Thinking about scissors too much these days

Last night I was feeling a bit randy but decided to temporarily quash my aberrant sexual desires and hitchhike on over the cinema and view a motion picture.  There were literally thousands to choose from and I stood like a bronze statue in front of the marquee for several hours rendering my decision. 

Eventually I decided upon Ridley Scott’s new swords n’ sandals epic Exodus: Gods and Kings.  I can still recall with such nostalgic joy when the movie was simply titled Exodus and all the subsequent fist clenching rage I experienced when the new title was announced. 

Buried deep within the Corinthian leather folds of my wallet I happened upon a coupon for a large bucket of hot buttered popcorn and large soft drink.  I requested extra butter on the popcorn and once the bucket was in my already greasy hands I poured on some extra salt.  I selected Pepsi cola for my large drink and the resultant combination gave me a swift and powerful stomach ache roughly halfway through the picture.  However I kept shoveling the corn into my gaping maw as it was impossible to resist.  I like going to the movies, few things bring me as much satisfaction in life.  Though I once knew a woman named Camilla who was a fry cook by day and fetishist by night with whom I had 2 standing dates scheduled during each business week with the entire arrangement lasting roughly two and one-half years.  I would request for her to wear unwashed nylons while she slaved away in the kitchen with her feet crammed into leather pumps and then I would politely ask her to relax for an hour at my place following her departure from and use my face for her footrest.  She would start by removing the pumps and placing the opening of one on my nose and laughing right at me.  Then she would knock it off and lay both of her nyloned feet on my face.  She would tell me what a loser I am and then order me to kiss them.  She would also apply a unique choke-hold with her soles and tell me that I am pathetic and completely beneath her. 

I’m not sure if it was the queasy feeling in my gut or the searing self hatred pumping through my veins but I greatly enjoyed the film!  I believe those looking for a deeply religious experience or something to nourish their faith and spirit will not find what they are looking for with this movie but I would posit that almost no biblical films (in the sense of a movie which presents a story directly from the bible) accomplish this.  Rather, I think this worked very well as a costume drama with some good Scott spectacle and action.  I also loved the final scene though it is almost at odds with everything else in its tonality.  There were plenty of flaws but nothing too egregious.  Perhaps the worst: Scott’s decision to Nolanize the movie by offering more “realistic” versions of the various plagues and miracles actually does the flick disservice by robbing it of a sense of wonder and awe. This is especially true in what should been the obvious epic bombast scene with the parting of the Red Sea which is sadly stilted.  If comparisons must be made I don’t think this will be taking the place of The Ten Commandments anytime soon but it gets a hearty thumbs up from yours truly and that’s probably all that matters!

Discussion of this film is a perfect segue to some other movie related news.  Upon returning home from the multiplex I lay down on my bourgeois sofa and began pondering the great many fallacies of my tortured existence.  From the corner of mine eye were the flashing red and green lights of the Christmas tree and all around was the tinsel and the silver garland and I had such a strong desire to consume the entire bottle of sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet and wash it down with a tall glass of white wine.  I would like my last meal to be a fresh steaming hot pizza but last night it would have been a bowl of Cap N’ Crunch (with soy milk because cows are for calves). 

I began to search madly through the internet.  Outside my home, off in the distance, a dog barked.  By happenstance I stumbled upon the newly released trailer for Terrence Malick’s latest film Knight of Cups starring none other than Christian Bale himself along with other folk like Cate Blanchet, Natalie Portman, Antonio Banderas and Wes Bentley.  It’s no secret that I am big obese Malick fan and that pretty much his entire filmography ranks in my faves.  The Thin Red Line is to date the only war movie I would say I love.  I typically hate war movies!  They are rife with bad storytelling and stock characters.  I’ll say right here that Saving Private Ryan is highly overrated.  Apocalypse Now is okay I suppose.  The Deer Hunter is fine.  There are a few others.  I feel bad now saying that …Ryan is overrated, I know a tremendous amount of work and dedication went into that film and I know many people who love it, many who worship it like a pagan god.  Anyway, I love this new trailer and I am pumped and psyched to see the movie!

Other Malick movies I love include Badlands, Days of Heaven, The New World, Tree of Life and To the Wonder.  Knight of Cups appears awfully similar in some ways to his last two movies and that is fine by me because they make me moan in ecstasy.  Those who are fanatics about my blog will recall my beloved friend Calvin Black.  Years ago his parents viewed the film The New World and savagely despised it.  To my knowledge Black himself never viewed it and it really was not something that came up much in conversation.  I respect the Black family’s opinion wholeheartedly and one of the most joyous things of cinema – indeed, of any art form – is the difference of opinion and spirited debate!  I will say The New World was badly mismarketed and portrayed a very different type of movie.  Sometimes I fall asleep with a copy of The New World clasped tightly to my bosom.  I recall watching an episode of 60 Minutes which had a segment on Nigella Lawson.  When asked why she thought men liked her (more specifically, some of the men who watch her programs but have no interest in cooking) the first thing she said was “my bosom”.  I love Nigella but I’m not entirely sure if my love is linked so directly to her bosom.  Maybe my memory is deceiving me and she didn’t say that at all and if so then I wish to offer a sincere apology.  I’ve been a fan of hers for years and I suspect I will be until the long overdue day of my death!

