Realization!

!...
Life sure isn't about solving problems. Being aware of them is good, but spending time on them is not. It will surely bring you down. That's the thing about problems. What it's really about...
really about, my friends...
is not how bad it's getting
but how much 'good' we can conjure up in spite of it.
How much genuine, pure and unfiltered happiness* you can comfortably contain
and pass on
to the next
especially the next generation
especially your own future pending little rascals
...!





*= For lack of a better word. Happiness can be fleeting but what I'm talking about is peaceful, yet lively. Knowing, yet not knowing. I think you know what I'm talking about...

Kiss

Kiss me
With all
The pain
The longing
The violence
The love
The waiting
Put the flame
On your lips
It’s better that way

Work

This is it. Me. Here. 7am-4pm. Monday through Friday. Becoming more numb and bored daily. I’m Floor Manager now (step above Warehouse Manager) which means more telling people to do things and sitting at a desk. And no, I don’t have any qualms about this. I’ve worked to get here.
However, I almost miss the anxiety and nervousness with not knowing the job. It was a wider range of emotions than this flatline feeling. Get another cup of coffee , go snore some more. This safety is strangely uncomfortable.
Wish I was traveling around the world…waking up to fresh adventure. New cultures, textures, horizons that I can stretch my eyes with.
This certainly isn't everything. Just a very small something that has become too much a part of my world.

"Are we just working till a day we decide we've had enough? All along, we were strong enough to be sick of it." -Against Me!

Walking a Path, Riding a Plane

I should walk more in the morning time.  Around parks, beaches, forest trails.  When people are in this set of circumstances, just walking to walk, they will always say "hello," give you eye contact, a wave, a smile, the works...it's awesome. It's a social norm in our culture.  And it feels like that's how it should be everywhere.

Now, you get on a BART train and the situation drastically changes. You are met with cold stares and silence.  Once I was on a damn-near full train, which had delays due to another train breaking down.  We were stuck in a tunnel for 10-15 minutes...and no one was talking.  It was creepy.  I got a call or called someone, one or the other, and broke the silence, saying hello and then "I'm on this BART train that's been stopped for 10 minutes and no one is talking!  It's kinda creepy..." Haha.

On plane rides, it goes beyond the friendly hello.  It is accepted to start engaging conversations with this human that is stuck next to you.  Gives you a chance to maybe pick some businessman's brain (for whatever that's worth) or get the life story of an old woman.  It too, can be awesome.  Usually starts with "Why are you flying to [destination]?" and could end up at "...and that's how I found my true calling..."

Doesn't She? (inspired by Love Poems from God)

I could wake up

step outside and say this of the world

It is an incredible beauty

with more than it's share of love

I could wake up 

step outside and say this of the world

It is an incredible disaster

with more than it's share of hate

and be right on both days

The Lord thinks far ahead of us

with methods

unknown

to us

doesn't She?

I can still

see myself flying

a love shrouded deep down in the days

Tired of being alone. Not desperate, just miss that feeling when you know someone is special and they know that you are too. Me at my best. I see people with it everywhere, people talking into all hours of the night, spending the day in bed together.  My time here is short, I am in the best days of what's left, and love is the way to live.  

"Underachieving. Cuz no one's receiving. This tunnel vision. It's turning out all wrong." -Frou Frou

Bottom 3 Jobs, Pt. 2 H.O.P.E.

Heros Of the Parking Elite: I was a cone waver. For Knott's Berry Farm. When I had made the move from LA to the OC, again, I was hard up for a job.  I had to fake a piss test and the whole 9. To become one of the few, the elite, the guardian of the whole cosmic alinement: Parking control. That's what these nerds* would have you think, at least.  These are the boy scouts that had to get a life somehow.  And feel like this parking control thing... well, let's just say they like the "control" part.  One parking guy said he busted some kids with weed and ruined their day.  I laughed along. I had to act like I identified with these half-ass pigs in training.  Some were cool, yes, but others really seemed like they expected some great compensation for their acting like their job was a battle at the front line.  That or an executive smooch-session....  

And as far as the nature of the work, well...I waved people into spots with a flashlight that had a neon cone attatchment. I had a walkie talkie which I occasionally made jokes on. Was usually just a mindless middleman, my lightsaber moving robotically in a 90 degree angle. 

The bad part wasn't the heros I worked with or the mindlessness of the work, it was the heckler jock bastards. They'd always have some line, "Do you get paid to do that?" and before I could give em some kind of snappy one liner they were gone. What I shoulda said is their license plate number out loud. That would've given them the willies in some way, shape or form.

