Merry Fuckin' Christmas: A Playlist for the Disenchanted Scrooge

What is Christmas really?  But a series of self-inflicted disappointments, a heap of maddening family obligations, and a stocking full of artificially flocked memories.  It is shoveling snow, eating lukewarm buffet food, seeing people you'd never associate with otherwise, and wishing you were somewhere warmer.  Like a red-and-green tinseled personal Hell.

And as if Christmas could get any tackier, more commercialized or secular.  Going into credit card debt, standing in long lines, and wrestling your neighbor over an off-brand flatscreen.  Being general fuckfaces every other day of the year.  That is truly the 'war on Christmas.'  But nobody bats an eyelash at that.  We all want more.  But God forbid somebody wishes someone else, "Happy Holidays," instead of "Merry Christmas."  People should be thankful for any well-wishes at all.  Because they can just as easily get a "Fuck off," or an "Up yours!" if that better tickles their delicate, little, hot-house orchid fancy.  People up-in-arms about Starbucks cups that aren't Christmas-y enough.  A string of vitriolic, racist comments about Mall of America's decision to hire one black Santa Claus.  These are the same morons who think Jesus was white.  For fuck's sake.  It must be nice to lead such a privileged and charmed life that some manner of season's greeting is all somebody's got to bitch about.  People hate shit like that because it completely negates real people's suffering.  And it makes them look like big, whiny assholes.  It's tone-deaf and unbearable.  People are such pricks.

So here is my humble contribution to the 'War On Christmas.'  Because it's not really Christmas until one family member yells at another, "Merry fucking Christmas!"  Shove this up your chimney and smoke it.

The Ramones- Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)

Julian Casablancas- I Wish It Was Christmas Today

The Dropkick Murphys- The Season's Upon Us

The Sex Pistols- Jingle Bells

Bob Dylan- Must Be Santa

Asylum Street Spankers- Trim Your Tree

Clarence Carter- Backdoor Santa

Unknown Hinson- Black and Blue Christmas

Iron Maiden- Another Rock and Roll Christmas

Dio- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Lemmy Kilmister- Run Run Rudolph

Twisted Sister- Oh Come All Ye Faithful

AC/DC- Mistress for Christmas

Guns N' Roses- White Christmas

Husker Du- We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Half Man Half Biscuit- It's Cliched to be Cynical at Christmas

The Eels- Everything's Going to be Cool This Christmas

The Flaming Lips- Christmas at the Zoo

The Pogues- Fairytale of New York

Queen- Thank God It's Christmas

Greg Lake- I Believe in Father Christmas

Mud- Lonely This Christmas

Robert Earl Keen- Merry Christmas From The Family

Dolly Parton- Hard Candy Christmas

Tom Waits- Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis

Livin's Mostly Wastin' Time: A Playlist for the Quixotic

Here are some tunes for the quixotic, the moody, the sullen and forlorn.  Music for those that know the sting of unrequited love or the icy wind of loneliness, as well as a tender, lover's kiss.  A playlist for those that dwell in the sentimental underbelly of heartbreak and jade.  These are songs for those who prefer their romance viewed through a haze of smoke. For the dark and lachrymose; the prurient night-junkies.

Livin's Mostly Just Wastin' Time Playlist

Tom Waits- Falling Down
Thelonious Monster- Adios Lounge   (Bob Kuhn)
Cranford Nix- A Heart That Ain't Ever Been Pure
The Cramps- Lonesome Town   (Ricky Nelson)
Lou Reed- Perfect Day
Ry Cooder- Waitin' For Some Girl
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers- The Wild One, Forever
Nick Curran & The Lowlifes- Psycho
Hank 3 Ft. Tom Waits- Fadin' Moon
Nick Cave- Do You Love Me
Jimmie Dale Gilmore- Because the Wind
Roy Orbison- In Dreams
Lyle Lovett- L.A. County 
Leon Russel- Pisces Apple Lady
Jimmie Dale Gilmore- Braver Newer World
Guy Clark- Broken Hearted People
Lyle Lovett- Step Inside This House   (Guy Clark)
Gogol Bordello- Through the Roof 'n' Underground
Warren Zevon- Hostage-O
Drive-By Truckers- Carl Perkins Cadillac
The Ramones- S-L-U-G
Chuck E. Weiss- Horseface
Tom Waits- Danny Says   (The Ramones)
The Ramones- I Don't Want to Grow Up  (Tom Waits)
Jeff Bridges- I Don't Know
Jeff Bridges & The Abiders- Never Let Go   (Tom Waits)
Townes Van Zandt- To Live Is To Fly
Hank Williams Sr. - Ramblin' Man
Uncle Tupelo- Whiskey Bottle (Acoustic version)
Them- It's All Over Now, Baby Blue   (Bob Dylan)
Tom Waits- Who Are You
Thin Lizzy- Whiskey in the Jar
Dire Straits- Expresso Love
Ween- Gabrielle
The Pogues- Fairytale of New York
Warren Zevon- I Need A Truck
Warren Zevon- Accidentally Like A Martyr
Dr. Hook- Sylvia's Mother   (Shel Silverstein)
The Flaming Lips- Yoshimi Battle The Pink Robots Pt. 1
Dan Zanes & Broken Social Scene- Jack Tar On Shore
The Band- Atlantic City (Live)
Johnny Cash- Solitary Man  (Neil Diamond)
Jerry Jeff Walker- Leavin' Texas
Steely Dan- Dr. Wu
Guy Clark- L.A. Freeway
Chris Isaak- Cheater's Town

The Soundtrack To 'The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions'

 This is the soundtrack to an unpublished piece titled, The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.  Sometimes the shit piles so high, it hits the ceiling, and one can't seem to see straight anymore.  One gets dizzy from the stench, and even more daunted by the amount of work it would take to clean up the mess.  So one, just sort of, uh, gets used to it.  Draw your own conclusions, twist in the wind, and/or fuck off.

The New York Dolls- Personality Crisis

Ween- Happy Colored Marbles

Lou Reed- Vicious

Drive-By Truckers- Assholes

The Ramones- Danny Says

Shel Silverstein- I Got Stoned and I Missed It

Allen Toussaint- The Chokin' Kind

The Sprague Brothers- Better Believe

Merle Haggard- Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down

Uncle Tupelo- So-Called Friend

Sublime- Foolish Fool (Acoustic)

Tom Waits- House Where Nobody Lives

Tom Waits- A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Ry Cooder- Waitin' For Some Girl

