Nope, not tonight, dear reader. Absurd amounts of busyness. Wrote a short animated film script today that I think would be perfect for Pixar (if Pixar wants to totally change their brand to something much darker). No idea why…I just got the idea and pounded it out. ‘Twas cool. I still need to give the book some love before dawn.
N.P,: “Boy Inside the Man” – Tom Cochrane and Red Rider
Khitan General: My fear is that my sons will never understand me…We won again! [Cheers] This is good. But what is best in life?
Khitan Warrior: The open steppe, a fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Khitan General: Wrong! Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!
Khitan General: [Cheers]…That is good.
N.P.: “Walk the Night” – Skatt Brothers
Gonna be a light one tonight, dear reader. What’s past overwhelmed? Sisypheanly fucked? Unsure what to call it, but that’s where I am. Still gotta manage to get a page or two in before collapse.
N.P.”Come To Poppa” – Bob Seger
People look at me strangely when they hear or see me yelling at computer interfaces at gas pumps and grocery stores. It’s been happening a lot, lately.
I’ve been yelling at and occasionally punching computers that say things that both they and I know are bullshit. It’s something that’s been pissing me off for well over a decade now. It started with the enforced polite kindness written into negative responses in the credit card swiper/computer at the gas pump. You slide your card (I know that 10 years from now if anybody is reading this, they will think it extremely dated because “remember when people used to slide cards?”), and the machine asks you some sort of rude question, usually a blatant attempt at upselling or credit card acquisition, an enrollment attempt for some unnecessary service, or an offer to donate to some charity that the business happens to endorse. Which, okay, fine, I guess, whatever, do what you’ve got to do. This issue I have is with the options you are given. It’s either, “Yes!” or “No, thank you.” While my response will of course be an enthusiastic “No,” I have no interest in thanking these assholes for wasting my time with some bullshit patronizing offer that, because I didn’t solicit it, should be obvious I have no interest in. No, I don’t want your stupid offer, But I sure as hell don’t want to thank you for it. But I’m left with no choice: either accept their dumbass offer, or thank them politely for offering. That is fascist. I decide to buy my gas elsewhere. But guess what…elsewhere has similar offers, with the same stupid preprogrammed gratitude. So I decide since I’m no longer going to buy gas, I might as well head to the grocery store to stock up on food.
I go to the self-checkout aisle and scan my first item. “Have you scanned your Club Card?” the idiot computer with the female voice asks. Bish, you know damn well I haven’t scanned my fucking Club Card. If I had scanned it, I’m confident you’d be the first to know. I don’t appreciate your patronizing attempt at cheap, unilateral Socratic banter. Don’t ask me questions if you don’t have ears or the ability to hear my answer. I say at least some of this out loud, as I notice that people are looking at me. Not all of them with condemnation, however…there are a few sympathetic souls who, now that I’ve said it, seem to be thinking, “Yeah, you know…he’s got a point.”
N.P.: “You Keep On Buying It” – Son of Dave
Holy shit, dear reader…I am spent. “Sunday…the day of rest.” Yeah, right. From the same people who brought you the “virgin birth.”
Anyway, yeah…I’m beat. Must crash.
N.P.: “If All Is Lost” – Eric McFadden Experience
The new book is essentially a psychology book (though it shouldn’t feel like it when you read it). In it, I challenge a lot of ideas presently being taught in psychology programs today, but have to keep myself limited to one central idea. So I thought I’d share a couple of my contrarian notions that will not be addressed in the book:
N.P.: “Go Insane” – Lindsey Buckingham
It wasn’t a chemical imbalance, and it wasn’t drugs and alcohol. I think it was much more that I had lived an incredibly American life. This idea that if I could just achieve X and Y and Z, that everything would be okay. There’s a thing in the book about how when somebody leaps from a burning skyscraper, it’s not that they’re not afraid of falling anymore. It’s that the alternative is so awful. And so then you’re invited to consider what could be so awful…that leaping to your death would seem like an escape from it. I don’t know if you have any experience with this kind of thing. But it’s worse than any kind of physical injury. It may be in the old days what was known as a spiritual crisis…feeling as though every axiom in your life turned out to be false, and there was actually nothing. And that you were nothing. And that it’s all a delusion, and you’re so much better than everybody ’cause you can see how this is just a delusion, and you’re so much worse because you can’t fucking function. It’s really horrible. I don’t think that we ever change. I’m sure that I still have those same parts of me. Guess I’m trying really hard to find a way not to let them drive.
~ David Foster Wallace
Starting a cult would probably be pretty profitable and no small amount of fun. The thought does cross. Get a few friends together and head out to the desert and start a “family.” Maybe after this book comes out. Hell, it’ll probably be inevitable. Heh.
N.P.: “Helter Skelter” – Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson
The future really was so much better in the past.
Make another serial killer laugh today. It was actually probably more of a chuckle. Still counts.
There will be no next time. This was it.
N.P.: “Fear Inoculum” – TOOL
Just busy as hell, dear reader, with all sorts of non-writing, lifey things. Still managed to get a few pages down. Now I must collapse. I hope you are well.
N.P.: “Crank It – Living with Ghosts” – John 5