Also, if any of you dear readers have partook in a session with Lady Milady please respond in the comments below and let me know the particulars and your overall level of satisfaction.  I’ve developed quite an unhealthy fixation and before I empty my Swiss bank accounts and travel around the world I want to know if she is the right girl.  Thought I desperately hope this is the case. 

You liked my comment

I feel my excitement and fondness of big splash blockbustery type movies is fading into a dark oblivion.  I cannot recall a single movie of this type from this year that I truly loved; there were only a couple I actually even enjoyed.  I find it increasingly difficult to glean any meaning from them and most often when I leave the theatre I leave with a feeling of emptiness bordering on despair.  Am I simply becoming more of a snob?  Perhaps.  It astonishes me now when people see a movie like the Hobbit or Hunger Games or Avengers and declare it the best movie they have ever seen.  Still, those are all well made flicks (I suppose) and I do believe there is genuine passion behind many of the people involved (maybe).  So why do they all feel so hollow now?  Just so much polished product for the masses with nothing to offer but surface thrills. 

What has happened to me?  I think my love for this type of movie died with 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises or 2013’s Man of Steel.  It would be more poetic to conclude it was the former but probably more accurate to go with the latter.  Even more accurate still I could say the summer of 2013 had a trifecta of big giant tentpole movies that disappointed on some level: the aforementioned Man of Steel, Star Trek Into Darkness and Iron Man 3.  Plus, in winter there was the bonus of the second Hobbit movie in Peter Jackson’s endless adaptation.  I’m actually a bit surprised he didn’t split the upcoming third movie into two parts.  I just can’t do it anymore. 

See, all this time I’ve been thinking my overall lack of enthusiasm or hope for the upcoming stupidly titled Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was due to a lack of faith in Warner Bros/DC to successfully launch a sustained comic-on-film universe but I realize this is not the case.  It’s true that I do not believe in them anymore after so many botches and it would not surprise me at all if BVSDOJ is crap (and I predict it will be embarrassingly outperformed by Marvel’s Captain America 3 just a little over a month later) and that goes for the recently announced Suicide Squad and all the other upcoming movies on their slate.  I want to believe they can and will be good – even great! – but I am unable. 

But that alone would not quash my enthusiasm so violently for there have been plenty of movies I’ve greatly anticipated where their quality was always in question.  No, I realize my lack of enthusiasm is simply because I no longer respond to this type of movie.  They no longer thrill me.  They no longer move me.  It’s hard to say if I would even be able to truly recognize a “good” one from a “bad” and almost impossible to say why I no longer enjoy the big giant multizillion dollar movies.  Has there been an overall decline in quality these past few years that has drained away my passion?  Or have my life experiences changed me sufficiently to where I’ve simply, and not condescendingly, “outgrown” them?  Maybe I once needed them and now I do not.  Or maybe it’s something else entirely. I do feel slightly sad that I no longer enjoy these movies as in the past.  I will surely still watch all of them which seems a tad strange.  Maybe one day my enjoyment will return, maybe stronger than ever! 

I had a wonderfully aromatic erotic dream this morning, excellent color and denier and perfume of the gods. 

The newest episode of Lucha Underground aired last night but I’ve yet to have the good fortune of viewing it.  This is partially due to my being exceptionally busy these last couple nights, reviewing ledgers and analyzing current investments as well as new prospects.  Yet it is more due to the fact that as previously mentioned I do not receive the El Rey network and as such I will be unable to view this episode until it re-airs this Saturday on Unimas.  However I did hear that it was a corker of an installment and I greatly look forward to this hour of television.  I’ve often dreamed about starting my own wrestling federation.  Who knows if I will ever go through with it?  Back in 8^th grade I met a girl who I swore I would love for all my life and I broke that vow.  From an early age I established a toxic reputation of breaking promises and not going through with things and this has put the value of word in the proverbial dump.  I am about as undependable a guy as you will ever have the misfortune of meeting. 

I find that I know less and less about who I am or who anyone else is.  I’m not sure how to be honest anymore.  I tell so many lies to so many people on a daily basis that it is now an entirely natural, utterly inescapable thing.  There are so many instances where there is no reason whatsoever to lie but I do it anyway and I have no idea why.  I must confess that for some time now – I would say the better part of 2 years – I have been taking something that is absolutely not good for me.  I tried it once because I was looking for something new.  The first time I was not impressed at all so I do not know why I tried it a second time but I did.  The second time I was also unimpressed and I understand even less why I tried it a third time but I did.  The third time did it.  I was hooked and I could not get enough.  From the moment I woke up to when I left work or at any given time on the weekend I wanted more.  My thoughts, desires, motivations and ambitions were subservient.  I have tried to quit on several occasions but I always fail.  I believe the longest I was able to last was a period of 3 weeks.  As stated it has already eroded away at my spiritual core and it is beginning to take its inevitable toll on my relationships.  Two years putting this inside myself and I want it now more than ever.  No one knows about it because I lie to everyone.  I will likely continue to lie until I hit rock bottom and probably afterward as well.   