John Lennon- Gimme Some Truth

Lucinda Williams- Price To Pay

Warren Zevon- Mutineer

Jonathan Richman- You Can't Talk to the Dude

Ernie K Doe- MIL

Leo Sayer- Giving It All Away

Lyle Lovett- God Will

The Casinos- Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye

Faulkner's Northern Wetdream: Revisited

     Yeah, we're the aggressors here, or better yet, I'm the aggressor.  Sure.  That's why you were sauntering around the crowd, arms crossed, so self-satisfied, while we anxiously hid in a CVS like refugees, nervously looking over our shoulders that you'd find us.  That really sounds like people on the offensive. You're so God-damned out of touch with reality.  You've gathered enough people around to buy into this bullshit, that it's like you've got your own fucking cult.  I think my mother put it best when she said you guys reminded her of the cast of Rosemary's Baby.  I would recommend you read Plato's Allegory of the Cave if I thought it would do any good, but it won't.  What you think is reality is really just shadows projected on the cave wall. I will be referring to you as a collective from here on in, not only to streamline the writing, but because you all seem to think exactly the same, so if the shoe fucking fits...
     There are just so many things about this that make no sense at all.  This is completely devoid of logic.  Why would a family want their son/brother to suffer with drug and alcohol addiction?  Why would they try to vehemently make the case that he doesn't have a problem?  Isn't it usually the other way around?  The addict is the one denying the problem, the addict is the one refusing to get treatment, while the family desperately tries to get him to see what he is doing to himself, to help him get into a program or therapy with some kind of intervention?  I was absolutely shocked at the resistance exhibited by the lot of you.  Telling him he doesn't have a problem, he's completely fine; he's perfect so why would he need treatment?  As if somehow you could possibly know what he was going through anyway.  You never cared enough about anyone other than yourselves to even inquire as to how he was doing.  Even after he came to you to let you know he did have a problem, you still denied it.  So any diffusion of  responsibility you previously felt justified by through feigning ignorance, was obliterated at that moment when he intimated to you the nature of his problem.  (Which actually only applies to one of you, because the others were active participants in his addictions, so there was no denying it.)
     I sat on that idea for years before it became clear to me why you wouldn't want him to clean up; drugged up people are much easier to manipulate.  Their reaction times are slower, that don't put up much resistance; they just hazily acquiesce, and they barely remember anything upon sobering up. You took a page right out of Bill Cosby's playbook.  You exalted him, you idolized him, you sexualized him, to the point where he was no longer a person, just this concept.  Also, I think the denial runs even deeper than that.  His addictions weren't the cause of his egomania, depression, and abusive nature; they were just further symptoms.  It was the abusive, covertly incestuous and neglectful environment in which he grew up that led him down that path of addiction.  It was his only escape from a perverse world in which he was so deeply entrenched.  He's really a textbook case, according to mountains of research on the subject.  (Please feel free to look it up.) And if you were to acknowledge the addictions, you would have to eventually acknowledge the cause of those addictions, which in no way were any of you prepared to do.  That would mean having to take responsibility for years worth of selfishness and bad choices, that affected him far into his adulthood.  That would mean that your secret was out, and you weren't all as great as you'd like to tell yourselves.
     It's really telling when an abusive person is victimizing themselves and pointing fingers at others.  "No, no, it's not me! It's this other person; this interloper, this stranger.  That's the problem!"  It's all part and parcel to the ongoing abuse that never stopped since his childhood.  It's also emotional abuse 101.  If you can blame some sucker, then you can take all the heat off yourself.  Why was it again that none of you got along with any of his previous girlfriends?  That you found something wrong with all of them, but never expressed that to him, oh no.  You'd much rather secretly sabotage things so they would break up.  Thanks for looking out!  You're the only common denominator between them.  It sure ain't me.  I wasn't around for all that belligerence.  I certainly wasn't the first person you fought with.   It seems that no one was ever going to make him as happy as you.  No one was ever good enough for your golden boy.  And the shit worked, for a while.  You were able to control and manipulate him to your ends.  You were happier when is brain was Swiss cheese because he actually bought in to your bullshit.  It just doesn't work too well when his mind is thinking clearly, especially when non-involved third parties alert him of the problem, and he can start to see the selfish and creepy motives behind your words and actions.  You continue to keep proving me right.
     The part of this that is the most mind-boggling though, is that you think for some reason he is going to want a relationship with you people even though you treat his wife and daughter like shit.  You talk shit about me to anyone and everyone that will listen, from mutual friends to his ex-girlfriend, who's guts you hated until a little while ago, when she could be of use to you.  Yeah, all of a sudden you guys are best buddies and you can barely remember why you were sworn enemies in the first place.  Fuck off with that shit.  I know she contacted me at your behest.  Just another pawn in the game.  And speaking of pawns, you used our daughter as a pawn to manipulate him into seeing you, to try to tug on his heartstrings, and even try to work on my mother, by sending that fucking Easter basket to her house or when you stalked her at her work to give her that drawing.  Because let's face it, it wasn't remotely about sending our daughter some presents, or offering a kind gesture to my mom.  It was about making a big stink to my mother, so she'll be sympathetic to your position, because you think for some reason she doesn't see through your manipulative garbage either.  You know who tipped me off to you?  It was my father.  My father told me you were the mastermind behind this dog and pony show.  So trying to get my mother to go against my father's ideas is pretty laughable, especially at this point, when his legend only grows.  It certainly didn't work; in fact it worked against you, because it exposed you further.
     Why would he be excited or happy to have people that were supposed to love him act like this?  You're not happy for his happiness, you're not happy that's he healthy and sober and focusing on being a good human being.  You're pissed off that he isn't under your control anymore.  That's what all this bullshit about telling him he's being controlled is about. It's the reaction formation defense mechanism employed to discredit others in an effort to keep your subconscious secret safe and try to regain power.  For the first time in his life, he isn't being controlled! He is lucid and making his own decisions.  It's a *real* uphill battle trying to make the argument that I am the one controlling him, as I am the only one asking him about his feelings, what he wants, what he would like to do, telling him to make up his own mind, and do what he feels is right.  You just can't accept that he found happiness elsewhere.  You just can't accept that he found his own voice and his own mind.  You have no idea what goes on between him and I, so how could you judge what our relationship is or isn't?  No one talks to you, by your own admission, so how could you possibly have any insight into this?  You're not there when we hold each other, you're not there when we snuggle on the couch, you're not there when we're making love to one another and all these beautiful emotions erupt after that expression of love.  You're not there when he is upset about work and I ask him what is wrong and how it makes him feel.  He's never had that.  He's always a little surprised that I actually care about his mental well-being.  He's so often been made to feel like he just had to listen to others problems or even accomplishments, without a genuine concern for his own.  That makes me sad.  You're not there when we feel all the good things that make our connection so strong.  We've had a lot of problems, but they have mostly stemmed from his inability to express himself directly due to the dysfunctional environment in which he was immersed for so long.  To put it more simply, he had a hard time being an adult.
     Further, why would he want a relationship with people that make him feel like shit about himself?  Toggling between the guilt trips and sob stories employed to manipulate and expose his vulnerability, while over-compensatory, exaggerated praise and inappropriate compliments are meant to endear him to you right after the abuse he suffered, at your hand. Often times within the same conversation.  Basically, you'd cut him open, just so you could kiss it and make it all better.  That's sociopathic narcissism, by the fucking book.  You purposefully push and pull him from feelings of guilt and indebtedness, to feelings of obligatory loyalty and duty in an effort to elicit some kind of needy, unwavering love.  But all it's done is left him confused, depressed, addiction-ridden, and wildly uncomfortable.  That type of ambivalent and volatile behavior is a standard manipulation tactic for the sociopath.  Keeping someone constantly on edge is classic control by fear, and always dangling affection and love in front of his nose like a dog with a treat, is a cheap way to make him dance to your abhorrent tune.
      You must think so little of him to say that he is only capable of being a puppet.  That he could never, possibly, make these decisions on his own because that is the only way he wouldn't want your wonderfulness in his life.  You fucked him up, and you want to continue to fuck him up.  I can't just sit idly by and let him get fed to the wolves.  My daughter needs and deserves her father, and quite frankly, I need my husband.  You refuse to listen to a single thing he says, citing that it can't possibly be him talking; it's his puppet-master.  At some point, or more likely, at no point, you will realize that you were his only puppet-master.  Why would he be amenable to people that hate his wife and daughter and are actively doing cruel things to them?  That are continually making them feel like shit,  that are trying to hurt their marriage, and completely dismiss anything he says that carries a kernel of truth.  It just makes no sense.  He really does love us, not because he has some obligation to, but because he wants to, because it makes him feel good.  We make him feel better than he has ever felt.  He told me he didn't know love like that before; he didn't understand the unconditional part.  He only ever had conditional love.
      I'm really tired of this bullshit that I abused him.  I never abused him.  I certainly took abuse from him for a very long time.  From the moment I moved in to that God-forsaken house, throughout my pregnancy, and through my postpartum depression.  It was after I came out of my postpartum depression fog that I started to feel differently.  I just couldn't take it anymore.   I was tired of being treated like I was worthless.  I was tired of being treated like I was a slave, and I was tired of being made a fool of.   I felt like I was worth something, a lot, actually, at least to my daughter.  I had to have some sense of self-worth if I was going to be a good mother.  My daughter didn't need to see the main female role model in her life being emotionally and mentally abused by her father, as if to say, "Sorry kid, women are just born less than men, so this is what we have to put up with."  Yeah fucking right.  His emotional abuse tapped into the abuse I experienced from my grandmother as a child into early adulthood, so I just felt sort of trapped, again.  And then when I finally said I wasn't going to put up with this crap anymore, he decided he needed to add physical abuse to the list to try to keep me "in line."  Double fuck that.  I stood up for myself, I stood up for my daughter, that's not abuse, it's fighting back.  If you think that your son should be allowed to do whatever he wants to women (or men, for that matter) and there should be no consequences to that, just some sort of dutiful acceptance, then we are never going to see eye-to-eye.  But all that stuff is between him and I, anyway.  It's none of your God-damned business.  He came running to you, back then, because he knew the jig was up and he was desperate.  He lied, he made it seem like he was the victim of some evil plan, because that's what abusers do, they deflect responsibility by trying to gain sympathy.  He did cruel and awful things to someone he purported to love in an effort to control them.  It takes a real genius to figure out where he learned that from...  He wasn't an adult that could handle his own problems, he was a little boy that got himself into big trouble and wanted to go hide under Mommy's skirt.  And you let him.  Shit, you made him.  You weren't doing him any favors.  We've had to go through so much just to get to the point where we are now.  For whatever reason, I didn't give up on him.  I don't know if that is love or just stubbornness or feeling trapped, but that's where we are at.     
     The feelings I had for him in that first month were so strong, he made me feel so much better than I had ever felt before, that I just couldn't let go because I wanted so desperately to get back to that. I never had any intention to "take him away from you," as if that's even a viable possibility, as he doesn't belong to you.  You tried the whole 'keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer' tack; and it worked for a while.  I bought into it, I thought you were all being sincere in your friendship.  But there were hints along the way that it wasn't the case.  I took them in stride until it was glaringly obvious that it was a con.  The arbitrary competition about cooking, sideways comments about how I dressed, calling me by his exes' names, constantly badmouthing them to me, almost like an implied threat, trying to divide and conquer by always wanting to do activities separately.  Then there were the lies, slave labor, along with the attempts at troubling making, saying things like, "Keep your hands off my brother," under the guise of a joke, taunts about him picking up his mother's phone calls, but not mine, or informing me of mean things he'd said about me to you (I mean, who sells out their own brother, unless there was some greater, nefarious purpose?)  All the weirdness that surrounded the wedding and so-called "friends."  It all added up to just too much.  It was, as it seems, an effort to control me in much the same way you've controlled him, just with a different motive.  If he is the end game, I, and even our daughter, are just obstacles, if we can't be used as pawns.   I've taken enough abuse from others along the line, I'm not going to take abuse from you assholes too.   And I'm not going to let you abuse my daughter or him either. You are abusing us.  Abuse isn't ignoring someone, or wanting to be left alone.  Abuse isn't standing up for oneself. Abuse isn't saying, "I've had enough of this shit."  That's not what abuse means.  Abuse is actively and persistently causing pain and making trouble for someone else for your own personal, twisted gain.
     The bottom line is you are hurting him, directly, and indirectly, by hurting me and my daughter.  You are hurting your own son/brother with your bullshit antics and your selfish egomania.  Why would a person choose to be around people that hurt him so much?  That level of masochism has no place in his life.  He has responsibilities as a father, and husband, and provider.  And he has a responsibility to himself to find happiness.  Your unwillingness to accept him for who he is, is what led you to this point.  Not some outsider conspiring against you.  No one ever did that.  I am not to blame for the tumultuous environment in which he grew up.  I didn't cause the alcoholism, neglect, smothering, fighting, or inappropriate relationships.  I'm not your family's scapegoat, and he is not the family's superhero.  I was nothing but nice to all of you, and you tolerated me, until I wasn't towing the family line anymore.  The guy was fucking miserable, not because of me, but because he had forty years worth of unresolved issues that he was trying to drink and smoke away.  You didn't give a fuck.  If he cleaned up then he might make the rest of you look bad. You did this to him and you did this to yourselves.  And you're the ones missing out.  Hey, maybe you're just pissed because he's doing a better job than you ever did.  At least he is trying to do better.  I don't think it is a coincidence that he was drawn so intensely to someone like me.  I think I gave him hope, by being so significantly different than anyone he'd ever known before.
     So many times, I've wondered if it's all worth it.  Is it worth all the anguish and anxiety that come from this cruel and delusional family dynamic?  So many times I've told him just to go back to live over there in the "family compound," just so I wouldn't have to deal with this.  But he won't.  He doesn't want it.  And, quite frankly, I don't want him to go down that road, again, but he is certainly free to do so.  I don't want him fed to the sharks.  He doesn't want to be there, he doesn't want his old, depressing lifestyle back.  Who would?  He's changed for the better; he's grown, he's matured, but what do you care?  It was never about him.   It's crystal clear that you would like nothing better than to drive us apart so you can be his top priority, because really, why should he have a life? You laughably don't give a shit about me, and you don't even seem to care about your own son.  But what is particularly shitty about it all, is that you don't even care how it affects and hurts your granddaughter/goddaughter, because let's face it, she's more competition for you. Just another interloping chick, you have to out-compete for his love.  You'd rather her have a broken, fucked-up family, than parents that love her and love each other.  I can't comprehend that level of selfishness.  

