you'll be in too. So please, check them out.
Later on in the day I was finally able to hand the young woman the photos. I don't know if she ever looked at them or not, but it doesn't matter. They were for her if she wanted to see something I saw as beautiful, and that was the only point, just as I try to do for you here every day.
I had asked about her, whether she worked for them or not, if she were someone that they hired for the show, wanting to learn as much as I could about how they do their thing for when I'm ready to do the same. As it turns out, she's Jenna Kildosher, the Senior Literature Editor for instigatorzine. So she's as smart as she is beautiful and personally invested in what they're doing. That's the trifecta right there, the magic formula. I'm always telling you how you're only as good as your support system, and what I was told is that a lot of the staff there knew each other from college, and as they go they continue to bring in more people that fit in with their vision and where they want to go, ever expanding that support system. One more thing that they're doing right.
Because of these things, I have no doubt that they're going to succeed in whatever they do.
Jenna Kildosher and I at the instigatorzine booth at Comicon
As for Jenna and what I saw.... maybe you see it too, and maybe you don't..... I'm constantly speaking about and posting pictures of a certain ideal of whats hot... but that's not necessarily MY ideal of whats hot. I've always looked for something different, a spark, the sort of vibe that stops me dead in my tracks. It's something in the eyes, something about soul.... lightning...
That's my ideal. Jenna's a 10.
Tomorrow I'll be telling you a little story about just how far personality goes. I just hope you were getting what I was trying to show you today.
2011 NYC Comicon - Is she Jerking off Jack in the Box?
There's a certain little red head who was really cool that I promised to have a couple of good pics up for in today's piece, but I didn't have time to write what I'd wanted to and do it justice, so that's going to have to wait to tomorrow. Hopefully she tunes into that bat channel to get the shots.
In the meantime though, today's edition is going to be just a little bit of fun, for me at least.
Is she jerking off the Jack in the Box guy? Look at that picture, it definitely looks like that's what's going on. And if you had seen this woman in real life its a possibility. As The Man had said when I snapped this shot, she has porn star looks. The photo really doesn't capture her sexy, and that's what leads me to what I'm going to talk about today.
For as long as I can remember Comic books and the entire world that accompanies it was looked down upon as if it was something just for geeks and nerds. I remember as a kid, even well into high school, that once you busted one out (wait, what? Busted one out....) or began a conversation about it you were destined for the inside of a locker.
This isn't the red head I was talking about, but she'll also be making an appearance in that very same piece, and look how naughty she is.
I was never stuffed in a locker (we didn't have any), and though I was small enough to fit into one back then, I would have punched just about anyone in the face sooner than look at them at the time, so it never would have happened anyway. But that doesn't mean that I didn't get the label. Not that I exactly helped myself in other areas either.
What she was selling, I don't know. But does it matter?
Back then, COMICS = GEEK!
And maybe it still does, I don't know. What I DO know from the thousands upon thousands of people strutting around Comicon this passed weekend is that even if that's the case there are so many of us out there now that we're as free to be who we are as a gay couple in Chelsea.
Another thing that I know is that us geeks love the ladies. While I was really disappointed this year, as opposed to years passed, with what I saw in terms of both the models and costumes of the paying customers, there was still plenty to be gawking at.
She was working for Daz Studios. If you've ever used PoserPro, its a sick program that lets you make movies with digital characters in almost any way you can imagine, then you know Daz because they make a lot of the packages that you use in PoserPro.
Well, they decided to go with their own program now, cutting Poser out of the process. I own PoserPro but I'm pretty much retarded when it comes to learning software (or anything else for that matter), so I never did get anything going with it. Now I want to try the Daz Studios version.
Of course, I wouldn't know about any of that if it wasn't for the gypsy girl here. She's actually one of the models for their packages, so you can buy and download her if you want to take her home with you. Just like in my edition 2011 Comicon - Doing It Right, here's a beautiful woman who's personally invested.
I have to say too, she wasn't all too thrilled while she was working the booth, but MAN could she turn on that fake smile and look like she really meant it when she had to. I've known some of the ladies that do this work for sometime now, had this conversation with them about how they have to do that, and I can tell you this, she's a seasoned pro.
WHOA! There's nothing Nerdy or Geeky about this now, is there? Those bad boys are making me hungry!
These were just two of the thousands in attendance, hot as hell. They were nice enough to stop and let people take pictures of them for a while, and really, why else would you go through all the trouble of dressing up only to be a bitch about it?
Well, I don't know, but you have to ask the little bunny here. She wouldn't tell you if you asked. I was going to hold this pic back for a piece I'll be doing a few days from now on how NOT to do it right, but she still looks pretty good, and she was so nice I don't mind completely objectifying her here. Little bunny... I'll see you next Tuesday!
GET DOWN AND GIVE ME.....
huh huh, huh huh... yeah... give me..... How awesome is this print? By the time I saw this bad boy at the end of the show I was already broke, and I don't have wall space left for this sort of thing anyway, but I was tempted to rearrange the furniture to get that up there. And if you don't think women like the one in the drawing exist in real life.....
Think again! At Comicon they have all kinds of women, any that you can possibly think of. Actually, I took this shot because of the poster in the back. That's Catwoman with the face of Audrey Hepburn. Adam Hughes has to be my favorite artist, specifically because of this. As you all know, I'm completely in love with a woman who's been dead almost twenty years now.... but I'm not alone. And that's a major part of what's so great about these comic events... no matter what kind of a freak you may think you are or what makes you think so, you're going to find someone else thinking the same way. Here you're part of the club. That freak is celebrated... you're even great for it!
Of course, as things always tend to go, Adam Hughes wasn't around any of the times that I passed. My only real reason for posting a second of these pictures is because I know my buddy Walt will be all over that blond. He's probably licking the screen right now. Nice necklace honey... talk about porn star hot... lost in all of this is that the little patriot next to her is pretty sweet too.
There's really no reason for me to have this up. None. Once again though, the picture doesn't do her justice. They rarely do though, do they? Unless of course its staged to be perfect.
Me, I don't stage anything to be perfect, because I'm not perfect, and neither is life. But no matter who you are, once a year or so, no matter what it is that you're into, Comicon gives all of us a chance to be perfect even if its just for a little while.... and you have to dress up like a cartoon character to do it.
Now I lost my train of thought. Where was I? Did I even have a point today? I'm not sure if I did, so tell me what you took from it cause I've got nothing. Better things on the horizon....
2011 Comicon - Personality.... it goes a long way....
"You have to get on your knees" she said, "I want you to beg!"
I looked at the area around me, the red carpet sprawling beneath my feet, it was as if the room had cleared just for this occasion. "On my knees, huh?" I replied with a smile. "Ok, if that's what you're into."
How was it that I got here again? Oh yeah, now I remember.... it was Friday, my head was wrapped up in other things and The Man was getting into it with someone, busting her chops as he does. She was giving it right back. Impressive. Any chick that can handle his shtick and keep it going was worth talking to. He'd tell you the same.
"Because you like him" I heard him telling her when he pulled me into the conversation and away from where my mind was. He looked dead at me, gesturing with his hands, "I know he likes you."
I looked at her, who was staring at me now, and then back at The Man. They were talking about me. "Well," I said with a slight shrug and an indifferent tone, "there's a lot to like."
Was I talking about her or talking about myself?
Yes!
Then I walked away. I had my reasons.
my reasons... I'm Batman!
"You should have talked to her." He told me. It was the second time that day he tried to get me talking to a girl he knew I'd be into. He had a woman, and knows full well how much I need one to free me from my cage. Its the sort of thing friends do.
"I'm not there, dude." I replied. "If something's gonna happen for me its going to have to just happen. I'm in no position for anything else."
When I saw her again I decided I wanted a shot of the girl that hung with The Man. She was good looking, sure, but it was her personality that stood out, her banter, her mannerisms. This one had character.
there goes Tokyo....
"I was talkin to you yesterday." I told her.
"You must mean the blond." Humble. Nice.
"No" I smiled, my tone saying NO WAY! "It was you. My friend was breakin your balls."
"About what?"
I didn't want to say it. Now I broke into a grin. "About likin me. Mind if I get a picture?" I knew I'd be using it for this story. I raised my camera.
"NO!" she yelled, lifting her hands in front of her face. "You have to buy something first." This went on for a minute or two before I conceded. "Ok" I said with a shrug.
At that moment the artist grabbed her, sensing I was getting away. He held her there until I got my pic. I had the wrong lense on.
"I'm the model for the story" she said, picking up one of the books. Then the artist went into his sales pitch, showing me his work. She was the model. The process he used was exactly something I talked to The Man about doing two years ago. It was the idea that got us going to Comicon in the first place.
He set up his story like shots in a movie, then photographed the scene. Then he posterized the pictures with photoshop and re-inked them. Or something similar. You still need artistic talent to pull it off, and sets and actors to shoot.
I was in already. I came here to see something different, and this was. I wanted to do this myself, so I wanted to see how he did it. And I would have bought them just for the picture of her. I do things like that. Besides.... I needed something to write about; I didn't tell them that though, I let him sell me on it anyway.
So I got on my knees, and she really gave me something to remember her by. That was fun. That was great.
That was the Loaded Barrel Studios booth. The artist is Jared Barel. The model is Mars Alexandra. The books are "Brielle and the Horror" and "Grey"
So far I haven't checked out Grey, though I'll probably have read it by the time you read this. Brielle and the Horror was excellent. Two issues weren't enough; I NEED to know what happens next. I feel like I've been left hanging and its driving me NUTS! I want to get back in there, re-engage Maverick!
The art is definitely different. It might take some getting used to for some of you, but there's a lot to like, and you can tell over a span of just a few issues that it keeps getting better. At times the lettering pops, which is huge. But what impresses me the most is that shooting the panels for this look is much more like directing a movie than anything else. The pacing is superb; another must with this type of storyline. You know my thing is storyline. I hope they can keep it going, and I think you should check it out.
The title of this piece is "Personality.... it goes a long way", so how does my little story tie in? Just as I had said in "Doing it right" with how Jenna pulled me back to the instigatorzine booth, Mars Alexandra was the reason I became interested in Loaded Barrel (Amazingly the booths we right next to one another; read between the lines and you'll put it all together). This time it was how the girl carried herself, her sassy, playful attitude that made her memorable. If she had been a dead fish, non-responsive to The Man's charm, or worse, a dismissive bitch, then I wouldn't be writing about this right now. But as she was, she was perfect.
Add to that how Jared jumped in right when he sense he had to, taking the time to show me each of the books on the table while being very personable in the process and they won themselves a new fan. And as of this writing, I am a fan.
Once again, a team of people personally invested gets it done. This time by giving me an enjoyable experience out of what comes naturally by being themselves. Even Ringo, who snapped the photos, had a smile on his face the entire time. I hope they do well and find nothing but big things ahead. Mars definitely lets the beast out of the cage, and it's beautiful to see.
Speaking of letting the beast out, this sexy beast just above (I told you I'd get back to her in yesterdays post) had some of that going on herself. You can tell she's having fun. But it wasn't enough for me to give a damn about what she was selling, and there's good reason, none of it her fault at all.
I've gone on in detail this week about how important it is to get noticed, and then once you get that notice, to have something worth showing and worth saying in order to keep the attention that's so hard to gain. I hope my stories served well to illustrate the point.
But getting noticed is a double edged sword. Its of the utmost importance to get noticed the right way, and for the right things. Being remembered for the wrong thing, something negative, can completely turn your audience off and destroy any chance you had with them.
Tomorrow we'll talk about the WRONG way of doing things..... but that's all for now folks....
2011 NYC Comic - what NOT to do... being remembered the wrong way!
Last night I wrote over five pages on all the wrong things to do when you're trying to make a name or keep your name, build a fan base or hold the love and adoration of people everywhere.... it was biting, it was funny... the sort of thing you pass on to your friends saying "YO, you HAVE to read this..." which is something I very much need. Its that 2nd and 3rd level that really brings success, when you tell your friends and then they tell their friends, which hasn't been happening for me here... and this article had what it took to get there.... you would have been telling everyone about it....
And then I tore it up. Biting, nasty and hurtful funny may be a way to get myself noticed, but its not what I want to be remembered for. Its not how I want people to think of me.
These girls right here knew that I was taking this picture; I had asked them politely before doing so, and this was the reception that I got. Either they were bored with the gig and didn't want to be there or I just wasn't important enough for them to waste their time with.
And when they finally did acknowledge me what I got was a blank stare and a half assed smile. Originally I had ripped them apart. Part of the allure of going to any sort of show like this is getting pictures with the ladies, and when you take a job getting paid for nothing more than how good you look pictures with the oogling customers is part of the gig.
Then I saw that part of the brunettes nipple is showing when you look closely at the picture. She's practically bare breasted here, and maybe she's feeling uncomfortable; the blond there's no excuse for, she has that same indifferent blank stare in every shot.
Compare that to this girl here. Look how nice and sweet she looks. I'm not sure if she was even a model working the booth where I caught her because I didn't see her again for the rest of the weekend, but she hung around until everyone who wanted a picture of her got one, and she did so with a real genuine smile on her face. She made you feel like she was happy to see you.
And here's that other girl again the next day telling me to get out of there with a look. I don't have to be where I'm not wanted, and I certainly don't have to spend my money there. Maybe she was still uncomfortable prancing around in her draws, I don't know.
The fangs here are awesome, they really make the costume, and you can tell from the way that the corners of her mouth and the corners of her eyes curl upwards (micro expressions) that she's not faking the smile at all.
Now check out the sneer on her mug. The look of disdain is downright sickening, I can feel my stomach turning just thinking about it. Do you see a major difference here? I don't know what she was selling or for who, but I never attempted, nor would I even try, to find out. If I did know I'd tell you all to get as far away from them as possible. I wrote two articles this week, "Doing it right" and "Personality..." about people that made me WANT to know what they were about by drawing me in in different ways, and here all I can talk about is how turned off I am by these people.
Maybe the people she was working for are horrible, making them do things that make them completely uncomfortable in a large crowd. And maybe its just the girls, maybe they don't really want to be there and think they're above some of the people in that crowd, above taking pictures for people yearning to be part of a new club. Either way, its a disaster, as you can see clearly.
Do you remember this guy? Brian C. O'Halloran, played Dante Hicks in Clerks and a whole lot of nothing afterwards? He was charging $25 a pop for his autograph when he should have been happy people even remember him. Clerks was one of my favorite movies in college, even for $10 I would have done it and come away thinking how great an experience it was. Instead I don't even want to hear his name now. Meanwhile, for $10 I got my picture sitting inside the actually Delorean used in "Back to the Future" AND the Batmobile's from the 1989 Batman movie and the 1960's TV series.
At least Dante is a pseudo-celebrity though. One guy gave me his sales pitch about his Comic line that no one ever heard of that he was trying to promote. He had a good line going, I was about to buy when I gave him my card for this blog. "I don't want you to waste your card" he told me. Thanks. Thanks for nothing. I don't want to waste my money either. So I walked away.
Pseudo-Celebrities, like pseudo intellectuals, really crack me up with what they think they're worth and why. Up top is a picture of smoking hot Jessica Buriaga, a Playboy Playmate of the month like 2 years ago. She's famous for nothing more than taking her clothes off.
And this stunner is Kayla Collins, another Playmate from like 2008 when she was 18 or so. Both of these lovely ladies were at Comicon this past weekend...
Did I say lovely? Not at all. Do you see the looks on their faces? The one on the left is Jessica Buriaga and the one on the right is some other random chick who took it all off for the cameras. I didn't even bother trying to get one of Kayla Collins, and for good reason. They were charging people $15 just to take a picture of them WITH YOUR OWN CAMERA! Seriously, for them to stand up and pose for you they were charging $15. Where do people get off? The only people who even know who these girls are are the ones who beat the meat to their pictures. And am I really getting a better shot than the mostly nude airbrushed to hell versions up top? Hell no.
Because of this I wouldn't pay any mind to anything these women are promoting ever again. Meanwhile, all it would have taken was a nice smile and a pretty pose (all they know how to do) and I'd have been hooked for life.
By contrast, that's Zulay Henao who starred opposite Channing Tatum in the movie Fighting. At 32 years old she's still every bit as hot as either of the girls from Playboy (hell, she probably has a much better body) and she's actually got some kind of talent other than the promise of what she does on her back. Zulay was promoting her movie Boy Wonder, and because of this picture alone I looked it up and may even wind up checking it out.
At one point she walked through the hall with her body guard and we locked eyes from only about three feet away. There was no uncomfortable feeling, no air of superiority, no I'm hot and in movies so give me money just because I showed up, none of that. She might actually think that, but I would never know it because she made me feel welcome, like a person. And now I think she's great!
I'm not sure if this piece flows as smoothly as many of my others, or that it gets my point across the way that I want to, but sometimes we do so much reaching up for that higher level on the ladder that we step on the people on the rungs below, and it causes the exact opposite effect that we're going for. We want to get noticed, but its imperative to be noticed for the RIGHT reasons or you may lose them forever. Which means don't just bring in models, bring in the RIGHT models that fit what you're doing. Don't just bring in celebrities, but the RIGHT celebrities that live the message you're trying to send. Don't just have people working for you, but who really love what you're about and WANT to make it better.
And if you're lucky enough to get that elevated status, remember the people that got you there. It wasn't the ones up on the top of the mountain already, its the average everyday people that get behind you, pushing you up there. I've had friends who's careers blew up only to change to that Playboy Playmate "I don't have time for you" mentality. At one time I would have done anything for them, and now I can't be bothered. Its all in how you do things....
Divine Inspiration and that thing that guides you...
Have you ever had a really great idea that you just knew would work, but for whatever reason you just weren't able to pull it off, only to see someone else doing exactly what you wanted to later on down the road?
While I'm not quite done with my Comicon coverage (there are still a few things I wanted to get in there), I wanted to talk about something today that's been on my mind all week. And if you don't think that there's something divine, or at the very least something guiding us, beyond the veil of perception, what we like to call life or reality, then you just aren't paying attention.
Earlier in the week I spoke about Instigatorzine and their bi-monthly magazine that puts new authors and aspiring artists together in order to try to get them some exposure, and how I had wanted to do that myself, which was the very purpose behind The Mad Doser Presents in the first place.
A few days later I gave you an article about Loaded Barrel Studios and the comic line that they produce using a process that I had wanted to try two years ago.
Well... the Jacob Javits Center is an enormous place. The NYCC stretched across 6 massive rooms with thousands of booths set up with all kinds of products and creative ideas spread out before you. Yet out of that entire show flow and display after display, the two companies that struck me most were right next to one another using the very same ideas that I had wanted to work with but was unable to get going on.
For me it was a matter of that all important support system that I keep prattling on about. I could never get the right people around me to help out or get the people that I DID have to help excited enough about the projects to want to contribute more. Its a failing that I have, my greatest flaw, that keeps me from finding the success I've long sought.
Originally I had told you that I walked right by at first, but it was a feeling I had, a vibe from an attractive young lady that got me to go back. Some might say that was God, or the Force, whatever you believe, saying "hold on right there kid. I want you to see something. You were right, those ideas of yours work... and THIS is how its done. Now go out there and get em".
If you look at the pics I've posted today you may see some similarites in them with the comics I highlighted earlier in the week. I had done these over two years ago now; the cameras used weren't nearly as good as the one I have now either. This next one actually caused a huge fight where the girls boyfriend threatened to beat me up for messing with his property... until he found out what he was in for if he tried it. She ended up cutting me off over it only to find out he had been cheating on her with his ex the entire time they were going out....
But for all the work I had done, or thought that I had done, there was and is still such a long way to go, and I wasn't putting the pieces together the right way. I came away from the week seeing how very much was ahead of me if I really wanted to make it in this business, how much would have to be done if I were to do it right.
The thing of it is... you can take almost anything as a positive or a negative. I could be looking at this in terms of how far ahead in the game other people are over me, and how much I have to do just to catch up; a daunting task. Or I could look at it like this..... something just showed me the way!
Sure, there's a LOT that I have to get done now. One of my tasks for the weekend is a major list making marathon just to set up a chart of all there is to do. But now I have a clear idea of exactly what that is, and exactly what I have to do to get there. Its going to take time. Its going to take money I don't have. Its going to take people I don't know. And that's going to require me changing the way I do things and learning new ways to communicate with people in order to get all of that, bring people into the fold.... I have to become a new me....
You know what though..... ever since I've felt a charge that I haven't had in a long, long time. Where once before I'd be overwhelmed and crushed by the fear of all the bad that could happen, now I feel nothing but the challenge in everything, and its stirred my soul. Its carried over into other areas of my life already. And I'm ready to go.
Who says there's nothing watching over us, guiding our way?
And so... I'm giving you something. Here's a link to a free download of my last eBook "A Loaded Portrait". I've always said I write for your enjoyment, so enjoy. Its a book of short stories that we had put together to test the eBook format when we were trying to do the very thing Instigatorzine is now promoting new writers and artists. If you like what you see, contact me and you can be in the next one. All I ask is that you pass it along to everyone you know.
That's all for today.
Reminders that Life is Awesome and the Christmas Beard Contest!
The timing couldn't have been better. Friday night was a total wash; I don't even remember it, couldn't tell you what I was doing. And the rest of the afternoon I was dealing with a twin monster. The first was a little facebook social experiment I tried, giving away my eBook "A Loaded Portrait" for free and asking people to share the link. I personally tagged every single person on my friend list, hoping for 10%. I fell far short of that, and I could have told you every single person who would do it before I even started. It was both crushing and eye opening.
The second was the redesign of Maddoser.com. If you didn't know, that's really my base of operations. You need a solid web presence, and that one is mine. I'd neglected it for sometime now.... but there's a plan in the works..... I needed a mood changer... something to put me in a positive spin.
My buddy Mike was gracious enough to invite me to his birthday party, and I really needed to be out and around people, but I wasn't sure what they would be getting out of me; I wasn't in a partying mood. But its a relaxed atmosphere with Mike and his wife and friends... I was getting comfortable, guests were filing in....
And then it happened.....
"You know what I love?" a woman I just met said to me in the middle of a conversation we were having about Elvis....
"Dr. Phil!"
"huh." I responded immediately, matter of factly.
Its not polite to laugh in someones face, not conducive to a free fun having party atmosphere. So Mike, when he saw my reaction, had to turn away.
A few minutes later a new challenge was laid before me, something that I didn't see coming. I had no idea what I was in for; I wasn't prepared. I walked into the room and The Wiz kicked me square in the nuts! I dropped to one knee gasping for air, couldn't move, down for the count. It was my second eye opening experience of the night.... no body beats The Wiz.... nobody beats The Wiz.
I had been weighed, I had been measured... and I had been found wanting...
Time to officially send me down to the minor leagues. I just can't hang with the big boys any longer.
As Mike said later on that night, its not often that you can look across the room at someone and know EXACTLY what the other person is thinking. But it kept happening. The order of things is really skewed now, but there was the first time in my life anyone has ever compared me to Collin Farrel.
Most of the time they tell me I look just like Matthew Glave.... you know him as Glenn Gulia.
Somewhere in the middle of Forest Gump drinking Dr. Pepper and having to pee, ruining your Black Panther party, and deciding not to run anymore it happened again...
"NO ONE SAYS GOOD BYE TO ME WHEN THEY LEAVE!"
WHOA! What the hell is going on here? I don't know, but I can't recall laughing so much in one night in a very, very long time. Over and over again I was being reminded of just how LIFE IS THE BEST!!!
Because you just can't make this up.
I don't know if it was because I was the new guy (everyone loves the new guy) or if I just fit in that well with everyone there, but MAN, was I happy I went. Some people are lucky enough to have this sort of experience all the time, every week, and life is so awesome for them because of it that they never even realize that there's any other way. Sign me up for that right now! I'm in!
And you know what else I'm in on? The inaugural Christmas Beard Challenge! That's right, we're making it official. You have from now until Christmas to grow out the BEST, most creative, beard that you can pull out of that mug of yours. We haven't even decided what the winner gets yet, but that's not the point... winning is... and getting a cool beard out of it.... one more thing to stroke... play with. My face is begging for a shave right now, but its not going to happen. Mike and Joe are going to give me a run for my money. And last night Ringo joined the frey. These are the things you get into in the midst of being reminded how awesome life is.
That and.... I've never had anyone throw themselves at me like that in my entire life. It was crazy. Quite literally... CRAZY!
I don't think its crazy at all....
I'm just glad Mike and I were on the same page the entire time, there's nothing better than being around folks that are seeing the world the same way that you are in that moment..... and laughing your ass off at it the whole night.....
As I drove home another thing really struck me.... the third eye opener of the day....
Normally I'm the guy people look at with that expression that says "WTF?", but even I have my people with whom we just go together like peas and carrots (thanks Forest). More and more I'm finding mine. What I was seeing was any lady friend (special lady friend, that is, YEEAAHHH!) that I start spending time with has GOT to be able to chill in that crowd, chill at that party, and fit in just as well. Guys and gals alike, you don't want to be hanging out with someone that makes your friends pull you aside and say "WTF?". You don't want to be strapped to the one who makes your buddies look across the room at each other and know what the other is thinking.... laughing so hard they're crying about it....
Unless you do it on purpose. Afterall, we all need a good laugh, don't we. We all need those reminders of how awesome life is. I got mine Saturday night thanks to Mike, his wife Mary Jayne and their awesome friends. Because of how great they were, I got to be great too.
As for my little social experiment..... it was a test that had to be done. I know I can write, now more than ever, but that and $2.50 might get you on a bus. Unless you can get people to check you out its all for naught, and I had to see just how bad I am at that. And its bad! As it goes... I don't have anything most of these people want... they don't see what's in it for them by helping me. Now at least I know the people I can count on and the ones I can't.
Before my experiences of the past week or so I would have looked at the mountain before me and decided not to start the climb. Seriously, in my position I probably should just give up, get a job, put my head in the sand and forget the whole writing thing. But since seeing what I told you about in my articles "Doing it right", "Personality...." and "what NOT to do" something has changed in me, and I NEED to take on the challenge. And I know what did it too....
Eh, maybe I should just give it up anyway.... maybe I'm too overmatched, too far behind the rest the of pack, too late to the game to make a things work....
But I don't feel tardy.
Slave Girl Princess Leia, and the balance between negative heckling and constructive criticism...
The response to yesterdays post, and all of last week, was OUTRAGEOUS! Thanks for that! Its amazing how that happens when just 1 of you shares these posts with your friends on Facebook.
One of the things that I held back from my coverage of the New York City Comic Con, the review of a book I was given for free from someone that I've seen around at a few different venues just for the purpose of the review, ends up being the perfect lead in for today.
The reason its perfect.... I just can't do it. I can't.
The book wasn't good. Sure, there were a couple of good ideas, but nothing sustainable. It just seemed like a bad rip on the old Tick comics, with a story that just didn't work. But I know how hard it is to do all that work, believe in it, put the time, money and effort into selling it... and it going no place. I just don't have the heart to tear it apart, not like I would do with multimillion dollar Hollywood productions.
The shame of it is, in terms of getting yourself out there, the creator was doing everything right. He had the nice looking booth girl getting attention, he spent the money on a nice sized booth, his table was full of different things like T-Shirts and what not.... but this is what happens when you're selling a product that's just not good.
And its situations just like this that sometimes put me at odds with a lot of the success principles that I've been learning over the passed few years. You're supposed to get as far away as you can from the naysayers. If people don't believe in what you're doing, you're not supposed to listen to them. Negative people will only drag you down, so go out there and live your dream, and all that jazz, right? Except that sometimes they're right.
There's a big difference between belittling someones dreams because you want to keep them down, or because you can't let them become more successful than you are, or whatever other reasons you can come up with, and the genuine warning that a real friend, and only a real friend, can offer.
If we're going to meet some ladies and your breath smells like my taint after a summer softball double header, its up to me to tell you about it. If you have a voice that sounds like someones skinning cats in a back alley behind a Chinese take out joint, and you're scheduled to appear on American Idol, then its my job to let you know what you're in for. If you've got a new man or woman in your life, and I've seen pictures of them online taking the hot lunch.... AND all of your friends think they're annoying and crazy and will ruin you.... guess what.....
So as much I do believe in positive thinking and perseverance, believing in what you do and all of that mess... you also have to know when you're backing the wrong horse.
Now, I could have made a splendid display a ripping this guy apart (I'm can be a real ass when I get my Irish up), just like I could have done a weeks worth of hysterical reviews of people that should never be dressed as Princess Leia in the slave outfit letting it all hang out..... but what would I really gain out of that? I'd effectively be destroying a good, though misguided, guy and his dream and given that gut wrenching twist that any of us with a conscious feels when we've hurt someone for no good reason; that sick feeling we get when we know we've done something really wrong.
Of course, I could have been a good media whore and done whatever I had to for new audience members. I could have blown this guy like a fluff girl at a gang bang so he'd tell everyone he knows how great I am.... but you all know how much I hate people that are full of it.... besides... to do so would not only cheapen the write ups I gave on the people, companies, and work that I really enjoyed... it would have cheapened everything that I have to say.
That's integrity, and its hard to keep, especially when you're up against it. But at the end of things, what else do we really have.