Thank you Marcela, it was the only time I felt good today. 

Need your hold items

Client called and reported that he is going to be living in a trash can and eating large quantities of reconstituted soybean extract for the foreseeable future.  I told him we depend on his fencing skills and still we give him only hogs and applesauce with which to survive and thrive.  I then proceeded to put on a cheap brown suit and stupid hat and waxed poetic about the president and the problems in Kosovo, so stringent are my political ties it was difficult for me to haul my behind out of bed this mornin' but I did so that I could eat a big helpin' of ma's pork and beans. 

In my Americanmobile we’ll drive away.

Worry not, everything is okay

Those were the first two lines to a song I wrote while I was a sophomore in my high school.  I never forgot them as they were to be one half of the infectious chorus on what was sure to be a crossover pop rock smash in the vein of Hootie and the Blowfish or Dave Matthews Band.  I believe I wrote those lyrics whilst in physics class. A fellow student had erotic fantasies about the physics teacher but I never shared his desires.  Mostly I just thought about baseball at that age.  Ever since I was a child all I’ve ever really wanted to do is play major league baseball. 

B.C. has never been one of my favorite comic strips. Something about the artwork prevents my conversion into a hardcore borderline schizophrenic fan.  Yet what am I to make about B.C.’s recent comments to the press?  That is a truly a pickle wrapped inside the belly of a conundrum.  On the one hairy hand I must completely concur with his statements and yet I cannot deny how they incite me to anger.  I love the word cholesterol.  Sometimes I spend hours sitting on an old wooden stool doing nothing but repeating this word.  Sometimes I even say it with an elegant British accent to please all my European fans out there.  I love Eurotrash villains in movies.  I also love European dance music, real electronic shit.  I’m talking about the dizzying, amazing stuff that was most popular at the turn of the century.  When I look back upon my time in Spain at the millennium it is the dance clubs and the sheer sugar rush of that music which I most remember.  Of course, I also recall walking home at 3:45 in the AM and being savagely mugged and left to die in an alley.  All I could think about was the loaf of bread I’d left baking back in my home in the States.  I vowed that were I to survive I would eat half that loaf with real butter and the other half with boysenberry jam.  I survived but I inevitably broke that promise to myself as I break all my promises. 

People tell me I look like I’ve been working out lately and I tell them it’s all in the jeans.  The jeans and the extensive Muay Thai training I’ve been receiving down at Smitty’s Gym.  Martial arts have always been passion.

Did you once tell me there would never be any other?  Was that before or after I drew purple swans on a dry erase board. Ah, but the dark truth of the matter is that I did not draw those swans at all.  It was actually a secret double agent of the Soviet government who was/is hellbent on learning all the secrets locked away in the dusty corridors of the inner hallways of the gregarious mansion residing on the dangerous and dark street located in the aristocratic neighborhood in the snooty suburb of the sprawling metropolitan city of the future in the corrupt and northwestern county of the fiscally hemorrhaging red state of the glorious and cantankerous country located in the ancient and nigh otherworldly continent positioned between two supremely wet and glistening oceans that fill up a substantial percentage of the dying planet in the far off solar system of my brain.  They forced lumpy oatmeal down my throat but I never said a word.  I refused to squeal.  I’m too loyal to Blue Glyph Motors, the highly successful engineering enterprise I coincidentally founded while a sophomore in high school. 

I think I have just discovered a strange and wonderful new thing: nylons and oatmeal. Hosiery and oatmeal.  Right now at this current juncture in my life I can think of nothing greater.  Nylons and oatmeal.  Just those two words together provide such joy and splendor.  I must explore.  Scissors too.  Please wear the turquoise heels. 

I didn’t take the drug but I’m still feeling the side effects.  Its one of the many consequences of being a sensitive man like yours falsely.  Do you remember all those times I was wrongly accused of murder?  How about that time Jack raped Jill and they tried to pin it on Peter?  I swore then I would never fall victim to their dogmatic persecutions.  Why did you decide to film my death scene on vinyl record?  You should have known your desires with that technological format would simply not be compatible.  I tried to warn you but you always think you’re so damn smart.  You’re smarter than me, that’s for sure.  I bow to you superior wisdom.  If I were you I would never wish to be me even if a sorcerer offered me 6 delicious pink cupcakes if I allowed him to perform the spell that would switch us places.  I see you running up a hill right now. 

You lost all your hair in Vaseline related accidents. Then you lost all your care in trampoline related abstinence.  I was there and watched it all from a birdlike perch.    

I don’t want to listen to the message.  I am so afraid.  Please be okay.  Let it all not drown. I was not born for this.  What has happened to everything?  Why is everything nothing and my words are like fine toothed combs and your face is like a snowman melting all over the bodies of murdered milkmen. 

Languages escape from the knees and elbows of a thousand athletic men.  You never ventured to the lands we once called foam.  I’ll bathe in liquid paper only when the world decides to return my phone calls.  Who are you to judge that which you know everything about?  Please donate 57 million dollars and in return I will give you vulcanized rubber.  Let’s pave the streets with the physical manifestation of our collective failures!  Texas Instruments may indeed make the best calculators but they’re still second to the giant Wheel of Death inside my brain!