Top of the Pops: A Playlist For My Dad

The hardest part about my dad being gone is knowing how much joy he would have felt from watching Dolly grow up, seeing all the things she learns, and from just being around her and her ebullience. It hurts my heart for him and for her. She could have learned so much from him and felt such unconditional love, in a way that only a person with that much conviction could give. I try to compensate for that the best I can, but it's not the same. She lost her grandpa even earlier than I did. But, the most surprising part about him being gone is the loneliness I feel, because he was just about the only person on earth that understood my brain; as his functioned in the exact same way. I didn't constantly have to over-explain myself or my ideas because he just automatically *got* them. It was nice to not feel like such an alien all the time. It's the combination of kinship and friendship that I miss the most. 
    Most of the time I don't know what to do with myself, how to deal with him not being around, because there is nothing I can do to change that.  The philosophy: where there's a will, there's a way, sort of hits a wall in these circumstances.  So, often I feel like I am just floating out at sea, and the only thing to pull me back is Dolly and her comedic antics.  
     I try to embark on creative endeavors to keep some semblance of sanity, but I don't always have the motivation to do so.  Here is a playlist for my dad, who knew more about music than anyone I know.  He always was humming some old-timey song that I never heard of, music that has been sort of lost to history.  These are a handful of songs that remind me of him.

This is a song my dad used to sing to me all the time while he was cooking at his restaurant.
Fats Domino- Jambalaya

This particular song my dad would whistle often.  I had never heard it in its entirety until I was an adult, when I figured out it was this he was whistling.  There's something sort of lovely about this song, the melody itself is inviting.
Kyu Sakamoto- Sukiyaki 

Oh, this song.  It will get stuck in your head, whether you like it or not.  My dad would sing this a lot, so I guess it just sort of grew on me, but I'm still not sure if I even like it.  I think you will see what I mean when you give it a listen.
Bobby Rydell- Wildwood Days 

My father was certainly sentimental, and a hopeless romantic, while my mother, not so much.  She is more practical in that sense, so they made quite a funny pair.  While my father and I would cry at some sad scene in a movie, my mom would be laughing, mostly at us, for being so sappy.  As much of a tough guy as my father was, and boy was he tough, his heart was pure gold.  And he loved a schmaltzy song.
Cher- Alfie (theme from the motion picture) 
Cilla Black- Alfie (Burt Bacharach version)

This next tune was actually my parent's wedding song, because of course it would be.  Those of you who knew my father understand why...
The Love Theme from the Godfather

Bob Dylan and Prince were the only two artists my parents ever agreed upon, and Blood on the Tracks was probably a favorite for both.  My dad loved telling stories, so I think that's why he particularly enjoyed this song so much.  He appreciated good story-telling, and certainly taught me how to appreciate too.   
Bob Dylan- Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts 
(It's an outtakes version because that's all that is available on YouTube.)

Here's another sentimental song my dad would always be singing around the house, that is never heard much anymore.
Jerry Wallace- Primrose Lane 

Louis Prima was one of my dad's favorite musicians.  We listened to every record Louis Prima ever made, many times over.  I still know all the words to those songs.  And as the story goes, Louis Prima sent a trunk of baby clothes to my grandparents when my father was born, as he was good friends with my grandpa back in his boot-legging days.
Louis Prima- Oh Marie 

Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade will always remind me of Sunday dinners at our house, where my dad was always cooking steaks with zip sauce and Bernaise, with this playing in the background
Glenn Miller Orchestra- Pennsylvania 6-5000 

After those dinners, the whole family would often take a ride down to Jefferson Beach Marina and walk around the lake and look at all the boats with these songs as the soundtrack.
The Platters- Twilight Time
The Edsels- Rama Lama Ding Dong
Wayne Newton- Red Roses for a Blue Lady
Bobby Darin- Beyond the Sea

The first movie I ever saw at the movie theater was BeetleJuice, with my dad.  I was around four years old, and I already loved weird stuff, so Tim Burton suited my tastes. And my parents never really being ones for censorship didn't mind what I watched or listened to for the most part, so I my dad took me to see this movie.  After the movie, the small theater lobby was crowded with people exiting the movie, and my dad was getting nervous about me being in the crowd, so he put me up on his shoulders and navigated us through the throngs.  This song reminds me of that time.
Harry Belafonte- Jump in the Line

And speaking of movies, the only movie we ever went to see as an entire family was Goodfellas when I was in first grade.  It's still one of my fondest memories.  It wasn't just entertainment; it was educational!  Here's my favorite song from the film, which always makes me think of my dad.
The Moonglows- The Ten Commandments of Love

My dad was the most nostalgic person I've ever met.  He even subscribed to a magazine called "Reminisce,'' which was mostly old photos from the 40's and 50's and readers lamenting about the 'good old days.'  He was really from an era that just doesn't seem to exist anymore.  He helped me so much with Dolly when she was born.  I was going through a severe case of post-partum depression that no one but my mom and dad seemed to pick up on.  Dolly hated being put down for even a couple minutes, she wanted to be constantly held or she would scream her head off, so my Dad would walk her around the kitchen, endlessly.  They must have logged a couple of miles a day.  And as he would walk her around, cradling her like she was a precious jewel, he would sing this song to her.  Another song lost to the annals of time.
The Mills Brothers- Cab Driver