That doesn't mean I have to be nasty though. You know how the saying goes... if you've don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
Maybe I'm getting old. Or maybe I'm just getting soft. Possibly both. The truth is that I probably don't have a right to complain about anything bad that happens to me. If you've ever been standing on a corner on Queens Blvd and randomly got pelted with Wendy's burgers... yeah... you're welcome. And if you've been on a date on cold winter night.... and some ass soaked you with a full Big Gulp.... could have been me too. There was a time that I was a horrible human being...
What am I talking about, that still makes me laugh my ass off....
I'm a terrible person.
My post yesterday was talking about an awesome time we had, mostly at the expense of someone. And now I find myself caught between conflicting emotions. Yeah, that was great, so damn funny I don't have words for it. Yet at the same time, I think I can say for sure that every one of us at one time or another has gone to a party, let it all out, had a good time, only to find out later on that we completely embarrassed ourselves somehow. Everyones that ass sometime, right? Eh, maybe its just me. That's part of the reason I keep the manimal in the cage.... ever on the look out for the return of the ass!
Everyone of us has thought we made a real connection with someone, only to find out that it was the exact opposite, and they want to run as far from us as possible. Eh, maybe that's just me too, I don't know. That's a terrible feeling; its heartbreaking.
What I was going to say today, the point of all of this, was to remember that these people, the guy with the bad book, the nut job at the party.... well, they're people too. Imagine how you would feel if it were you in that position. It puts a whole different spin on the scenario doesn't it? If I have a strength at all these days its empathy, and that's born out of always trying to put myself in someone else's shoes, see things how they're seeing it, feel what they're feeling. Try it sometime, it'll change you for the better.
'Of course.... I may have my stalker for the first time in years, so you have to find a way to tell someone. You can't keep having them ruin your parties or life stops being a party, you'll lose the reminders of how awesome life is. If your friends favorite Chinese Take Out has people skinning cats in the back alley, you should probably find a way to tell them that may be broccoli, but that aint chicken. And if they're putting all of their time, money, effort and dreams into a thing that will never catch on because it just completely sucks....
I just don't have the heart to hurt anyone these days. I've been there too many times myself to make someone else go through it too. Unless they're one of the "popular" people or "beautiful" people that have always crapped on the ones they deemed unworthy....
Those people make me LOVE showing just what an ASSHOLE I can be. Really.
But not when its a good person, no matter how crazy or misguided they may be.
But that doesn't mean they don't need help to find the right path. Myself included. So where's the balance? That's my question for the day. Hit me with your opinions, give me some answers.
The picture challenge and your montage song!
Most of the time I try to carefully choose the pictures that I use to enhance whatever I'm talking about, and since I've started doing it I find its a real nice form of storytelling. Beyond that, what better way to make a point; afterall, a picture is worth a thousand words.
There are times though, that for whatever reason, the mood I'm in or the story I'm telling, feels a little heavy. No one likes to be a downer, and that's certainly not what we're going for here, is it? When I'm reading one of the pieces I've prepared for you and catch that in the tone I look for something to pick it up, balance it out. It always comes back to balance, doesn't it?
While I realize that it may turn some of you off, so will crying in my cheerios, so I hope its only off putting for a bit. Besides, what can be more iconic than Princess Leia? The real reason behind choosing those pictures was simple though..... I couldn't decide which one to go with, so I used them all.
I'll have to find a creative way to make it up to the ladies, all my female fans out there (which is most of my readers, surprisingly), that makes me use nothing but pictures of dudes that won't make me sick. THAT my friends, should be interesting. BUT.... part of the entire reason behind this mess is to get those creative juices flowing, so I'll come up with something cool; its a good challenge.
I'm all for a creative challenge. I love the damn things. Often, when you're writing everyday, it can be hard to come up with good topics. And those of you who read me all the time can by now tell the difference when I'm really feeling something. With this, and even more so in my storytelling, what I use in my fiction for my books, when you're really feeling it the story just writes itself. As the writer your only job is to just let it happen. All the best things in life happen that way, don't you think?
That's probably why I enjoyed the short story book that I've been pushing so much. I think every one of those stories had been something like that.
One of the stories in that book, "A Moment", one of my favorite pieces that I've ever put down, took ten years to write. I had the idea, but it took meeting the right person and one of my worst days in life to happen in order to put it all together. From there it just flowed through me, and now because of it, one of the dearest creatures to ever touch my heart will be with me forever. Not that I needed the story for that, but I get to share her with you, which you couldn't experience otherwise.
I've got a lot of talented musician friends, and many of them tell me that for them its the same thing, the music just flows through them. Well.... I'm always looking for new ways to tap that flow.
So here's a little something different for you, a way to make things more fun, and get this spot on a whole new interactive level..... you pick the pictures and I'll write something based on them. Pick out any ten random photos that aren't porn and I'll see what I can do with them. Sent them to john@maddoser.com
In the meantime, maybe you can help me with something I've been trying to decide since WAY back to my very first post "I NEED TO FLY ON THIS ONE!". If you haven't read that one you really should. I've come a long way since then now that I decided to clean it up, but just be warned, its full of swearing and toilet humor. Actually, that's probably all it is.
Anyway.... what would your montage song be?
Every time I think of the answer a hundred songs fill my head. Most of the time I learn towards Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly" because it seems to fit where I am right now.
Though I'm really not too sure that a slower song would do, a montage should be fast and upbeat, no?
That's not where I'm at though. For a moment I thought "No Rain" would work perfectly....
"All I can say is that my life is pretty plain...."
But a montage is supposed to show you getting things done, progressing through the major stages of your life in a three minute musical mosaic.
Still, "No Rain" fits pretty well right now. Trouble is... who wants to watch a three minute clip of me sitting around doing nothing in all its various forms for six months? And sadly, right there, if anything does, that statement just about sums up my sorry state of affairs.
DAMN, I NEED A MONTAGE!
The real answer to the montage question probably lies in what you want for your life in the next few weeks or months though I suppose, if we had that choice. And since I'm stuck on Tom Petty anyway, I'm going to leave you with the montage song I'd choose, one of my favorite of all time, if mine were a love story.
Yeah.... that'd be cool.
That's what I really want.
What about you? What would be happening? What would your song be?
They're not always "Happy" Endings!
We all have our dreams, our goals, what we want to do and where we hope life will take us. But I wonder how many of you out there truly understand the delicate nature of the paths we tread, how a single fateful moment can change the course of our destiny, how far off one wrong decision can pull us from fulfillment.
Mike was a hardworking man, constructed a living from his sweat and blood, but he too wanted more. Like many of us, he hoped to one day meet the girl of his dreams, settle down, get married.
There was a deep seated desire that poured from the center of his soul to share his music with the world, get out on tour, play before packed houses in exotic locations and party it up with celebrities. Though, if it came down to it, Mike would have settled for buying a drink for his idol, his inspiration, Frank Turner, and see how crazy the night could get.
When one works hard, they party hard too; its almost a necessity, something that must be done to make it all worth it. And Mike knew how to party!
That party was at Mike's place this time around, but what's a party without the one essential ingredient.... BEER?! The days had been so long, so rough, that he hadn't had time to stop at the store. He was fresh out of the most glorious invention of all time, and soon enough his group of misfits would be descending upon his man cave full of dreams of drunken debauchery.
What was a guy to do in moments like this? He'd have to find a place to stop, pick something up, at least enough to get things going.... and then he saw it.
So often we find ourselves calling out to some higher power, some beneficial force, that when things appear to us out of thin air we choose to take them as divine events meant to save us from our plight. But sometimes, just sometimes, when something appears too good to be true, that's precisely what it is.
"Free beer with donation" the sign in the window read, as if just for him. It was a sign from God; Mike and the boys would be partying hard tonight.... and I don't mean in a soup kitchen.
"Whatsa matta boy?" she answered in an accent he couldn't place, "you tink dis called The Jerk Hut fa nuttin?" And then her face gnarled into a twisted smile. "We aint be servin chicken here."
There's a major advantage in the animal world, a gift not granted to human men.
If it HAD been granted, we would never get ourselves into this sort of trouble, but then, we'd probably never leave the house either. Mike caught on to just what type of donation it was going to take when she snapped a rubber glove over her outstretched hand, pointing towards the back room with a grin.
At that moment a vision flashed in his mind at just what these drink fests could degenerate to.....
Looking around, it didn't seem as if anyone could ever find out, and here he had a guarantee. Besides, the happy ending would let him relax for the rest of the night. He'd be set, no matter what kind of sausage fest the night turned into, and none of his buddies would ever know. Who cares that she was old as dirt?
"So, uh.... what kind of beer is it?"
After two showers Mike still felt dirty, but there was just no way to cleanse his soul. Friends piled into the living room, poured into the yard, but it didn't take long to realize that things had gone desperately wrong.
"Our own special brew" is probably never an acceptable answer when asking what you're drinking from a place called "The Jerk Hut" that's giving happy endings out back. But Mike wasn't thinking clearly anymore at that point, his manhood had taken over, and what real man can turn down free beer and sexual gratification simultaneously, no matter WHAT package either came in?
When the guests began dropping like flies the horrific notion came to him.... exactly what was it tainting those beers?
Gone was the dream of tropical vacations; there would be no playing in packed houses in front of rabid crowds in far off exotic locations..... no longer was there hope of dream girls, of better days....
You just can't go swimming or get close to the ladies when you're forced to live out the rest of your days under quarantine.....
In a hazmat suit.
But don't be sad for Mike....
His time in the Jerk Hut wasn't all for naught
His donation didn't go to waste....
Man juice didn't fruit the beer; it was a certain guarantee that no one would pass that way twice which did that...
Mike's seed has been planted.
His bloodline will live on...
This is how babies are made.....
WHERE PEACOCKS DARE!
Special thanks to Mike Graci for taking up the picture challenge.
I hope I didn't disappoint.
Frank Turner kicked ass on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night.
He's so damn good. I'll be listening to his Pandora station all day today.
Beavis and Butthead reboots tonight - can't wait!
Closing Time.... on your big dreams of fame and fortune - How the entertainment business really works
Here's something that you may have already heard, maybe not, but I definitely found interesting. Last night I attended a small reading for a memoir written by Jacob Schlicter, the drummer of the band Semisonic, called "So you want to be a Rock and Roll Star". In case you forgot (because I did) they had the song "Closing Time" a few years back that was a pretty big hit.
Eh, mostly that song just annoys the shit out of me, but like anything else as time passes and we're reminded of our days of yore, those glory days, and because we associate a song with that feeling it seems to get better to us. That's probably the only reason people don't think Bon Jovi completely sucks anymore.
But that's neither here nor there, and none of this is what I found interesting. Not at all.
After the reading Jake went on to explain how the music business works once a record label signs a band. They act like a bank, with the label paying for everything, production cost of the album, music video fees, tours, promotional products, advertising... all of it. The band itself makes money off of royalties from the album, but only AFTER the record company gets back all of the cash it shelled out in the initial investment to set the whole thing up.
Problem is, he informed us, that it costs upwards of $800 thousand dollars just to get a song on the radio. Thats not counting any of the other fees associated with getting a band to hit it big.
Semisonic sold well over a million albums, had a hit song that pretty much everyone alive at the time heard played constantly over the radio, which by anyones terms would have to be considered a huge success, right? And for all of their troubles, they made NO MONEY doing it. None. By the time the record label took back their expenses there was nothing left for the band.
And this is the same story with pretty much every aspect of the entertainment industry, whether you're a musician, writer, artist, model, whatever it is... unless you reach mega-stardom there really isn't the big fortune waiting at the end of the rainbow. The best that you can hope for is that you get to do something you love for a few years and become well known enough to open up opportunities for yourself later on down the road.
As he explained though, if you don't think that you have it in you to be that mega-star, you might as well not even bother. This is why they tell you, especially when it comes to being a writer, that if you can do anything else at all, you should do it. There's a lot of heartache, hard work for broken dreams without return on investment, and low paying gigs waiting down that road, with no promise at all for better days ahead. I'll probably be broke for the rest of my life because of it, because I'm a writer, its all I know how to do. Damn, I'd love to be a mechanic or an electrician, at least those guys make money.
So how was it that Schlicter became a writer? Well, while they were on tour he had been doing a blog, and someone he knew with connections told him how good they were and that he should put them into a book. The idea was then given to a literary agent whom Jake seemed to trust, and shopped around to various houses until it was finally picked up. The publishing company set up some promotional appearances in a few cities, and then he had to use his own cash to pay to promote the book in other places.
Here is a guy who played drums in a band that sold over a million albums, wrote a book that was picked up by a major publishing house, and he's giving free readings for small groups of about fifteen people in coffee shops in Long Island. I only went because it was down the block from me in the place I normally go to get my writing done anyway.
If that right there doesn't show you the man behind the curtain and open your eyes to how things go when people DON'T know who you are, then I really don't know what else to say to you. This is why you go to things like Comic Con and see every big comic artist in the industry set up little booths and selling prints for $10 a pop, and why flegling actors and former Playboy Playmates have to charge you for pictures you take with your own camera.... because its all a lie, a myth, and only the MOST famous, the big boys, really make the money to call the shots and stop playing the game.
For the rest, all what you really get out of it is an invitation to the party until you're too old to do it anymore. For the Playmates and models, that's about 30 years old. For the guys, its when you can't pay the bills or get those playmates and models to sleep with you anymore. Then its time to get a real job.
I didn't pick up the book, he ran out of copies (like I said, it was a REALLY small reading), but I'm thinking about it because it seemed to be very well done going by the excerpt that he read. And there it is, even for the semi-famous, those who had someone open the door for them, its still about gaining a fan or two one coffee shop at a time.
In a sense though, this makes me feel a whole lot better. The approach that we're taking in regards to what we offer young writers at The Mad Doser Presents and Gemini publishing is exactly the same as every other big company out there. Its how the industry works, so we're doing it right.
If there's an issue its with the delusions that aspiring entertainers have of "making it" and what success in this field is. Schlicter talked about how, when he was in the band, he focused on the business side of things, how many fans he had and the money they made, their fame, as the measure for success, and it sucked all of the energy (and the cool) right out of the experience. Now as a writer, he focuses more on the joy of doing it. And that HAS to be what you're in it for.... or you're DEAD!
The other day I was listening to TMCtheshow again, and they're every bit as good as anything you're going to hear on the radio. They have their format down, good characters, and they really love what they're doing. What sets shows like Opie and Anthony apart from them is the money behind it, the exposure they get with celebrity guests and spots that easily fall into their laps, and the ever important fan interaction that juices things up. But none of that has anything to do with the performers. With the right backing they'd be just as "known", I have no doubt of that. Unfortunately this is how it works.
Its our responsibility to one another to help each other out as much as humanly possible with cross promotion and whatever else it takes to push us all to that point of recognition. And then, once you've made it, to continue to help up others trying to make a name behind you as well. Have you ever noticed how often famous writers all seemed to know each other, were friends, before they became famous, and all hit that stardom at the same time? Try watching some of the BIO network shows on your favorite actors and its the same thing with them, constantly you see acting troops of young nobodies doing plays and whatnot for free... ten years later half of them are mega-stars, and guess what... they all end up doing movies together continuosly....
With that... I'm trying for ways to get big time exposure, not just for myself but for my people as well. I put it out there yesterday, but I'm now officially looking for aspiring models and actresses to be part of the Ladies of D. Its a whole involved thing that makes all the sense in the world to anyone who knows how all this works. There's a thing or two I could tell you about modelling agencies also.... but thats for another time.
Of course, people get so hooked on those big dreams they get short sighted in the here and now.... so it probably won't go anywhere..... but lets just see.
Its All Hallows Eve...
what you call Halloween, and the sun is nearly up, so there's not much time.
I hope this letter reaches you, that you read it, for its your eyes its meant for. I've never had the right words, that grand sweeping prose that moves the heart, grabs hold of one's soul, but I've always thought in those ways. If only I would have known how to bring to bear those notions so powerful that I am enveloped by them, and in so doing wrap you in this ceaseless love only felt for you.
Love.... so foreign a concept when heard from my lips, more so to those whom know who, know what I've become, what I am. Nevertheless, it is my nature, though none have ever felt it from me, and it runs deeper than you will ever know.
Perhaps, in all of it, that is the most tragic aspect.... that no one, that you, will ever know those depths of my soul. And again, I search for words that won't come... forever searching for what will not come.... and maybe its just as well.
The sky is beginning to brighten just over the horizon now. The stars still shine and the moon gazes upon me, but their light dims with the coming day. I've moved my desk to face the window, removed the shades. Its been so long now since I've seen the sunrise..... I can't think of a more beautiful way to say farewell.
So long I'd spent chasing things outside of myself, anything that would give me that spark of life once more, that I missed all of everything that truly fills a man. Its led me down this dark path, left me with this hunger, this hole that nothing can fill. I've thrown away all I had, my very humanity trying to do so.....
What I wanted to say to you was this..... in your life you will encounter many things, people, experiences..... most will come and go like random breezes in the night. Some will be soft and warm while others whip and bite the flesh, but every now and then you'll be forced to stop and catch your breath. And its those moments, those people, those events that change you forever that this great dream called life is all about.
Human kind..... so funny..... so lost..... they cling so tightly to the fears that keep them alive that they fail to ever live. They focus all they have on making a living and rarely create a life. They waste all their time looking for people they can live with when they should be looking for the people that they can not live without.... don't be afraid. Don't waste life like those fools.
That spark of life that I spoke of..... that's how you'll know.... not the fleeting excitement of meeting someone or doing something new and different, not the light and easy, fun free spirit of just having a good time.... its that thing that stops you dead in your tracks that won't let you move on that tells you. And in that instant the person that you were will be gone, you'll be forever changed..... that's how you'll know.
I was young once, full of life, full of that idealistic vision of better days, perfect worlds. If you could have known me then.... but alas, those days have long since passed. I am outside the world now, no longer part of it. I sit in shadow, in that place in between, neither living nor dead, unseen.
You wouldn't know it, but when my body begins to warm, when my skin begins to heat, I break into hives. At first it tickles, and then it itches, it doesn't burn.... at least not at first, not until its too late.
Those days are gone.... or so I thought.... until I saw you. And now I'm changed. Changed for the better. Changed from this despicable wretch, this vile creature I've become. All of those better parts of my youth, the perfect ideals, the best of me, of my heart, have been stirred in your eyes. You've awakened something I've not felt in....
You are someone that I can not live without. I can not go back to what I'd become before I'd seen you. You raise me up in indescribable ways, towards perfection. And I wish to be your champion. Your champion.... a long lost ideal of chivalry...
But all I touch is death. I can not go on without you.... but to entangle your fate with my own would be to damn you to an eternity of despair and suffering.... I would suck the life from your life and leave you as empty as I....
No.... no, that won't do. There is no hope for happiness with me. There is no hope. That is no life. And since I can not go on otherwise..... I await the sun.
My skin is beginning to crawl. Tears fill my eyes.... the sunrise.... so beautiful.....
Happy Halloween People!
I HATE the snow... and movie time!
Hate it! Its one of the major reasons I moved to Vegas in the first place. So when we got hit with a snowstorm already in October you can imagine how I felt about it. I didn't want to deal, cancelled whatever plans I may have had. No Halloween parties, no nothin! I wasn't even going to leave the house in that crap.
I'm not the type of person that likes being trapped in the house. Like the snow, it drives me NUTS! I get stir crazy, cabin fever. But every once in a while it ends up working for your advantage, and this passed Saturday I did nothing but sit back, relax, and spend the whole day watching movies.
I often talk about how much trash there is out there these days, but the truth is that there are some really good movies being made, its just that they're the ones no one is talking about. I'm probably not supposed to tell anyone that I'm even into the type of films I was watching, but I'm secure enough in my manhood to not care. I like a good story. That's it, bottom line.
So the first flik I checked out was Beastly, with the delectable Vanessa Hudgens. If you think she only does teeny bopper fliks you should see how many pictures are floating around of her in her underwear, but whatever. I'm getting to the point where I'll watch most anything of what she's in. You already know how much I loved Sucker Punch from my article Cockblocking Momo's.
But I actually rented the flik because Beauty and the Beast is still my favorite Disney movie, I associate with the character really well (outside of being rich, no one wants the broke beast, that's me) and it was starring the kid from "I am number 4" Alex Pettyfer, who's also becoming someone that I would check out most things from.
I hear Mary-Kate Olsen tried to cast the same spell on Heath Ledger, and we all know how that one turned out. Or maybe that was the other Olsen twin.... I have no idea, they all look the same to me.
I Am Number Four was outstanding by the way, and if you haven't checked it out you really should. And what's not to like, good story, solid action, and two really hot ladies, Glee's stunner Dianna Agron (up top, look at those eyes!) and Teresa Palmer (below) who was in The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Take Me Home Tonight, two more films I really enjoyed. And of course, we can't forget one of my favorite actors Timothy Olyphant, but we'll get back to him later. The juice is worth the squeeze.
Beastly was alright, I know, all this for a flik that was just alright. But worth $1.
All summer everyone kept talking about the movie Bridesmaids, so for a buck I figured why not check it out. I know, I know, chick flik, except that its a chick flik full of nothing but guy humor. Certain scenes were just plain sick, and others were so embarrassing I had to run out of the room. It was just an odd watch, but for anyone who's ever been in a position in life where everything just sucks and there isn't a single aspect of it that's going right or how you want it (where I am now), funny or not its just a damn good movie. Its also got Rose Byrne in there, which is always nice, and if you're thinking why the hell would I pass over the two big stars of the movie, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph (both great in this by the way), then you just don't know what it is that I do here.
That up above is Rose Byrne. Below is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, the new eye catcher in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Do you have any idea how difficult it is with some of these women to get pictures that aren't completely naked? This isn't a porn blog, regardless of how it may seem at times, and I refuse to go that route.
When I was a kid you were either a G.I. Joe guy or a Transformers guy, me being the latter (though I was really more of a Voltron guy). So when that first film came out I got chills seeing it; I LOVED it. And then the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen came out, and it was absolutely horrendous, one of the worst movies ever made, as one critic put it "with plot holes so large you can drive Optimus Prime through them". When no one said anything at all about this I was worried, but I had to give it a chance, if only for a Red Box rental on a snow day.... I wasn't disappointed. On the contrary, I thought this flik was really cool, a lot of good action sequences, good plot twist, killing of one one of my favorite characters... it really had it all.
I won't go on much about that Shia LaDouche kid, mostly because I think he's a clown, but Josh Duhamel on the other hand is another of those guys that I'll watch almost anything he's in. Duhamel didn't have as big a role in Transformers 3 here, but he played Danny McCoy, the main character of one of my favorite TV shows ever, Las Vegas and he has that believable total good guy thing down pat. Which brings us back to my buddy Timothy Olyphant....
Even when he's playing a good guy he's a total ass about it, which is what makes him great. I swear, Dumahel and Olyphant really are the Boyscout/Asshole versions of each other. They even look enough alike that they could pull off a believable Good brother Bad brother thing. I'd love to see a flik with these two in it going against each other. Get the right chick for them to fight over in some romantic comedy, or some young kid actor for them to square off mentoring... you've got Hollywood GOLD right there I tell ya!
And.... back to Vanessa Hudgens.... that's her singing Everything I own in the movie Bandslam. I'm not shy about admitting that I like the show Glee, I like anything that has people performing like this. And maybe this is another movie for High School kids, and I'm too old to be watching it, but free on cable got me caught up in it, and it was definitely worth my time. I've had this song stuck in my head for three days now, and you probably will too. Call me crazy, but it may be better than the original.
Yes, that is the sexy, the beautiful Anne Hathaway up there. Reason being, I had to waste time waiting for Ringo, so after Bandslam I saw that Love and Other Drugs was just starting, with her and Jake Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal is another one that's worked himself into that I'll watch all your shit category, I don't know that its his great acting chops, but he chooses good movies.
That right there above is basically how these two spent the first 45 minutes of the movie. For all you pervs looking to spy Hathaway naked, this is the one for you. She bares herself the entire time. And before you start to think this is just another sappy romantic comedy, stop yourself right there. Its not at all; its actually based on a true story about a Viagra drug rep (when it first hit the market) falling in love with a woman with early onset Parkinson's disease. And its a great film, even if it does fall in that romance category, without the sappiness love stories bring. I still can't decide though who I'm into more, Anne Hathaway or Emmy Rossum.
Both are absolutely gorgeous. Both sing like angels. And both bare it all for the cameras. That last line item is actually a minus in my eyes. I'll never complain about seeing it, don't get me wrong, but in a lot of ways it disappoints me when it happens. Something about innocence and leaving certain things special. I'm funny like that.
So I watched a lot of movies this Saturday, but I saved the best for last. I'm one of those comic book geeks that HATES when someone screws around with story lines and whatnot, which is why I didn't catch X-Men, the First Class in the theatre. Well, I missed out because it was absolutely outstanding. If they had taken out the X-Men part of it and it was just a random superhero movie you would have thought it was just plain great. There was nothing at all not to like about it, big cast, good acting, good story, good action, hot women... it had everything. Kevin Bacon was the main villain, James McAvoy, that Scottish kid with the bad teeth, played Professor X. Rose Byrne (again, I had a theme) got down into her undies. January Jones (up top) was a sexy Emma Frost, and there were a few other surprises too.
This last picture is a holdover from yesterday.... I just wanted to get it in.
So there you have it. There are some good fliks worth catching out there, you just have to sift through the over hyped nonsense to get to them. There's nothing I love more than a good story in any form, so I recommend checking these out if you have nothing better to do.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Delirious....
Yup... that's about right. I usually am delirious, this morning because I got absolutely no sleep at all last night, so I have no idea where this thing is going. And of course, I was just having this conversation at my Alumni Networking event for Ashford University last night, how sleep and getting the proper rest is vital to everything that you do. I mentioned that also in my piece Coach LaSota's Formula for Success, but that didn't get much love, which is a damn shame, because there's some really good stuff in there.
Its crazy what comes up when I look for visuals to help me along with these blogs, and part of what makes them so fun, because often I don't even know what I'll get. This HAD to be used for the cover picture. Eddie Murphy's Delirious is probably the single funniest comedy routine ever to this very day, which is saying alot, but that was WAY back when he was the funniest person on the planet. God was he great! Then he went to the comedians graveyard.... he signed that Disney contract... and it was all gone. All the laughs.... gone. Now he's in that new flik with Ben Stiller. Ten years ago that match could have been sick, now there's just no way it can be good. Matthew Broderick is in it if that doesn't tell you something.
What's going on with Alison Lohman here? Either she's got the blowers cramp or someone's stuffing something into a very uncomfortable place, and I don't mean the back of a Volkswagon. She seems to be enjoying it though. This came up with the delirious search too, from a 2006 Delirious that must have completely sucked because I never heard of it, and I thought she may have been something after she looked so great in Big Fish and was so good in Matchstick Men.
Big Fish was probably the only Tim Burton movie I liked after Batman and Beetlejuice. What an over rated hack. And Matchstick Men, Nick Cage... UGH! Still, I like a whole lot more of his crap than Burton's. He must just do everything and hits a winner now and then. As for Lohman, she's pretty sexy here, huh? She'll probably have to do more of this with bombs like "Drag me to Hell" out there. What complete trash that was.
Maybe she'll follow Lindsay Lohan and bare it all for Playboy. That would probably actually disappoint me. I like this girl here. Now that Lohan is taking the plunge, how long before Britney Spears takes it all off? You think she'd go Hustler or Penthouse?
Now there's a classic! But tell me, what John Candy flik isn't? What a damn shame that was, but its what happens when you eat bad meat in Mexico. How do you not see that coming? The only thing more tragic to me was Michael J. Fox and his Parkinson's. Two guys who brought something great to everything they touched.
Talk about great ways to be touched. Hugh Hefner is the man. I caught the Showtime special on him last night and you really should see it. That man has done so much more than put naked 20 year old girls in magazines. He's touched your life in so many ways that you don't even know about, civil liberty sort of ways, that its just insane.
That there is Route 66 in New Mexico in the winter. Most people don't realize how cold it gets. This morning, for whatever reason, I was caught with the feeling I had one morning while moving back to NY from Vegas while pumping gas out there. I had my two little dogs, my ferret and my snake all piled into the car hauling a trailor behind me for three thousand miles. I looked out over a site very much like this one, only a lot more snow. This morning I had the same feeling that I did that day.
The next morning in Amarillo Texas is was so cold that the handle for the shower broke off in my hand and the faucet couldn't be turned off. The water just kept pouring out. I put the broken handle down on the counter when I checked out and kept it moving.
I was listening to Steve G. Jones again yesterday, and this guy is great, really knows his stuff, and it hit me that.... I really know my stuff too. And that's no joke. There are a few things that I really know well. All the important material to be a good Life Coach, I know it really well. Writing... I know that really well too. But one of the things that Jones said, and this is very true, is that the more relaxed you are the better you're going to be in everything you do. The good stuff just flows naturally. Yet I noticed it the other night playing darts... I get nervous for no good reason and it destroys my chances at being good. And somehow I'm that way in everything, playing ball, meeting chicks, telling people about my books, trying to get interviews for this blog, whatever.