I can’t escape from what I’ve done.  I cannot believe any of this.  There is too much Ritz crackers in the world for any of my lies to actually be truth.  I have lived too long inside the belly of a whale.  You’re going to have to perform some type of half ass autopsy on a fish.  Did you ever think it would come to this?  We fly even though there is no one standing beneath us to shine blinding light into our eyes.  I will have my vengeance hahahahahahahahahah!

I should have taken the chocolate

O (Part 5 of 10)

May I please walk with you?  Exhausted is the new purple.  I'm not quite sure what I mean by that but I think I have an idea.  I feel so much love for you, so much desire and faith and connection.  Every morning I seek you out in desperation and fear and every night once more that I may feel some tenderness and hear your voice.  Temptation gets the better of me every day.  Using clichés such as those does not provide me with any sort of pleasure.  

I asked you once if you were Catholic and you said yes.  You whispered a melody to me and now I cannot get it out of my head.  I've wondered what sins you confess when asking for forgiveness.  Were you bitter last time?  What a selfish and awful thought.  Even when I am deep in the throes of desire and surrendering to these obsessions I feel so close and my body contorts and I bite my tongue until I draw blood and I lay naked covered in sweat and my head starts to hurt.  Tears always well up in my eyes when I think of you.  

All these questions, you're the victim, I'm the whore.  

I have such fucking style.  They tried to send me to back of the train but I refused.  That was another version of me that said this.  A version bristling with confidence and barely contained sexuality.  This version is almost entirely illusory but it is a delightful fantasy that sometimes pops into my head in these crucial moments.  

Somewhere I can heal someone yelling the word "bastard" and saying how impure I am and that they are going to kill me.  

I often go with the first impulse but rarely is that correct.  There were times I thought to read her.  I have a sneaking suspicion these memories are not my home.  I feel sick and wonder what is happening to me.  I do not believe one night would be sufficient but what a fantastic romanticized thought.  And then such bracing feelings of negativity and pure fierce hatred.  I don't understand anything and I wish it stays this way.  Why did you ask if I was okay?  That was such a beautiful moment.  Twice it was so beautiful and I know it will never repeat itself again.  I destroyed too much because that was all I knew how to do.  

And still I wake up and plead for forgiveness.  I grab hold and refuse to let go.  It's like I've died before.  And I learned how to come back again.  Oh no, I'm lost again.  You think that I'm a friend; I wander empty hallways and scream out names.  I bang the walls and scream again and I bloody pretty faces.  Up in the air is a castle I imagined I could reach but this was never true.  There has never been a proper time to tell you.  Every word exhausts me.  Will you tell me it will be okay?  I think I would believe it if it came from you.  Blue and black, I am always lost in these, over and over again.  

I'm not trying to revive myself; I've spent it all before.  Stars grandstand and swear so much each night.  I fail to see the humor in things.  It's like you've already killed again.  You're the greatest thing.  

I don’t convince anymore when I am in groups.  My face betrays me.  

I run through the stations, screaming and fleeing back and forth and wondering what truth I have found in all these different worlds and what sweet brainwashing have I allowed.  You click your tongue and then I taste your skin and the light hurts my eyes.  There is so much energy surging straight for the center and the swelling sound of an orchestra.  Fucking abandon everything.  Why did you put that thought into my brain?  I know you didn't.  I put it there.  I have confused you with so many throughout history.  Are you somehow all of them at once?  Why do your eyes still strangle me?  

I look for signs and I hear voices inside.  You are slowly driving me insane and I am deathly afraid of what I keep seeing from the corner of my eye.  There is such loving humiliation in those hours.  You hold my hand right until the end.  These moments are all disparate.  Teach me to walk.  

I see this beauty and I fall to my knees and I reach and fail to grasp.  I live inside a lie.  I can't trust any words from my mouth.  I thrust myself against the rights of no one.  I am waltzing with a strange deformed figure.  What are these things to left and right of me?  I acknowledge all these faults and it changes nothing.    

You tell me nothing frightens you anymore.  Lover.  Everyone I see is you.

I can't fit all the words into the space you've given me.  Nothing makes any fucking sense.  I can't fucking think.  It's like my thoughts have burned inside your mind.  You've called me a slut.  I can't wait to try.  I can't stand outside in the snow anymore.  I've never been to this city inside

us.  

There are floods and people melting and exploding suns.  I am in ecstasy then screaming as my personality is melted away.  You have given me life.  You're making me dream.  I stick my hands inside.  Does it matter if it was written down or if it just appeared?  

I can't say you're good.  We make love to frightening things.  Your hope has turned to liquid and I drink it and I can feel the warmth in my chest.  There is no reason to pretend anymore.  Words have been dropped inside.  They're going to bring a knife to bed.  Everything is what I like.  

It’s like divinity inside my skull.  Trapped inside an atomic bomb with only a deck of cards, everything has adorned its loss.  I see your face across a field of grey.  