Faulkner's Northern Wetdream

      You know what's curious? You say you don't have the time to take your son's letter to heart, and read the literature he suggested you read, to gain a very important insight in to why he feels the way he does, yet you have time to read this bullshit.  I find that rather odd, especially for a person such as yourself, who just doesn't "have time for hate and negativity."  That is the battle-cry of the phony optimist.  Whenever anyone says that shit, I immediately know they are lying.  It's to overcompensate for the disproportionate amount of hate, jealously, or rage they feel inside, yet don't express.  You seemed to be focused on plenty of negativity, instead of doing something proactive to help repair the fractured relationship you have with your son, you'd rather just complain. Why?  Probably because it's a lot easier to hate others, then to look inside yourself, acknowledge wrong-doing, and make a change.  It's a lot easier to blame someone else, vilify some outsider, so you don't have to take a shred of responsibility.  And it's worked for you in the past, so why fuck with success?  The only problem is, it isn't working any longer.  You've bottomed out.  It hasn't worked for some time, in fact.  Because he broke his pattern.  Things were different this time around.  He wasn't involved with some pesky chicken head, that could be run out on a rail with a modicum of double-crossing.  He met someone that didn't care about all that bullshit, she just cared about him, and him alone.  She treated him in a way that he's never been treated before, in a way where his inner workings mattered to her more than anything, like a true human being.  She'd shown him things he'd never seen, made him feel things he never even knew existed.  They have a connection.  They have love.  They have a family.
      "I guess if you are universally supposed to be together, there is nothing I can do about it."  What a thing to think, let alone say! A hateful defeatist.  "He should have asked before having his girlfriends move in."  What forty year-old man needs his mommy to vet his girlfriends for him?!  That's pretty fucking weird.  That somehow you feel he should ask you if it's alright for him to have his own love life.  Yep, perfectly normal.  No emotional incest there...Yikes!  But then again,  I'm just an "evil, word-twister." Using things you've said, to call you out on the way you treat him.  He's not going to be your pushover.  And my daughter certainly isn't going to be a pawn in your obsessive game, either. Neither is my mother, though you keep trying to involve her too, but she doesn't take the bait.  You know why?  Because she's not an idiot.  Though you keep trying to play her for one.  It's pretty clear that you are trying to systematically dismantle my happiness for you own.  Why do all you crazies feel like I *stole* him from you?  He certainly acted single the night I met him, as he lusted after me.  He then invited me to his house (I wonder if he asked first?) and, despite saying he wanted to take things slowly, and me agreeing, he decided that meant initiating sex about ten minutes later.  I guess that's how long his self-control lasts.  Not that any of that mattered, we both knew it was something monumental.  We were what the other had been longing for.  Further, how could you all have been married to him?  He's married to his ex-gargoyle, who lives across the continent, he's married to his mother, he's married to his sister, he's married to his friends.  What the fuck?  I didn't realize I was getting involved with such a god damned polygamist. He sure was beholden to a lot people for being a single, forty year old man.
     Your son is his own man now.  And boy did it take a lot of undoing to mitigate the damage his family dynamic caused.  But it's a work-in-progress.  He's getting stronger, he's learning how to stand up for himself.  He freezes up when it comes to expressing himself to you, because he feels like a child again, helpless and scared.  It's really heart-breaking.  It's not because he doesn't feel those things, it's not because I've put him up to something, or convinced him of some lie, it's because he never was allowed to express himself.  He was taught to lie, taught to pretend that things were just fine when they were falling apart, taught to hold it all in, because it isn't about him.  I listened to it, in action, as you tried to talk over him, when he was pouring his heart out to you.  It was always about every one else and their problems and their needs.  No wonder he escaped into a fantasy world of sex and drugs.  He had no where left to go.  He was never allowed to emotionally mature.  He was stuck in this adolescent mindset, thanks to the problems that led up to and including the emotional incest.  Getting him to open up and communicate to the level of an average adult has been exhausting, to say the least.  But I actually do give a shit what he thinks and what he feels.  I actually care.  I really want to know.  It's important to me.  I think it's also imperative to a successful marriage that each person cares about their partner's emotional well-being.  It's not about me, it's about us.  It's supposed to be a partnership, fifty/fifty.
     I'm not sure why you expect him to want a relationship with people who want to see his marriage dissolve, so they can "have him back."  He's not a lawn mower, or a set of poker chips, that you just begrudgingly loan out, then demand be returned when you need them.  He's a human being who makes his own choices.  He has his own life, in which he is seeking his own happiness.  It's pretty lousy of you all, to put him in a position where he has to make those type of choices.  He's not able to be a son, and a brother, as well, as a husband and father, like most men, because you simply wouldn't allow it.  You didn't want to share him, (as if he was "yours" to dole out).  You forced an either/or situation.  You expected to be prioritized first, and his wife and daughter could just get in line somewhere behind.  That's not really how marriage and parenthood works.  They are pervasive parts of one's life if they are taken seriously.  Even more so if it actually makes the person happy.
    It didn't start out like this, and you damn well know it.  You inched your way to this, with this weird sense of competition you eventually revealed, and some desperate and needy choices.   You constantly badmouthed all of his exes, especially that last mongrel, over what amounted to minor infractions.  I learned more about his past relationships from you, than him.  I don't know why I had to hear all about those J-holes.  You must have thought it would endear me to you or something, but instead, it tipped me off to the fact that you really feel no one would ever be good enough for your golden boy.  Also, it made me wonder what you said about me when my back was turned.  And, your son was quite surprised to learn you had such hard feelings for his past girlfriends.  Especially from someone who is so positive, and doesn't think hateful thoughts.  Did you think I wouldn't discuss that with him?  You really take that whole 'divide and conquer' thing seriously.  You knew things were unraveling out of what you thought was your control; you were scrambling for a foothold, as your cover was blown.  That's when the truth started to ooze out.
     But, you never really had that control, not with me anyway.  My cynicism keeps people at arm's length, without those people really even realizing, because I'm nice, I listen, I make jokes, but that doesn't equal trust.  I still keep my eyes open.  He was the only one I desired to know that deeper part of me.  The rest was just friendliness, that you mistook for manipulative progress.  I certainly didn't expect to be mired in this bullshit, though.  I had no ulterior motives.  I just wanted to build a solid relationship with him, and stay out of any immature dramatics.  It seems, you were all hellbent on dragging any person ever foolish enough to get involved with him, down into the depths.  It's really none too shocking that he acted so funny around you when you came around.  He would make this big show of getting everyone espresso and biscuits, but then run off upstairs like he was a busy, busy man.  Lots of big, important joints to smoke in his "office."  No wonder.  Everything within this family dynamic was an act.
      Why was it that I was the only one that has ever taken an interest in who he is as a person?  Why was he so attracted to someone that was so drastically different from every one else he's ever known? I mean if you are all so fantastic, wouldn't he be attracted to someone more like you guys.  Hmm, that's so weird, right?  Why could that be... It's a real head-scratcher.  He literally sought out the polar opposite of everyone in his phony world.  He was tired of props and sets, and yearned for something genuine.
     It's such a ridiculous idea to me, that somehow you feign bewilderment as to why he doesn't want to be around you.  It's so painstakingly obvious to everyone else.  Why would anyone want to be around people that make them feel bad about their happiness?  But you would never do that, because you are such a loving, wonderful person, right?  You aren't hateful or spiteful.  You would never try to come between him and his wife.  You would never try to have some secret relationship with him, like lovers having an affair.  Yet, you always ask him if he is alone when you talk to him.  Another curiosity.  Is he supposed to only talk to you when he is alone? In a candle-lit room, after a long soak in the tub, perhaps? Seems kind of creepy to me.  If your relationship is so appropriate, why would it have to be a kept a secret?  What is there to hide?
      Why should you try to put him in a position where he has to hide things from his wife, anyway, for you?  Unless you wanted to cause problems for his marriage, as a secondary benefit from the pleasure you derive from having an inappropriate relationship with your son, in the first place.  What you deem "close," clinicians deem covert incest.  And it has caused him immeasurable anguish, and problem after problem in his life, yet you just want to continue doing it, no matter the pain it's causing him, just because it makes you feel good.  That's the definition of selfish.  He doesn't like it.  It makes him wildly uncomfortable, it triggered a slew of substance abuse, and it has affected his ability for intimacy with acceptable partners.  Which in turn, has reinforced the emotionally incestuous relationship with you, much to your delight.  But it's not just about you, or him, or any other family members you're willing to share him with.  He has a wife now, and more than that, he has a child of his own, who is being hurt by the effects of all this perversion.  So when you say you don't know how you are hurting her, that's pretty rotten, and pretty stupid, because, by trying to come between her parents for your own personal gain, that is certainly hurting her.  By disparaging and vilifying her mother, that hurts her.  Not to mention the direct neglect, when you begged to babysit her as an infant, but refused to change her diaper, or even feed her a bottle, when she cried.  But, I'm sure you still wonder why I put a stop to that too.  In the long run, you are doing far more damage, just to glean an intimate, emotional fulfillment from someone you are not supposed to glean that type of intimacy from.  It's so beyond inappropriate.  And you've caused, and continue to cause such irreparable devastation because of it.  But truly, you are the one missing out.
     You are literally trying to break up a family, because you think you have some claim to him as much more than a son.  You don't love your son, you are in love with him, and thus make unreasonable, and unseemly demands of him.  It's not a casual relationship.  But you, somehow, don't see, how that hurts your granddaughter, let alone her parents.  I don't make a habit of handing my kid over to people I don't trust.  So, that's why you don't see her.  And that's why you aren't going to see her.  As for your son, you don't see your son because he doesn't want to see you.  Believe me, I'm not in charge of that guy.  He does whatever he wants to do.  And further, I don't want to be in charge of him.  I don't need another person I have to take care, like a child.  I want a partner, not some sycophantic stooge.  Yeah, that's *real* attractive.  Bleh! We share our thoughts and feelings with one another, but beyond that, that's as much sway as I hold.  And it ain't much.  The whole point is to get him to be able to make his own decisions, and good decisions at that, and be his own man.  That's the whole fucking crux of it.  I don't want to puppeteer him, as part of some twisted fantasy.  So not my style.  I want it to be real, or I don't want it at all.
     I can't just sit idly by and watch you all steamroll him anymore.  It's ruining him.  I've tried to ignore it, tried reasoning, rational discussion; nothing has worked.  I'd really like to not have to deal with any of you.  I've cut family members out before, which was the right decision.  I don't want any part of this, but the trouble is, I love him, and he loves me, and we have a daughter together.  It's kind of a big deal.  It's important to the three of us.  He is crushed by all this.  I tried to tell him that this was the likely outcome, but he held out such a sweet, but naive hope that you would come around.  I certainly didn't.  A leopard doesn't change its spots.  I know you loved having him as your surrogate husband, picking up all that emotional slack, but at such a high cost to him.  You can't control him any more, your manipulations are no longer effective, and you can't stand it.  But, that's your problem to fix.  You don't like the way things turned out for you, I guess that's just tough shit.  That's what happens when you, very inappropriately, make your son, your only joy.  Your misery isn't his responsibility.  It never was.
     What did you expect was going to happen, exactly?  He was never going to leave you? He'd never have his own life?  He'd never get married and have a family of his own?  Yeah.  He can just live like Norman Bates, be at your beck and call, take care of the family museum, prey on unsuspecting women in the shower, and dress up like an old lady in his spare time.
    