Everything except.... Life Coaching.
And I know this is all still residual effects from the ex girlfriend taking off and pulling the rug out from under me. It often feels like there's no steady ground to stand on, even in the things that you know you do well. Its not that I haven't moved passed that event, I long since have. Its that I have yet to have, in all this time since, positive successful results to replace that negative association. So even with all I've done it feels as if nothing will ever work out.... because it hasn't yet, no matter what I do.
The right woman (or man for a chick), lets just say the right partner, is SO damn important to that. Its the single most important factor in your life. Of course the wrong one.... well, the wrong one will have you still getting nervous in almost everything you do even years later...
I dated a stripper in Vegas for a while after the event. This was the exact pose she was in when we introduced ourselves to one another. Yeah... that was a strange time in my life. And that didn't go the way I wanted either. But with strippers... does it ever really?
And here's the funny thing about those positive successful results and why its imperative to have passion for what you're doing in order to reach them.... they come slowly. This blog is perfect example of that. Right now I don't make money or gain much recognition from it, not even from the people closest to me. The numbers are trickle in.... yet yesterday alone I had articles read in Poland, Croatia, Russia, Moldova, Ghana, Italy, Great Britain, Egypt and Australia. And that's not counting all the many, many other nations across the globe where my voice has been heard. From the number too, I can also tell that these readers are passing them along to their friends. How many people out there actually have global influence like that? Not many.
No matter what your measure, how is that not great success?
Eh, but whatever. There were some things I had wanted to talk about, but I'm really just babbling right now. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore....
I'm feeling like this chick right here, but I warned you about that, so the rest will have to wait for tomorrow, unless I come up with something better to talk about. Hell, I've been waiting for something better to talk about since I started this, and that hasn't happened yet either, so don't hold your breath.
But then, there I go again, not giving myself enough credit. How many of you do that to yourselves too?
Enough of this.
D'OH... Raging Against the Machine and why it'll never work!
Have you ever said or done something because you were so angry that you couldn't help but pour it out, only to wish that you could take it back later on because of the damage that you did with your actions? You caught yourself in that Homer Simpson moment. Of course you have, we all have.
But what about those deeper levels? Have you ever found that you said or did things thinking that you were completely clear of mind while taking action, that you were fully in the right and just telling it how it is, explaining what's REALLY going on out there.... only to realize later on that anger and resentment run so deeply in the core of who you are that it oozes out of the marrow of your bones, flowing like red blood cells, and that THAT is really where your message had come from, not that place of tranquility?
We don't all start off at the same level, no matter how nice a fairy tale that may be. Some of us were lucky enough to be born into a family that had money, connections, a clear path for you to have all you wanted in life. Some of us had parents who are crack heads and its a miracle you didn't turn out to be one yourself. Some of us are beautiful with model good looks, or born with supreme talent, and the doors of opportunity blast off their hinges at your very approach, while others... fat, ugly, stupid, talentless, useless, sickly, what have you. That's just the way that it is. That's life!
When we're kids we're judged and categorized by these things, the popular crowd, the freaks and geeks, whatever you want to call it. And we like to believe that when you get older, as adults, that this stops being the case. How many movies out there are about both of these things? Unfortunately, that's just not the truth. As you get older, life remains the same old high school popularity contest (if anything, its worse!), played by the same exact rules, and your success in life depends directly on how well you play that game.
Last night I wrote a letter to a friend of mine who is one of the beautiful people, part of the club, explaining that I know I have a certain amount of talent, but none of that matters unless I can find a way to make people believe that I can make THEM better, make THEIR lives better, help get THEM to where THEY want to go. And this is true of all of us, its the essence of what that high school popularity contest is all about.
She could have easily helped me along, as I've seen her do with countless other people before, just with a word or two, "Hey, read this guy, he can write", but she never has, not once. The reason is because I don't fit the image she's trying to project. Helping me won't advance her career or her causes, so not only hasn't she helped, but she's actually gone back and deleted things I've sent her, erasing all outward knowledge of my work with her people.
Isn't that just like the kid who helped you with your math homework in school, but you ignored in the halls when you were with your friends? Well, we know that its because of value, and we always chase after HIGHER value, and run away from lower value, as away as we can get.
The thing of it is that most people don't even know that they're doing it, its not a conscious choice, its a natural human behavior. This is the game, its how its played, and I only know the difference because, like many of you, I've spent most of my life on the outside looking in. If my life were easy breezy, if all the doors were open for me, then I'd be caught up in the machine as well, oblivious to what was going on here.
Instead, because the system has always worked against me, I too Rage Against the Machine.
Trouble is... I've been raging against it so long that that anger has set in real deep, so deep I didn't even know it was there, and it comes out in terrible ways, as that chip on my shoulder, that nervousness I spoke about yesterday that keeps me from performing up to my capabilities. And I know a lot of you, a lot of very intelligent, very talented people, who suffer from the very same malady. I see it everyday, see it in your comments, see it in your attitude, see it in your facebook posts, and in your pain. And it holds you back. It holds me back, holds us ALL back.
You see... there IS another level, that place of peak performance that you only come to when you're free and easy, confident, and all of that anger, resentment and negative energy only keeps you from getting there. Its like snake venom, coursing through you, killing you. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface in what I can do, as a writer, as an athlete, in the ways that I can help people.... and while I knew this, I didn't see what it was that kept me from accessing that better part of myself.
The real difference between those people that have had the doors open for them, however or for what ever reasons it was done, and the rest of us continually hurling ourselves against the jagged rocks in the seas of life, is that they're able to keep their eyes completely on the prize and use all of their focus and energy towards that goal, where as the frustrated folks like me have one eye on the goal and the other on all the many things we have to fight to get there. We have one hand reaching for that star, and the other clenched in a fist swinging away at all that approaches.
How much energy does that take from you? How much does it sap your strength? How much does it steal from your focus? How much harder will that force you to have to work, and how much more tired will you be from that?
Open doors allow people to reset themselves, get back to zero that much more quickly. Fighting all the time leaves you in a state where you're constantly fighting, until you reach the point that its all you know, and you forget exactly what it is that you're fighting for. Then without a fight, you don't know what to do with yourself, you have nothing left. Often, this is where I find myself. Do you?
That's like being a beaten woman, trapped in an abusive relationship with yourself.
My friend probably took what I said as a personal attack, as me saying that she's messed up and wrong for doing the same exact thing that everyone else does. That has me upset, because she really is great and I really do love her. She's not the only one, that's just how the game is played, it just makes her like everyone else.
That's not her failing; its mine. Its like I'm trying to play chess in checkers tournament and getting pissed off that I got eliminated.
Just like anyone else in any other walk of life, from here on out any success that I have in any area moving forward relies directly on how much you, and everyone else, believes that I can make their lives better. Whether that's by motivating you, inspiring you, giving you an idea or making you see things in a way you never did before, if that's helping you make a new connection, spreading the word for your product, or just simply entertaining you (you can't put a price on a good time), how much people believe that I can help THEM do these things will dictate how far I go. The same goes for you in all that you do.
But how can anyone hope to do that if they're so full of piss and wind that they're pissing in their own face, blinding themselves in the process? How can they do that when they're so full of venom that we sap ourselves of all the energy and forces within us that allow us to fire on all cylinders?
We may not all start at the same spot, but it IS our responsibility to reset ourselves back to zero, find that focus we need, and if the doors won't open for us, if we can't find the people to open them, then to blast the off of their hinges ourselves, no matter what circumstances we come from. It just that much harder when you start the race at the back of the pack, forced to jump the hurdles while others run in a clear lane. But the spectators aren't watching for who's running in which lane, only who wins the race.
For myself, I'll never be able to blast those doors open until I'm able to release all of that anger and frustration that keeps from from reaching my peak performance. But unless I find the people who able, AND WILLING, to make ME better, make MY life better, help get ME to where I want to go, whether that's by motivating me, inspiring me, giving me an idea or making me see things in a way I never did before, if that's helping me make a new connection, spreading the word for my products, or just simply entertaining me, helping me relax and have a good time.... then I'll never be able to release all of that anger and frustration that keeps me from reaching my peak performance.
Its a Catch 22 situation. How many of you are there?
That's EXACTLY why your support system is damn important. Why finding the right woman (or man) to share your life with is SO important (instant support system), and why most people that are highly successful become so after marrying that right person. This means the right friends too. Of course, its so hard to find them while you're in that situation above, so you're back in that Catch 22.
But, ask the right questions and you'll get the right answers... so I'll ask you this...
HOW THE FU... DO YOU GET OUT OF IT?!
Occupy Wall Street, our soldiers coming home and why our society crumbling is YOUR fault!
Aside from the obvious, killing people and then having to adjust to sitting in a cubicle or kissing YOUR ass at Best Buy, they told stories of women with kids of their own back home driving in convoys that had to run kids down so that the pieces were mopped off the road with a sponge in order to avoid ambushes. They had men come on and discuss the goo where their buddies face was just a moment before and how they just can't explain that to anyone, and how these people wake up screaming in the middle of the night, and will probably never get out of therapy.
Every 80 minutes a veteran tries to kill themselves.
There are a lot of factors that lead to this. Though it may not be as bad as it was after Vietnam when hippies would spit on soldiers and call them baby killers, in one vets words, the happy homecoming and cheers last for about fifteen minutes, then its business as usual. Thanks for serving, now what are you going to do for me?
Then a quick look around at how Republicans and Democrats bicker and fight, push agendas and take kick backs, screw the people and get nothing done, our soldiers wonder what the hell it was that they were fighting for in the first place.
But there was something that really stuck with me, something that I'd spoken about before in this space, and probably the biggest issue that I have in trying to get people to understand me and why I sometimes do the things that I do.
One of the soldiers explained that, when you were over there it didn't matter how horrible things were because no matter how bad things got, there was somebody right next to you going through the same exact thing you were. Your buddies over there understood exactly what you were going through, exactly what you were feeling, because they were seeing things the same way you were. But when they come back home, in our society, there's nothing like that. People don't understand where you've been, what you're doing, going through or why..... and they don't care to try.
You'll often hear stories of championship sports teams that have a special locker room, that all come together as one, and years later they continue to share that bond with those guys from that locker room. That right there is the true meaning of TEAM, to sacrifice for a larger whole, and everyone seeing things that same way.
Soldiers know all about sacrificing themselves for a bigger purpose, they know all about team. But how do you look out for each other, pick each other up, come together as one when you're always bragging, backstabbing, belittling or ignoring one another? How do you act as one while you're always trying to set yourself above, jockeying for position as the alpha male or female in the pack?
In Sociology we judge societies on the quality of life for all people in that society. A good society is that way because of how they treat the least of amongst their people. Here, however, its all about more, more, more. We're judged on having, not what we did to get it. And if you don't have, then you're nothing, so people will do whatever they have to do to get it. Once again, value, and we're always looking to value up.
We don't act like a good society, we act like a bunch of wild dogs. And then we wonder why our government, our entire system is corrupt. More, more, more!
If you say I'm wrong, I say you're kidding yourself. If you say you don't do that (you may not, there are good people out there), I say look at who you hang with, what you do and who you're trying bring into your life. And if you tell me that I'm just bitter and angry because I'm a have not, I say you're DAMN RIGHT!!!
What Occupy Wall Street has become
And quess what.... if its not them, it would be someone else. And if they give you a chance for more, more, more, it would probably be you. Our society is screwed, rotted from within, and the only fix is a complete overhaul.
That's a foot!
Societies are built and re-built by coming together and learning how to see things the same way, then sacrificing for the greater good. That will never happen here, there will never be real change, and we'll continue down this toilet because very few people have the ability to see beyond how everything affects THEM! And everything we see and do, everyone we surround ourselves with, have trained us to be that way our whole lives.
If you don't think so you're naive. Your head is in the sand. You ARE kidding yourself. What we have on our hands here is a battle of conscience, and we're getting our asses kicked. Our world is rotting because of the one question you all ask of EVERYONE before you do ANYTHING for THEM......
"What's in it for me?"
Can Peacocks fly with broken wings? I'm talkin broken arms and broken legs....
I don't know, but we're about to find out.
After all the seriousness in last weeks posts I wanted to do something fun today, but then I went and Matsuied myself, broke my wrist. Typing with one hand is as much a pain in the ass as most other things with one hand, like opening a door while holding my coffee, so we'll have to see how this goes.
That's Hideki Matsui, he was without a doubt my favorite Yankee, hell, favorite ballplayer, after Paul O'Neil retired. The guy just knew how to play the game, did everything right, great teammate, and talk about CLUTCH.... but he was never the same again after this play. That was a nasty one, and what I did to myself was very similar.
I don't think I made nearly as big a deal about it as Albert Pujols here, thought I took it better, but the guys will have to tell you if that's true or not. I knew it was broken right away, and my buddy Dave said he could hear it snap. Its completely possible that I was crying like a little girl that just lost her candy. After all, I am a notorious whiner.
This is basically what my arm looked like. Do you see how the hand is pushed off of the wrist, as if the only thing keeping it attached is the skin and ligaments? I had the same exact thing, except for me the appendage was the other way, the hand was on the back side of the arm, hanging off.
You see her pointing to that mangled mess? She's a trooper! This was more the position I was in. Behind the arm. Looks like she's got something breaking the skin though, sticking out. Mine was a clean break, and thank God for it. Have you ever been in so much pain that all you could do was laugh? That laugh of the insane, the one that only crazy people have. Well... I had everyone at the hospital cracking up. And don't you love how, in a spot about maimed body parts I'm able to get you a nice rack thrown in there?
You know you wanted half naked ladies thrown in there, so here you g... what? These aren't the half naked ladies you were looking for? I don't get it, looks like a party to me. This came up in my Google search for broken wrists. I keep telling you about the craziness that pops up on there. I think they meant to post this under slit wrists, as in what you're going to do after seeing this shot. I have one of those too, slit wrist. Its the same damn arm.
Here you go, this is more fitting, isn't it? This was another one that came up in that same search. That probably comes from all us sad sacks that know these ladies are out there, that they ARE all partying together.... that they're all dressed just like this... and we're never invited to the party. We get the ladies up top instead. The difference is enough to make a guy do something drastic, isn't it? My only real question is.... it says "pink" over an over again.... exactly what is it that they're advertising?
We'll dedicate more time to the ladies tomorrow. I got to check out my X-Rays... and this is essentially what I had going on in there. You see that back forearm bone broken off.... yeah, that's it. Jamaica Hospital has gotten a really bad rep over the years, but I have to say, every single person working there was GREAT! I hate hospitals, and they made me feel as comfortable as possible, even got me a great shot of my X-Ray. I'll throw that bad boy up as soon as I'm able.
And at least there's nothing like this going on in there. How completely disgusting is this? When the Doc tells you that you're going to need pins in your wrist you're not supposed to put them in there yourself you dumbass!
Do you honestly believe that this woman is worried about ANYTHING knowing that a friend like this has her back? HELL NO she doesn't! And neither should this Peacock. After they scraped me off the field my teammates really picked me up; they went all out like a pack of rabid animals and kicked that teams brains in. We're talking championship here baby, me Matsuied or not. And Topper is coming through to make sure you good people still get to read my blog day in and day out while I recover, because this typing with one hand nonsense is beat.
But I've got to get back out there as soon as I can, and I can't think of any better way to speed up the healing process than a female Peacock to come share my roost. I wonder if she's available. I'd find a way to fly after her broken wing or not. Let's make it so! I'm wounded here, I need some looking after, and this is only fair. After all.... I deserve it don't I?
But that's all I've got for today. And the drugs are wearing off... so....
Smokin Joe Frazier, 2011 Playboy Playmates, the beauty of women and leaving it all on the field!
Smokin Joe Frazier died last night. Here's a great article about him from ESPN's Wallace Matthews which I want you to read, and I won't re-hash, but its a sad day for fight fans. I grew up a fan of Muhammad Ali (though I never saw him fight live) not only because he had the ability to say whatever he wanted and back it up, but also because every time he lost he got back in there and won the belt back. Whenever someone hides behind the 1st Amendment saying they can say whatever they want, I've long said that you can say whatever you like as long as you can take the punch in the face that comes with it. Ali could. And as the saying goes, the greatness of men lies not in never falling, but in rising each time they fall. In my eyes, that's what made Ali the Greatest.
Miss January Anna Sophia Berglund
Make sure you understand that I'm not calling Frazier the villain here, but that defining rival. When you watch the highlights of his fights what stands out is that he always seemed to be a head shorter than his opponent, he always had less reach, too small to compete at that level... but he kept coming.... and coming.... and coming...
Miss February Kylie Johnson
And this is how it connects to me personally. Now, I'm not trying to put myself on the level of Frazier/Ali, that's just ridiculous; I'm a weekend warrior at best. But all my life all I ever wanted to do was play ball. Most of the time its still all I want to do, I only write because its how I express myself, its who I am. Growing up though, I was a halfling. When I graduated High School I was 5 feet tall and just over a hundred pounds. I was always too small to compete, so if I wanted to stay in the game I had to keep coming.... and coming... and coming....
Miss March Ashley Mattingly
After high school I shot up, but I still have that same mentality, like the little guy, and I guess because of it to this day I'm either all in, balls to the wall, leaving everything (including body parts) on the field, or I just simply couldn't care less and don't even bother. I've hurt myself so many times in so many ways over the years that I can't even begin to tell you. Once I played football with a hole in my head the size of a quarter. I ripped my nostril almost completely off playing handball. That nose is broken in a million places from all the fights I've gotten into to the point that I only breathe out of one side of it. Right now I'm pretty sure my right shoulder is separated and my right foot is dislocated, and they're definitely not the way they're supposed to be, but finding out would mean I can't play ball, and fuck that! So I suck it up and deal with the pain, and keep coming... and coming.... and coming...
Miss April Jaclyn Swedberg
This injury of mine isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but despite all of the ways I've mangled myself in the past, its the first time in my life I can't just deal with the pain and get back on the field. I have to come out of the game and fully heal. I can't just barrel through and keep coming.
Miss May Sasha Bonilova
And as I thought about it, I've lived my entire life the same way. Emotionally, I've never taken myself out of the game whenever life threw me a beating, and there have been a great many, to let myself recover. I've never let myself heal before getting out there, I just wrapped up whatever it was that was giving me pain and kept going. And just like now, when there's no new game to try to win, nothing out there to go after I don't know what to do with myself.
Miss June Mei-Ling Lam
Trouble is.... you can't go all out, give it 100%, leave it all on the field, when you're wracked with pain, constantly dealing with all of the injuries of your past in the game you're playing today. You can't be the best version of yourself if you're never all there. You can't give it everything you've got in today's battle when you're still fighting all of your old fights at the same time.
Miss July Jessa Hinton
Now... I'm just starting off as a Life Coach, but it seems that every single person that I've ever helped, regardless of what the outlying challenge seemed to be, has boiled down to some variation of this very same thing. Most of us never really let ourselves heal completely from our emotional wounds, however we got the injury, and then we go back out there without the ability to give it our all and not understanding why.
Miss August Iryna Ivanova
That, my friends, is what keeps most of us from our true greatness.
Well, I NEED to give it my all. I am so ready to give it 100%, leave it all out on the field. I don't need to be great, only fools wish to be great, but MAN do I want to DO something great, be a part of something great. I wonder if you can help me with that.
Miss September Tiffany Toth
My broken wing sucks, but not because its some great tragedy, so many people have to deal with far worse on a permanent basis. Its the little things we take for granted every day like tying your shoes and sleeping in our own bed that makes me feel it, but its also given me a gift. In the span of a lifetime, broken bones are just a small amount of pain. Compared living a lifetime of emotional pain, never going for what you really want, 6 weeks is nothing. In truth, the pain is over with quickly, and never really as bad as we fear its going to be. There is nothing in the world to be afraid of. Not really.
Miss October Amanda Cerny
So be like Smokin Joe Frazier, and go for it all the way, even if it kills you. Its across that threshold where your true greatness lies. Be like Ali, and rise each time you fall. Honestly, what's the alternative? Its nothing you want.
Miss November Ciara Price
And as my friend who I'm writing this to believes of me.... I WILL make the most of this situation. I'll be using the time to release all expectations of what's going to happen next, because I have no control of it right now; to learn how to ask for help, because I can't do it alone, and none of us really can, and as Charles Haanel teaches in The Master Key System, to learn how to sit in a quiet room by myself and be completely unaffected by anything that's going on around me.
Miss December Rainy Day Jordan
Now, there's a reason why I chose to use the 2011 Playboy Bunnies for this piece. Last week one of my biggest supporters told me that they refuse to read my blog anymore because they have no desire to have half naked women thrown in their face. It really upset me to the point where I had to ask many other people if the agreed with that sentiment. Amazingly, men an women alike almost unaminously told me to keeps the pictures in. Men and women alike love beautiful women. And what's not to love? The only thing about women I hate is the attitude they get when they know they look this good, when they use these looks to take advantage of people or "get the highest bidder", or when they're stupid or naive enough to think these features don't open doors for them and that they do it all on their own.
But I specifically chose Playboy because it has been always been about celebrating women and not classless, tasteless porn. None of these women are famous, but because of these pictures they're given great opportunities to live their dreams. And the shots are used as a way to attract people like you and me to some of the best writing, comedy and entertainment around. Maxim and Stuff follow a similar formula, and its a formula that works, a model for all of the things I want to bring you; Great entertainment all around and an avenue for new artists to make a name for themselves!
In the future I'd prefer to have new models in this space, for that I'm just waiting on you!
Joe Paterno, Child Molesters and why we need a hero!
As of this writing, Joe Paterno is expected to announce his retirement, forced out by the scandalous news that his former Defensive Coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, was a kid toucher, molesting little boys, and while Paterno went directly to his boss upon learning of it, allowed it to be swept under the rug.
This was a man, loved, respected, admired, for being an example of all that is right in the world, a beacon, a guide showing us that through the years what was once great can still be great. Someone who stood for doing it right. And now, like so many before him, that legacy is now forever destroyed. Its been raped like the children he chose not to stand up for, pillaged, like the soul of all of us who believe in something better, and the people who symbolize that ideal.
Its been a long time now since Charles Barkley famously stated "I'm not a role model". That message was always misconstrued, he meant that its the responsibility of parents to be role models for their own children, something he was dead on about, and has only become an epidemic in our world, the shirking of that most important job description. But he was wrong also, so wrong, because its the responsibility of us all to try to be and show the best of ourselves, give those younger who look to us for guidance a positive image to live up to. And our stars, our icons, are the very ones that are supposed to be leading that charge.
Since that time our leaders have betrayed us, showing us all how completely corrupt our entire system, our way of life, truly is, and how very little they care about their own people so long as their pockets are lined.
The people we are supposed to look up to have been exposed as frauds, lying and cheating and swindling every one on their way to the top.
Showing their true colors, that like Hilary Swank with ruthless dictators, these people are little more than mercenaries, taking the money and running off to the next party satisfied with their own greatness while looking down on the people who believed in them, who needed them.
What was it that LeBron said.... in the morning he'll still be rich, but the rest of us will have to wake up and go back to our miserable lives? I'm paraphrasing, but this was the message Lebron had for all of us. That's what it means these days to be great.
The other day someone who should know better yelled at me for things I've said, having this to say:
"Yes, Steve Jobs was a dick, but he changed a lot of things, created jobs and technology that's being put to use in hospitals and to help aid in third world countries. He was openly an ass, never faked anything but. Can't fault him for that."
So its ok to be a total prick, ruin the lives of these people over here, so long as you admit you're an ass, invent some gadgets, and throw some of your money at the problems of those people over there.
The very fact that this person finds this acceptable highlights so much of what's wrong with us today, doesn't it? The fact that they don't see how asinine that really is shows how disillusioned we've become.
And when we were promised change, filled with the hope for a return to better days, nothing was done, and the only thing to change is that we no longer believe that there's anything to hope for. The future looks as bleak and as doomed as it ever has. The morale of the nation, of the world, and the people has never been lower. I've never felt so much despair from so many people and like most of you out there, I don't know if things will ever get better. There's no image to make me believe that it will.
There was once a time when we did everything that we could to protect that saintly image of our heroes, no matter how many or how gruesome the skeletons in their closet were. Sure, part of that was because you weren't going to get the story if you ripped into guys back then, but part of it was because we better understood the sanctity of that thing to aspire to, that greatness in all of us we could all reach if only we had someone to show us the way.
And now the world has become so cynical, so nasty and cruel, that even when we find a true winner, a good man, a man of heart, of soul, of conscious, that uses all of what's in them and every effort to do it right, just for the sake of doing it the right way, we do everything we can to tear them down and rip them apart in every way.
It makes me sick. But what's worse, it makes all of us sick, in our souls, in ways we can't see.
I was 18 years old in 1995 when the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs, and that night I bawled my eyes out, cried like a baby, because Don Mattingly was never going to win it all. I'm a grown ass man, and to this day whenever I see pictures of Donnie Baseball tears fill my eyes, and a smile crosses my face. He was an example of every way you play the game right. I wanted to be him. I love him. He's my hero.
Now more than ever, we as a people need someone to bridge the gap between one era of greatness to the next, someone to make us believe again, have hope, when there's nothing else to cheer for.
We need a Dragon Slayer, a champion, someone who sees the road ahead, knows what has to be done, and is willing to take the weight of the world on their shoulders, to put us on their shoulders, and lead us to the promised land.
We need someone who understands that we're more than just the sum of our parts, that is able to look passed our differences, look passed what separates us, always finds the beauty in us whether we're black, white, yellow, blue, purple or green, whether we have pointy ears or hairy feet
Someone who doesn't believe in unbeatable scenarios, and is always able to find ways to accentuate our strengths rather than bash our weaknesses, and brings us together, rallies us behind them to use those strengths in synergy to get the job done. Someone who makes us better than we could be by ourselves.
What we need now more than anything else, more than ever, is a miracle. Something to makes us believe again, to believe in each other, to believe in ourselves.
But this is hard to come by, because integrity is so hard to come by. Because sometimes it requires making the ultimate sacrifice, giving everything, your very life if need be, to stand up to the slings and arrows, to hold on to what you believe.
And that's a lonely road very few want, or are willing, to walk.
Yet still, we need a rallying cry, someone to rise up an galvanize the people into action now for a better tomorrow, no matter the cost.
"But Cap, you'll DIE!"
"I know... AVENGERS.... ASSEMBLE!"
But then.... my heroes have always been Captains.
Joe Paterno - The Alternate Scooby Doo ending!
We all know how guys talk to each other, right? Especially in that locker room type setting. Imagine its 1984, way back then before it was acceptable for homosexuals to come out of the closet, before the Rodney King beating pulled Political Correctness to the forefront of, well, everything, even ahead of truth and honesty, when the most insulting thing a man could call another man was.... FAG!
So guys break each others balls constantly, its how we say "I love you, Man!", and they sit down for a meeting in front Joe...
"Jerry, you child molester!"
Jerry looks over with an odd glint in his eye... "heh, FAG!"
"Alright you two" Joe Paterno says, "every day with this fag and child molester stuff, cut the crap, we've got Ohio State this week..... "
Its just guys being guys, right. Same nonsense, just horsing around.
Then an assistant somewhere comes up to Joe Paterno and says to him....
"hey Joe, there are rumors going around that Jerry's touching little boys"
Paterno thinks nothing of it, he here's this crap every damn day, those idiots busting on each other. Its just jock talk, making light of things, having a good time. But, just because he HAS to, Paterno brings it to HIS boss, his athletic director who tells him...."
"Joe, you and I know its just guys being guys.... hard to take that sort of thing out of a team setting, sort of clowning around that brings us together.... but better tell them to cut the crap anyway just in case, don't want there to be trouble over nothing...."
So they take care of it and that's it, lets concentrate on football.
Except 27 years later it comes out that Jerry Sandusky really WAS molesting little boys. The assistant that heard the rumors comes out and says "I told Joe, he went to the athletic director with it and it went nowhere from there".
Now Paterno, old as hell and half in the bag already, has no idea what the hell is going on. He's getting crucified over this craziness, and all he can do is stand around with that stupid look on his face thinking WTF? What just happened?
And if you know people, certainly if you know guys, and you know how things go out there in the every day, this easily sounds just as plausible a scenario as any other. How crazy would it be to piss all over the legacy of one of the real good guys if this is how it went down?
My point today is... until we know, we don't know.
Some 12 hours before the show "Crimes Against Nature" hit my screen, an just before seeing "Fatal Honeymoons", two real attention grabbers, I caught some show about the 10 greatest Hollywood news stories, scandals, what have you... EVER!
Taking a look at this story the way we did with Joe Pa.... imagine O.J. really DIDN'T do it? Imagine the juice was telling the truth, really was away, and Nicole Simpson was the victim of a drug deal gone wrong. That sort of thing happens every single day.
Now O.J. is caught in a bad way. His wife was just murdered by drug dealers, his kids were there, he's distraught, but once the world finds out he's a raging drug addict, his clean cut reputation, everything he's worked so hard for, everything we all love about him.... GONE!
So he flips out, gets in his car and drives to clear his head.... but he cops think he's running.