You changed the blue

I’ve tapped into a new universal language filled with exciting and startling truths.  I’ve pierced through the veil of chicanery to see the stark dying dreams underneath. I have smelled their festering corpses and gazed into their milky desperate eyes.  I laugh at all the explosive sex going on around me.  I have never felt so alive as when I was this close to sweet impartial death.

So will it be Eddie or Michael?  Or will there be a victory by someone more unexpected?  I have lived my life in the shadows, always saying that I don’t give a damn about such nonsense.  And yet I must admit to feeling a certain sense of yearning for this victory to be realized.  It would be a lifetime of love and devotion somehow brought to the forefront of things in a way I never imagined.  I can’t say “validation”, that’s not right.  You deserve it.  I believe in you.  I love you.

I watched the move Live from Baghdad last night (I’ve seen it before) and then promptly had an in-depth discussion on the various socio-economic effects of the Gulf War with my viewing buddy.  The conversation lasted for roughly 90 minutes during which time I had 3 glasses of white wine.  Afterward I retired to my posh flat and inserted a Blu-ray copy of Samson & Delilah in my Playstation 3 and rested on my bourgeois sofa.  Regrettably I fell asleep during the overture and my dreams were haunted with compromise and uncertainty. 

I recently purchased David Bowie’s new 3 disc retrospective slash best-of slash hits compilation Nothing Has Changed. 

I was crying while I took Polaroid photographs of myself.  I had been drinking that night but only to forget what I’d done the previous nights.  I was laying down on the pool table and making strange faces and taking these photographs and I began to wonder why I do not understand anyone.  Wouldn’t it be lovely if they would all leave me alone? 

I keep seeing myself drowning in an endless expanse of black water.  I can hear music playing and the words are Greek and so beautiful.  It is a very peaceful thought and one which provides me with a great deal of comfort. 

I met a man in the book store today who rambled on about suing the courts.  He was also worried about a potential drought or maybe it was a flood, I was not exactly sure.  He walked by me several times and I considered committing a random act of explosive violence against him but I ultimately decided against this.  There was a new person working the customer service desk and she was quite comely and I requested her help in ordering a book about Wall Street.  I wanted to compliment her but did not know her.  She was a wearing a sweater and a cute pleated skirt with dark stockings and I was surely a creep for noticing.  

We are all caught in a big fucking web.  I turn things on and I don't know how to turn them off again.  I ventured into a plane of thought where there may be no escape.  It was so delicious.  I think I did this before I fell asleep and then again as I was driving.  It was the old familiar fantasy of unbuckling my seatbelt, flooring the gas pedal like SpongeBob Squarepants and slamming the vehicle into a nearby conveniently placed brick wall where I would then be unceremoniously ejected from the car and splatter my brains all over the concrete.  

I am crying while I type this and I have an action movie on in the foreground - Rumble in the Bronx - and I feel slightly nauseous because I drank too much of various things and I am also listening The Time's last album on headphones.  I have the heater of my posh flat turned on as well as a fan which is pointed right next to my head and on the maximum speed.  This makes me giggle.  

Sometimes when I imagine myself lying there dead or dying on the pavement I wonder who may coincidentally drive by at that very moment of my bloody expiration and recognize my vehicle, exit their own and perhaps bear witness to my final moments in this life.  Sometimes I imagine it is you and you are holding my hand and even through the impossible-to-mask look of horror on your face I can still see the beauty and the love and the tenderness.  Oh sweet finality.  

I know things are doing thing inside my head and deep in my brain and I've asked everyone for help in the only ways I know how but no one does anything because no one cares and no one wants to listen.  I have a sneaking and terrifying suspicion that we are all headed to the same place and I don't know why I am the only one who has been cursed with this knowledge and awareness.  I can say that you are all in for a serious surprise.  

The mixed tag team main event between Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Pentagon Jr. against Sexy Star and Fenix on this past week's episode of Lucha Underground was truly spectacular.  El Rey's wrestling program has been of consistently high quality in these initial episodes and it actually seems to be improving week after week.  I was initially saddened that it was only going to be an hour long show - I am used to wrestling programs clocking in at 2 hours - but this actually seems to work in its favor as it eliminates almost all extraneous material and makes each episode a lean hard-hitting jolt of pure lucha (and I stress that last word as the high-flying spots here are spectacular and seem to come every few seconds) action.  The "backstage" footage is equally well done, taking on an almost novela style production on building the storylines and character histories/motivations.  Essentially these qualities almost make it a polar opposite of WWE's Monday Night Raw which sometimes feels like 3 endless hours of 90% hackneyed backstage crap and asinine stunts and 10% wrestling.   So far, Lucha Underground is giving me the perfect mix of storylines and wrestling.  

Regarding this particular match: I am not the biggest fan of inter-gender matches as they are sometimes exploitative (though in other circumstances I have no such issues with this) or unconvincing however this match featured none of these problems.  It helps greatly that the show has been building up this rivalry and that Guerrero Jr. and Pentagon Jr. are doing such great work as the heels.  Fenix is also a top talent and he Sexy Star have fine chemistry and work quite well together.  The match had beautiful flow, I can't think of any spots that were seriously botched and it was easy to be engaged in this battle.  