     

Who is he? Who the fuck are the Knudsens? Who is anyone?

     The only thing I understand about people is that I understand nothing about people.  I don't fucking get them, they don't fucking get me.  It's this thing we have.  I've said it a thousand times: I feel like an alien among humans or the only human among a race of aliens.  I just don't fucking fit in.  And I've learned to accept that, (mostly), but sometimes, in these rare instances, I think I find a kindred spirit.  What you people call a "friend."  But even that is an illusion.  I don't have many true friends, maybe because I have such stringent standards as to what that means.  I have mostly acquaintances, because I'm not sure if they truly understand me, which I feel is intrinsic and invaluable to be termed a friend.  I think I can count on one hand how many actual friends I have, and even that is being generous.  It seems the rate of attrition for my friendships is laughably high.  I gave up a long time ago on having what other people think of as friends.  I guess I am unable to understand what friendship means, so friendships remain elusive and untenable to me.  The only "friends" I've ever even thought I had turned out to be guys just wanting to fuck me, or even worse, guys secretly in love with me, save for maybe, two people.  That's an abysmal percentage.   It's me, obviously, seeing as I am the only common denominator.  It's fine.  I'm unbearable unless I'm doing something for someone.  Performing some act or task.  Sex, cooking, cleaning.  That is my worth.  Why keep fighting it?

So here's a bunch of songs that represent that dark and abstruse mood.  Because I'm so fucking emo, man.

Blind Willie Johnson- Nobody's Fault But Mine

Tom Waits- Who Are You

Warren Zevon- Heartache Spoken Here
"I've had my share of disappointing love affairs.  I'm no stranger to disillusionment, little darlin'."

Lloyd Price- Just Because

John Prine- Sweet Revenge

Alice Cooper- Only Women Bleed

Allen Toussaint- Cruel Way To Go Down

Bob Dylan- One More Cup of Coffee

Captain Beefheart- Where There's Woman

Dire Straits- Skateaway

Warren Zevon- For My Next Trick I'll Need a Volunteer

ELO- Midnight Blue

Elton John- Slave (Alternate Version)

The Mothers of Invention- Go Cry on Somebody Else's Shoulder

Jonathon Richman- She Doesn't Laugh At My Jokes

The Cramps- I Can't Hardly Stand It

They Might Be Giants- Hypnotist of Ladies

Sublime- One Cup of Coffee/Judge Not

Tom Waits- You Can Never Hold Back Spring
"Even though you've lost your way.  The world is dreaming, dreaming of spring.  Close your eyes.  Open your heart, to the one who's dreaming of you."

Jeff Bridges- Maybe I Missed The Point

Cosmic Orgasms and Blueberry Coffee Cake

You wanted a progress report, here it is, you genital wart.

    Why do you all feel like you have some claim to him?  Always trying to puppeteer or manipulate him.  I was the only one who ever craved for him to be his own man.  I wanted him to think for himself, otherwise it just doesn't count.  It's not worth anything.  I never wanted a farce or some skit.  I want the real thing.  We are connected because we are connected.  We aren't connected because I say so or he says so.  It's a mutual love, a braiding of our minds, bodies, and spirits.  We're both all in, and boy, do people really seem to hate that.  I think it forces them to look in the mirror, and they can't stand the reflection staring back at them.  No one likes to be confronted with their shortcomings, especially in such a smug way.  But that's still on you.  No one seems to want to take any culpability for their own actions.  It's tiresome.  Try taking a look at yourself before spouting your delusional bullshit.  You don't factor in here.  You'll NEVER even come close to approximating our love.  You've been bested, so fuck off.  You're fucking out.  Find something else to do with your time.  Get a fucking hobby.  I'm sure there is a limp dick somewhere in need of a swampy mouth.
      I guess it's romantic to think the might of our love is such that it creates these tidal waves that crash over the people on our shore, drenching them in envy or anger, or whatever the fuck you dimwits feel.  Not only is that a fucking arrogant sentiment, but that picture simply doesn't fit the frame.  Because it's only the people in his realm that feel that way.  None of my family and friends infantilize me the way his family and friends do him.  You treat him like a real sucker.  I'm not going to stand idly by while he gets steamrolled by people that are supposed to love him.  Fuck that noise.  He won't be a pawn in anyone's game, just like my daughter isn't, nor will anyone else from my family.  They're not going to be dragged down into your mire.  Whatever issues we deal with, we deal with privately because it's our own business.  What goes on in our home, in our bedroom, is for us only.  That's what intimacy is.  He is married to me, no one else.  Suck on that. I've never been good at sharing, come to think of it.

     I'm writing this directly following something like five orgasms he gave me in like an hour.  We just finished making love several times this afternoon.  We've always had the strongest sexual connection we've both ever felt.  I don't feel the need to apologize for the fiery passion we feel for one another.  Fuck anybody that doesn't like it.  I don't care.  Our love may be mercurial, but Mercury burns white hot.  We seem to have this funny way of machete-ing our own path through the dense jungle, instead of taking the tourist route.  Sure, it can be arduous, but it's also packed with adventure and shared experience.  I've always preferred that kind of love anyway, but it's certainly not for the faint of heart.
      I fell in love with him from the first micro moment I laid eyes on him.  I knew I had to know him.  It was this intense drive that seconds before he walked in, just didn't seem to exist.  And as it turned out, he felt that same magnetic pull in that first glance too.  We were in love, immediately.  His goofy, unabashed staring, his cerulean eyes piercing the night, the vermilion incandescence; it all played into the dreamlike atmosphere.  Everything about that icy night was magic. It was one of those rare instances where it felt like absolutely anything was possible.  Like you could direct the night on a whim, in slow motion.  It was the whirlwind romance I had longed for.  We both had longed for.  We opened up these volcanic calderas within the other, though magnificent to behold its power and breadth, it's also a formidable force; one that doesn't take to being contained.  This shit can get Sid and Nancy-esque at times, but there is something monolithic about our unique brand of love.  We can't seem to pull ourselves away from one another. And it sure as hell ain't boring.  It's incredibly exciting, be it positive or negative; it never lacks in titillation. It is sensory overload.  It is not a marriage of comfort.  In fact, most things about this relationship make me uncomfortable, so go relationships of pure desire.  It has been that way since the very first night. It is intense and severe, the likes of which most people don't care to acknowledge.  
     It was one of those first nights we together, and we were snuggling close after making love, when "Cosmik Debris" began to play through his iPod.  We both just started singing it softly, laughingly, as we both knew all the words.  It was just a further reinforcement of our cosmic connection.  The one that was so hard to pinpoint or articulate, was perfectly illustrated in subtle action.  That's what we have that you lacked.  An unspoken, robust and powerful bond that came like second nature to us.  We didn't have to force any pieces to fit.  It took no convincing on either part.  We were drawn into each others orbit, and hurdled on an ethereal exploration to find a way to sustain a love of this magnitude.  But we cull energy from its raw potency, which makes it hard for you Earthlings to compete.  We're juicing on transcendental steroids. And we've got no room on the ship for any cosmic refuse.