After all of this a once solid life spirals out of control, he becomes the very thing we all accused him of being.... yeah, this happens too. Think about that for a minute.
I was saw O.J.'s lawyer Johnny Cochran on a Manhattan street going to play pool one night... he was wearing a fur coat, flanked by a group of some of the hottest women I've ever seen, four to each side of him.... if it don't fit, you must.... he's dead now, but did that guy know how to party or what?
Speaking about white women getting nailed by black running backs out of USC, that same show had a spot about Kim Kardashian on it, portraying her as a sweet woman always looking to make everyone happy..... she may very well be. I refuse to watch her show, really know nothing about her, which brings me to the point I wanted to make today....
Communication is everything, and I rarely get the message I want to send the way that I want to, so I wanted to clear something up.... often you'll hear me ripping into people, celebrities, for the messed up things that they do. Well, I'm not perfect either, I'm a total disaster, doing all kinds of messed up things myself. Even with my piece yesterday which spoke of how we need a hero, I don't know that I personally could live up to that standard myself, which only serves to highlight the difficulty of the situation.
Jessica Simpson
People are people, prone to the same mess, no matter what situations or walk of life they're coming from. So my point isn't to bash people like Kim Kardashian or Snooki, or anyone else for that matter. I really don't care what the do as long as they don't make my life more difficult. Beyond that, people in glass houses.... you know?
Wait, that aint Snooki... Thank God!
What I'm really railing against are the reasons we put the people that we do up on those lofty pedestals, and trying to point out why it leads us astray so far as I can see it.
Hey, do what you got to do, if it makes you feel good do it, all of that. Have a good time, its what we're here for. I'm all for all of that, looking for all the ways I can do that for myself.
Just don't do it on the backs of others. We have a long way to go before we can all be dancing in the streets.
Anyway, I'm on all kinds of drugs right now... and they're really kicking my ass, I don't even know what I'm saying, so I'm out... for now.
Universal Health Care Coverage... is it about time?
What a long strange weekend its been...
There's a lot to discuss, but I'm walking into a lot of changes today. For one, I ran out of Percocet, just Tylenol extra strength for me, which is both great and terrible. This Monday found me losing my private office, so I'm out in general population, also a good and bad thing. Finally, it seems as if Facebook is now blocked at my job. If they had made that move 6 months ago things would be very different right now, in a good way.
We'll have to see how these changes affect the blog and what I do here.... only time will tell....
I'm ill prepared this morning, all of this stuff has me out of my element. I didn't have the pictures I took from Tough Mudder ready to go, so I'll be switching gears, your guess as to where that brings us is as good as mine, but you need this some times.
Last Friday afternoon I spent 6 hours at the orthopedic clinic at Jamaica Hospital just so they could shoot an X-Ray, tell me "hey, it looks good" and send me on my way. In all it was six hours of waiting for a 10 minute visit.
This is what you deal with when you have no insurance, no, not the two girls on the same bed, I'm not that lucky, and these aren't the girls that I would have found at this particular hospital anyway.... it would have been more like this....
Yeah... it'll be weeks before I can wrap my arms around my baby.....
Waiting around that long completely sucks, especially when you're surrounded by the dregs of society, but much like taking the bus... anywhere... you know that this is what you're in for walking into the situation. And the alternative, having no way to have your health looked after, well that's no alternative at all, is it?
This is all one family. Everyone of them was seen for their check ups that day. I was stuck in line behind them.
We hear it all the time that in Canada, which has universal health care for all of their people, you have to wait around all day like this to be taken care of, as if this is a great reason for not having the same sort of system here. Except that people here in the U.S. are already waiting around the same exact way every day. And it cost me $120 for that privelege. What would have happened if I didn't have that $120, as so many people don't , especially now is this economy..... Hit The Bricks Pal! You're out!
No, there wasn't anyone getting shots in the ass right out there in front of everyone, though there were two ladies I wouldn't have complained about seeing if they did. That would have gathered a crowd too, maybe gotten me into the Doc quicker. But its never the ones that look like this below that happens with anyway....
On the bright side though, that just gave me the best search key words EVER! I'll buy that for $120!
One thing that this experience has taught me for sure is that when there is something wrong with you, when your health is compromised, all of your other worries and concerns go right out the window. And when you have to be concerned about how you're going to take care of yourself or your loved ones, then there's just no way you can be focused on the things you need to get done and be a productive member of society.
On the flip side, its incredible how much stress and anxiety is relieved from a person once they know that they're being taken care of and everything is going to be alright. Its as if the weight of the world, matters that are literally life and death, are lifted off your shoulders...
This up above is what happens when you don't have that safety net. You end up floating face down in a river.
There is absolutely no way that in this country, in this day and age, that any citizen should be turned away from medical treatment over a matter of money. There's no way that any American should have to float down that river of death because they didn't have an extra $120. That's some people's food money for an entire month.
If I had to pay a 5% Federal Health Care Tax out of my paycheck every week for the peace of mind of knowing that I'd be taken care of no matter what, even if that meant waiting all day until the doctor could get me in, but wouldn't cost me anything afterwards, then I'd sign up for that right now, and so would most other people.
And then Health Insurance afterwards would allow you to choose your doctor and not have to wait for hours if you can afford it. If not, you'll still be fine, it just won't be as convenient. But if I'm paying extra I want to be in the river with Brookyn Decker in it.
This is a big, important, topic of discussion, and this is just a start of it, though its all I've got for today.
I want your opinions and ideas on the matter.
Hindsight is always 20/20... Jerry Sandusky, Occupy Wall Street and Common Sense!
How great is that? Once again, proving that hindsight is 20/20. What do you suppose was his first clue that that was a bad idea? Let's not knock him too much, he was only horsing around with those boys, and every one of us have been in that spot, looking back, realizing what we just did probably wasn't the best idea in the world....
There it is, that "Duh" moment. I don't know why, but I love this picture. It cracks me up, probably because I've been there before, usually once a day, just about the time I get my first comment about this blog.... or maybe its just that look on his face....
Luckily for me I stop short just of kid touching when it hits me, "that was definitely NOT great!"
That's right pal, those WERE the droids you were looking for. Think of all the lives you could have saved, the fate of an entire Empire.... and now we're at the mercy of Rebel Scum.... and its all on you there buddy... you F'ed up!
Not to point out the obvious here, I mean, the caption to the picture explains why all of these guys are grabbing their own junk, but why does the black guy have his meat hook on someone else's unit? Its not as if he needed anything else to make him stand out here, but my guess is that the uniform says it all.... he plays for the other team.
This is looking like a scene out of Nosferatu. Could you imagine if you got caught in a zombie apocalypse, but every zombie was a Hasidic Jew? If it looked anything like this I'd be dead, I'd be laughing too hard to run away, which leads me to another question.... can Hasidic Jew Zombies eat people? What I mean is, is that Kosher?
In case you're not gettin this one, that's former professional wrestler Chris Benoit. I say former because he went on a steroid induced rampage, strangled his wife and kids to death, then hung himself. At first I was going to say this was a bad shirt choice, but in hindsight, it perfectly sums up professional wrastlers... most of them are trailer trash made famous off of steroid induced rampages and choking people out....
But if you needed any more proof that wrestling is gay, its all right here, isn't it? I get what HHH is doing, jamming ole boys head between his legs... but what's that dude off to the side about to do with his fist? He's about to ram it run up ole boy's bent over ass, isn't he? UGH!!! That's not even right.
Speaking of gay.... listening to Judas Priest growing up would have been a lot different if I had seen this shot way back when, wouldn't it? What a horror! Rob Halford always wanted to be one of the Village People, and here he gets his chance. Honestly, how did any of us not see this coming?
But you know who DID see it coming?
That's right! Kurt Cobain saw it coming alright. It was the last thing he saw. Check out Courtney Love back there... enough said!
Why does that seem so damn appropriate here? I can almost see these little bastards planning something like this. Do you think this is what Courtney Love told Kurt Cobain just before he blew his face off? I wonder what the signal was, probably something nasty, something like an old George Carlin favorite, a massive pussy fart! And BAM!
I'm sure that dance move looked a lot better when they did it in their head. Whatever went wrong, the cameraman deserves major props... they had to have caught this with her on the way down. Her face has a one way ticket making a connection with that tiled floor. In about 3 seconds there's going to be blood and teeth everywhere!
Speaking of blood and teeth everywhere.... GOOD! I don't know about you, but I always root for the bull. It drives me crazy any time I see innocents suffering for no good reason, and I REALLY rail against it when its for the joy of others, so animal cruelty is at the top of my list of no-no's. So if you're the dumbass that gets himself impaled and then trampled by a thousand plus pound rampaging beast because you get a chuckle out of caging them, hurting them, and then riling them up.... you deserve what you get... and I get to laugh at your pain and misery after the fact.
You know from my posts and the many, MANY times you've come to me for my Life Coaching services that I'm all about empowerment, so this comic was right up my alley. That line right there, very true, is probably the biggest nail in the toe for all of us at the bottom looking up... you can have all the best ideas in the world, you can plan out all the details, know everything that has to be done and have it all worked out perfectly.... but without the power to get those plans going, to breathe life into what you're trying to do, you've got a whole lot of nothing....
And it fits perfectly that I bring this up on the day Occupy Wall Street is getting flushed from their flopping grounds....
"Bring out the crack suicide squad!"
I guess you have to know Monty Python to get that one. All I know is that fixing bayonets BEFORE the weapons tossing was not the best idea. This is going to get messy.
Did you see the piles of garbage they cleared out of Zuccotti Park from the OWS people? It was disgusting, like the dumps in Staten Island. What a disaster!
But how awesome is this.... Occupy Wall Street is supposed to be about corporate power and economic inequity... Billionaire Jay-Z made a killing for his clothing company off of shirts made about the event. Now on top of nationwide troubles with degenerates the movement has now found ways to FUND the corporate machine..... that's brilliant! What was that line about plans and power again?
What this has to do with hindsight I have no idea, maybe it has something to do with those pants, but it came up in my search, and did you honestly think I'd go an entire post without having even one lovely lady?
But its good also that she has nothing to do with hindsight because it allows me to add my lesson for the day. Yes, hindsight is always 20/20, and when the term comes up its always in some connection with "how the hell did you not see that coming, its common sense!". Common Sense... if we all had it there would never be a need for hindsight, right? At least that's how the story goes.
Trouble is, there's no such thing as common sense. It doesn't exist. In Social Psychology we have a phenomena called Hindsight Bias. Simply put, the answers always seem so much clearer once you know the outcome, and upon knowing that outcome, those feelings that we had that tell us were were right in the first place always appear to be much stronger than they really were. Its so pervasive that you can give a person a wrong answer and they'll explain to you all the reasons why that makes "perfect sense". Think about it and I'm sure you'll remember doing it yourself. Here endeth the lesson of the day.
I'm out of it!
I'm really out of it lately. There's something that I've wanted to get into for a few days now, but at the times I can do it, get the uploads going, well, the lights are on but no one's home. With all the changes going on, medications, whatever, its to be expected I guess, but this walking coma I'm in has to end somehow.
Right now it seems only one person gets me out of it, and only then for a short while. Then its right back to me in letting it all go mode. I need a haircut bad, I'm starting to look like an animal. The nails on my right hand are starting to look like claws. Weird though, the ones on the left with the broken wrist haven't grown at all. I wonder if that has something to do with the healing process.
I'm out of control right now.
A guestion came up in a letter I wrote last night, are you living the life you want to live? For me, right now, sadly the answer is no. Far from it. A terrible state for someone looking to be a life coach.
Luckily I have my mood changer loaded up, its important for all of us to have one, something to put us in a better place. For me its a file of movie scores.
I've always had a thing for Dana Delaney, so last night when her show Body of Proof came on I had to check some of it out. Its another of those tough female cop shows because that's the flavor of the month in TV land, whatever, same show as a hundred out there, but at 55 years old now she still looks really good. You can't go by me though. I love older women.
The best part of the show was the sexy, beautiful Nathalie Kelley. The only thing she's really been in was The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, she played the lead. Maybe its just that look I'm into, she had that Vanessa Hudgens thing going on, but what I really liked most about her.... looking her up there were no slutty pictures... not yet anyway.
That's a perfect picture of Aaron Eckhart for today's out of it theme, isn't it? I caught some of Battle Los Angeles again the other day, if you remember I really enjoyed that flik, but one scene in particular is a real Captain America - Avengers assemble moment that it gets me going.
But it reminded me of something too, just on the exact right day that I needed to be reminded of it. A leader doesn't get people to follow him because he asked. A leader does so by example, he throws himself in there because its what has to be done, because its whats right, and his light lights the way. People follow because they see why he's doing what he's doing. They follow him because he makes them believe.
And this of course has nothing to do with anything. Something must have been lost in translation here, when I said out of it, they thought out of their clothes. Still, why complain about Asian underwear ads? Hell I can even read one of the words in there... it says SEXY!
This is where it all falls apart, so take this as a warning. It all goes down hill from here. This looks like someone puked into a bowl. People eat this. I don't know how. For all I know this could be the best tasting thing in the world, but I'll never know it because the sight of it is making me gag.
Honestly, this is a whole lot more appetizing to me. That's someones guts he's playing with there. This was a real live boy once, but now that's all thats left of him. In this economy though, you just can't let good meat go to waste.
In the end it wasn't that he kept messing with this lion that did him in. Leo here actually likes his pal Mickey quite well. He just couldn't stand listening to the idiot trying to speak and the nonsense and gibberish that came out. When you're getting your kicks at the expense of the King of the Jungle, you should at least make sure you can spell. That's just common decency. Leo had enough of that illiterate bastard. So he ate him.
How are lions the king of the jungle anyway? Are there even any lions IN the jungle?
Hey, if those last parts made you sick I've got a number for you to call, they can help you settle your stomach. Seeing this, I think a buddy of mine is going to have a new call sign now.
W
T
F
?
Huh! Don't tell anyone, but this is really how I broke my arm. I like to play dress up, and joust competitively, but I don't have the money for a hourse, so I have to run at the guy instead. At least the hispanics in Quick Change got to have bikes. I'm at a decided disadvantage.
I've been joking about professional jousting for months now, its on my dating site profile, and sure enough they come out with a show, Knights of Mayhem, trying to making real life jousting into an actual sport. Its on Tuesday nights, and I missed it, but I've got to check this out. Someone's going to get killed, it used to happen constantly during medievil tournaments, which is sure to get the show pulled, so I had better catch it before that happens.
Hey, don't knock the whole renaissance fair thing. Where else do you get to meet real women like this one up above? This is how she dresses for work. I was trying to get with her for a while there, but you have to wrastler her to get her into bed. She kept beating my ass. I won't lie though, I was really into it. You would be too... even you ladies...
Besides....
She sure as hell beats my ex girlfriend. Actually, my ex only looked like this, this shot is from her last birthday party. But she was a really nice person, lovely personality. On the other hand, that English chick I was sleeping with a while back looked just like this too, but only her reflection in the mirror. On the outside she was SEXY.... it was just her soul that was gnarled and twisted...
Yeah... I'll take the beating from the chick with the sword, thanks!
Geez, none of this even makes any sense. But like I said, I'm out of it.
So now I'm out of here too.
Women can kick ass and still be SEXY!
I caught Green Lantern last night, a completely forgettable movie that I just couldn't get into, uninteresting. I saw what they were trying to do with most of the flik, they just didn't pull it off at any pass.
The one thing that kept hitting me the whole time that I watched the film though is that it never hit me how beautiful Blake Lively is. Sure, she's on all the hottest celebrity lists, but what the hell does that mean? There's a certain quality about her that just draws your eye to her.
With all the talk everywhere about raping 10 year old boys at Penn State, this really was a much needed, very welcomed change. This pic here is Lively with Leighton Meester of Gossip Girl fame.
Before you start to think that today's post is just a sex show I'm putting on to throw up pictures of women again, there was a progression this morning from one lady to the next that formulated what I wanted to say, so bear with me here. And remember this picture. Lively led me to Meester, who led me to.....
Minka Kelly (Derek Jeter you dirty dog you!). If you look at these last two shots you can see both women are in the same exact pose, same exact shot, underscoring the unoriginality out there, but also befitting the situation. Meester and Kelly starred together in The Roommate, a trash rip off of another trash film Single White Female. At least this time around the chicks are hotter, but that's not enough. Just like the equally trash reboot of Charlie's Angels, cancelled after 3 episodes, all of this crap is so bad even Kelly's looks can't save it. Proving looks aren't everything.... not even in porn!
Don't ask me how, but somehow Kelly led me to Danielle Lloyd here, and ultimately my point for today's post. Look how sexy she is lying there on the floor like that, right?
That right there is Danielle Lloyd lying on the floor also, covered in blood. Not nearly as sexy this time, is it? Someone attacked her in the streets and left her there a mess like that.
Here she is again, looking as sexy as anything, right? What's not to like, everyone would want some of that. I'm an old fashioned kind of guy, someone who thinks that a man should stand up for women when they deserve it. But many women out there just don't understand what a nasty, nasty world it is out there. Not until this happens.....
And not until it happens to them specifically. We all do that though, don't we? "Not me!"
Sure enough, this morning a court dismissed the case of a 46 year old many stalking 19 year old actress Selena Gomez. I chose not to put any photos of her up because, much like a Penn State Football Coach's favorite play thing, they all look like a 10 year old kid. That's just bad news, potentially devastating news for Gomez, who has a restraining order against the dirty old man.
And that made Gina Carano pop into my mind. In case you don't know, she once ran roughshod through the ranks of Women's MMA before she finally ran into a buzzsaw and got her head handed to her herself.
That's Carano again right here for Maxim. The thought that struck me that so many people refuse to see is that, even in this day and age, women really need to learn how to protect themselves. We all do really, people, there's some real scum out there, and the day that it IS you that it happens to, well, you better know what to do before its you ending up a bloody mess.
Carano then led me to Sarah Ponce here, another MMA fighter. Look how beautiful she is. There's a common misperception that if a woman is athletic or able to defend herself that she has to be some kind of manish brute, a butch, or a lesbian.
But how can anyone look at these pictures and still hold that ideal in their minds? These women are professional fighters, paid to beat the hell out of one another, but that doesn't mean they can't be sexy too. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
If you think she looks bad, you should see the other guy. This here is Elena Reid raising her arms in victory, and it perfectly illustrates my point, because this sexy beast down below is Reid also...
She cleans up pretty good, huh? Damn, I don't about you, but I'd sign up for that in a second. Gorgeous.
The other day I had a conversation about much of this, and somewhere in there I said that Gym class in schools should be replaced with Martial Arts training from the 1st grade through High School Graduation.
Michelle Waterson is a kickboxer. Looks to me that Martial Arts training did her well. But the inclusion of this sort of training in schools would go a long way to solving many of our problems. For one, we have an epidemic of overweight, out of shape people in our society. To a large degree there's a general lack of respect in this country, both for ourselves, and ever more frequently, for the people around us. As a people, we have no discipline. SO many of our troubles come purely from the fact that we can't control ourselves....
And then of course is that violence out there, and there's a lot of it. You're kidding yourself if you think there isn't, it just hasn't touched you yet. Brittney Palmer here is NOT a fighter, but as an Octagon Girl, she IS part of that world.
Could you imagine how much less people would fuck with each other if it was a known FACT that everyone out there has had Martial Arts training their entire lives as part of their upbringing. Could you imagine the effect that would have on American society, being taught from the beginning to respect ourselves and respect one another?
Some friends and I often speak about what things would be like if everyone had to serve in the military after high school like they do in Israel and how much better it would be. This would have the same exact effect without being nearly as extreme. And just look what its done for the ladies.
What do you think?
Tim Tebow - a shining example of how its done!
He did it again, his third come back victory in a month, the forth in his eight professional starts, this time against the supposedly great New York Jets Defense. The numbers to that point were horrendous. But that didn't matter, this is when he's at his best, late, with the game on the line. Tim Tebow engineered a 12 play 95 yard drive when it counted to win the game. Its what winners do.
They brought the house. They blitzed everyone.
AND HE RAN AROUND THEM!!!
During the post game press conference he first thanked Jesus. I can take it or leave it, but unlike so many other people, he never pushes his faith on anyone else, simply states that's what he believes, where he draws his strength. That I can get behind. How is it any different from any other way folks out there gain confidence? At least this is in a positive light.
Then he went on giving credit for the win to every other guy on the team, everyone but himself.
Last week I had to watch a disgusting ten minute diatribe by Bill Maher, making a real ass of himself, attacking Tebow. And why? Because he's a Christian, a man of faith.
"Fearing not I become my enemy in the instant that I preach"
So people can't push their beliefs or way of life down your throat, they can't tell you how you should live your life. But you can do it to them at every pass? Tim Tebow didn't do that, you did Bill Maher, way to go pal!
Whether its the Jesus thing or his ability on the field, there are a lot of detractors, quick to jump all over him. And why? Because he has character? Because he does everything right, the way that we're all supposed to do it?
Back in 2008 while at the University of Florida, following a loss, Tebow addressed the media and gave the above speech. He spoke the words with all the heart and emotion with which he does everything. And he put all the weight on his own shoulders. He promised to be better, to make everyone around him better. Who does that anymore? No one does. Well.... Tim Tebow does.
You will never see anyone play harder. You will never see anyone push more. This is what a leader does. They lead by example.
In a world where all we seem to care about is the pomp and circumstance, the flash without the substance, Tebow's stats never look pretty. Maybe that's why everyone hates him so much. Because its not a beauty contest, because he rolls up his sleeves and gets dirty. Because all he cares about is getting it done.
But for all of the ways his critics want to bash him, for everything they say that he can't do, they never speak of the things he CAN do, the quality of his character, the intangibles you just can't teach.
His entire Offense loves him.
His entire Defense loves him.
His entire Team loves him.
They make plays for him.
They kill themselves for him.
And you can see it in every action they take for him, whether its play on the field or hugs on the sidelines.
They do it because he kills himself for them first.
That's his girlfriend, or so the internet says
Tim Tebow makes everyone around him better. That's the one thing no one can ever touch. And he does it without credit, and without shirking responsibility. He puts the entire load on himself, takes all of the blame, but never the glory. That he leaves for his teammates. And for God.
Tim Tebow is a winner. Pure and simple.
He's a leader, the way all leaders should be.
He's a hero, and example for us all, an ideal to live up to.
And we need as many people like him as we can get right now, don't we?
My only hope is that he never lets us down like so many of our fallen stars. That, much like God rewards him for his faith, that Tim Tebow rewards me for my faith in him.
"We are what we continually do. Excellence, therefore, is a habit" - Aristotle
A Leader. A Hero. A Promise.
You will never see anyone play harder.
You will never see anyone push harder.
And for no other reason than I think this is an incredible picture of a beautiful woman. And I enjoy looking at it.
Taking a step back
This will sound like a lot of whining.... because it is.... but by the end it'll have a point, I promise.
Friday started off with the Women's Basketball coaches for Oklahoma State University dying in a plane crash. If you don't know already, I went to Oklahoma State way back in 1996, and while I was tossed out after that one year and ended up graduating from another University, it was one of the two best years of my life, so I always consider OSU my school, even if I'm not exactly a Cowboy.
Later that night our # 2 overall football team lost to unranked Iowa State and probably cost us a shot at the National Championship. You never know how emotional events affect things, and there's no way that team wasn't feeling the impact on that night. OSU has had too many tragedies in recent years.
So it was a black Friday one week early for those of us donning the black and orange.
But that wasn't the worst part.
This broken arm is costing me all of my extra side cash, which basically means there's not much of a life. I had been looking forward to a couple of events Saturday for about a month now, but I had to cancel my plans to go because of how broke these doctors bills have left me. They fitted me with a new cast which allows me to move my elbow, but its tighter and more restictive around the wrist.
The elbow looks gnarly now, I have no muscle in that arm anymore, and the pain getting the joint used to moving again is indescribeable. And that's after only two weeks. But another nasty side effect showed itself. I'm claustrophobic, can't stand to have anything pinned where it can't move. If I were buried alive like Ryan Reynolds I'd go into a fit and drop dead, so this cast has made me so uncomfortable over the past few days that I have to medicate just to stand life. As a result, I've been between a daze state and aggravated. And its cost me all my spending money to be there.
But that wasn't the worst part.
Sunday morning started off well enough, my softball team put up a quick 10 spot and we won the first game of the championship. We only needed to take one of the next two in order to finally win it all. We had the lead late in both games, but couldn't hold on. Worst still, we gave the games away, they didn't beat us, we did it to ourselves with bad mistakes, and there were spots where I could have made a difference had I been able to take the field. So we lost the big one and no one to blame but ourselves.
But that wasn't the worst part.
Later in the day my Buffalo Bills got smoked by a pig Miami Dolphin team, proving that they aren't ready for prime time, PRE-tenders rather than CON-tenders. And to make matters worse, the NY Football Giants played like trash and may not be ready either. I tried watching the game with some buddies, but by half the irritating arm syndrome had taken over and I had to get out of there. My softball season is over, my football season might as well be, so now there's nothing to look forward to until March or so, playoff Hockey time, and I can't even hang out with the guys for more than two hours......
But that wasn't the worst part.
Have you ever felt something so strong that every fiber of your being, every ounce of what you are and the very Universe around you is screaming "THIS IS IT! THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN!" and in order for the world to be right, that vibe, that feeling has to be true because there's just no going back to the way things were, to looking at the world the way you once had if you're wrong?
For the better part of a month I've had that vibe. Certain things had been progressing in a way that it just had to be, there couldn't be any other possible outcome, because every bit of me is overwhelmed with this sensation, THIS IS IT! THIS IS GOING HAPPEN! Either I'm right or I'm completely insane. Both are strong possibilities.
And then I saw something. That something.... well.... it would be completely ridiculous to suggest that it was me. So I have to be wrong.
At the same time..... the way things had been going, with everything pointing towards it.... it would be completely ridiculous to suggest that its anyone else.
Regardless of whether I'm right about "THIS" or I'm just nuts, I've been better because of it, and its not something I ever want going away. But if I'm wrong, it will.
My intuition has always been my north star, my guiding light, and whatever "THIS" is, I want it so much that I may be seeing signs where there are none. I can no longer trust myself, or my gut feelings.
THAT my friends is the WORST!
The point today wasn't to cry about my problems though, but its the perfect week to bring this up. How many times have you had a day like this, or a weekend, or a week, month, even whole years like this, when nothing seemed to go right, nothing went your way, everything that you had been looking forward to was completely wiped out and it seemed you lost every reason you had to even wake up in the morning and keep going?
How many times have you been so rocked by something that now you even doubt the things you were sure of? As my boy Bruce Springsteen would say, "God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of!"
A friend of mine said recently that too many of us focus on the bad all too often, rather than focusing on the good. And when you're going through this, its so easy to get stuck in that negative spin, isn't it? Its so easy to see everything that's gone wrong, and lose sight of all you have that's good in your world.
Then what's a person to do?
Its fitting that this is Thanksgiving week, because its times like this, when everything seems to just suck, where it becomes imperative to take a step back, take a breathe, and focus on the things that you appreciate in life. "Yeah, that sucked, but Thank Fuck for THIS!"
Not only will it keep you going, but it will help put that smile back on your face and give you the strength and energy to forge ahead towards something good.
Hope Dworacyk is something good
That's body paint!
Or, again, as my boy Bruce would put it "Let the broken hearts stand as the price youve gotta pay. Keep pushin till it's understood and these badlands start treating us good."
So tomorrow I hope you'll join me as I tell you about all the things I appreciate in life.
Thanks and appreciation
Yesterday I was talking about how easy it is to get yourself stuck in a negative spin that you can't get out of and why its so important at those times to start thinking about the things that you appreciate in your life in order to change your energy and put you into a positive frame of mind.
Well, with tomorrow being Thanksgiving I thought it would be a perfect time for me to talk about many of the things that I'm thankful for and appreciate. Don't get offended if you get left out though, I'm very thankful for my family, my friends, and you good fans that read me everyday and make this worth while.
I appreciate the fact that my dog Jack (short for Jackass!) looks just like Animal from the muppets. He came from a litter of 7, and while his brother and sisters all played together, all he ever did since he opened his eyes was sit at my feet and bark to sit on my lap. So he chose me.
After the ex left, when he was about 6 months old, he caught meningitis and almost died. He was in the hospital for weeks, and after a few thousand dollars it was a last effort guess when the neurologist and I were brainstorming that came up with the cure. After I got him home he slept on my neck for weeks.
This is Jack's mom, Leia, my other dog. She's the toughest 15lb dog I've ever heard of, spent more than 6 months in the desert of Nevada on her own before the girlfriend found her. How she survived I have no idea. She had all 7 of her babies right in my hand, and would let me do whatever I wanted to with the pups, but wouldn't even let the ex go near them. That should have told me all I needed to know right there.
I had spent some time in some really dark places and I think these 2 dogs were the only thing that kept me going, so I'm very thankful for that, don't know what I'd do without them.
I love the small of a woman's back. There's something just right when your hand rests in the spot just above the round of her backside and you pull her close to you. I'm thankful for women that are soft and sweet, which I need to balance the manimal within me.