My only quibble: Having watched Sexy Star through AAA over the years I know she is capable of more than these inter-gender matches allow her to display.  It’s the flipside of my trepidation of such matches as to be able to really sell them she is holding back a bit.  My hope is that Lucha Underground will recruit more Luchadoras than they currently have and build their women's division to allow Sexy Star to have a rivalry where she can really unleash her talent.  One never knows how long this type of program may last but if it keeps up this quality I will stay with it til’ the bitter end!  Here's hoping there is a digital video disc release that I may hold a Lucha Underground marathon party and invite all my nonexistent friends!

Here is a list of folks we are processing:

2 coffees and an O.J.

I cried while driving to work this morning.  I was listening to the song Spotlight by Shakira and driving the same route I take every miserable workday and I simply burst into tears.  One would think the edge would have worn off by now but it still hurts just as much every time I’m faced with the utter meaninglessness of my life.  I wish I could find meaning and satisfaction in all the irrelevant daily bullshit as so many of my contemporaries are able to find but I was not blessed with their capacity for happiness.  I once knew a man who lived entirely to make as much money as he could.  He seemed quite miserable but the funny thing was I don’t think he actually realized he was dreadfully unhappy.  All the same he existed in a world void of WHATEVER….  When faced with his particular brand of ugly part of me wished to lash out quite violently in an act of revolted extermination.  The other part of me only wished to run away and never have any sort of contact with this man again.

During the peak morning hours I put on Marvin Gaye’s amazing classic beautiful perfect 2002 album What’s Going On (the lack of question mark in the title is a key to the record’s themes which occasionally gets overlooked, suffice it to say this work has lost none of its relevancy or potency over the years).  However I removed the disc when I realized it was much better suited to evenings and dead of nights (late afternoons at the absolute earliest) than mornings.  That is no fault of the artist nor is it an indictment of the music itself.  But What’s Going On is an album that begs to be listened in the dark hours, either on busy roads in taxi cabs with swarms of city lights blurring bye or in RUSTIC bars where the air is thick and where the clientale all have a tortured tail 2 drinks away from being told or in the privacy of one’s home, curled up with a glass of wine, love optional.   There was a period in my life where I listened to this album on a nightly basis, often more than once and even now it is difficult to imagine more than a week going by without this music gracing my waxy earholes. 

Instead I slapped on the YEAR album Up! By Shania Twain.  This might seem like a jarring change to some but it made perfect sense to me and I think pundits will look back on it as a masterful move in the overall chess game of life.  Up! is quite simply a pop masterpiece and its central conceit – the album comes with 2 discs featuring the same 19 songs but with one featuring more country instrumentation and the other pop instrumentation – was and is a gaudy and audacious production choice that continues to fascinate and reward on repeated listening all these many years later.  Honestly, just listen to the first single IM GONNA GETCHA GOOD and marvel at that perfect thick slice of pop perfection. 

I recently purchased new copies of Pearl Jam’s YEAR and YEAR albums Yield and Binaural.  I’ve owned these albums for a massive chunk of my miserable life and I’ve listened to them countless times and it precisely this passionate and dedicated listening which resulted in their physical manifestations ceasing to function and necessitating that I work overtime in order to afford new copies.  These albums – indeed, damn near the entirety of the group’s principal discography along with a very healthy slice of their always excellent live “bootlegs” – have helped me through some very trying times and basically enriched so many of the ups and downs of my peculiar and tortured existence over the years.  When I’ve rejoiced they were there alongside me and when I despaired they held me and we wept together.  If I could only listen to one Jam release for the rest of my increasingly dark days I would almost certainly pick one of their live recordings but were I forced to choose my favorite of their proper albums there is an extremely decent chance I would select Yield.  The last five songs on there are about the most perfect sequence of tunes a guy like me can imagine. 

My desires and dreams are exactly the same as countless people who came before me.  I do not wish for anything unique at all for my life.  At the same time I do as little as possible to accomplish these lackluster, worthless shoals.  I don’t truly want the love of a cheeseburger – the fact that I literally do nothing to find it and let it go as something useless on the rare occasions it falls into my hands are testament to this – but the idea of a cheeseburger somehow being crucial coupled with my having witnessed this dynamic in so many others makes me think it is something I want and perhaps something crucial to my having a “successful” life. 

I ate expired yogurt this morning.  It made me feel like a real man for once in my life.  I think there’s going to be another war.  There were two old guys talking on the beach while not fifteen yards away a bird was pecking at the carcass of another bird.  They happened upon the house that Jack built and from there recounted their sordid tale, in so much as it could be recounted under those highly secretive and highly extenuating circumstances.  A painter’s psychic visions have continued to haunt me these recent years. 

I very recently saw the movie John Wick. 

I recently watched the movie Interstellar.

I also watched the movie Birdman at some point in time. 

Jonathan had control of the faith sector.  I think I remember who the writer was but I would have to triple check to be sure.  I keep seeing that figure cloaked in red from the corner of my eye.  I have nearly fallen into the canal on several occasions.  The act in the bedroom may have seemed simulated but it was not. 