I could put up with this. Had no choice. The free admission to the park helped a bit. Waking up, smoking a bowl on a day off, and going on the bestest rides over and over again. 

I remember walking home from getting this job and finding a box of kittens, which Mr. William Morlan and I found homes for. But that is another story for another day friends, another story for another day...

*= I have a lot of good nerd friends.  Nerds can be good people. But these nerds sucked.

Bottom 3 Jobs, Pt. 1 Ventures in Scientology

1. Professional Scientologist- Yes, this sounds a bit absurd but the context sheds some light: I had been searching and searching for a part time job since I got to MI (Musician's Institute, Hollywood Blvd) and nothing was biting. Except this idle-eyed Scientologist, who practically bit me, trying to hand out flyers for a free "personality test," who had given me an idea...on a normal day, he'd be lucky if I was cordial with him. I had walked up and down Hollywood Blvd. multiple times a day for school. I lived on one end of the Blvd. (The apartments right next to the Scientologist celebrity church, come to think of it) and I had to cross the Mann's Chinese Theater, The Roosevelt Hotel, Kodak Theatre, etc. everyday, the whole sh-bang, and I had been hassled by many-a strange beings. I just wanted to get to class. But I picked (what was left of) his brain today because it was apparent that most people would publicly sever this fellow, day in and day out, just for handing out his flyers. What a shitty job. I concluded there would probably be some openings...

Soes I goes in and propose the idea of me handing out the flyers and they say that it is completely imperative that I become a part of their... church.... Now, herein lies the second reason I wanted to do this thing: I wanted to become like a spy on the system; act like they got me, you know?   So I don't remember the exact order of events, but I'm pretty sure they showed me The Tape first.  I wondered where the kicker is, what makes these people fall under this religion invented by a man who said years before that a man could get rich by inventing a religion. So, it carries on with a bunch of  the most clearly plastic malarky about having proper conversations and other nonsense,  throws in every celebrity Scientologist ever...and finally, I present, the kicker- Hah. I almost laughed out loud. It showed some image of the world spinning or something, with some triumphant music playing and said this and I paraphrase, but get the main idea: "You could act like you've never seen this video. You could also (I forget if he says "jump in front of a car" or "jump off a bridge" or some other gruesome death here). It would be stupid, but you could do it."

Wow.. First, their epiphany had this grotesque death attached to it, and then: this insult! How dare they insult all other noble(r, much nobler..) religion that has come before it, insult anyone who didn't immediately believe (or ever believe) this grade-A hullaballoo, completely void of real happiness and spirit.  Hah. it was hard not to laugh. I shoulda freakin cried...

But I walked out, with this look on my face like I just hard a meeting with the almighty her/himself. Like my mind was just really blown (to pieces...).

Then, there was more pointless nonsense: I took some weird like detector test administered by a real half-wit, that I was sure was fake.  Well, it just LOOKED fake. And I'm pretty sure I lied.  She asked weird questions like "Do I look at pornography?" Stuff to make me feel real dirty and inferior, I guess.

I rode around the city with some member of the church they must use to really drive it home with guys like me.  We saw all the goddamn evil industriatutions (yes, I just made that up) they've managed to establish all over Hollywood and Los Angeles.  Bleech, I wish I had thrown up in his goddamn suspiciously clean car.  

After all of the supposed fireworks, they laid out some very official-looking papers for me which I was supposed to sign. I signed a few, then...oh, how could I forget to ask? How did they not say? That is, "How much am I getting paid??"

"Well, it depends on how well the church does month to month.  It depends on how Scientology is doing, and how many books are sold. It could be lower than minimum wage,"  (exit:stage left I think) "Or it could be something really nice."

HA. Again with the holding of the laughter.  I didn't have the heart to end it here.  All these brainwashed droops, seeing me as a charismatic and bright-eyed young hopeful for their cause. (I had been acting quite well...) I couldn't just leave now. So I didn't.  I ended it all very pleasantly that evening.

And just didn't come to work in the morning.

They called and left all kinds of messages.  I couldn't tell them off.  Yet, something needed to be done.  My roomate, Kevin Kirker, the good natured fellow, the dig bat, he told em off for me.  See, Kevin was a real cool guy til he switched over. And, man, when he switches over, look out. I don't remember exactly what he said, but there were a lot of f-words and he never called back again.