Post Script:
     I'm a little perplexed as to why you would read my stupid literary blog as a means to check up on him.  If you cared so much about his well-being, like you said, then wouldn't you just contact him, directly?  Nothing stopped you from doing that before.  Why the fuck would I have to be the conduit between you star-crossed lovers?  Unless, of course, you don't actually give a shit about him, and you're just surfacing to drum up trouble.  And, believe me, if it's trouble you're looking for, you certainly came to the right place, Ratchet-face.
     Also, I think you are afraid to contact him, quite frankly, because you know you will be rebuffed, (not to mention screamed at.)  Then you can no longer fool yourself into believing what you had was so meaningful.  Because he sure doesn't think so.  He barely cared about it.  He barely remembers it!  It was a seedy blur of cheap thrills and self-medication.  He cheated on you.  A lot.  He got high, all the time.  And when he wasn't getting high, he was drinking. He said, just last night, he was relieved when you would go off to take pictures all the time, for your burgeoning, ahem, "modeling career,'' because it would give him a fucking break from how annoying he found you. 
     Apparently, he wasn't alone in that; his whole family hated you.  They were more than happy to tell me that every chance they got.  Which made me feel weird.  They're still sore about you pawing through their artifacts at the family museum!  But to be fair, they were going to hate anyone getting close to their "baby."   I have to think you are in collusion with them somehow, but know this, if they put you up to it, they are simply using you.  Because they had nothing, and I mean nothing, but terrible things to say about you, completely unsolicited.  But to be fair to them, I tend to agree with that assessment.  Slimy, selfish assholes of a feather, I suppose.

     Maybe you should bone up on your acting chops, rather than concerning yourself with me and my husband. Because I've seen your "work," and frankly, it leaves something to be desired. Namely: desire. You've given me the distinct displeasure of being simultaneously gut-wrenchingly disgusted, and mind-numbingly bored. That's quite a feat, man!  I've seen more erotic episodes of Mama's Family.  Admittedly, I don't know that much about producing pornography, but aren't you supposed to turn up the heat in those things?  Not dial it back to "middle-aged guy pokes his ugly old lady after work on a random Tuesday." Yeesh. You were dull from jumpstreet.  Also, if you have to film sex for it to be exciting, you're, uh, doing it wrong.  But whatever distracts the focus from that face!

Ceci N'est Pas Un Blog

 This is not a blog; it's a bunch of shit on a web page.  Who gives a fuck.

Elton John- I Think I'm Going To Kill Myself

     I feel the coarse rope tighten around my thin, porcelain neck.  It scratches and burns against my sensitive features as I instinctively try to pull it away.  But instincts aren't enough to overcome my lugubrious nature. I don't quite feel engaged yet.  I pull it tighter, so the airflow is deeply constricted now.  I struggle slightly as breathing becomes laborious.  My face growing redder; my eyes beginning to bulge.  My feet strain for solid footing.  One more forceful tug and I wouldn't have to feel the pain any more.  No more worry, no more mania.  No more all-encompassing sadness, no more frenetic energy of a life half-lived.

Before, Again II- Joan Mitchell 1985, oil on canvas

     People sure like to spout off about things they don't know about, rather than, say, research the subject, become intimately acquainted with the facts, and then formulate an informed opinion. Oh no, that's far too scholastic for the pseudo-intellectual set.  They'd much prefer to run their horse-sized mouths about speculations and false perceptions; in an effort to mangle reality into something that is much more palatable to their warped fantasies.  I blame boredom and lack of exercise.  Maybe things aren't going well in a relationship, or a career isn't what they dreamed it would be by now, but for whatever reason, narrow-minded, peanut-heads decide that they just have to say something, about every God damned thing.  Nobody fucking cares about other people's opinions.  That's why I write this drivel here on the deep internet.  So no one has to care.  I can get this horseshit out of my system; spring-clean my neuroses until the next wave of junk.  I keep things anonymous, I don't name names, because my self-expression shouldn't be about lame one-upsmanship. But there are horrible truths out there.  I hate to break it to the Xanax-ed cheerleaders of the world, but not everything is fantastic.  And pretending things are great, when all around the world they are not, is not only insane, but it's rather obscene.  To try to thwart any expression of negative emotion or event in an effort to selfishly pretend they don't exist is pretty fucking evil, in fact.
     I'm sorry reality doesn't fit in to your fairy tale landscape of supposed-to-be's, Ratchet Face.  Part of growing up, part of maturity is accepting the futility of certain inescapable truths.  Channel it into something more poetic than phony concern.  Where was all that concern when you left him high and dry, May 2011?  Where was all that concern when he got in that bike accident, huh? Did you even visit your little Poodsie?  Or did you just wait until he had moved on to pretend like you gave a shit?  It was all about you and your grand performance, it wasn't about true love, romance or any of that bullshit.  It was all feigned.  Just another desperate, look-at-me attempt, by a mediocre actress, and that's being generous.  That's why you lost.  That's how I "did it." I was genuine and you were not, dum-dum.  Take a look at your reality.  Tweet. Twit. Twat.  Who goes from cackling, to stammering, to a crocodile tear-laden performance dripping with insincerity in under four minutes? What an act!  I bet you keep your Oscar statuette right next to your Grammy.  No wonder you have to comb through clothes at the Salvation Army, to sell at a 200% markup, acting isn't exactly your forte.   Also, your shots in the dark fall flat, much like your voice, because they don't even contain a kernel of truth.  It must be really uncomfortable for you to see some of your old reality being approached so differently.  To see someone else with what you once threw away.  I bet you feel old when you look in the mirror.

Cleanup Woman- Betty Wright
    
      He really doesn't care about you.  What is it going to take to get that through your deformed skull?  Jesus, you are dense.  No one wants you here.  No one cares to hear your opinions, especially him  He didn't want to hear them when you were together.  Or should I say when you moved yourself in? You are an annoyance to him.  You don't know him because you never cared enough about anyone other than yourself to know him.  I gave myself fully over to him, and I must take the good with the bad on that.  But he in turn, gave himself fully to me, something you never will experience.  You are always going to be his discard.  You'll never match even a tenth of the intensity we have, you rhinoceros.
     You're a twit. You haven't got the first clue about "him." The more I write about him, the more he loves me (and the writing.) I'm the one he lusts after. I'm the one he never wants to leave. I'm the one he calls his wife. I'm the one he wanted as the mother of his child. It was never you, even when it was you he was with. You'll never understand any of this because you'll never exist on that plane. You're forgettable. Your obsession with him and I is telling, though. If your life out there is so rich and full-bodied, it seems strange that you would feel the need to look back so often. One thing I know, is that when the world is my oyster, there is simply no time for lovelorn reflection. Maybe you should concentrate on your own life, your own boyfriend, and your own pursuit of art, so you don't have to be so petty and sour. I'm tired of you, much the way I imagine Chris grew tired of you. Don't try to disrupt my family again. Later, pink gorilla.

      I know the truth hurts. I fucking get it. But lies hurt worse. They hurt much more in the long run. I made a promise years ago to never live my life in a way that I had to lie just to hold my head up. That's the antithesis of integrity. I don't want to lie just to be a member of a society that I don't agree with anyway.  (Adapted from the Groucho Marx philosophical truths collection.) Telling the truth alienates me from damn near everyone, except for those bright and truly wonderful few that also believe in the truth. Thank you so much for being in my life and demonstrating such strength, in whatever capacity, though you may not know it, but you inspire me to keep going. To keep fighting for what I know in my heart is right. These intense, event horizons are worth so much to me. You are unafraid and unabashed to be yourselves, to feel the full range of human emotions and to express those emotions to others. Even if it's just posting a melancholic song, to talking about the existential malaise that comes with an overdeveloped brain, you all help this little neurotic not only maintain, but create. A thousand thank yous aren't enough to express how meaningful it is.  It's hard to always feel lost at sea. Our own brains can deceive us; delusions, hallucinations, mirages, madness, caused by so many manners of stress. Sometimes, I don't even know what direction I'm facing. I'm grateful to have these touchstones of reality.