Was there someone in my house last night?  How did you get inside my house?  I sing to myself while sitting in my office.  Things walk by and it’s hard to recognize them.  I think I’m losing control but then a tiny but insistent voice always reminds me that I never actually had control to begin with.  I think for lunch I’ll eat a pastrami on rye sandwich with some mayonnaise and mustard.  There are chromatic swans clouding my vision. 

I always pretend it’s you.  Sometimes it almost works. 

I love absolute zero

Hey I just met you.  This is fucking psychotic.  But here’s my hand in marriage.  Call me neurotic.  That’s what I would say to her if only I could.  If only I had the guts. 

If I could I would fill a giant vat with waffle batter and then jump into it, letting warm, thick and smooth batter caress every inch of my body.  I can imagine few things as pleasurable as that.

I was as shocked as anyone to find that I’ve become a massive fan of the Counting Crows.  In the past month or so I’ve purchased four of their albums, including their newest release.  Maybe it’s age catching up to me.  Suddenly Duritz’s words are hitting me deep and making me reconsider everything I once thought to be true.  Their records speak to me!  I love them!

People are always asking me why I don’t watch more television and I always tell them I find it to be a heartbreaking medium where even the best and most promising programs often devolve into cheap stunts, progressively rote characters and needlessly extended storytelling.  That’s just one man’s humble opinion of course.  I strongly suspect one day I will become an avid TV zombie and catch up on all the shows everyone in the entire world has raving about for these past two decades. 

However one recent show I absolutely could not resist watching no matter how hard I tried was The Flash which premiered some 5 weeks ago on America’s favorite CW network.  Those who know me best know of my deep seated love for the scarlet speedster and that he is second only to a couple dozen other characters in the pantheon of my all-time-favorites.  I was happy that this particular incarnation was spinning off the show Arrow as I had found that show to be of a high and consistent quality in providing very satisfactory superheroic romps on a weekly basis. 

So with a potent mixture of mind shattering terror and giddy anticipation I watched The Flash and have found that I’m enjoying it to a dangerously high level.  The tone is perfect for the character and his adventures and I feel the creators have really nailed the heart of his mythology. All the teases and Easter eggs and the near certainty of Zoom presenting himself have filled me with girlish glee and I genuinely look forward to each new installment.  Last week’s episode introduced Captain Cold – one of my all time favorite villains – played by Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller and he was written and portrayed to icy perfection and set up to return throughout the season.  The episode itself was titled Going Rogue and that alone was enough to make me weep with crocodile tears of joy and ensure that I will stay with this series for the long haul. 

Regarding American Horror Story, lots of folks have been commenting on Twisty the Clown (played by John Carroll Lynch) and how scary he is so I watched an episode and was disappointed as ever.  He looks hip and is a great visual but is not scary in any way.  I so want to like American Horror Story and I’ve seen several episodes from various seasons but it always seems to be trying too hard and still coming up short.  The situations, acting, atmosphere and effects feel very much to me like what a child might find frightening and I am often reminded of the Goosebumps series of books.  It is a very safe brand of horror and horror should never be safe.  What the hell do I know though?  It’s wildly popular.  I did like when Jessica Lange sang the David Bowie song Life on Mars in a recent episode because that is one of my all time favorite tunes.  Maybe if every episode featured a Bowie song I would like it more.   

My dream of seeing all Mark Rothko’s paintings in person is one step closer to completion after a recent trip to the amazing Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota and standing mere inches away from Rothko’s 1953 painting Untitled.  This is a truly beautiful piece of work and seeing it – swimming inside its color and being devoured by its heart – was an honor.  This also happens to be the first one I’ve seen in person so the projected completion of my dream is still quite a ways away.  Still, my passion is equal to the task. 

Naysayers are predicting I’ll die before my quest is complete but I plan to prove all of them wrong.  I plan to see them all dead and buried and then I will promptly perform a jig on their graves and laugh all the way to the bank where I will open up a joint checking account with my long lost twin brother.  I would like to plan trips to Houston, Texas to visit the Rothko Chapel as well as New York, New York to visit the Museum of Modern Art as they both house several of Rothko’s paintings and my checklist would be able to amass quite a few more checks.  If anyone is interested in making donations for these trips please let me know.  Who knows?  Perhaps I would able to assist in fulfilling one of your dreams as well….

I thought the green dress shirt I put on today after showering and shaving was clean but I may have been in error.  I have smelled myself all day and have not much liked what I’ve smelt.  I also ate yogurt this morning for what it’s worth. 

Next I plan to tame the beast and watch him fall.  Love conquers all.  I remember vividly a summer in my formative years when I was madly in love with Lynda Carter.  Although even now I’m still not sure if I was in love with her or with Wonder Woman.  Even that is a bit of a puzzler because it would be difficult – maybe even impossible – to further deduce whether I was in love with Wonder Woman or with the Lynda Carter actualization/version/interpretation of Wonder Woman.  Where does one end and the other begin?  Am I even able to separate the two as distinct entities in my tortured mind?  Carter’s Wonder Woman is still definitive and a glorious take on the character.  DC recently announced a new comic series which would feature further adventures of that specific iteration of the character (similar to their successful Batman 66’ series which are adventures of the Adam West and Burt Ward version of Batman and Robin) and I am pleased as punch by this.  But nothing will ever replace the real thing.  She’s the real thing.  Even better than the real thing. 