I really appreciate a good story, in any form. Its one of my favorite things. I also love baseball, Kevin Costner baseball movies, and great nicknames that last forever.
This is my Rotty Circe. There's something manly about having a dog, and I don't know that you can have a home without one. A dog is a sign that a man is coming home, because he may leave you, but there's no way he leaves his dog. I have a hard time believing that she's been gone for 5 years now, half the time I still feel her walking next to me, but I have so many great memories of her and could never imagine a better dog, or a better friend.
I appreciate a brilliant smile that can just light up the room from a beautiful woman, especially when its aimed at me. Sometimes, when you least expect it, an angel comes and lifts you up, and some people do that for everyone that they touch because their heart is so big it radiates. I'm glad I knew her.
Don't tase me Bro!
My God I can't tell you have much I appreciate this photo, or all the dumbasses in the world that give me something to laugh at. Life is the BEST! You just can't make this stuff up.
Mentors are so important, and I never really had one, but I'm really thankful for the one's that had to serve as such for me. I appreciate the fact that I was shown the path, that I was taught early that more luminous beings are we, not this crude matter, and that the force is with me.... always.
I appreciate Nick Nolte and all that he does. WE LOVE YOU NICK NOLTE!
And I'm thankful for women that are down for anything
Especially when they're down for anything in bed, like sexy Kelly Brook here.
But there's nothing sexier than a woman who reads. I need a woman of intelligence; nothing stirs me up quite like intelligent conversation, so as much as I show off scantily clad ladies, there's nothing I appreciate more than when they show off their great big brains.
If you look at this picture closely you can see, just above the trees, Death blowing something up towards the light, plain as day.
How great is it when you get something you never expected that just completely blows your mind? I'm thankful that there's something more out there, and great gods show themselves to us once and a while, just to remind us that they're there, and that we're not alone.
And I really appreciate Elvis! I love the King, and Graceland is a place you really have to visit at least once.
What's not to love about great trips with the fam? I love when I get the opportunity to be the crazy, over the top, fun loving lunatic I am when I'm comfortable being myself, and the people who accept me and let me be that way.
After this shot she said to me "Thanks for nothing Hatter!" in a sexy English accent. To this day I'm still unsure if she meant it as something out of the story or if I didn't do something for her that she was wanting me to do. But then, she could have just been English, that's what my experience with their women has been
Operation Fishbone was one of the best weekends of my life. It's an inside joke I guess, so here's to inside jokes then, and to the stupid shit you did when you were much younger that you'd never even consider now, but MAN did you have a good time doing it! Those are the things you laugh about forever, and how can you not be happy about those?
Thank God for heroes that you can relate to, crossing the line, cold sterile bathrooms and the nudey bar! Lets Rock!
I'm really thankful for that last trip, and those last days and months, and that special friend who takes you from one stage of your life into the next, but never really leaves you even when you can't see them anymore. And even more so, I couldn't be thankful enough for that smile on her face, and knowing that despite being blind, barely able to move and taking 2 shots a day just to keep her food down, she was still very happy until the end, and that I gave her a good life.
I really appreciate the guys on my softball team. For a long time I was the best player on a really bad team and it completely sucked, but I love playing ball too much to give it up. And as we got better it was with all the wrong kinds of people, grown men acting like babies, constant fighting and nonsense.
Now its hard to tell who the best player is, we're a championship caliber team and I expect to win every game. But the best part of it is that we all fit together really well. This is the best team and the best group of guys I've ever played with, and its an interesting collection of people if you take a look, but we make it work. They make playing ball a lot of fun again and I couldn't be happier about that.
Bacon, country fried steak, good coffee, sweet tea, biscuits and gravy, country cooking..... CRACKER BARREL!!! What's not to love?
I love pictures that say it all. That's the Man back there with his finger up, you know of him from our many adventures, and the girl in front is the Ex. This is the first time I showed a picture of her. I wasn't with her for looks, but because we got along really well and I trusted her more than anyone. We all know how that turned out.
But I'm thankful for my time with her, and more thankful for the things it taught me, which include never settle for anyone, and if your closest friends and your brother hate your girl, there's probably something wrong there that you can't or won't see.
I appreciate positive role models that always show you how its supposed to be done, and do it the right way. And I'm very thankful that my childhood hero never let me down.
I really appreciate the unique talents and fine acting skills of my favorite living on screen star Monique Alexander. She never disappoints me.
That's Patrick Wayne, son of one of my idols, John Wayne, with me on one side and my dear mother on the other. She was so nervous going to talk to him that she couldn't do it, so I had to go over for her and make sure she got a picture. That was a great day, and I'm very thankful that I was there for it.
I really love being able to sit around in my underwear doing nothing but watchin TV all day.
And I love the greatest love story of all time, my favorite movie with my favorite actor.
Here's lookin at you kid!
What can be more manly than a good fire? And what's better than some good friends, some good music and good beer around that fire? I appreciate the beauty of moments like that, and I'm thankful for the times I've been able to do it.
And thank God I'm a Yankee Fan!
Wow! All this to be thankful for and I'm just getting started. I can be at this all day if I really got deep into it, and I bet you can say the same thing if you really stop to think about all the things you love in your life.
But mostly, I want to thank you for being here, and spending part of your day with me every morning.
And now that Thanksgiving will soon be behind us... its time to get ready for Xmas!
There's Beauty Everywhere.... when you know where to look....
A question had been posed as to whether or not real beauty actually exists in this world.
My initial reaction would be to say that if you don't see it, you're blind, but that's a bit harsh. Most people are so wrapped up in the their own world and issues that they never notice the wonders that surround them everyday.
I see beauty, real, true beauty, everywhere I go. But I see the world differently than most people, which is what led to my starting this blog. So today I'm going to show you.
Every one of these are shots that I took myself with my own cameras. Everyone of them was taken within the confines of my surroundings during what I do in the every day, not off in exotic locales during vacation time.
So look through, enjoy, and when your done, you tell me if real beauty actually exists in this world.
Happy Thanksgiving.
BLACK FRIDAY!!!
Just look at this mess down here. What part of any of that do you really want? I'd honestly prefer to spend the extra cash than to have to deal with that, unless I was smashed up against that chick in the grey sweatshirt down there. Nice rack! But it's no wonder people get trampled to death at Walmart in this kind of mayhem, after all, we value "our stuff" over human life anyway, don't we? There's a Christmas message for ya!
I might wait in line like that for Monique Alexander down there. In fact, that's all I want for Xmas. Don't you love how her backside sticks out like that, you can rest your egg nog on there. I think she's gotten implants recently, that's too bad. She didn't need them.
Monique Alexander
Check out the look on the faces of those women piling into Target. They're not happy to be shopping, enjoying themselves, they're just ecstatic that they've survived this long and praying that they can move into the store fast enough to stay ahead of the stampede. What a disaster!
On the other hand, there's nothing disastrous about Shera Bechard, Playboy's Miss November 2010. Sugar Plums may be dancing in YOUR head, whatever the hell a sugar plum is.... I say keep your damn plums, give me the sugar baby!
Shera Bechard Miss November 2010
Look at this poor bastard right here. We've all been there, haven't we guys? And we all know exactly what's going through his head too, don't we. "What the fuck is she buying now?!"
I have absolutely no idea who the hell Shinta Bachir is, but somewhere in the 6 hours that you're standing on line next to some sweaty animal that's slurping on chicken bones and throwing them at your feet so that you can be buying some bullshit that no one really needs for people you don't even really like, I'll be looking into it. Thanks.
Shinta Bachir
The look of confusion here is priceless. None of these women have any idea of what the hell is going on here. One thing we DO know though, another summer of their fat kids sitting in the house getting fatter while they play with the crap in your arms lies waiting. Just don't get pissed at me when no one likes them because they're too putrid to socialize.
Decisions, decisions. As long as she stays down there.... I think she's made the right one. Nice dress and thanks for the show! Do you do private parties? Its on my list for Santa.
Quick, which one has the stupidest look on their face? I can't say I've ever seen anyone get so excited over fuckin bed sheets! If the one in the front waits a bit I'm sure I can give her something a little better to get more excited over... you two in the back are on your own though. Did one of them trip the blond? She looks like she's going down, and not in that same super awesome way as the chick up above.
I love Kate Beckinsale, man. She's still sexy. My favorite role of hers was in Much Ado About Nothing (my favorite play by the way) when she played Hero. I've been saying for months now that we need a Hero.... she's just the Hero for me! Who else thinks she should have told Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbor, "You're boy knocked me up, you're beat, now fuck off!"?
Kate Beckinsale
This is the most racist ad I've ever seen. Putting a picture of black guy up there for Black Friday.... I was in this store a few days ago and that picture wasn't there. And it won't be there tomorrow. Some People! I don't know about you, but somewhere in there they lost the point of the terminology.
Rachel Bilson.... I don't know what it is, but I've always been so into her. She was about to make the big jump too until she made the mistake of getting engaged to Hayden Christenen. Not only did he completely ruin Star Wars, but also her career. I guess this is why all those damn chick marriage mags that brain wash women into legalized prostitution preach to always marry up.
Rachel Bilson
I never have underestimated the power of stupid people in large groups.... that's most of the world out there. How else do you explain the success of anything MTV has to offer?
Nice jacket, is that members only? One of the best parts of doing this blog is that I'm constantly finding new ladies to gawk at... and share with my friends. She does fill the clothing nicely though, no?
Estefany Pawtuckett
How horrible are we as a society? Look at all these young kids cheering and smiling while that poor old woman has to fight for her life. She's grabbing on to the dude in front of her, hoping he can drag her through it, all so that she can pick up a little something for her little spoiled brat grand kid at home. And they're going to throw that shit away as soon as she leaves, because whatever she picks, it won't impress the kids friends, and THAT is what Christmas is all about!
Jessie West was in that same store when they shot this. The rabid crowd pushed her up against the wall here, tore her clothes off. If it wasn't for grabbing onto that gold mesh behind her she would have been carried away in the current.
Jessie West
Seriously, if I'm going to waste my time with the horrors of Black Friday, I'm going to do it sitting on my ass, medicated out of my mind, and in the company of the horror greats, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi
If it does turn out that I need something though, and have to brave the elements, and far worse, the unwashed masses of morons at the mall, you can bet your ass that I'm not throwing myself into the frey without a trained team of gun toting assassins behind me watching my back...
Or maybe you can bet her ass that's how it'll go down. I'll buy that for a dollar. Without the right back up though, I'm not even leaving the house today. Screw that. I've got a video to watch, and I think the drugs are kicking in.
You're A Bum!
Or rather, I am!
And that's not just the answer I gave a friend last night when they asked what I do for a living. It's not just because of my bullshit job. Its not just because of the pathetic paycheck I bring home that doesn't pay the bills. And its not just because I'm not doing what I want to do, not living the life I want to live, though those are all contributing factors.
I haven't gotten a hair cut in over a month now. I only left the house twice all weekend, and one of those times was to sit doing the same thing in someone else's place. I seem to have lost all focus, all drive, all direction....
And that's still not why I'm a bum!
"I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it"
And its true. I'm one of those jerks that people can't stand, one of those that can do pretty much anything once you show them how a time or two.... and I've done nothing with it. I'm so much more than what I've become....
And that's what makes me a bum.
Maybe you're in the same boat, I don't know. I can't speak for anyone but myself. There's nothing worse than wasted talent. So in that frame, I quess I'm the worst. I told you I'm a horrible human being.
And maybe I need to be a bum for a while. Maybe its good to accept where you're at. Maybe I need to chill out, not push so hard, then I can really see where I need to go next.
So of course, just this weekend a big picture item hit my mind. Its an insane idea. A huge one. The type of thing that changes the world.
And its something I have to do.
There are so many things I'll have to accomplish to get it done. Its going to take a lot of time. Its going to take a ridiculous amount of money.
For every level of success you have to become a new person. I'll need a total overhaul. I'm going to have to eat lightning... crap thunder....
But I've got three more weeks in this cast. And then rehab. I need some inspiration. I need a muse.
I guess I grew up a Disney kid, blame my parents for that, and probably 5 sisters.... but it made getting into Once Upon A Time. Its a really well written show. So I watching it last night a thought kept coming to me, bringing me back to something I truly believe...
Lana Parrilla plays the evil queen, and she's so good at being the absolute worst person you ever met in your life that I just can't believe that she isn't really that way in real life also. Its a theory I've been going on for some time now, that if a certain behavior just rolls off naturally for someone during pretend time its because they're so comfortable acting that way that it must be a part of them. If you want to know what its like to chill with Charlie Sheen, just check him out in Navy Seals. That's him! He's playing himself in there, gotta be.
The thing with the Evil Queen that fucks me up though is that I'm kind of into her. She's good looking enough, has something about her I find sexy, and if the internet is right (and it always is!) there's a flik floating around out there where she bares herself. What worries me is that what I find sexy about her is that she comes off as such a Thundercunt! That could explain a lot of things.
Speaking of actresses that love to take it all off, Anne Hathaway is getting hitched. Right there is a perfect example of how you need balance to everything, even the sexy, or you'll lose it. Now, to say that she isn't sexy is just damn ridiculous, but now I've gotten so used to seeing her naked in everything she's in that its nothing special to me anymore.
And that's the danger of the naked game. We all want it the first time, but once we're used to it, you're going to have to find a new trick to get people going, even when its boobs. And an actress who sells herself on sexy that can't get you into it anymore is in trouble.... time to release a sex tape.....
But she's getting married now, and what's sexy about that for the millions that want to nail her? Could be a step down is coming.
There's Demi Moore. Sexy? I don't know.
One thing for sure though is that some questions are answered loud and clear. A few weeks back I had put up a post using the 2011 Playboy Playmates, but saying nothing really that had anything to do with them. That one post accounts for nearly 20% of the five thousand plus times this blog has been read. Its all about the ladies.
A few quick hits....
The Conan remake completely sucked balls.
What do you think are the 10 hottest Santa/Xmas pictures?
And start sending me your top 10 best of 2011.
2011 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show !!!
Once upon a time in the not so distant past if you were to show me a picture of a bikini model, whether it be Victoria Secret or Sport Illustrated, I would be able to tell you exactly who she was and probably stats and bio to go with it.
Adriana Lima
I was working for the NYPD at the time, and my buddy Kris and I actually had a large binder at the office where we kept files on this sort of thing. It had to go back through years worth of swimsuit issues and catalogues. And by now you know I knew the Playboy centerfolds too.
Miranda Kerr
I bring this up, not because someone brought up the fact that she thought I was gay way back when we were teenagers because I wanted to chill with the guys rather than see her at the time, this isn't my overcompensation for anything, except for maybe my lack in the ability to bring these sort of ladies home with me.
Erin Heatherton
But because last night they aired the 2011 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which was actually held Nov. 9 or so. This was truly amazing television, and I'll tell you why. Now, I know about as much about fashion as I do about speaking Chinese or delivering half goat half pygmy babies, "Push... what? Not yet? Huh!".... which is to say I know nothing at all.
Right now I'm looking like the cover art from a drunken 70's rockers album. If you threw a cast on his arm here it could have been what I was seeing in the mirror last night.
Lily Aldridge
So I'm not going to be commenting at all on 2.5 million dollar bras. Let's face it, if people weren't buying them then they wouldn't be making them, would they?
I don't listen to Kanye West, Jay-Z, or Maroon 5 either. Needless to say, there won't be any musical commentary either other than to say it really annoyed the hell out of me.
Alessandra Ambrosio
And the show was so over produced that it didn't feel much different than any other fake ass behind the scenes nonsense. Honestly, the commercials were more alluring.
This special was basically unwatchable, painfully so at times... yet I couldn't look away!
Chanel Iman
Really, it makes all the sense in the world. I wasn't there for the celebrities. I wasn't there for the music. And I wasn't there to see what new styles would be hitting the stands soon, as if I would buy any of it even if I had someone to buy it for. It all looks good to me in a pile on my floor. I was there for the ladies.
Candice Swanepoel
And they didn't disappoint. As if I needed more to prove the power of beautiful young women in lingerie, here I was deep into a show I couldn't stand with my eyes fixated on the screen anyway. And what's not to like? Unless you're a woman yourself who doesn't have it like this, or a dude pissed that they don't have it to get with ladies who do.
Doutzen Kroes
I've stopped having that problem a long time ago now. And as far as just being some sort of perv.... they're underwear models, not only is it par for the course, its to be expected, comes with the job, because that's exactly what they're going for. We all filled our roles perfectly.
Lindsey Ellingson
For those guys out there like me who can't get enough of this stuff, just remember one thing... you're only doing exactly what every male of the species is supposed to do, science backs you up! Our main biological imperative after survival is reproduction of the species.
I explain it all right here.
We are hardwired to want to nail every woman on earth who we think is hot enough to want to make her pregnant. And lets face it... there's no thought process at all. Now that I know the science I'll never apologize for oogling an attractive woman ever again, no matter the age or any other factor.
You should see my dog when one of the females is in heat, drooling with a big dopey ass smile on his face, his eyes glued to her every move.... something takes over, he's a dog possessed! And I do the same damn thing, and so do you. I was doing it again last night watching Victoria's.... Hmmmm!!!
Behati Prinsloo
To be perfectly honest though, I got a whole lot more out of the time I spent watching the movie 13, with Jason Statham and Mickey Rourke, among others. I wasn't expecting it at all, and then this flik just went and got SICK! I'm talking almost Human Centipede kind of crazy, and it really blew my mind. This is definitely the kind of outside the box thinking we need, and I highly recommend it!
And finally, for those of you who give a damn about what a 2.5 million dollar bra looks like, here it is. For the rest of you, its just another really hot picture to look at.
If there's a point to any of this its that really good looks will get people to pay attention to almost any nonsense. And they'll also keep you hanging around long after you've lost all interest otherwise. Good looks simply keep you in the game longer, bottom line, no point fighting this fact of life. So learn to use it for your advantage, just make sure to remember that even the best looks only have about 30 minutes of shelf life.
Then you're going to have to do something more to keep interest... uh... up
But that's all for today.
Conditions of Victory, what its really like out there for most, and more models!
Mregji Heinen
The more and more I look into these things the more I find a few people in the entertainment business, whatever the genre, actually break into this elite status, while the landscape is littered by the hangers-on. Most of you out there with those bigger dreams will fall squarely in some realm of the latter.
Toni Garrn
So if you want to actually do more than make a hobby of this, and for more than just a few years, you're going to have to find a niche in that world or a new angle that's unique to yourself in order to keep you in the game. The more I get into what it takes, the more I'm seeing that hero support, the people behind the scenes that allow these elite's to do their thing, has much more long term viability.
Lais Ribeiro
Every one of the photos I'm using in today's piece is also of women that appeared in the show the other night, every one of them beautiful, yet none of them have the names or reps that the stars do. Many of them I had to filter through, even drop some completely, because I just couldn't find shots of them sexy enough to use that weren't naked.
Anja Rubik
So here once again we run into another common theme, people that are successful enough to take part in a huge event in their field, yet still not known enough to be much more than a face, albeit a beautiful face, in the crowd. I personally know more than a dozen women who could fit this category and still have less of an internet presence than I do. In 5 years they'll be looking for a real job, brought back into the real world just like the rest of us, no matter how much they're living the high life right now.
Anne Vyalitsyna
Again, beauty only gets you so far, opens the door, but there has to be something more there. That picture up top is smoking, and its no different than a thousand others I've seen. If you know any ladies wanting to break out, or break in, to the modelling/acting/music industry, or if you are one yourself, you need to make sure you're very clear on one thing, especially the models where its just your looks that you're working with.... you're going to be taking your clothes off for the camera, and its going to be all over the internet. If you want to be a star actress, you're probably going to have to sleep with a few big shots to get there. Its part of the gig. And if you're not willing to do that then you had better get back in school and study hard.
Shannon Click
I'm really not one to love being right, its more relief that I'm on the right track. The same as with these ladies having to be willing to go to ends others balk at to get into the limelight, I too have to find ways to make the system work for me, rather than against me as it always has, and so will you in any of your endeavors. Which makes it all the more important to know what you're facing and embrace it, rather than rail against it.
Julie Stegner
Whatever it is that you're doing, you can make it happen if you're just able to find ways to accentuate your strengths while limiting the exposure of the things you're weak in. The models here are a perfect example of that. These are mostly runway models, pretty faces, small skinny frames, big boobs and not much at all in the hips and ass area. So what do you see mostly? Cleavage shots and hair whipping.
Izabel Goulart
Bikini models on the other hand are going to show off more of the back end, use sexy poses to reveal their best assets. Magazines and professional photographers prove brilliant at being able to recognize a person's best attributes and leverage those in their work. Some of the ladies... there just isn't enough out there to work with. Others, like Izabel Goulart up top here, are able to pull it off so well that I actually had to restart my archives for later use because of the vast amount of material she has out there that's top of the line.
Caroline Winberg
Like always though, my point isn't to talk about half naked women and show off their photos, though it IS something I enjoy. Rather, its to illustrate something greater that affects us all and I'll explain....
This comes straight from the Art of War, but is applicable to every situation in life, especially career situations. In every scenario we have to look for the conditions of victory, exactly what is it that I want or am I trying to accomplish, or, what has to happen for me to win. And how will I know that its happened?
Once we know this, however, we have to then decide how far we're willing to go, how much we're willing to do in order to achieve that end result. If we have to do or give up more than we find worth it to achieve that victory then its time to walk away and find another battle to fight.
To walk out into a situation without knowing those conditions means you've already lost. That's how we get in over our head. That's how we get sucked into things we regret or can never live down. Yet its how most people go about their every day business of living their life.
As you go out there, know what you're getting yourself into, what you want to get out of it, and the price you're willing to pay in everything you do. To do it any other way will always lead to you getting fucked in the end. Sometimes literally.
Its Friday morning and I'm not sure if I've had a serious thought run through my head all week... and I'm not about to start now. But I've already blown my load this week (in more ways than one) using pictures of women in almost nothing, and can't go back to that well.... what to do now, what to do....
So we're just going to go with a bit of WTF? for this Friday morning. As in WTF is that thing up above me here. This chick has her head wrapped like a pork roast. If she keeps this for a few more days do you think her face will stay that way? Quick, someone slap her.....
If you've been wondering how such a stud like myself could still be on the open market after all of the displays of my greatness, ponder it no more. The proof is right here, the perfect girl for me is out there, unfortunately, someone beat me to her. If that's not the wedding for this guy, I don't know what is.
You have to go to this page though, its where I got this pic from, and MAN do they have some funny ones....
This is the kind of outside the box thinking that I'm talking about... fast, efficient, cost effective and always gets it done.... why can't we be more like the Japanese, its no wonder they lead the world in everything, they've even got the market cornered on how to kill yourself right... in front of a live audience no less.
This would be even more disturbing if you knew where this toilet was.... the Men's room.... in Penn Station....
Talk about your romantic vacations pictures. The absolute best part of this photo is the smiley face across his ass. Does it make me weird that the first question that came to my mind was if he was coming or going?
The gift that keeps giving. To everybody. Don't I keep telling you all that there are a million things in this world to be thankful for?
You didn't think I'd go an entire piece without having one smoking hot beauty in here, did you? Of course not! Seriously, I actually know this girl, I spoke about her in my very 1st ever post and believe it or not she's really cool. The same can't be said for most that look like her. And for all of the "famous" people that are supposedly doing so well, she's got a much bigger internet presence than a lot of them. Keep up the good.... yeah....
Its feeding time. I bet you didn't know that camels eat their prey head first. I don't care how old he is, or what the situation is that brought this about.... if a camel eats your head, I'm pretty much convinced that you deserve it!
Is that a dog or an R.O.U.S? "Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist."
In the hot tub with your baby, a muppet, and you're brand new pink AK-47 with banana clip..... PRICELESS! There's so many places you can go with this that I don't even know where to start, but I have no doubt these people know just how to end it.....
Huh. When a bum freezing his nuts off on a bench looks down passed his cigarette on you and has to ask himself... WTF?!.... and you're going to be responsible for whatever happens to that kid in your belly. Somehow the rest of us are going to have to pay the price for this one.
Penn State University has just unveiled the Jerry Sandusky Children's Center....
Uh.... yeah.... he must have come from the same home as the woman at the top beginning of the piece.... Honestly, I can't hate. That English girl I was sleeping with told me that she couldn't give me what she was looking for. Now she's going out with this guy.
Supergirl, I love you. What a perfect uniform. I don't know what it is that I did wrong, but it was completely unforgivable... and now this superhero is going to have to punish me!
Bring out the gimp! Don't lie, you're that asshole on all fours looking the other way, we all know it, and now your secrets out! I know, I know, that's not fair.... these are the poor bastards that Supergirl up top caught. This is the punishment she doles out.... careful what you wish for pal!
Honestly, I don't see the problem here. This is probably the most lifelike drawing I've ever seen. You had just better watch yourself buddy, I hear Timmy the cat fucker is on the prowl, and that's bound to be looking pretty good to him.
That's real business that Timmy the cat fucker thing. We used to know a guy named Timmy that fucked cats and told everyone about it. That's not the crazy part of it. The crazy thing is that every girl he had sex with looked like Supergirl or my amazingly hot friend up there. And that doesn't surprise me in the slightest. It only goes to proves the people you women think are great.....
When I saw this I couldn't help but cry. This same exact thing happened to my brother. He was 12 at the time walking my 130 lb Rotty when she saw a squirrel and took off after it. She dragged that kid half a block on his stomach like some old Cowpoke getting lynched, it was GREAT!
This was taken in my high school locker room. No, seriously, this is what they used to do in there. Just be happy they haven't started playing leap frog yet... yeah, that happened too. Look at the smiles on their faces, they're loving this. Except for maybe that first guy on the left, what's with the blowers cramp? Maybe he's the engine today.
CLASSY! That's very lady like, and you told me they don't make women the way that they used to anymore.... All I know is that Toledo Firefighters don't fuck around! She's doing that mid conversation too, back home we call that a good woman!
Right now she's thinking.... "I wonder if he notices...."
Ron and Harry have always been so close.... special friends.... keep the magic in your pants fellas....
Baby.... you've got your spare tire... I've got mine. I can't be sure, but I don't think those are Michelin tires. Mom's got some hammers though, doesn't she. At what point does he say, you know what would make this the perfect romantic moment.... the donut from my Dodge! But hey, whatever works right? You can't hide that look of love in their eyes....
This right here is my retirement plan. I've got it all worked out. And since I'm plum out of spare tires... and I don't fuck cats... it may be a while before some gorgeous thing gives me those same longing looks, so I had better pucker up my asshole and get my yellow ready....
Now that we've gone over all of this nonsense, it appears as if the boys have my plans for the weekend all set up and ready to go, so I had better get out of here. That little guy is an impatient prick, hates when we keep him waiting. Until now though, I never realized how much he resembles Tony Fuckface.... spitting image.....
Until next time...
Some days, some periods in your life, it seems like no matter what you do everything is going to fall exactly right, go precisely the way you had expected it to and every time.
For some lucky people, this has been their entire life.
Some days, some periods in your life, it seems like no matter what you do nothing ever falls the way the need it to, it all seems to fall apart around your ears and never goes right, or the way you want it.
For some unfortunate slobs out there, this has been their entire life.
The way that karma works, whatever you put out there always comes back to you. So many confuse that, they think that if you do good things good will come; do bad things, bad will come. Unfortunately though, that's not the case, rather, its all about how you feel.
A serial killer who feels good about who they are and what they do will generally fall into that top category, with everything falling the right way.
The person with that good heart, the one that would give you the very shirt off their back and often does, but always has that pang of regret in their heart for all the things they still can't do, all the people they still can't help, and feels bad about it.... they generally get the latter, things just don't fall right for them, do they?
We all know, or at the least have heard of, a real son of a bitch in every aspect of their life that always gets everything they want.
And people love them, no matter how horrible they are. They flock to them. Can you see that person in your mind right now?
We all know, or at least heard of, such a good person that they deserve every good thing in life that a person can have, yet nothing ever goes their way. They always seem to get crushed down by the world. And you wish they could just get one break, because then they would make the world stand on end in ways that can't help but make you smile.
Yet people try to avoid them as much as possible, no matter how special they may be, because they can't do the same things that we can, can't put themselves in a better position.... and no one likes a downer.... Can you picture them in your mind?
There's always a spiral, upward, downward, and one event ignites the chain that spins that life where it will go, doesn't it? When its going good its always going good, and even when its bad something good comes out of it. When its going bad it always goes bad, and even when something good happens, its tempered by the consequences or circumstances that arrive as a result.
Swirling up or swirling down, it creates a rift, a chasm between us. The two can't see the world the same way any more; they can never meet.
When you're always down, the life, the spirit, is sucked right out of you, to the point where you literally can't think of what to do next, or pick yourself up and get going enough to do what needs doing if you could think of it. There is a weight, the weight of the world, pinning you to your knees.
When you're up, you don't want anything to mess with it, so you just keep it rolling and enjoy it as much as you can with others trying to enjoy it as much as they can as well.
Both can drastically skew your perspective. Both can alter your reality to the point where you lose touch, lose your grip on reality, lose sight of how things really are out there.