   The reason I don't fall into the inky blackness of despair is because of my daughter.  I don't have that luxury anymore.  She doesn't deserve a world that already places her a few rungs down the ladder just because she lacks a Y chromosome.  She must learn to be unafraid of opposition, because with her intelligence, and sense of independence, she sure will be facing a lot of it.  She shouldn't have to watch her mother be abused and think that's how women are treated.  Because abusing me is tantamount to abusing her.  Too bad everything I said is true.  Too bad I can't be more selfish like you filthy pigs.  Instead of taking care of my responsibilities, I could be sipping margaritas on the sundeck of some salty dog's fishing boat, not giving a fuck.

    As much as you want to lie and say you aren't going to read this, or you aren't going to say anything, we both know you are full of shit.  "I mean, obviously, I just read these because I want to see how you're doing."  Hahaha. Yeah. Fucking. Right. You scan these to see if you're mentioned, you oatmeal-for-brains, piece of shit.  You're not fooling anyone, psycho.  You can't seem to let go of this. A real dog with a bone. And you're seriously barking up the wrong tree with this one.  And if you ever even utter one errant syllable toward my daughter, I'll show you the true meaning of the word "animal," you cavernous-cunted beast.  Tell your boyfriend to do everyone a favor and stick his pencil dick in your mouth so you will shut the fuck up, for a few minutes, anyway.

"I don't know why she has to go sticking her big, ugly nose in everything," - Husband. 

"The ancestors of the girls I've met lately would have burned women like you at the stake." Still one of the greatest things anyone has ever said to me.  Thanks for understanding this radical, Reginald Tootsie.

Gimme Some Truth -John Lennon, care of a wonderful purveyor of truth... (Thank you, Tim). The perfect song for the occasion.

The Baron of Chandler Park Part Trois: Time Does Not Heal All Wounds

     The odious scenes flash and stomp through my mind, unchecked.  They sear my synapses, they cloud judgement; they tear flesh from the bone.  They are wicked and wild; unrelenting.  Carnal images of you leading this perverse, devil-may-care lifestyle, full of arrogance and lacking in shame.  Coke-fueled sexual rampages, sweat-drenched nights of non-stop partying and self-congratulation. Libations, pills, and potions; heaving bodies, skin-slapping-skin, fusing into a sorcerous elixir that made nights seem like they could last forever.  So much cheap pleasure to be had, so many trashy delights.  Feeling indomitable atop your hometown hero's throne, gazing upon an infinite sea of cum dumpsters and possibilities.  Maybe it's the hopefulness I envy and hate.  So many doors to choose from, so many avenues to cruise; you could have felt like the master of your own destiny, you bothered to think at all.
     How can a real person ever live up to this candy-land level of hype?  Part Sodom, part Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, and totally illusory.  This ceaseless parade of "aspiring" actresses, singers, models and HPV, (I really can't stress aspiring enough, here) to whom reality is this esoteric concept.  Your fantasy bleeding into my reality.  You traded in your laundry list of flighty bimbos, with their melodramatic vexations for a ball-busting, wistful writer, with a genuinely fucked up mind and increasingly fucked up disposition. You even managed to find a writer that doesn't deal in fiction; one with a particular penchant for holding everything and everyone up to the light for inspection and criticism.  I can't understand it; it doesn't make any sense.  Why did you feel the need to get involved with me?  Did you simply run out of fantasy dates?  Did you grow tired of the vacuous bit-players and their used, cavernous twats?  Your weirdo sex acts couldn't get you off any longer, so you had to move to sadism?  Did you just want to see someone tremble under your boot heel like your Teutonic kinfolk?  You had to destroy something real this time, to satisfy that insatiable appetite for excitement in your warped, desensitized mind.  You needed to keep hustling for that higher high in face of the looming emptiness.
  
     Sometimes the thoughts are more specialized, and somehow darker. I have this nightmarish recurring thought of you and her having fucking sing-songs 'round the piano, and shit.  I imagine you are both simultaneously recalling this dreamy, fond memory in soft focus and bathed in incandescence.  Like a catchy tune plays on the radio and you exchange excited knowing glances and race to the piano, where you inherently know the melody and her the lyrics and spontaneous music erupts.  Or you accompanying her while she screeches out Victorian Christmas carols like Good King Wenceslas and shit, where you change some of the words to fit in your repugnant pet names for one another in an effort to be cutesy.  "My Poodsie last looked out, on the Feast of Stephan..."  God, I don't even have to imagine the cringe-worthy "Baby, It's Cold Outside" one.  Eewww.  That shit would be insufferable even if I wasn't once in love with one of the offending parties.  Ugh. Jesus Christ. It's those kind of thoughts that make me want to drive my car into the lake.  
     It's because I realize this idea that you both exist on the same exact plane. This plane for mediocre, bordering-on-terrible people who have been lied to by their parents their whole lives about how wonderful they are. It's so unbearable for me to envision; this person, that is like this fragment.  This person that is this mere shadow of me, could somehow be better for you.  Any of them, really.  They're all interchangeable.  They could somehow make you happier.  And more than that, they could somehow be happier with you and your pungent brand of sleaze.  They are more right for you than I because you are so much the same as them. Your kind exists in abundance. 
      That's the toughest pill to swallow; feeling so alone, when it all was once at our fingertips.  Realizing that we are universes away from one another, when for the briefest moment of time it felt like we were swirling above the terrestrial sphere, riding this celestial tidal wave, only allowing the inhabitants of earth mere glimpses of our being.  You could never reach that fantastic apogee with any of those squalid prevaricators. That was no more than virtual fantasy.  What we had was so sacred, it was so protected, it was so powerful; glorious.  But then just like that, you strayed from the astral chariot; fell through the nebulous ether, and back to the hellish soil.  I went searching for you, but you were no where to be found. All that was left was this dirty, slimy facsimile of the universal partner I once tangled souls with.  It was like some corporeal thief had stolen your body to provide vessel for his terrible deeds. This puking, vile reptile by comparison.  I can't make it up to that golden chariot alone.  No one can.  Love, camaraderie, companionship, passion, those are the shared conduits up that impossible precipice.  So, I am left to wander down here, searching for this lover that I fear doesn't even exist any more. Sentenced to a futile quest.

Why Thank You, Supreme Ruler

     I've often been told by men that I am intimidating.  Though I've never been told that by women, I know some have thought the same; though they act out that idea in a much more passive-aggressive manner. I've never felt that way about myself. I've always thought of myself as just myself, no better or worse than anyone else, really.  My most distinguishing feature is that I'm taller than most, at 6'1.  It's not something I have control over.  It's not something I fucking chose, just to make dudes mad.  Yet, it's considered an asset in others; models, athletes, actresses.  What is it about me that further intimidates men beyond my physical appearance? What is it about me that makes them so insecure?
      This is not some esoteric problem that I am spouting off about either; I've been dealing with being singled-out my whole life. From the favoritism shown to me by my grandfather as a baby to the abuse poured upon me by my grandmother, throughout my childhood.  It's been a pervasive problem since middle school, when I first began to experience the sexism that comes with being an "intimidating" woman, as intimidating as a schoolgirl could be, that is.  Fellow students, teachers, parents throughout my schooling turned to co-workers, customers, and bosses in my working years.  They all had some inherent bone to pick with me, just because I existed.  But conversely, others gravitated toward me, clicking immediately.  I was pretty introverted for most of my childhood, never really breaking out of my shell until around fifteen.  I realized then, that people were going to have their opinion of me no matter what I did, so I might as well just do what I want.  Let the chips fall where they may.  People still loved me or hated me at the same consistent rate, but they no longer held sway over me.  I got a voice in my own happiness.  I've always been a polarizing person, but not through a conscious choice of my own.  Is it instinct? Pheromones? Some subliminal tell I send out or they receive? I don't fucking know.  I'm so tired.
    