A Prayer

May we never feel a sorrow without a purpose

May we smile for no particular reason

May we dance our souls on tightrope wires

May we laugh hearty and whole 

May we open our eyes wide with all of their color

May we love each with a given innocence

May we view canyons vast and wise

and streams of wonder

and forests with

senses of humor

and shores verging

on an endless ocean

May we work hard and honest

  and learn empty

May we lay down as we please

May we sleep undisturbed

The present

"I was waiting on a moment, but the moment never came.  All the billion other moments were just slipping all away."- The Flaming Lips

It seems to count yourself among the content, enlightened, righteous, etc. relies on a simple decision to do so.  That you make continuously your entire life.  It's hard relating this decision to such a grand scheme of time and is much more pleasing to make that decision for each moment only. The present...a present.  

dented lands

some giant, swooshing something

swapping lives for wishes

some catastrophic nothing

makes us all dissmissive

some apathetic avalanche 

searing, seminal passiveness

some purdy little, painted, fixed-up

roaring, burning, massive mess

eating newly breathing whole, entirely

woah is me, woah is all

pivotal time past prime

miss universe how could you

give away your flowers

you're not allowed to smile so wide

bite, chomp, engulf every heart worth beating

and walk around the premises for years

and get kicks by kicking downtrodden  

pathETic LITtle man

kind

I just wanted more

of you .

 

A tongue and cheek ode to coffee

Written while drinking my first cup, from my new coffee machine:

You bold, bold lover, you

Waking me up early for the best part of my day

Rolling over...how can I deny you?

A hot and steamy morning "quicky"

Prying open my sockets with an electric shock of lime green neon force

To view things that aren't even really there

....yet

You see, I'll need to retain these fluffy, sparkling bodies of parading dreams

When I battle the living dead

Throwback

From Hollywood days:

I practice for my lover to come's slumber by sleeping soundless and motionless

She will be undisturbed

I will be a quiet admirer of her independence

She will have long ago removed the make-up 

Beyond the rules of kiss-and-make-up, as she wakes up

There will be soft dream exchanges:

I jump to hers, she jumps to mine

My breath will reach her body, rhythmically, confident

Sheets will not divide us

When my "one day"s add up to a "today"

I will wear a night cap for her

Bright stomach laughter

She will wear a night shirt, outstretched,

faded, long with millions of tiny cotton balls

Our wake up call will be

the Sun

Rising

Crying 

From a nearby crib

Ambulance

I definitely had early Elliott Smith in mind when I wrote this, but if it were to be a song with a melody it would sound a bit like a carefree Belle and Sebastian song to lighten the mood of it:

You got your ambulance all around town

At 3:00 AM, I can hear your siren's sound

So skinny and frail, so is your nature

So few of them are even worth a damn, that you nurture

But you poured your heart out for all their thirst

Give them the best, leaves you the worst

I think it's time you tried something new

How about you?

I think it's time you take on something new

How about...you?

You got your ambulance all around town

Both me and you know it's set to break down

You got love in your heart, but not in your eyes

And it's the cold concrete that'll slim you down a size

But you poured your heart out for all their thirst

Give them the best, leaves you the worst

I think it's time you tried something new

How about you?

I think it's time you take on something new

How about...you?

Premier primer

Blog is such an awkward word (so it the word "awkward")...it sounds like some odd shaped building blocks in an odd shaped container for young children.  Nevertheless, I am allying myself with this thing for a few reasons:

Since my surgery, the reading I've done in my downtime has inspired me greatly.  It feels like there is a voice that is filtering through me, an "us and them" type of thing that may seem childish but feels so good and right, that needs to come out of the other end. Also, I think it will be nice to share tribulations and extrapolate on ideas I come across throughout the day.

It fits the direction I'm heading in, a much more serious and spiritual approach to this short life.  I have been a comedian for a long time (and at times, a damn funny one, if I do say so myself) but there is a desperation such a mindset, covering up truth with jokes, varying from cockiness to being the butt of my own jokes.  A wildness I am learning to tame. I surely was selling myself short in exchange for some cheap laughs, at times.  After all, so many comedians are depressed and I think it's because they sense this falseness that's akin to such a way of life, as well.  Don't get me wrong- a life without humor would be unimaginable; it's the best thing to conjure up when everything seems to fall apart.  

I couldn't be moving in this direction without some truly compassionate people to bounce ideas off of. They know who they are...and I'm greatful that they seem to be letting me into their circle.  My old group of friends, though I love them dearly, is just not as close as it once was.  Everyone is moving in their own direction, naturally, like text telling where the characters go off to in life at the end of a movie before the credits scroll.  The party is ending and we are cleaning up...

Everything I can express through letters and word may grace this blog: poems, stories, quotes, lyrics, etc. Wherever it all takes me.  Thanks for reading.