What spirals, swirls UP in the world around us? Forces of nature do, and we anticipate their coming when we can because they change everything that they touch.
What spirals, swirls DOWN in the world around us? Dirty bath water, pools of your own filth swirl down drains. Shit swirls down toilets. And those things are cast out with all the other refuse we don't want.
Air pressure lifts you up. Air pressure pushes you down. Its all in the aerodynamics. Its all in how you spread your wings. Its all in finding that right angle so that the passing wind makes you rise above the rest, rather than creating friction that makes you crash.
But what do you do if no one's ever taught you how to fly?
How do you turn your shit into a force of nature?
We live in an exact Universe. There's a calculation for everything, otherwise none of the things we've come to know, television, cell phones, cars, airplanes... none would be possible without the magic formula. Manure can be turned into bombs. You can literally use your shit to blow things up.... even feces can change it all forever.... if only someone showed you how....
The best option is to always put yourself in situations where you feel good.
But what does a person do when they never have that option? What do they do to change their stars when that happens? Who do they turn to for help....
Downer today, I know, but its what I'm thinking about....
SO it appears that I've hit the wall, run out of things to talk about, and its such a fine morning for it too with the downpour washing over the city of New York. This was bound to happen eventually, that's the price when you're a one man gang, trying to bring something new and fresh every day even when nothing new or fresh is happening.
No, that's not the wall I've hit, though I HAVE been thinking a lot about baseball the past few days. This is one of the more disturbing sights that's come out of the game I love though. I just found this photo this morning, and I'm pretty positive that's Gary Sheffield pinning Bubba Crosby to the wall there.
I'm not sure which is more upsetting.... the fact that I can recognize that its Crosby smashed in there from the look on his face, or that it looks like Shef is doing this purposely.
Sometimes life takes it all out of you, or you give it all you've got until you're brought to your knees. I'd bet this woman here left it all out on the field, pushed until she had nothing left. Those are the ones I admire, not talent, not winning, it's that drive, the WILL to win....
I used to have that once. The real difference is passion.... that desire for something so deep that you can't live without it, that you put everything into getting it. For the first time I really saw what that meant this week.
When I die, all I want is to be able to look back and honestly tell myself that I gave it my all, life that is, that I left it all on the field. I haven't been doing that though, not really. That's going to have to change.
That sounds like some good advice, doesn't it? Some real inspirational stuff right there, the stuff that drives you, gets you going. My father came from that school of thought.... FIGHT THROUGH IT!!!
Except that its counterintuitive. Much of life is that way, our natural instincts tell us to do the exact opposite of what the situation actually requires. When you're about to get hit you naturally tense up, brace for impact, but its that tension that actually causes you to get hurt. Being loose and giving yourself the ability to absorb the blow is what gets you out of there in one piece. Again, that's the balance of the universe, the yin and yang of it.
Speed and finesse didn't work out so well for this guy now, did it?
Those last two shots were people trying to get passed that wall with the benefit of the best that money can buy, and they still didn't have what it took. When you're driving an old jelopy its an entirely different ballgame, you can't rely on pure performance... things have to fall your way...
Or this is what you get. Yeah... I've ended up here too many times. And you have too from what I've been hearing. Haven't we all?
This is the exact kind of treatment I try to avoid, and the more I try to avoid it, the more it seems to find me. Again, counter-intuitive.
That's why it may be a good thing that I'm at the base of the wall. Maybe its time to focus on the important things in life....
That's Candice Swanepoel, now that I know she's a Yankee I think she may be the perfect woman.
With all this talk about Jose Reyes leaving the Mets for the Marlins its gotten back into looking into the game. I ended up buying Moneyball yesterday and started to read it finally, and its been great already.
If you're a baseball stat guy (and I am) you have to look at Slugging percentage. Last year the top 3 teams in Slugging in each league all made the playoffs. The other team that made it to the dance in both leagues led the pitching category in slugging against. OPS, or slugging plus on base percentage.... its the only stat that really counts. You can predict who will win based on that alone.
This here is Sandy Alderson, who is a central figure in the book Moneyball, and now the Mets GM, so it all does tie together. I actually liked the moves that he made after the Reyes defection, which will turn out to be a blessing for the team, you'll see.
And now I really can't wait to delve deep into this book. I'm even excited enough to start that virtual baseball league I love so much back up.
Izabel Goulart has nothing to do with any of this. I just found so many hot pictures of her for the archives that I had to include her somewhere in here. Besides, it really lifts things up, doesn't it, makes the whole day more cheerful.
More things having nothing to do with anything, I caught Crazy, Stupid, Love and Our Idiot Brother this weekend for a buck each from the red box. You all know how much I love the red box. They were both great movies. Crazy, Stupid, Love was just real life, solid all around. Our Idiot Brother was on the dopier side, but a nice, uplifting tale. Then again, I like stories about people, and life.
That's all for today though.
By this time Friday the fiberglass tie that binds me should be off.... 4 more days.... I can't tell you how excited I am about that this week.
Last week I had finally gotten around to finishing two books that I'd been meaning to look at for some time now, the first being "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis, and the other "The Power of Positive Thinking" by Norman Vincent Peale.
Both are good quick reads depending upon whether or not you're into the subject matter.
Moneyball ends oddly, but for the most part I think its been largely misinterpreted by the detractors of what it proposes. If we could all afford to just shell out whatever it takes to have anything we want then life would be easy for all of us, we wouldn't have to struggle for answers or look into better ways of doing things. But what do you do when you can only have enough assets to get ONE thing that we need, which one thing is the most important? What will get you the most bang for your buck?
There are a lot of us that have to make this distinction, this decision, every single day in all the many aspects in our lives, especially over these last few years.... especially in this depression.
Moneyball takes this same approach to spending money in the game of baseball. Being someone who has always had to look for that one thing that will get me the most bang for my buck, someone constantly looking for that magic formula to win at life, this book fascinated the hell out of me. And it helps I love baseball.
What do you think gives you the most bang for your buck? If you had to get rid of everything but one, what's the one thing you would hold onto? If there were just one thing that you had to find that would get you from where you are to where you want to be, what would that be? The answer to that is going to be different for everybody.
The Power of Positive Thinking probably would have been required reading years ago for anyone that wanted to break into that same field that I want to break into, but these days there are hundreds of books preaching the same things. The Secret being one.
There is one thing that kept sticking with me... the saying "I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME". Peale was a Christian of course, so his viewpoint was skewed in that direction, and you could easily substitute Christ in that sentence for whatever it is in your life, your belief system, whether it be Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, Grilled Cheesus, Crazy Larry or The Man.... but there's real power there.
I can do all things through Strippers who strengthen me!
And as if I needed another example of the power contained in these words, Tim Tebow worked his magic once again against the Chicago Bears, this one looking as much like divine intervention as anything I've ever seen. The Power of Christ compelled Marion Barber to completely blow it for his team..... TWICE!
That's a movie reference by the way. If you don't get it, you need to brush up on your classics. That right there is something that I'll touch on again sometime down the road.
Throw your arms out wide and say boldly "I'M THE MAN!" (or woman) and tell me it doesn't feel great!
It does.
Aside from the delusions of grandeur that have been rolling around my head since last week, and the very real vision of what these delusions will look like, these revelations finally made clear something that I've already long knew.
For a good while now I've been struggling with how simple it really is, afterall, there HAS to be more. It can't really be that easy, can it?
But it is. And I can show you how. Are you with me?
We all have our secret language, those terms and sayings that only make sense to the people we hang out with. Over the years I've had a few, there are people that I can have entire conversations with using nothing but movie quotes, and they'll know exactly what I'm saying....
Since meeting my good friend Scotty Z in Las Vegas the word HUH has taken up its place among the higher levels of my favorite words. Much like the mother of all words, the F bomb, the versatility is immense. Huh? Huh! and Huh. all have different meanings. Change the inflection of your tone and that changes again.
Superman walks out of his phone booth and sees a half ape version of himself. Huh?
Come on, you know that one. You've seen it plenty of times before whenever anyone asked the hard questions....
Then of course there's the "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Huh?" I've been known to make these same faces in this same situation.... sometimes while I'm still in the bar... good man!
This would have fit more with the all important exclamation point. I think you can see some drool or maybe its a string hanging from the left corner of the freak on the rights mouth. The one on the left is just happy he got all the looks. HEY YOU GUYS!
My sister collects Barbie Dolls, and I always wondered why she never gets any of the Black Barbie dolls. Not anymore. I bet you didn't know she makes her own make up. That rainbow shit over her eyes was crushed out of her own front tooth. Hey good lookin... what up?!
Did I flush the toilet this morning? I know I took a big shit, remembered it wrapping around the bowl three times... and I'm pretty sure I washed my hands after, or at least they don't smell.... but did I flush....
Huh?
Is that Amanda Peet? GOD, I love that stupid look on her face. Who says there isn't anything to smile about these days?
Well, I don't know if I'm going to.... handle it.... but if you needed another reason, this is why porn is the BEST! It can make anything fun, can't it?
Speaking of porn.... apparently she loves blow. HUH!
Am I the only one that sees that weird flap of skin between her fun bags? What is that? I'll tell you what it is, that's a perfect visualization of the pull of gravity when two celestial masses, two heavenly bodies, are moved apart from one another....
Society is finally finding ways to move ahead of the curve, address the biggest news stories of the day, and combine them to come up with creative solutions. Lady Gaga wants the bullying to stop. Priest and Football Coaches everywhere need little boys to rape..... do I hear WIN-WIN here or what?
HUH!
Tell me why I'm so sure she has a bald head. Part of me thinks she looks like Venom here, lashing her tongue out like that. Part of me wishes she was coming to get me. Huh?
Yeah, I don't know either.
Huh. I guess they don't float either. Don't get pissy with Spidey, he has to conduct experiments like this every once in a while, how else is he going to know how much time he has to save who and when in the future without testing for empirical data. Let's not forget, Peter Parker, after all, IS a scientist.
Huh? I'm not a doctor or anything... but isn't she grabbing the wrong spot? Exactly what is it that she's touching? I wonder if she's like that chick in Total Recall.... 3 tits.... "You make me wish I had tha-ree hands!"
She's pretty tiny though, I guess all three of her boobs are small.
I don't think there's anything at all that I can add to that.
Katy Perry. Huh. That there bright eyed Elmo looks surprised. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, don't they? There just may be something to that, huh?
BEHOLD! All Mighty Masters of the HUH!
Success is all about mastering communication, as Anthony Robbins says, the quality of your communication is the quality of your life. All I can say is that there's a reason these two fine, outstanding young men have made it all the way to Hollywood.
Huh huh, Huh huh... Huh huh....
HUH! That could be some meaningless fun for a while. I'm sure that'll help keep me, uh... up.
There are a lot of things running through my head right now.
The first is the success of this blog. It seems to be at the beginning stages of a lift off, which is great, and its reminded me of an important idea that most of us miss in going for our glory.
Success comes from a series of small steps and small victories, one thing at a time, one foot after the next.
We all think about the overnight success, but how many of those were just people that were overlooked for a long time until something happened that made everyone notice the work that they had been putting in for years all at the same time? Truth is, that's most of them, we just didn't or couldn't or wouldn't see them before.
That's at the beginning stages for me, which leaves me in a position where I have to change. Sometimes less is more, and you may be getting less of me with the idea of quality over quantity from here on out. A while back I spoke about not getting noticed for the wrong things in my piece 2011 NY Comicon - what NOT to do, and now the same goes for me. When the girl of your dreams finally sees you there you don't want to be drooling all over yourself, so you're only going to be getting something if I think its good enough to give you.
Then again, maybe the girl of your dreams is a drooler too. I have an uncle that used to be able to pick cards off the ground with his spit, no, seriously. He could drool down to the ground from a standing position, touch the card, then suck it all back up card and all.
If that's the kind of guy you are then this is the girl for you, so maybe getting caught out there like that is EXACTLY what you want. What do I know?
Is that really drool falling from her lips? It looks like something else. Come to think of it, there are probably some good things you can do with a hot girlfriend who enjoys this sort of thing.
And honestly, I'm looking like this guy up top lately, without the pleasant disposition, so maybe a drooler is just what I need....
But moving away from the slimed tangent that I slipped on....
The small victories that build up slowly and then seemingly explode into huge success, what my good buddy Walt speaks of often as the Art of Compounding, also have another much greater effect than a simple win that does so much more for every area of your life....
Small victories help with that, but we all need to have things we can't wait for, things to look forward too. Whether its something today, this week, this month, whathaveyou, these are the things that make all the hard work worthwhile.
Show me someone without anything to look forward too and I'll show you someone who's lost hope.
We look forward to things because we hope they will give us some of that feeling. You can never give yourself too much of that, but take it away and what have you really got?
This will be the last time that you hear from me before finally getting this cast removed from my left arm, and its about damn time!
Of course, now the real work begins.
Last night I was tracking the performance of what I do here and crossed the numbers on one of the articles.... it read 1701.... instantly one thing flashed across my mind...
And that's not the first time its happened, no, it happens every single time I see the numbers 1701, no matter where I see them, no matter the circumstance.
That's how powerful images are in our mind. That's the exact kind of association our brain makes with everything we encounter which dictates what we do in life. With this one in particular, its been trained into me for so long that the association is strong enough to occur every time.
Most of our wants and desires, most of how we think and act has been trained from our birth in this exact way, by our family, our friends, and especially..... from TV and Radio. We've all been collectively brainwashed to believe that this is the way life is now for generations....
Is it any wonder why us guys drool over women that look like this down below like Pavlov's dogs? Is it really any wonder why we put so much value on "things", rather than character? Or that, as an Occupy Wall Street protester told me... "Well.... we still want our things"?
That picture I grabbed of the Enterprise had a headline "Pentagon wants somebody to build Starship". Not only doesn't that surprise me, but I can't wait for it to happen. According to this article, we're going to be sending commercial flights to space by 2016 with the intent on eventually sending people to the international space station. There's every possibility that sometime in my life I'll be able to actually take a trip to the moon. How exciting is that?
The other day in London the Royal Family of Dubai was robbed at gunpoint, their Christmas money was stolen. That Christmas cash amounts to about 3 million bucks... must be nice, huh? 3 Million as your throw away cash for bits and bobs and spreading some holiday cheer. I wonder exactly how much holiday cheer that kind of capital finances, and I'm more than happy to take up the challenge of finding out if any of you feel the need to fund the operation. It would start like this....
The article cracked me up, not because they got robbed, but because of the getaway driver. When the police caught the guy he says to them, "Yes, OK, fair enough. Are you going to take me to the police station now because I'm a bit cold."
That right there pretty sums up every experience I've ever had with the English.
Speaking of every single experience I've ever had with a given group of people... this has been my experience with ever Frat Boy I've met, a Vermont U Frat asked members who they wanted to rape. Once you hit the real world you realize that other than partying, college is really all about the social networking, the connections that you make, the meeting of like minded people and helping each other "make it" later in life.
Can you imagine an entire organization of people that seriously entertain these kind of ideas? And they're out there. When I was at Oklahoma State a girl I was close with had to stop dating me... I wasn't part of one of the two frats that she was allowed to date guys from as a member of her sorority. That's no shit, real life stuff right there, actually happened.
These are the people that become career politicians. These are the people that run our country. Do you still wonder why things are such a mess out there?
As for who's running things, well, I still have my reservations as to exactly who that is, but President Obama thanked the troops and spoke about the official end to the war in Iraq..... yet 16,000 Americans are still going to be staying there.
Let's put that number into perspective here for a second, 4,400 soldiers were killed throughout the war, and we're going to be keeping 4 TIMES that amount of personnel stationed over there. 16,000 people is about what it takes to fill a major university. That's an entire college worth of people, a small city. That's not even counting the private, ahem, er... mercenaries... that will be there.
Putting our society into some clearer light again based on that.... 16,000 people can easily fit into Madison Square Garden. Three times as many people go to your average baseball game each night, five times that many people pack the average college football game every Sunday afternoon.
There will be more dirty hippies at a New Years Phish show than there will be running U.S. Operations in foreign affairs with a nation we we're just at war with and occupied for nearly a decade.
The idea today is to give you a bunch of things to think about. And you should really consider them, then get back to me.
While you put that into your pipe and smoke it, I'm going to get this arm thing taken care of. Until next time...
Christmas is already over for me, we had to do the whole family thing this past Saturday due to scheduling and all that, so all I've got to look forward to involves Turduckin, Ringo and The Man
But that doesn't mean that I want to lose that Christmas spirit.
Yeah, so I had to hit you with that right off the bat. Its your own fault though. Not to worry, there will be plenty to cheer about this week, and that's not just the gifts under the tree. Christmas is supposed to be about family time, staying together....
Like these ladies right here. I'm usually not one for carolers, but if they were to sing at my door I think I could find it in my heart to wrastle up a donation. But its not all about that either. Sometimes we find ourselves in places we don't want to be this time of year, like stuck working, and it feels like we're locked in a dungeon.... often its about finding ways to make the most of things and appreciating what it is that we DO have....
For the last few hours I've been haunted. I checked out a Welsh film called "submarine" last night and it left me glaring deep into the hole in my soul, staring at the empty space with thoughts drifting to what I know is missing from that place. It happens. We all get these moments, for some they never seem to go away... though I'm not too concerned with all that. Nothing a good laugh won't solve, or anything else that puts you in a positive frame of mind... your happy place.
Successful people only spend 10% of their time thinking about a problem, the rest on the solution.
Oh... and the movie was weird. I ended up loving it, even if it did leave me haunted.
Have you ever seen a ray of light beam through your window? There's a glowing shaft piercing a darker world, and in that shaft floating particles dance and sway this way and that without any noticeable pattern.
The other day I sat on my bed and watched these particles swirl through the light. Its in these rare moments that we're able to see those swirling energies that fill the spaces in between, the power, the life we can't see, those essences that connect us all. Of course I had to try out my Jedi powers, reaching out with my feelings and asking the particles to come to me. Before my eyes in that ray of light whatever filled that place straightened, and in one continuous flow streamed towards me like a river. I wasn't at all surprised by that.
So I pushed away, just to see what would happen. At first it appeared as a window curtain does when someone moves it to peak outside, the particles lifted, then separated, before flowing in one continuous stream in the other direction, away from me.
I know what you're thinking, this is just ridiculous, nonsense, crazy talk. After all, without seeing it themselves, who would believe it? No one, I know. So I went through the exercise again. Same results.
Take from that story what you will. I know what I believe from it, but then, I always have believed it, and our mind always seeks, and always finds, reasons to prove our beliefs right.
Just before I sat on the bed, before seeing the light, I caught "The Adjustment Bureau" starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. I can't quite put my finger on what it is about her, maybe the whole package, but I'm really into Emily Blunt.
The movie is about fate, soul mates and free will, with God running heaven as if its a major corporation, and his "employees" are charged with the task of giving people a slight nudge here and there to make sure we all play our part and everything goes according to plan. To do this they use "doors" that cut through the fabric of the universe, allowing them to move from one side of the planet to another in a moment. Except every once in a while someone (Damon) goes off the path, challenges what fate has in store for them, bucks their destiny, and all hell breaks loose.
Aside from being just a completely excellent movie, I've had these same exact ideas that were in this film floating around in my head, filling my dreams, for the better part of the last two years, right down to the doors, the slight nudges to adjust fate, and the feeling of connection with people as if there was supposed to be something more there, but it wasn't part of the plan, so someone kept it from happening.
There's a line from the film where Anthony Mackie tells Damon "your father was a smart man, very smart, could have been more, wanted to be, but it wasn't part of the plan"
How many times have you felt that way yourself? I know I have many, many times.
Mackie, by the way, is an excellent actor, someone who's been in a lot of films now, but should be bigger than he is. He completely carried "We Are Marshall", which was a film that blew me away. "The Hurt Locker" isn't the same film without him, even if he wasn't the star of the film. His small part in "Real Steel" was well done, and now with this film, in which he's pivotal to the plot, I believe he can play just about any role.
So what did I take out of the entire experience of seeing a film that seemed as if it had been pulled completely from my own head, and turned out to be excellent?
Its Universal Consciousness baby, ever present, all pervasive God Mind. Just like the particles of light floating through the empty spaces, thought, all thought, dance and sway this way and that without any noticeable pattern through our heads, passing from my mind to yours and vice versa even across the great expanse of time and space.
And interesting side note here.... scientists can't explain what light is. Light is light. That's all they can say about it. Light is light. They don't even know where it comes from.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit if all we were, all everything is, are nothing more than those particles dancing in the light. How is it then that so few of us know the dance?
Switching gears a bit, the St. Louis Cardinals 2011 Payroll was 105.4 million and they were 11th in payroll. A full 1/3 of the league has a payroll over 100 million. I don't ever want to hear about anyone "buying" championships again.
The former Miss Venezuela, Eva Ekvall, just died of breast Cancer at 28 years old. How sad is that? I'm not about to tell you to think of that and be happy you don't have it so bad as the holidays roll in, I've always felt that that was a bullshit way of looking at the world. But I will say this, this life is the only thing any of us have, or will ever have, that is ever actually ours, and its all special. So be happy about something, whatever it is, and enjoy all of it as much as possible.
Very uplifting, holiday cheery post today, huh? I know. That's why I kept on with the Sexy Santa Ladies today, who otherwise had nothing to do with anything I was talking about, to balance it all out.
It doesn't look as if we're going to be having any kind of white Christmas in NYC this year, the storm that would have brought the snow ended up being rain, the kind of mist that makes the roads a mess and brings every clown that can't operate a vehicle out to play. GOOD! I can't stand snow, all it does is muck up the works. Thank God for that... or Ra, the sun god.
This morning I forgot my coffee as I ran out the door, left it right on the counter, so this may be a long day. You've all been there before, forgot something you set up specifically to grab for the go only to have an "OH, NO!" moment later when it was too late to go back and there was nothing you could do about it. Don't you hate that?
If you're a coffee addict like me you know how rough the day is when you haven't had that cup of Joe. On top of that, it seems like one of those twilight zone mornings, when its as if you're in a bubble, no one around and nothing going on.
Well... the roads WERE terrible and all the bad drivers did in fact come out to get in my way... so THAT's going on. Everyday on the way to work, on the way home, and my lunch break in between I encounter some ass who can't operate machinery and think at the same time wielding a four wheeled mobile death device before my very eyes. I see this, how terrible people are at something as simple as driving, and wonder how it is that we've ever made it this far, and how it is that I can't seem to get ahead in life when there are so many people out there that are just completely backwards.....
And I know you know what I'm talking about. Its the plight of us all.
They've discovered where most of the stones from Stonehenge came from, about 100 miles away in a place called Rhos-y-felin in Wales, and that around the site several sun worshipping stations were erected also. This is what brings up Ra. I won't get too into my ancient alien conspiracies.... they exist, we're alien retards... or sea monkeys. There's no way Stonehenge wasn't a landing pad for a UFO, just like there's no way primitive people could have moved building materials that we can't relocate now 5,000 years ago without a little help from their friends. Their friends being aliens.
Now its got me on a hunt for an MP3 download of Chariots of the Gods, the ancient alien almanac that started it all. I need to know how the Bible is actually an alien text book translated in a way we can understand, without totally blowing our tiny human minds.
There's nothing tiny about the human mind, by the way. Your body has enough energy to power a city. Your mind can do anything.
Warrior was actually a good flik. A little long, and some of the drama scenes were over done and poorly acted, not to mention that it was predictable, but all of those type of movies are. Still, overall very enjoyable, at least for a buck.
Jennifer Morrison , the star of ABC's Once Upon a Time plays a small role in it, and I still can't decide if she's up there or not. She was on House for a long time, and I wasn't sure then either. The best way to put it I guess is that she's really good looking for a woman my age. Take that however you want.
Nick Nolte plays himself in the film. You know how much we love Nick Nolte!
And you'll be happy to know, my inheritance from Nigeria or the secret relative of mine from the U.K., wherever it came from... yeah, its just been released. I don't know the details, but the Barrister has it all under control. They told me so in an email.
If you thought Iran and North Korea were the only ones we have to worry about nuking us, think again. Russia is developing a 100 ton ballistic missile and threatening to pull out of whatever new treaty we have with them to disarm our nuclear weapons. Seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same. And looking at what our society has become since the end of the cold war, how stupid, lazy and complacent our people have become, do you think we're really prepared for this sort of thing? I doubt it.
Geez, Russians, nukes, aliens, warriors and a White Christmas.... what the hell am I talking about? This sounds like the makings of a Schwarzenegger flik from 1986. Like I said, its a weird morning.
Thank RA for Sexy Santa's. Without them this whole mess today would seem like a major downer. Its just the way my day is going, which tells you all you need to know about how I feel about the Law Of Attraction. Stub your toe in the morning and your whole day is shot.
And tell me Rudy Ray Moore wasn't THE BEST! We lost a giant right there, and you didn't even know it, did you?
I had better get out of here though before this really gets out of hand. Maybe tomorrow I'll represent myself better. Like I've said before.....
The Man had asked me to take a ride, he had to drop something off to a particular See You Next Tuesday that neither of us could stand, and he didn't want to deal with her alone. The real issue was that he didn't want to go to jail for hauling off and punching her dead in the face, a very realistic probability. The minute I had gotten into the car my stomach tied in a knot and a deep anxiety over took me.
It wasn't that he can't drive and my life was in danger that did it; he can't, and it was, but that wasn't it. What gave me that uneasiness, I discovered later, was that I despise this person so much that the idea of being around her was making me sick. As soon as he did what he had to do, and we left her at some random ghetto bodega, the anxiety, the knot in my stomach..... they completely disappeared.
On the way home, turning to the right to see a woman that looked exactly like James Brown a thought came over me that made many of my recent struggles come clearly into focus. It had nothing to do with the God Mother of Soul. HEH!
In sports we often talk about certain teams, the ones that never win and seem to always find ways to lose even when the fete appears unthinkable, the franchises that do every thing all wrong and can never end the trend, having what they call "Losing Cultures". These teams are so defined by their losing ways that its all they seem to know how to do. It gets to the point where its all pervasive, it fills every member of the organization, from the front office to the coach and right down to the players themselves.
All one has to do is to watch them once, see the lethargy with which they approach their daily activity and its clear as day.... its as if their will has been broken, that they've lost hope of better days, they've given up. These teams expect to lose, and so they do.
When it comes to turning things around for these franchises they very first thing they do is talk about "Changing the Culture" of the organization. But when people are conditioned to lose on a daily basis its nearly impossible to turn them around and snap them out of it. Just like with social programs such as welfare, psychologically, when people get used to a thing you just can't take it away from them. So the only option left is to dump everyone on the club with that losers mentality and replace them with people who not only know how, but expect to win.
This concept of the Losing Culture isn't exclusive to sports, it infiltrates every group in life whether that be a business, a family, group of friends or anything else. When morale is low it affects everyone. When everyone morale is low its like walking into a dive bar full of old men with no teeth, rancid breath, and all of them passed out with their heads on the counter. There aren't going to be any supermodels walking through that door, no new money coming in, nothing. It just continues to stay the same until those old men die off or the bar goes under. Depressing, isn't it?
I'm always going on about support systems and how imperitive they are to success, yet when I walked into my house and looked around, when I looked back at the groups of people I had surrounded myself with, it struck me that I am currently, and have always been, a member of a losing culture. Not only had I been trained to lose, and to expect to do so every time, but so had everyone else around me.
This is where preachers of the Law Of Attraction and Success Principles the world over will tell you every time that you have to get as far away from negative people as you can, because they will infect you with their losing ways and drag you down with them. The only way to change that, to save yourself and break through to the winning side is to change the culture.
But how does one just cut off their friends? Worse yet, how do they cut off their family? Unless you're just completely cold hearted its all but impossible, isn't it? Its especially difficult when, like you, they too were raised in that same losing culture, and the losing ways were never really their fault.
There are way more people out there in the world that have been subjected to this very thing than there aren't, and the real bitch of it all is that they, more than anyone else, need positive people, positive influences, what we call WINNERS, to help them make that positive change in their lives. Except these winners want nothing to do with them, afterall, who wants their own winning culture to be infected with someone else's losing ways? Who wants to be dragged down? No one.
That right there, my friends, that space in between, is the gap we need to find a bridge to cross if we, as a society, are ever going to close the separation between the have's and the have nots. But it takes real courage from both in order to do so, a social courage that's in short supply in today's world.
One person who doesn't seem to have this problem is University of Georgia Head Football Coach Mark Richt. It had come out that he had been paying is assistants and support staff who make his job possible out of his own pocket with the school he worked for refused to do so. That's called integrity, and I now have a new, deep respect for this man, and will now root for the Georgia Bulldogs as long as he's a part of what they do there. I hope we can all learn from his example.
On a stranger note, a kid with two heads was born in Brazil recently. You have to read this article, they explain how normally cut off one of the heads very nonchalantly, but couldn't do it with this one because they're both healthy heads.
It takes about eight hours to cook one of those bad boys, but what do you expect from a turkey that's been stuffed with a duck that's been stuffed with a chicken that's been stuffed with stuffing? To add a little extra to the mix, as if it needed anything more, we covered the birds with bacon, because everything is better with bacon. I put bacon in my cheerios. This is why people are so damn fat is this country.