     Most men don't want to be half of a power couple, they want to hold all the power, doling out measly crumbs as the see fit. They love the thrill of the hunt, they want to take down the big game, but they don't want to hear the lioness roar, they want to watch her squeak.  They have no respect for her power; she's just another obstacle standing in their way of total domination.  They want to see her struggling for air on the ground at their boots.
     A dear friend of mine, is a tall, strong black man. On top of that, he is brilliant and quick-witted. Men are certainly intimidated by him, but in a way where they basically fall all over themselves for his friendship and acceptance. Women (mostly white) flock to him, literally, wherever we are. They are immediately attracted to his naturally powerful demeanor.  They all want a piece of that evolutionary top gun.  We've discussed how, in many ways, we are a gender positive and negative of one another. But the way he is is looked at, treated, is as this pinnacle of humanity, powerful and important; attractive, desirable.  The way I'm looked at is imposing, a challenger to the balance of gender roles, and the natural order of things, that needs to be taken down several notches, through ridicule, power games or even worse, sexual and emotional manipulation.  Certainly men find me attractive, I've always had my share of suitors, but I would venture to guess that 90% of them were interested in me for the wrong reasons, as more of a domination quest than because they were actually interested in me as a person.  They wanted to wrangle and tame the wild appaloosa.  Just another mounting for their wall.
     Yet, I'm still convinced it's less of a man/woman thing, and more of an enlightened/unenlightened thing.  So many are willfully chained to the cave wall.  I refuse to believe men and women are so innately different, yet so genetically similar. I'm not some genetic mutant, just because I am tall, or intelligent, or have what is considered a more traditionally "male" sense of humor or taste in art/entertainment. Bogus societal mores and faulty cultural values are at play here.  I'm glad to see our society "devolve" into gender-bending heathens.  It's time the oddballs, the outsiders, and the weirdos, got some fair fucking play.

    "You can't be taller than me, you can't be smarter than me...you can't be funnier than me... you can have more talent (in very specific areas that I've never even been interested in before) than me."  This isn't pure speculation on my part either, these were things actually spoken to me, or even admitted to me at various times, by various men, some from long-term relationships, which devastated me. (It's interesting to note that penis size is not a valid indicator of a man's security because many of these statements were made by men with very large endowments, and I'm not talking charitable donations to the arts.)  These were all men with great talents of their own. Brilliant even. You know, things that would attract a woman to a man.  Yet they revealed they were jealous of me because I am good in my areas of expertise, but no where near encroaching toward theirs.  I never felt envious of their aptitude, I was proud of it.  Here I think we make this great team, and all along, I am being resented for what particular qualities I thought I was bringing to the table.  Why is it okay for women to always play second banana to a man?  But it's some aberration for them to even be considered equals? How far have we really evolved from the primitive concepts of old world cultures?  We might as well be covered in burkas and walking ten paces behind our husbands.  So no man ever has to feel intimidated again.  At least there is some honesty in that.  None of this smoke-screened equality bullshit.  They want to act like primordial neanderthals, but want the credit for being so progressive too.  Such fragile fucking egos.  What delicate little hot-house orchids.  I've only met a handful of secure guys in thirty years. That's pretty fucking pathetic.
     I never thought I'd turn into such a riot grrrl, but mounting experience and becoming a mother to a beautiful, smart, and funny young girl sure brings the tableau into sharp focus.  I don't want her growing up in a world where she is never going to be good enough because she is actually better.  What the fuck is that?  Even if you are a smart, capable, free-thinking woman, you should just pretend you are a dizzy twit so men will like you enough to feel good about themselves, so you can land a husband.  That's really why they don't want to give equal pay to women, they know its the last bastion of of power they hold over us.  They're so afraid of becoming obsolete, because they don't have anything more desirable to bring to the party. 

     "You try to control my every move."
     "What are you talking about? I allow you to watch whatever you want to watch on TV. I allow you to listen to whatever music you want."
     What the fuck do you mean, you *allow* me to watch whatever I want to watch?! I didn't realize you had the omnipotent authority to bestow free will upon us peons. Why thank you, oh supreme ruler. You are such a benevolent King! Oh, second-coming-of-Charlemagne, the sun really does shine out of your ass.  The world rises and falls with your every breath!
     What a bunch of self-aggrandizing bullshit. I should really be thanking your mother anyway, because boy, she sure did a number on you. Who the fuck do you think you are, anyway?  You're a washed-up goober with a one-note personality.  What exactly is it about me that screams push-over?  What about me says doormat? But, that's just it, isn't it? Nothing about me denotes any of those weaknesses.  That's why you want to reign over me.  That's why you attempt to control my life, through abuse, manipulation and passive-aggression.  You are trying to dominate me in an effort to make yourself feel like some big man, but you're nothing more than a testosterone-fueled ape.  You're grasping at straws because you've made a mess of your career, squandered your time and talents, and lost control of your own destiny.  I'm not going to pay for your mistakes.  Pay for your own, you maniac.  
     You are a walking hypocrisy. You never wanted me to work, but love to complain that I spend too much money.  You treat me like I am an insignificant speck of dust, yet, somehow, all the indomitable potentate could scrounge up to marry was this worthless worm?  You never want me to go out, while you breeze out of here on a cloud, to your blow-off party job, under the auspices of "providing." You have confined me to the house, yet, I'm not even allowed any indulgences in my prison cell.  What do you care what music I listen to or what movies I watch when you aren't even home?!  You really *are* insecure.  Yikes.  Fuck off, psycho.  I know you'd like me to just sit in the corner and pine for you, but Jesus Christ, I am a human being, with actual feelings and needs.  Furthermore, we all can't be your mother!  I'm not a disposable serf conscripted to wait on you hand and foot.  I'm not some mythological muse or pleasure-bot sent to fulfill your sick appetites.  What the fuck kind of person thinks that someone is sent to them, as a prize, by God, as a reward for all your "greatness,"  anyway?! Greatness, including, but not limited to, an alcohol and drug addiction, twisted misogyny masquerading as chivalry, perverse sexual habits, a laughable bank account, a lack of investments or equity at forty years old, an emotionally incestuous relationship with your mother, and an astounding megalomania despite this laundry list of shortcomings.  That's nothing short of sociopathic.  The funny thing is, no where in your delusional ravings, did it even occur to you to think, that maybe, the antithesis of God sent you this fantastic "prize."
     What are you so jealous of anyway?  I'm just a nobody, remember.  Why are you jealous of my minuscule talents? You said yourself, they don't garner me any money or any critical acclaim. And according to you, that's the only meaningful measure of success. Personal fulfillment is shit. Art for art's sake; a joke. Sanity; an overrated illusion. You are jealous of my intelligence, but are you jealous of the price I have to pay for that intelligence too? The neuroses, the anxiety, the pain, the despair, the sadness that never let up?  Are you envious of the nightmares I've had since childhood, thanks to my over-active imagination? Do you want the post-traumatic stress that accompanies the vivid images that invade my mind; replaying lugubrious memories on a constant loop? You want all that too, asshole? Or can you not comprehend the concept that nothing is free, in that little pea-brain of yours, rattling around in the giant, dried-out melon you call a head? 
    I'm done being made to feel sorry for my intelligence.  I'm done being made to feel bad for my talents, while you demand constant praise for even the most bantam of accomplishments.  Oh, you bought some fucking groceries for your own kid?! How wonderful! What a fucking star! Fuck. You don't deserve a round of fucking applause for every errand you complete.  It's part of what being an adult is, doing things because we have an obligation to do them, not because we will be rewarded.
      I'm done being made to feel inferior for the advantages I hold.  My existence isn't a reflection on you, that is a cognitive-dissonance delusion you've created so you never have to take responsibility for you past actions or take hold of the reins of your life.  When we met, I felt the power between us.  It was palpable.  I thought you were this secure, strong man; physically imposing, cocky, but with a boyish charm.  I thought you were looking for someone to challenge you, someone on your level.   I was unaware that there was no one else on your matchless, elysian level.  I didn't realize it was all an elaborate hoax. You shouldn't feel so inferior, you know, you did manage to trick me into moving in with you; accepting your engagement proposals, with your saccharine romance and phony doting, after all, before drawing the iron curtain. You just foolishly assumed I'd never get wise.  You mistook my kindness for weakness, as they say.  I treated you the way I did, because I was in love with you, and I wanted to build a life together, not because I thought you deserved the royal treatment.  Not because I thought I was some peasant accepting her rightful place at your oafish feet.   I wanted to be an equitable team, that elusive power couple, but you were just looking for someone to be your emotional punching bag, someone to serve the all-mighty czar as royal whipping boy.  So many times you have broken my heart, you've tried many times to break my bones, but as much as you try, you are never going to break my spirit.  You ain't never met anybody like me, pal.  You don't know who the fuck you are dealing with. You truly don't understand the stock I come from. My heritage should have been your first clue, dum-dum. Have I acquiesced yet?  Have you once came out victorious from battle? Or are you the one now groveling at my feet, begging for my forgiveness, so I don't leave you?  Who's the vassal, now?
     All is fair in love and war, and somehow I managed to get tangled up in both with you.  You swear you love me, but I can feel the hate radiating off of you like the glow of a nuclear reactor.  And every step you take insinuates your deep-seated contempt for me.  I've run out of ideas in this can't-live-with-you/can't-live-without-you mire I find myself trapped in.  Let the chips fall where they may.  I've had to surrender myself to the fact that I love a monster, but I will not surrender to that monster.  I will keep battling the dragon until he is slayed.