We got a late jump on the cooking process and hadn't eaten a thing all day outside of a few dessert pastries. Not one of us had eaten. We were starting to get on each others nerves, now this is the kind of Christmas I'm used to, everyone getting on each others nerves.
"Shut Up! Shut Up!" I heard my buddy Anthony yelling at Ringo from the other room. My brother Ringo has his problems, he lacks the social graces that most people expect from others, and this has kept him from experiencing life the same way as the "normal" every day person, which in turn leads to more lack in social areas, and this is coming from me, a guy who pisses off pretty much every one that meets me.
But Ringo is also a great kid, a far better person than I've ever been, and while he shows very little fear and will just about punch anyone dead in the face without a moments thought if you rub his rhubarb wrong, he often overestimates his skill in certain areas, and needs to be protected in others. Ringo very well may have punched Anthony dead in the face, and he would have deserved it to, you don't tell another grown man to "Shut Up", much less yell it, unless you're a bully, a spoiled ass, or simply lack respect, so you get what's coming to you if it happens. Of course, Anthony would really put a hurting on my brother afterwards, which is something I wasn't going to allow. This whole thing could quickly tumble out of control, so I went in there.
Anthony is a pretty big guy, in good shape, and whether it was that or the fact that we were in The Man's house on Christmas and didn't want to cause trouble, Ringo simply put his game controller down and walked out of the room. He sat on the couch and didn't say anything the rest of the night, and he was the one who bought the bird.
It's good nothing went down like that, my broken wrist isn't right yet and I can't be getting into any freys, especially with friends of mine, but had it been that way I would have had something for him. You wouldn't know it from looking at me, but I grew up a fighter, and have since been trained to do certain things. A few months before I began writing this blog a few punks around the neighborhood also thought they'd get tough with my brother, three of them believed they were going to jump him and I wasn't going to do a thing about it. It didn't work out so well for them. And it wouldn't have for my friend either. In Anthony's mind right now he would destroy me if it were to get into that. In his mind.
Just like the punks in the street, he wouldn't have known what hit him. But then, No Body Expects the Spanish Inquisition!
But that's not what this was about. You have to understand, my buddy Anthony is a great guy too, you just have to know him. That's the same exact thing anyone would say about me, and he's definitely more main stream than I am. If you put it to the social test, the polls would agree with him and I'd be the one who's nuts. So its not about that, its the lesson in the day.
The Knick game was long over and there was no football this Sunday due to the holiday, so we were deep into hunger and boredom already when Anthony walked in. Ringo loves video games, and he likes to create characters in his wrestling game based on the characters from my first novel VPI: The Saga Begins and watch them fight it out. Personally I think wrestling is for fruits and 12 year olds, but millions of guys everywhere can't get enough of the shit, and its Ringo's thing. Besides, its at least as entertaining as any of the other garbage that's on TV, and if he's enjoying it, if it makes him happy, then what do you care?
"WHAT IS THIS?" Anthony was screaming right away, "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" The Man and I didn't much care either way at that point, we were hungry and wrecked, but Anthony went on a twenty minute tirade ripping the entire affair apart for how ridiculous it was. I can't say he's wrong, the amount of things I'd rather do is probably incalculable. Of course, there Anthony was getting into it a few minutes later, at points cheering the action on before stepping back and tearing into it again. This is how it started, and the two of them didn't get along for the rest of the day.
How often have you been ripped apart like that for doing something you enjoy, whatever it is? How often have you done it to others? This is how society gets you to conform. This is how individualism is stamped out. It can be so deflating to someone's spirit. Most people will hang their head and never do something they really enjoy because of it.
AH, but the self actualized person doesn't care. They just do what they do.
By the time the Turducken came out of the oven we were on edge, Ringo was obviously upset, and I felt bad for him. But when that bad boy hit the table it all went away. There wasn't a sound for a half an hour as the four of us devoured a meal that was meant for at least twice that many. Turduckin has so many flavors that its difficult to describe them all, so I won't even bother trying, the important thing is that it was so damn good that the irritation we had all felt just a short time before had magically melted away. We were all happy, having a good time once more.
The Turduckin was worth the wait.
Later on, after we left, I had to help pick up Ringo's spirits. I told him to remember, if you're into something then chances are someone else is into it to, so don't listen to what other people have to say about it. Sure enough, upon researching the subject we found that Playstation online has thousands upon thousands of characters for this wrastling game that others out there had to spent a ton of time with perfecting for others to use, things like a Bruce Lee that looks and fights just like the real guy. Youtube is full of video's that other people had made of their own characters fighting it out in the squared circle, just like Ringo likes to do with his time.
Sure enough, an activity that one guy sneered and turned his nose up at and attempted to tear down proved to be something so much bigger to so many others. My brother was validated once he found a circle of people that was just like him.
The lesson I'm getting at here is this: Don't listen to other people when they try to tear you down for who you are and what you do. Don't let anyone make you feel bad about yourself. As Louise Hay would say, "what other people think about you is none of your business". Chances are they have no idea what the hell they're talking about, and if you just do your thing, eventually others out there will appreciate it just as much as you do.
In some sad news, the Chimp who played Cheeta in Tarzan died at the age of 80.
"He could tell if I was having a good day or a bad day. He was always trying to get me to laugh if he thought I was having a bad day. He was very in tune to human feelings," Cobb was quoted as saying.
Ron Priest, a sanctuary volunteer, told the Tribune that Cheetah stood out because he could walk upright with a straight back like a human, and was distinguished by other talents.
"When he didn't like somebody or something that was going on, he would pick up some poop and throw it at them. He could get you at 30 feet with bars in between," Priest said.
Cheetah could walk like a man, had empathy and the will to make people happy, and could fling shit like a champ. What a Chimp! R.I.P.
The end of the year snuck up on me, I thought I'd have some more time to do something a little more special, but man does it all go by so quickly. And at the same time, looking back it seems like this year dragged on forever. I think I've been four or five different people since I've started doing this blog in August, four of five more in the dark days that preceded that; there are a great many of those people I was that I didn't like very much, but the idea is to leave those inferior versions of ourselves behind, back in the dust, let go and move on to be something, someone, more.
Cindy Lauper said it best when she said "Oh shit, my career is over". No, no, kidding, totally kidding, she said it best when she said "Girls just want to have fun", or when she sang it to be more precise. Just from general observation and my own experience, that's as true a statement as any other. SO... helping us out today with the last post of the 2011 will be Playboy's Playmates of the Year from 2000 - 2010. I thought that would be fitting.
2001: Brande Roderick
Who the hell gets to decide these things anyway? It's all very subjective, like the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure, and personally I find most of what's main stream to be completely ridiculous. The Yankees didn't win the World Series this year, that's firmly in my "Worst of" list. If you even give a damn at all there's a good chance you just let out a hearty cheer. See what I mean?
2002: Dalene Kurtis
2003: Christina Santiago
2006: Kara Monaco
2007: Sara Jean Underwood
2009: Ida Ljungqvist
Some Friday WTF?!
Its Friday morning and I'm not sure if I've had a serious thought run through my head all week... and I'm not about to start now. But I've already blown my load this week (in more ways than one) using pictures of women in almost nothing, and can't go back to that well.... what to do now, what to do....
So we're just going to go with a bit of WTF? for this Friday morning. As in WTF is that thing up above me here. This chick has her head wrapped like a pork roast. If she keeps this for a few more days do you think her face will stay that way? Quick, someone slap her.....
If you've been wondering how such a stud like myself could still be on the open market after all of the displays of my greatness, ponder it no more. The proof is right here, the perfect girl for me is out there, unfortunately, someone beat me to her. If that's not the wedding for this guy, I don't know what is.
You have to go to this page though, its where I got this pic from, and MAN do they have some funny ones....
This is the kind of outside the box thinking that I'm talking about... fast, efficient, cost effective and always gets it done.... why can't we be more like the Japanese, its no wonder they lead the world in everything, they've even got the market cornered on how to kill yourself right... in front of a live audience no less.
This would be even more disturbing if you knew where this toilet was.... the Men's room.... in Penn Station....
Talk about your romantic vacations pictures. The absolute best part of this photo is the smiley face across his ass. Does it make me weird that the first question that came to my mind was if he was coming or going?
The gift that keeps giving. To everybody. Don't I keep telling you all that there are a million things in this world to be thankful for?
You didn't think I'd go an entire piece without having one smoking hot beauty in here, did you? Of course not! Seriously, I actually know this girl, I spoke about her in my very 1st ever post and believe it or not she's really cool. The same can't be said for most that look like her. And for all of the "famous" people that are supposedly doing so well, she's got a much bigger internet presence than a lot of them. Keep up the good.... yeah....
Its feeding time. I bet you didn't know that camels eat their prey head first. I don't care how old he is, or what the situation is that brought this about.... if a camel eats your head, I'm pretty much convinced that you deserve it!
Is that a dog or an R.O.U.S? "Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist."
In the hot tub with your baby, a muppet, and you're brand new pink AK-47 with banana clip..... PRICELESS! There's so many places you can go with this that I don't even know where to start, but I have no doubt these people know just how to end it.....
Huh. When a bum freezing his nuts off on a bench looks down passed his cigarette on you and has to ask himself... WTF?!.... and you're going to be responsible for whatever happens to that kid in your belly. Somehow the rest of us are going to have to pay the price for this one.
Penn State University has just unveiled the Jerry Sandusky Children's Center....
Uh.... yeah.... he must have come from the same home as the woman at the top beginning of the piece.... Honestly, I can't hate. That English girl I was sleeping with told me that she couldn't give me what she was looking for. Now she's going out with this guy.
Supergirl, I love you. What a perfect uniform. I don't know what it is that I did wrong, but it was completely unforgivable... and now this superhero is going to have to punish me!
Bring out the gimp! Don't lie, you're that asshole on all fours looking the other way, we all know it, and now your secrets out! I know, I know, that's not fair.... these are the poor bastards that Supergirl up top caught. This is the punishment she doles out.... careful what you wish for pal!
Honestly, I don't see the problem here. This is probably the most lifelike drawing I've ever seen. You had just better watch yourself buddy, I hear Timmy the cat fucker is on the prowl, and that's bound to be looking pretty good to him.
That's real business that Timmy the cat fucker thing. We used to know a guy named Timmy that fucked cats and told everyone about it. That's not the crazy part of it. The crazy thing is that every girl he had sex with looked like Supergirl or my amazingly hot friend up there. And that doesn't surprise me in the slightest. It only goes to proves the people you women think are great.....
When I saw this I couldn't help but cry. This same exact thing happened to my brother. He was 12 at the time walking my 130 lb Rotty when she saw a squirrel and took off after it. She dragged that kid half a block on his stomach like some old Cowpoke getting lynched, it was GREAT!
This was taken in my high school locker room. No, seriously, this is what they used to do in there. Just be happy they haven't started playing leap frog yet... yeah, that happened too. Look at the smiles on their faces, they're loving this. Except for maybe that first guy on the left, what's with the blowers cramp? Maybe he's the engine today.
CLASSY! That's very lady like, and you told me they don't make women the way that they used to anymore.... All I know is that Toledo Firefighters don't fuck around! She's doing that mid conversation too, back home we call that a good woman!
Right now she's thinking.... "I wonder if he notices...."
Ron and Harry have always been so close.... special friends.... keep the magic in your pants fellas....
Baby.... you've got your spare tire... I've got mine. I can't be sure, but I don't think those are Michelin tires. Mom's got some hammers though, doesn't she. At what point does he say, you know what would make this the perfect romantic moment.... the donut from my Dodge! But hey, whatever works right? You can't hide that look of love in their eyes....
This right here is my retirement plan. I've got it all worked out. And since I'm plum out of spare tires... and I don't fuck cats... it may be a while before some gorgeous thing gives me those same longing looks, so I had better pucker up my asshole and get my yellow ready....
Now that we've gone over all of this nonsense, it appears as if the boys have my plans for the weekend all set up and ready to go, so I had better get out of here. That little guy is an impatient prick, hates when we keep him waiting. Until now though, I never realized how much he resembles Tony Fuckface.... spitting image.....
Until next time...
Spirals....
Some days, some periods in your life, it seems like no matter what you do everything is going to fall exactly right, go precisely the way you had expected it to and every time.
For some lucky people, this has been their entire life.
Some days, some periods in your life, it seems like no matter what you do nothing ever falls the way the need it to, it all seems to fall apart around your ears and never goes right, or the way you want it.
For some unfortunate slobs out there, this has been their entire life.
A serial killer who feels good about who they are and what they do will generally fall into that top category, with everything falling the right way.
The person with that good heart, the one that would give you the very shirt off their back and often does, but always has that pang of regret in their heart for all the things they still can't do, all the people they still can't help, and feels bad about it.... they generally get the latter, things just don't fall right for them, do they?
We all know, or at the least have heard of, a real son of a bitch in every aspect of their life that always gets everything they want.
And people love them, no matter how horrible they are. They flock to them. Can you see that person in your mind right now?
We all know, or at least heard of, such a good person that they deserve every good thing in life that a person can have, yet nothing ever goes their way. They always seem to get crushed down by the world. And you wish they could just get one break, because then they would make the world stand on end in ways that can't help but make you smile.
There's always a spiral, upward, downward, and one event ignites the chain that spins that life where it will go, doesn't it? When its going good its always going good, and even when its bad something good comes out of it. When its going bad it always goes bad, and even when something good happens, its tempered by the consequences or circumstances that arrive as a result.
When you're always down, the life, the spirit, is sucked right out of you, to the point where you literally can't think of what to do next, or pick yourself up and get going enough to do what needs doing if you could think of it. There is a weight, the weight of the world, pinning you to your knees.
When you're up, you don't want anything to mess with it, so you just keep it rolling and enjoy it as much as you can with others trying to enjoy it as much as they can as well.
Both can drastically skew your perspective. Both can alter your reality to the point where you lose touch, lose your grip on reality, lose sight of how things really are out there.
What spirals, swirls UP in the world around us? Forces of nature do, and we anticipate their coming when we can because they change everything that they touch.
What spirals, swirls DOWN in the world around us? Dirty bath water, pools of your own filth swirl down drains. Shit swirls down toilets. And those things are cast out with all the other refuse we don't want.
But what do you do if no one's ever taught you how to fly?
How do you turn your shit into a force of nature?
We live in an exact Universe. There's a calculation for everything, otherwise none of the things we've come to know, television, cell phones, cars, airplanes... none would be possible without the magic formula. Manure can be turned into bombs. You can literally use your shit to blow things up.... even feces can change it all forever.... if only someone showed you how....
The best option is to always put yourself in situations where you feel good.
But what does a person do when they never have that option? What do they do to change their stars when that happens? Who do they turn to for help....
Downer today, I know, but its what I'm thinking about....
Hitting the Wall....
SO it appears that I've hit the wall, run out of things to talk about, and its such a fine morning for it too with the downpour washing over the city of New York. This was bound to happen eventually, that's the price when you're a one man gang, trying to bring something new and fresh every day even when nothing new or fresh is happening.
No, that's not the wall I've hit, though I HAVE been thinking a lot about baseball the past few days. This is one of the more disturbing sights that's come out of the game I love though. I just found this photo this morning, and I'm pretty positive that's Gary Sheffield pinning Bubba Crosby to the wall there.
I'm not sure which is more upsetting.... the fact that I can recognize that its Crosby smashed in there from the look on his face, or that it looks like Shef is doing this purposely.
Most of the time life feels like this right here, pushed up against a glass barrier that isn't going to move, yet forces and the places you want to go push you right up against it anyway. Right now I'm just glad I blew this picture up.... don't lie, it caught you too, I think its that eye of his staring at you that does it. This is what Poe was talking about, what drove ole boy to cut up that old man and stuff him under the floor boards.... its that eye....
Sometimes life takes it all out of you, or you give it all you've got until you're brought to your knees. I'd bet this woman here left it all out on the field, pushed until she had nothing left. Those are the ones I admire, not talent, not winning, it's that drive, the WILL to win....
I used to have that once. The real difference is passion.... that desire for something so deep that you can't live without it, that you put everything into getting it. For the first time I really saw what that meant this week.
When I die, all I want is to be able to look back and honestly tell myself that I gave it my all, life that is, that I left it all on the field. I haven't been doing that though, not really. That's going to have to change.
That sounds like some good advice, doesn't it? Some real inspirational stuff right there, the stuff that drives you, gets you going. My father came from that school of thought.... FIGHT THROUGH IT!!!
Except that its counterintuitive. Much of life is that way, our natural instincts tell us to do the exact opposite of what the situation actually requires. When you're about to get hit you naturally tense up, brace for impact, but its that tension that actually causes you to get hurt. Being loose and giving yourself the ability to absorb the blow is what gets you out of there in one piece. Again, that's the balance of the universe, the yin and yang of it.
This is what happens when you use raw power to try to smash through barriers.
I had just finished reading the 33 Strategies of War, another by Robert Greene. I've become a big fan of his. While it wasn't as good as the 48 Laws of Power, and that's possibly because much of it is based on The Art of War, which I know well already, its still a great read with a lot of lessons for everyday life.
These are the exact type of challenges that the book deals with, knowing WHEN to tear down walls and when those walls are keeping the bad men out. It deals with knowing when to use will power and brute force, and when to use speed and finesse.
Speed and finesse didn't work out so well for this guy now, did it?
Those last two shots were people trying to get passed that wall with the benefit of the best that money can buy, and they still didn't have what it took. When you're driving an old jelopy its an entirely different ballgame, you can't rely on pure performance... things have to fall your way...
Or this is what you get. Yeah... I've ended up here too many times. And you have too from what I've been hearing. Haven't we all?
This is the exact kind of treatment I try to avoid, and the more I try to avoid it, the more it seems to find me. Again, counter-intuitive.
That's why it may be a good thing that I'm at the base of the wall. Maybe its time to focus on the important things in life....
That's Candice Swanepoel, now that I know she's a Yankee I think she may be the perfect woman.
With all this talk about Jose Reyes leaving the Mets for the Marlins its gotten back into looking into the game. I ended up buying Moneyball yesterday and started to read it finally, and its been great already.
If you're a baseball stat guy (and I am) you have to look at Slugging percentage. Last year the top 3 teams in Slugging in each league all made the playoffs. The other team that made it to the dance in both leagues led the pitching category in slugging against. OPS, or slugging plus on base percentage.... its the only stat that really counts. You can predict who will win based on that alone.
That there is Jose Reyes, formerly the Mets best player. I hate the Mets, but not because of the team itself, but their fans. They're the type of ignorant asses that are so obnoxious that they make you hate everything that they associate with.
I'm a huge Buffalo Bills fan, and they went to the Superbowl every year that I was in High School. At the time a Jet fan told me that the Jets were better because they had won a Superbowl in 1969, some 25 years before said statement was made. I bring this up because Jet fans.... Met fans.... they're the same people, and this sort of statement is the rule with them, not the exception. I kid you not.
For that reason I can't deal with them, because they are UN-reasonable.
This here is Sandy Alderson, who is a central figure in the book Moneyball, and now the Mets GM, so it all does tie together. I actually liked the moves that he made after the Reyes defection, which will turn out to be a blessing for the team, you'll see.
And now I really can't wait to delve deep into this book. I'm even excited enough to start that virtual baseball league I love so much back up.
Izabel Goulart has nothing to do with any of this. I just found so many hot pictures of her for the archives that I had to include her somewhere in here. Besides, it really lifts things up, doesn't it, makes the whole day more cheerful.
More things having nothing to do with anything, I caught Crazy, Stupid, Love and Our Idiot Brother this weekend for a buck each from the red box. You all know how much I love the red box. They were both great movies. Crazy, Stupid, Love was just real life, solid all around. Our Idiot Brother was on the dopier side, but a nice, uplifting tale. Then again, I like stories about people, and life.
That's all for today though.
I can do all things....
By this time Friday the fiberglass tie that binds me should be off.... 4 more days.... I can't tell you how excited I am about that this week.
Last week I had finally gotten around to finishing two books that I'd been meaning to look at for some time now, the first being "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis, and the other "The Power of Positive Thinking" by Norman Vincent Peale.
Both are good quick reads depending upon whether or not you're into the subject matter.
Moneyball ends oddly, but for the most part I think its been largely misinterpreted by the detractors of what it proposes. If we could all afford to just shell out whatever it takes to have anything we want then life would be easy for all of us, we wouldn't have to struggle for answers or look into better ways of doing things. But what do you do when you can only have enough assets to get ONE thing that we need, which one thing is the most important? What will get you the most bang for your buck?
There are a lot of us that have to make this distinction, this decision, every single day in all the many aspects in our lives, especially over these last few years.... especially in this depression.
Moneyball takes this same approach to spending money in the game of baseball. Being someone who has always had to look for that one thing that will get me the most bang for my buck, someone constantly looking for that magic formula to win at life, this book fascinated the hell out of me. And it helps I love baseball.
What do you think gives you the most bang for your buck? If you had to get rid of everything but one, what's the one thing you would hold onto? If there were just one thing that you had to find that would get you from where you are to where you want to be, what would that be? The answer to that is going to be different for everybody.
The Power of Positive Thinking probably would have been required reading years ago for anyone that wanted to break into that same field that I want to break into, but these days there are hundreds of books preaching the same things. The Secret being one.
I can do all things through Strippers who strengthen me!
And as if I needed another example of the power contained in these words, Tim Tebow worked his magic once again against the Chicago Bears, this one looking as much like divine intervention as anything I've ever seen. The Power of Christ compelled Marion Barber to completely blow it for his team..... TWICE!
That's a movie reference by the way. If you don't get it, you need to brush up on your classics. That right there is something that I'll touch on again sometime down the road.
Throw your arms out wide and say boldly "I'M THE MAN!" (or woman) and tell me it doesn't feel great!
It does.
Aside from the delusions of grandeur that have been rolling around my head since last week, and the very real vision of what these delusions will look like, these revelations finally made clear something that I've already long knew.
- What we do in life, success/failure, and how we feel, confident/low self-esteem, is completely based on how we see the world.
- How we see the world, glass is half empty/half full, is completely dictated by our subconscious mind
- Our subconscious mind is being programmed every second by the people around us and the circumstances and events that teach us what we can or can not do.
- This programming is what forms our belief systems, whether we believe that we're good or bad, whether we are winners or losers. Believe you're a winner and you'll find ways to win. Believe you're a loser and you'll find ways to lose.
- Humans are social creatures, so we NEED to fit in with the crowd, yet everything we gain in life is based on perceived social values, so we are always trying to set ourselves ABOVE everyone else, and most people do that by telling others what they CAN'T do, by putting their competition down.
- Most people are programmed to see what they CAN'T do, but successful people have programmed their mind to see how they always win.
- Anyone can reprogram themselves to right thinking, but you have to unlearn what you have learned. There are very specific, easy ways to do this, but you have to do it constantly. Affirmations such as "I can do all things through Captain Kirk who strengthens me" or simply "I'm the Man!" can do that.
Keeley Hazell Desnuda
For a good while now I've been struggling with how simple it really is, afterall, there HAS to be more. It can't really be that easy, can it?
But it is. And I can show you how. Are you with me?
The Huh? Show
We all have our secret language, those terms and sayings that only make sense to the people we hang out with. Over the years I've had a few, there are people that I can have entire conversations with using nothing but movie quotes, and they'll know exactly what I'm saying....
Since meeting my good friend Scotty Z in Las Vegas the word HUH has taken up its place among the higher levels of my favorite words. Much like the mother of all words, the F bomb, the versatility is immense. Huh? Huh! and Huh. all have different meanings. Change the inflection of your tone and that changes again.
Superman walks out of his phone booth and sees a half ape version of himself. Huh?
Come on, you know that one. You've seen it plenty of times before whenever anyone asked the hard questions....
Then of course there's the "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Huh?" I've been known to make these same faces in this same situation.... sometimes while I'm still in the bar... good man!
This would have fit more with the all important exclamation point. I think you can see some drool or maybe its a string hanging from the left corner of the freak on the rights mouth. The one on the left is just happy he got all the looks. HEY YOU GUYS!
My sister collects Barbie Dolls, and I always wondered why she never gets any of the Black Barbie dolls. Not anymore. I bet you didn't know she makes her own make up. That rainbow shit over her eyes was crushed out of her own front tooth. Hey good lookin... what up?!
Did I flush the toilet this morning? I know I took a big shit, remembered it wrapping around the bowl three times... and I'm pretty sure I washed my hands after, or at least they don't smell.... but did I flush....
Huh?
Is that Amanda Peet? GOD, I love that stupid look on her face. Who says there isn't anything to smile about these days?
Well, I don't know if I'm going to.... handle it.... but if you needed another reason, this is why porn is the BEST! It can make anything fun, can't it?
Speaking of porn.... apparently she loves blow. HUH!
Am I the only one that sees that weird flap of skin between her fun bags? What is that? I'll tell you what it is, that's a perfect visualization of the pull of gravity when two celestial masses, two heavenly bodies, are moved apart from one another....
Society is finally finding ways to move ahead of the curve, address the biggest news stories of the day, and combine them to come up with creative solutions. Lady Gaga wants the bullying to stop. Priest and Football Coaches everywhere need little boys to rape..... do I hear WIN-WIN here or what?
HUH!
Tell me why I'm so sure she has a bald head. Part of me thinks she looks like Venom here, lashing her tongue out like that. Part of me wishes she was coming to get me. Huh?
Yeah, I don't know either.
Huh. I guess they don't float either. Don't get pissy with Spidey, he has to conduct experiments like this every once in a while, how else is he going to know how much time he has to save who and when in the future without testing for empirical data. Let's not forget, Peter Parker, after all, IS a scientist.
Huh? I'm not a doctor or anything... but isn't she grabbing the wrong spot? Exactly what is it that she's touching? I wonder if she's like that chick in Total Recall.... 3 tits.... "You make me wish I had tha-ree hands!"
She's pretty tiny though, I guess all three of her boobs are small.
I don't think there's anything at all that I can add to that.
Katy Perry. Huh. That there bright eyed Elmo looks surprised. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, don't they? There just may be something to that, huh?
BEHOLD! All Mighty Masters of the HUH!
Success is all about mastering communication, as Anthony Robbins says, the quality of your communication is the quality of your life. All I can say is that there's a reason these two fine, outstanding young men have made it all the way to Hollywood.
Huh huh, Huh huh... Huh huh....
If this is The Huh? Show then I guess that would make me DJ Meaningless, huh? I think I smell a new nickname coming on. Its fits well enough, certainly with this post, and pretty much most of everything else I talk about....
But if you want a lesson here you go... sometimes you have to just say to hell with it all and goof off.... its the best way to stay up.
And as long as we're going with meaningless affairs....
Whatever. It would take a while for you to know all my Huhs, so there's no point to going on with any more of this. Have a good one, then spread the.... love.
Small Victories and something to look forward to.
The first is the success of this blog. It seems to be at the beginning stages of a lift off, which is great, and its reminded me of an important idea that most of us miss in going for our glory.
Success comes from a series of small steps and small victories, one thing at a time, one foot after the next.
We all think about the overnight success, but how many of those were just people that were overlooked for a long time until something happened that made everyone notice the work that they had been putting in for years all at the same time? Truth is, that's most of them, we just didn't or couldn't or wouldn't see them before.
That's at the beginning stages for me, which leaves me in a position where I have to change. Sometimes less is more, and you may be getting less of me with the idea of quality over quantity from here on out. A while back I spoke about not getting noticed for the wrong things in my piece 2011 NY Comicon - what NOT to do, and now the same goes for me. When the girl of your dreams finally sees you there you don't want to be drooling all over yourself, so you're only going to be getting something if I think its good enough to give you.
Then again, maybe the girl of your dreams is a drooler too. I have an uncle that used to be able to pick cards off the ground with his spit, no, seriously. He could drool down to the ground from a standing position, touch the card, then suck it all back up card and all.
If that's the kind of guy you are then this is the girl for you, so maybe getting caught out there like that is EXACTLY what you want. What do I know?
Is that really drool falling from her lips? It looks like something else. Come to think of it, there are probably some good things you can do with a hot girlfriend who enjoys this sort of thing.
And honestly, I'm looking like this guy up top lately, without the pleasant disposition, so maybe a drooler is just what I need....
But moving away from the slimed tangent that I slipped on....
The small victories that build up slowly and then seemingly explode into huge success, what my good buddy Walt speaks of often as the Art of Compounding, also have another much greater effect than a simple win that does so much more for every area of your life....
Its the small victories everyday that build confidence by constantly reinforcing the ideal that not only CAN you win, but that you WILL win, every day. You grow to expect it.
This is how belief systems are formed, good or bad. Your brain is constantly looking for reasons why the things you believe are true, examples that prove it. And it finds them every time. If you're winning every day, even in small amounts, it literally shakes the concept of failure right out of your mind. How can anyone believe that they're a loser if all they ever do is win? They can't.
Small wins every day make you believe that....
THAT'S RIGHT! Thank you Winston Churchill! You tell em'!
There's a second, equally important element on the other side of this too. If you're going to stay up and have the energy to keep going every single day, then you're going to need something to get you up in the morning. And then you're going to need things that keep your spirits light and free....
Small victories help with that, but we all need to have things we can't wait for, things to look forward too. Whether its something today, this week, this month, whathaveyou, these are the things that make all the hard work worthwhile.
Show me someone without anything to look forward too and I'll show you someone who's lost hope.
It may only be a soak in the hot tub after a long day, but like a guy who's gotta piss so bad he feels like he's about to blow a gasket down there finally getting to drain it.... sometimes there's no better feeling in the world.
And its up to us to put ourselves in as many situations as you can where there's no better feeling in the world.
We look forward to things because we hope they will give us some of that feeling. You can never give yourself too much of that, but take it away and what have you really got?
Kylie Bisutti
For instance, I've been looking forward to putting this picture of Kylie Bisutti up for weeks now, and I don't have to tell you why.... And imagine what a charge you would get if you could look forward to coming home to that every night....
But if you don't believe it will happen, it never will. Even if you get the chance you'll wreck it. So its of the utmost importance that you choose the program your brain runs, what your subconscious tells you.
You do that by feeling like you're on top of the world and that you should be, because you deserve victory. You do that by giving yourself things to look forward to, and building a strong foundation of success upon small wins every day.
But that's all for now.
TAKE.... This broken wing....
Of course, now the real work begins.
Last night I was tracking the performance of what I do here and crossed the numbers on one of the articles.... it read 1701.... instantly one thing flashed across my mind...
And that's not the first time its happened, no, it happens every single time I see the numbers 1701, no matter where I see them, no matter the circumstance.
That's how powerful images are in our mind. That's the exact kind of association our brain makes with everything we encounter which dictates what we do in life. With this one in particular, its been trained into me for so long that the association is strong enough to occur every time.
Is it any wonder why us guys drool over women that look like this down below like Pavlov's dogs? Is it really any wonder why we put so much value on "things", rather than character? Or that, as an Occupy Wall Street protester told me... "Well.... we still want our things"?
Charity Hodges
That picture I grabbed of the Enterprise had a headline "Pentagon wants somebody to build Starship". Not only doesn't that surprise me, but I can't wait for it to happen. According to this article, we're going to be sending commercial flights to space by 2016 with the intent on eventually sending people to the international space station. There's every possibility that sometime in my life I'll be able to actually take a trip to the moon. How exciting is that?
The other day in London the Royal Family of Dubai was robbed at gunpoint, their Christmas money was stolen. That Christmas cash amounts to about 3 million bucks... must be nice, huh? 3 Million as your throw away cash for bits and bobs and spreading some holiday cheer. I wonder exactly how much holiday cheer that kind of capital finances, and I'm more than happy to take up the challenge of finding out if any of you feel the need to fund the operation. It would start like this....
That right there pretty sums up every experience I've ever had with the English.
Can you imagine an entire organization of people that seriously entertain these kind of ideas? And they're out there. When I was at Oklahoma State a girl I was close with had to stop dating me... I wasn't part of one of the two frats that she was allowed to date guys from as a member of her sorority. That's no shit, real life stuff right there, actually happened.
As for who's running things, well, I still have my reservations as to exactly who that is, but President Obama thanked the troops and spoke about the official end to the war in Iraq..... yet 16,000 Americans are still going to be staying there.
Let's put that number into perspective here for a second, 4,400 soldiers were killed throughout the war, and we're going to be keeping 4 TIMES that amount of personnel stationed over there. 16,000 people is about what it takes to fill a major university. That's an entire college worth of people, a small city. That's not even counting the private, ahem, er... mercenaries... that will be there.
Putting our society into some clearer light again based on that.... 16,000 people can easily fit into Madison Square Garden. Three times as many people go to your average baseball game each night, five times that many people pack the average college football game every Sunday afternoon.
There will be more dirty hippies at a New Years Phish show than there will be running U.S. Operations in foreign affairs with a nation we we're just at war with and occupied for nearly a decade.
The idea today is to give you a bunch of things to think about. And you should really consider them, then get back to me.
While you put that into your pipe and smoke it, I'm going to get this arm thing taken care of. Until next time...
Sexy Santa and the Christmas Spirit?
But that doesn't mean that I want to lose that Christmas spirit.
One thing is sure around this time of year, and that's that there are a lot of slutty pictures of ladies trying to be sexy for the holidays. If there's anything to prove how many nameless faces are out there trying to make it on nothing but how they look just Google Santa.
I tried to do it myself once, tried my sexy on for size, this is how it came out...
Yeah, so I had to hit you with that right off the bat. Its your own fault though. Not to worry, there will be plenty to cheer about this week, and that's not just the gifts under the tree. Christmas is supposed to be about family time, staying together....
Like these ladies right here. I'm usually not one for carolers, but if they were to sing at my door I think I could find it in my heart to wrastle up a donation. But its not all about that either. Sometimes we find ourselves in places we don't want to be this time of year, like stuck working, and it feels like we're locked in a dungeon.... often its about finding ways to make the most of things and appreciating what it is that we DO have....
So my cast is finally off, and the doctor hit me with another set back - 6 more weeks where I can't do anything. It makes sense the way this thing feels, my 6 year old niece was able to squeeze a ball that I couldn't do anything with.... my left hand is weaker than a 6 year old girls...
eh, I was weaker than a little girl before the arm thing, so who am I kidding?
Danielle Lloyd
Setbacks aren't an issue, we all have them in life, it's all about how we deal with them that matters. In the passed few weeks while I went ungroomed like some dirty animal I shifted from a restless soul that needed to do anything to get out of the house to one who's perfectly content sitting at home, blocking out anything that might happen in the world outside.
It's both good and bad, but this time its exactly what I needed. Besides.... this spot is all about accentuating the positives, isn't it?
And really, there's a lot to be positive about, little to get upset over.
After about three months I figured it was finally time to get off my ass and get myself a hair cut, and as soon as I walked in my barber started breaking my balls. I looked like a porn star from the 70's without the mustache, so it was well deserved, I had it coming.
Little things like that are what's great about life though, when you're close enough to someone to break balls without it meaning a damn thing, and you can laugh about it.
Maybe that's the New York Christmas spirit. It doesn't really matter to me because I've gotten to a place where I couldn't care less what anyone else thinks of me at all. That's a difficult transition for anyone who counts on whether others like what you have to say or do in order to make a living in the way you want. And it can lead to straight reckless behavior.
Whatever though. There's plenty of time to straighten up, we'll worry about that after the New Year. You've got to love this girls hips.
So the big news across the globe today is that North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il bought the farm last night. Its ironic, people over there are barely able to eat. This isn't the time of year to talk bad about anyone though, not even violent oppressors, so in an effort to keep spreading cheer, try to find something good to say about the man...
Kim Jong Il was GREAT in Team America: World Police!
What is it about this pose that always seems to work? Ladies, if you can't find a way to look sexy on all fours, there's just no sexy for you at all, is there? Its the first shot they take up at the North Pole. They use this on their I.D. cards in Santa's Sweatshop.
This one doesn't speak any English, Santa gets all of his helpers from the same countries that supply the worlds mail order brides. Who do you think does the mailing? He's got to raise money for all those damn kids toys somehow, right?
In this day and age though, its difficult to give so much love to a fat old man who gets his jollies from little kids sitting on his lap, but luckily for Santa, if the whole Christmas thing doesn't work out, Penn State Football is hiring.
That's not very nice though. I have to work harder at this. Like that fine, upstanding young lady up above, I'm going to get out there, hit the trail, and find that Christmas spirit!
The hole in the soul and Universal Consciousness
My Happy Place
Successful people only spend 10% of their time thinking about a problem, the rest on the solution.
Oh... and the movie was weird. I ended up loving it, even if it did leave me haunted.
Have you ever seen a ray of light beam through your window? There's a glowing shaft piercing a darker world, and in that shaft floating particles dance and sway this way and that without any noticeable pattern.
The other day I sat on my bed and watched these particles swirl through the light. Its in these rare moments that we're able to see those swirling energies that fill the spaces in between, the power, the life we can't see, those essences that connect us all. Of course I had to try out my Jedi powers, reaching out with my feelings and asking the particles to come to me. Before my eyes in that ray of light whatever filled that place straightened, and in one continuous flow streamed towards me like a river. I wasn't at all surprised by that.
Danielle Lloyd
So I pushed away, just to see what would happen. At first it appeared as a window curtain does when someone moves it to peak outside, the particles lifted, then separated, before flowing in one continuous stream in the other direction, away from me.
I know what you're thinking, this is just ridiculous, nonsense, crazy talk. After all, without seeing it themselves, who would believe it? No one, I know. So I went through the exercise again. Same results.
Take from that story what you will. I know what I believe from it, but then, I always have believed it, and our mind always seeks, and always finds, reasons to prove our beliefs right.
Just before I sat on the bed, before seeing the light, I caught "The Adjustment Bureau" starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. I can't quite put my finger on what it is about her, maybe the whole package, but I'm really into Emily Blunt.
Emily Blunt
The movie is about fate, soul mates and free will, with God running heaven as if its a major corporation, and his "employees" are charged with the task of giving people a slight nudge here and there to make sure we all play our part and everything goes according to plan. To do this they use "doors" that cut through the fabric of the universe, allowing them to move from one side of the planet to another in a moment. Except every once in a while someone (Damon) goes off the path, challenges what fate has in store for them, bucks their destiny, and all hell breaks loose.
Aside from being just a completely excellent movie, I've had these same exact ideas that were in this film floating around in my head, filling my dreams, for the better part of the last two years, right down to the doors, the slight nudges to adjust fate, and the feeling of connection with people as if there was supposed to be something more there, but it wasn't part of the plan, so someone kept it from happening.
Anthony Mackie
There's a line from the film where Anthony Mackie tells Damon "your father was a smart man, very smart, could have been more, wanted to be, but it wasn't part of the plan"
How many times have you felt that way yourself? I know I have many, many times.
Mackie, by the way, is an excellent actor, someone who's been in a lot of films now, but should be bigger than he is. He completely carried "We Are Marshall", which was a film that blew me away. "The Hurt Locker" isn't the same film without him, even if he wasn't the star of the film. His small part in "Real Steel" was well done, and now with this film, in which he's pivotal to the plot, I believe he can play just about any role.
So what did I take out of the entire experience of seeing a film that seemed as if it had been pulled completely from my own head, and turned out to be excellent?
Its Universal Consciousness baby, ever present, all pervasive God Mind. Just like the particles of light floating through the empty spaces, thought, all thought, dance and sway this way and that without any noticeable pattern through our heads, passing from my mind to yours and vice versa even across the great expanse of time and space.
And interesting side note here.... scientists can't explain what light is. Light is light. That's all they can say about it. Light is light. They don't even know where it comes from.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit if all we were, all everything is, are nothing more than those particles dancing in the light. How is it then that so few of us know the dance?
Switching gears a bit, the St. Louis Cardinals 2011 Payroll was 105.4 million and they were 11th in payroll. A full 1/3 of the league has a payroll over 100 million. I don't ever want to hear about anyone "buying" championships again.
The former Miss Venezuela, Eva Ekvall, just died of breast Cancer at 28 years old. How sad is that? I'm not about to tell you to think of that and be happy you don't have it so bad as the holidays roll in, I've always felt that that was a bullshit way of looking at the world. But I will say this, this life is the only thing any of us have, or will ever have, that is ever actually ours, and its all special. So be happy about something, whatever it is, and enjoy all of it as much as possible.
Eva Ekvall
Very uplifting, holiday cheery post today, huh? I know. That's why I kept on with the Sexy Santa Ladies today, who otherwise had nothing to do with anything I was talking about, to balance it all out.
This Aint No White Christmas!
This morning I forgot my coffee as I ran out the door, left it right on the counter, so this may be a long day. You've all been there before, forgot something you set up specifically to grab for the go only to have an "OH, NO!" moment later when it was too late to go back and there was nothing you could do about it. Don't you hate that?
If you're a coffee addict like me you know how rough the day is when you haven't had that cup of Joe. On top of that, it seems like one of those twilight zone mornings, when its as if you're in a bubble, no one around and nothing going on.
Who the hell is Rod?
Well... the roads WERE terrible and all the bad drivers did in fact come out to get in my way... so THAT's going on. Everyday on the way to work, on the way home, and my lunch break in between I encounter some ass who can't operate machinery and think at the same time wielding a four wheeled mobile death device before my very eyes. I see this, how terrible people are at something as simple as driving, and wonder how it is that we've ever made it this far, and how it is that I can't seem to get ahead in life when there are so many people out there that are just completely backwards.....
And I know you know what I'm talking about. Its the plight of us all.
They've discovered where most of the stones from Stonehenge came from, about 100 miles away in a place called Rhos-y-felin in Wales, and that around the site several sun worshipping stations were erected also. This is what brings up Ra. I won't get too into my ancient alien conspiracies.... they exist, we're alien retards... or sea monkeys. There's no way Stonehenge wasn't a landing pad for a UFO, just like there's no way primitive people could have moved building materials that we can't relocate now 5,000 years ago without a little help from their friends. Their friends being aliens.
Now its got me on a hunt for an MP3 download of Chariots of the Gods, the ancient alien almanac that started it all. I need to know how the Bible is actually an alien text book translated in a way we can understand, without totally blowing our tiny human minds.
There's nothing tiny about the human mind, by the way. Your body has enough energy to power a city. Your mind can do anything.
Warrior was actually a good flik. A little long, and some of the drama scenes were over done and poorly acted, not to mention that it was predictable, but all of those type of movies are. Still, overall very enjoyable, at least for a buck.
Jennifer Morrison , the star of ABC's Once Upon a Time plays a small role in it, and I still can't decide if she's up there or not. She was on House for a long time, and I wasn't sure then either. The best way to put it I guess is that she's really good looking for a woman my age. Take that however you want.
Nick Nolte plays himself in the film. You know how much we love Nick Nolte!
And you'll be happy to know, my inheritance from Nigeria or the secret relative of mine from the U.K., wherever it came from... yeah, its just been released. I don't know the details, but the Barrister has it all under control. They told me so in an email.
If you thought Iran and North Korea were the only ones we have to worry about nuking us, think again. Russia is developing a 100 ton ballistic missile and threatening to pull out of whatever new treaty we have with them to disarm our nuclear weapons. Seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same. And looking at what our society has become since the end of the cold war, how stupid, lazy and complacent our people have become, do you think we're really prepared for this sort of thing? I doubt it.
Thank RA for Sexy Santa's. Without them this whole mess today would seem like a major downer. Its just the way my day is going, which tells you all you need to know about how I feel about the Law Of Attraction. Stub your toe in the morning and your whole day is shot.
And tell me Rudy Ray Moore wasn't THE BEST! We lost a giant right there, and you didn't even know it, did you?
I had better get out of here though before this really gets out of hand. Maybe tomorrow I'll represent myself better. Like I've said before.....
The Losing Culture
The Man had asked me to take a ride, he had to drop something off to a particular See You Next Tuesday that neither of us could stand, and he didn't want to deal with her alone. The real issue was that he didn't want to go to jail for hauling off and punching her dead in the face, a very realistic probability. The minute I had gotten into the car my stomach tied in a knot and a deep anxiety over took me.
It wasn't that he can't drive and my life was in danger that did it; he can't, and it was, but that wasn't it. What gave me that uneasiness, I discovered later, was that I despise this person so much that the idea of being around her was making me sick. As soon as he did what he had to do, and we left her at some random ghetto bodega, the anxiety, the knot in my stomach..... they completely disappeared.
James Brown
On the way home, turning to the right to see a woman that looked exactly like James Brown a thought came over me that made many of my recent struggles come clearly into focus. It had nothing to do with the God Mother of Soul. HEH!
Danielle Lloyd
All one has to do is to watch them once, see the lethargy with which they approach their daily activity and its clear as day.... its as if their will has been broken, that they've lost hope of better days, they've given up. These teams expect to lose, and so they do.
Alessandra Ambrosio
When it comes to turning things around for these franchises they very first thing they do is talk about "Changing the Culture" of the organization. But when people are conditioned to lose on a daily basis its nearly impossible to turn them around and snap them out of it. Just like with social programs such as welfare, psychologically, when people get used to a thing you just can't take it away from them. So the only option left is to dump everyone on the club with that losers mentality and replace them with people who not only know how, but expect to win.
This concept of the Losing Culture isn't exclusive to sports, it infiltrates every group in life whether that be a business, a family, group of friends or anything else. When morale is low it affects everyone. When everyone morale is low its like walking into a dive bar full of old men with no teeth, rancid breath, and all of them passed out with their heads on the counter. There aren't going to be any supermodels walking through that door, no new money coming in, nothing. It just continues to stay the same until those old men die off or the bar goes under. Depressing, isn't it?
I'm always going on about support systems and how imperitive they are to success, yet when I walked into my house and looked around, when I looked back at the groups of people I had surrounded myself with, it struck me that I am currently, and have always been, a member of a losing culture. Not only had I been trained to lose, and to expect to do so every time, but so had everyone else around me.
This is where preachers of the Law Of Attraction and Success Principles the world over will tell you every time that you have to get as far away from negative people as you can, because they will infect you with their losing ways and drag you down with them. The only way to change that, to save yourself and break through to the winning side is to change the culture.
There are way more people out there in the world that have been subjected to this very thing than there aren't, and the real bitch of it all is that they, more than anyone else, need positive people, positive influences, what we call WINNERS, to help them make that positive change in their lives. Except these winners want nothing to do with them, afterall, who wants their own winning culture to be infected with someone else's losing ways? Who wants to be dragged down? No one.
That right there, my friends, that space in between, is the gap we need to find a bridge to cross if we, as a society, are ever going to close the separation between the have's and the have nots. But it takes real courage from both in order to do so, a social courage that's in short supply in today's world.
One person who doesn't seem to have this problem is University of Georgia Head Football Coach Mark Richt. It had come out that he had been paying is assistants and support staff who make his job possible out of his own pocket with the school he worked for refused to do so. That's called integrity, and I now have a new, deep respect for this man, and will now root for the Georgia Bulldogs as long as he's a part of what they do there. I hope we can all learn from his example.
On a stranger note, a kid with two heads was born in Brazil recently. You have to read this article, they explain how normally cut off one of the heads very nonchalantly, but couldn't do it with this one because they're both healthy heads.
My final Christmas message to you, my hope, my wish from you all, is that these holidays you change you mind set to be more like Mark Richt. Take it upon yourself to show the people around you who may be down on their luck that they too can be a winner in life, and make sure that you help see them through to the other side. You might not just be saving one life, but changing the culture for an entire troupe of people. And what else could this time of year really be about?
And now Santa and that lovely young lady up top will be moving us towards ringing in that New Year, so I'm out of here for now.
The Turduckin was worth the wait....
We got a late jump on the cooking process and hadn't eaten a thing all day outside of a few dessert pastries. Not one of us had eaten. We were starting to get on each others nerves, now this is the kind of Christmas I'm used to, everyone getting on each others nerves.
"Shut Up! Shut Up!" I heard my buddy Anthony yelling at Ringo from the other room. My brother Ringo has his problems, he lacks the social graces that most people expect from others, and this has kept him from experiencing life the same way as the "normal" every day person, which in turn leads to more lack in social areas, and this is coming from me, a guy who pisses off pretty much every one that meets me.
Anthony is a pretty big guy, in good shape, and whether it was that or the fact that we were in The Man's house on Christmas and didn't want to cause trouble, Ringo simply put his game controller down and walked out of the room. He sat on the couch and didn't say anything the rest of the night, and he was the one who bought the bird.
It's good nothing went down like that, my broken wrist isn't right yet and I can't be getting into any freys, especially with friends of mine, but had it been that way I would have had something for him. You wouldn't know it from looking at me, but I grew up a fighter, and have since been trained to do certain things. A few months before I began writing this blog a few punks around the neighborhood also thought they'd get tough with my brother, three of them believed they were going to jump him and I wasn't going to do a thing about it. It didn't work out so well for them. And it wouldn't have for my friend either. In Anthony's mind right now he would destroy me if it were to get into that. In his mind.
Just like the punks in the street, he wouldn't have known what hit him. But then, No Body Expects the Spanish Inquisition!
But that's not what this was about. You have to understand, my buddy Anthony is a great guy too, you just have to know him. That's the same exact thing anyone would say about me, and he's definitely more main stream than I am. If you put it to the social test, the polls would agree with him and I'd be the one who's nuts. So its not about that, its the lesson in the day.
Adriana Lima
The Knick game was long over and there was no football this Sunday due to the holiday, so we were deep into hunger and boredom already when Anthony walked in. Ringo loves video games, and he likes to create characters in his wrestling game based on the characters from my first novel VPI: The Saga Begins and watch them fight it out. Personally I think wrestling is for fruits and 12 year olds, but millions of guys everywhere can't get enough of the shit, and its Ringo's thing. Besides, its at least as entertaining as any of the other garbage that's on TV, and if he's enjoying it, if it makes him happy, then what do you care?
"WHAT IS THIS?" Anthony was screaming right away, "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" The Man and I didn't much care either way at that point, we were hungry and wrecked, but Anthony went on a twenty minute tirade ripping the entire affair apart for how ridiculous it was. I can't say he's wrong, the amount of things I'd rather do is probably incalculable. Of course, there Anthony was getting into it a few minutes later, at points cheering the action on before stepping back and tearing into it again. This is how it started, and the two of them didn't get along for the rest of the day.
Izabel Goulart
How often have you been ripped apart like that for doing something you enjoy, whatever it is? How often have you done it to others? This is how society gets you to conform. This is how individualism is stamped out. It can be so deflating to someone's spirit. Most people will hang their head and never do something they really enjoy because of it.
AH, but the self actualized person doesn't care. They just do what they do.
By the time the Turducken came out of the oven we were on edge, Ringo was obviously upset, and I felt bad for him. But when that bad boy hit the table it all went away. There wasn't a sound for a half an hour as the four of us devoured a meal that was meant for at least twice that many. Turduckin has so many flavors that its difficult to describe them all, so I won't even bother trying, the important thing is that it was so damn good that the irritation we had all felt just a short time before had magically melted away. We were all happy, having a good time once more.
The Turduckin was worth the wait.
Later on, after we left, I had to help pick up Ringo's spirits. I told him to remember, if you're into something then chances are someone else is into it to, so don't listen to what other people have to say about it. Sure enough, upon researching the subject we found that Playstation online has thousands upon thousands of characters for this wrastling game that others out there had to spent a ton of time with perfecting for others to use, things like a Bruce Lee that looks and fights just like the real guy. Youtube is full of video's that other people had made of their own characters fighting it out in the squared circle, just like Ringo likes to do with his time.
Sure enough, an activity that one guy sneered and turned his nose up at and attempted to tear down proved to be something so much bigger to so many others. My brother was validated once he found a circle of people that was just like him.
The lesson I'm getting at here is this: Don't listen to other people when they try to tear you down for who you are and what you do. Don't let anyone make you feel bad about yourself. As Louise Hay would say, "what other people think about you is none of your business". Chances are they have no idea what the hell they're talking about, and if you just do your thing, eventually others out there will appreciate it just as much as you do.
In some sad news, the Chimp who played Cheeta in Tarzan died at the age of 80.
"He could tell if I was having a good day or a bad day. He was always trying to get me to laugh if he thought I was having a bad day. He was very in tune to human feelings," Cobb was quoted as saying.
Ron Priest, a sanctuary volunteer, told the Tribune that Cheetah stood out because he could walk upright with a straight back like a human, and was distinguished by other talents.
"When he didn't like somebody or something that was going on, he would pick up some poop and throw it at them. He could get you at 30 feet with bars in between," Priest said.
Cheetah could walk like a man, had empathy and the will to make people happy, and could fling shit like a champ. What a Chimp! R.I.P.
Its a long strange life, isn't it?
Cindy Lauper said it best when she said "Oh shit, my career is over". No, no, kidding, totally kidding, she said it best when she said "Girls just want to have fun", or when she sang it to be more precise. Just from general observation and my own experience, that's as true a statement as any other. SO... helping us out today with the last post of the 2011 will be Playboy's Playmates of the Year from 2000 - 2010. I thought that would be fitting.
2000 Jodi Ann Paterson
I've still got that issue with Jodi Ann Paterson stashed away somewhere, I know because I remembered this shot right away.
This isn't going to be one of those "Best of 2011" nonsense articles that you're going to be seeing everywhere on just about everyTHING, no, I'll leave that to everyone else. It's not just because everyone else is doing it, they are, but because I tend to find those things completely ridiculous. Have you ever seen a "Best of" anything that didn't have something in the order that made you scream "What the F are you talking about!" ? Same goes for the "Worst of"....
This isn't going to be one of those "Best of 2011" nonsense articles that you're going to be seeing everywhere on just about everyTHING, no, I'll leave that to everyone else. It's not just because everyone else is doing it, they are, but because I tend to find those things completely ridiculous. Have you ever seen a "Best of" anything that didn't have something in the order that made you scream "What the F are you talking about!" ? Same goes for the "Worst of"....
2001: Brande Roderick
Who the hell gets to decide these things anyway? It's all very subjective, like the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure, and personally I find most of what's main stream to be completely ridiculous. The Yankees didn't win the World Series this year, that's firmly in my "Worst of" list. If you even give a damn at all there's a good chance you just let out a hearty cheer. See what I mean?
2002: Dalene Kurtis
Somewhere in there I got the best birthday present I've ever gotten from the very same person that turned me on to this site to be able to pump these pieces out to you every day. Both of those were great things for me this year, but that same person also drove me absolutely ape shit for months, and most of that was due to my own neurosis. So there's no point to any of that either. I honestly don't know what my personal best of 2011 is, nor do I know my worst, much less want to rehash that.
2003: Christina Santiago
Too often we get caught up in looking back on the past anyway. How many of us lead our lives that way, carrying all the crap we were supposed to leave behind into every encounter we have right now? The answer is most of us, so continuing with the exercise is just poor practice and no way to start off the new year, even if it is meant to just be a reflection on all that is no more.
2004: Carmella DeCesare
Looking ahead to the future is a minefield just as dangerous. None of it has happened yet, its all in our imagination, and the old "New Years Resolution" is a convenient mechanism for justifying procrastination. January 1 on the calendar isn't going to change any of the wrong actions any of us have taken in the countless days and years that came before.... its another "I'll do it when..." and quickly becomes next year.
2005: Tiffany Fallon
There aint no time like the present, which is a stupid thing to say while I show off pictures of women who were beautiful ten years ago but could look more like the southbound end of a northbound mule at the moment for all I know, but it also happens to be true. There IS no time but the present, right now, this moment....
2006: Kara Monaco
And what I know, right now, in this moment, is that through my many trials and tribulations of 2011, because of them, as the old is swept under the rug and the new about to be rolled out, I am a far stronger, wiser, and dare I say better man, and better person, than I was when the year started.
2007: Sara Jean Underwood
There won't be any listing of accomplishments or blowing myself now either. If I could do that I wouldn't be wasting my time typing this, I'd be at home taking action. You have all come with me over the past few months through a journey of nonsense and self discovery, and if you're a fan of this page you already know all of the "accomplishments" I may have gained.....
2008: Jayde Nicole
There have been times when I was able to tap into the better parts of who I am, as well as the good I see in others, and presented a path that would be a warmer, friendlier road to travel through this long strange thing we call life. Moving forward, these are the characteristics and ideals that need to be focused upon, nurtured, brought to life.
There have been times when I pissed and moaned, bitched and complained, or assassinated the character of certain people that I really know nothing about and am way off base on. In the past few days, something in the holidays I guess, I've come to see clear as can be that everything that I've ever complained about in other people was never anything more than bitching at myself for the things I see in me that I don't like and can't accept.
Its such an important concept, a HUGE one.....
2009: Ida Ljungqvist
Moving forward, my focus has to be on those things, the improvements I can make in myself, and to me, that's what New Years Celebrations are really about, not looking back, but moving forward.
In the coming days you'll be getting an opportunity to look into the entire maddening thought processes that I've gone through in the time we've been together and see just what a mad man I really am, how great, and how terrible. The "Best Of" and the "Worst Of" coalesce into a whole person, into a life, my life, your life, and its the same way for us all, those we love, those we hate. We all go through the same process, even if yours may be a clearer, cleaner path than my own. Its an important idea to keep in mind when we look at other people and ask what the hell is wrong with them, or pontificate on their greatness. Out there somewhere someone is doing the same thing to you, but in the end, we're all the same really.
2010: Hope Dworaczyk
Thank You so much for allowing me to share the many things that I have so far. My hope, moving forward, is that we can all look at the ways that we can improve ourselves and our situations in life to cross that magical threshold into the life we want to live. My hope, moving forward, is that before we judge one another, put each other down or point our fuckin fingers and say "That's the bad guy!", we take a step back and understand we're all screwed up in some way and just trying to do our best to make it through, whatever it is we're trying to get through, in the only ways we know how to deal, and that idea will lead to a little more compassion in the world. My hope, moving forward, is that we begin to mold a new reality, one that's closer to the heart, further from your iPod.
And I hope I can find a way to do this for a living, because its fun.
That's all folks!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
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