The Old Testament of the Bible is very interesting.  I need to read more of it and conduct copious amounts of research to increase my understanding.  

Right under my nose new albums were released by Los Tigres del Norte and Elida y Avante.  I was a fool not to realize this sooner.  So many things have been escaping my notice recently.  Today I will hitchhike to a local Mom & Pop (or is it Ma & Pa?) style store to purchase both albums.  Then I will listen to them and reflect on the truly meaningful life I almost had.  Both great bands.  I’ve seen Elida twice now and Los Tigres zero times.  I would love to see either of them again. 

I’ve been thinking of buying an upright bass (or double bass if you prefer) but I probably won’t.  I don’t have any of the skills necessary to play one.  But I imagine it being a very satisfying instrument.  Like water through a sieve. 

I recently started reading a new book.

O (Part 4 of 10)

This is the end.  In those final moments I am able to learn so much.  Where did this boldness come from?  Did anyone forget about anyone else?  I don't believe it is possible that such luck exists.  But in the end you understand the awful truth behind it all.  You understood but you'd found a way to beat it at its own game.  You pierced through all the lies and found meaning where there should have been none.  

You touched me just once and I felt such love and desire and pure ecstasy that my body began to twist and contort and I started grinding my teeth and I wanted to scream at the sheer joy I was feeling, my soul was in a state of rapture and your light was passing through me and I breathed it into my lungs and submitted my entire body to it and I was bleeding and it felt wonderful and I was twisting and trying to reach out once more and you started to sing and my eyes were unable to stay open as pleasure erupted through my every nerve and rational thought become impossible. 

Somewhere there are teacups shattering and two men kissing and everything imaginary is wonderful and I desperately wish I could stay inside my mind.  I know you speak to me at night while I am dreaming and I always look for you in those moments.  But so often that euphoria is forgotten, taken from me by the cruel morning. Where is all this domestic joy?  Why I only receive illusions in exchange for my trouble? 

I saw your radiance while in the park where you cradled life in your arms.  I laughed at my pretensions.  What if I confessed that every time I look out that shared window into the streets I imagine stepping in front of any oncoming truck in the hopes of a swift demise?  What would you tell me if I expressed that?  For two straight hours this morning I did nothing but beg for your forgiveness.  I heard echoes of your fallen tears from so many years ago.  I saw statues made of gold and briefly I was able to traverse all those dreams you once had which never came true. 

I have realized that indifference is the most awful thing.  This entire confession - every single word I have ever written or ever will write - is utterly meaningless.  There is a picture in my room and I am able to going inside and enter a new planet that has orange skies and the ground beneath my feet is made of glass and stretches out untold miles in every direction.  I can feel electricity in the air around me and my whole body pulses with its current.  Sometimes while I'm there I fall down on my knees and put my hands on my head and my temples feel like they are being drilled into and all I can do is scream and I want to break the glass beneath me and see where it is I would fall.  I crash again and again and I beg your forgiveness, I beg both of you for forgiveness and you both have heard my cries and I wonder when I will run out of second chances.  You should have thrown me out and left me there.  Why didn't you just leave me there?   

Your lights paint the landscape for me in shades of purple and blue and pink.  I see you step out into the rain and when it is dark you wrap your arms around me and tell me everything is going to be okay and I close my eyes and it feels so good and like I don't even exist.  For a few fleeting seconds I am completely absent from this or any world and it is complete bliss for everyone.  Then I am back but I am still with you and the tide is coming in and I hang on to your robe and I am crying and you have your hand on me but you don't say anything at first.  The colors in your eyes change every second.  

All those letters we wrote however many years ago are just mountains of words I’m throwing into the fire.  I have burned everything away a thousand times before but it always comes back.  Every time I promise myself I won’t read them again but my heart is a liar.  There was such hope in those words and somehow I am able to feel it all over again.  But inevitably I keep reading to the end.  All I can ever find is emptiness. 

There were vanishing angels and you spoke in language I had never heard before.  It was soft and melodic and I imagined you there at the end of everything.  Sometimes we’re sitting at a table together and sipping wine and talking.  The sun is setting and the ocean is nearby and the night promises everything.  There is nowhere I would rather be.  Other times we are alone and I am always on my knees.  Have you ever been truly blessed with freedom?  Do either one of us know what fulfillment feels like? 

I realize this is all so ugly.  It would be far better for there to be glass between us.  Everyone knows someone like me.  There is a network and they all pass this information along as they should.  

Most of all I recall in this final moment truly feeling as though you cared.  You said it not once but many times and I would have gladly made a fool of myself for the rest of my days if that was to be my reward.  I see you in white with a red flower in your hair and even as my life slips away I am able to leave in peace.  

You will see every one of them with me and at the next millennium we will be dancing together.

He says this is the end but he knows he'll be back again.  

O (Part 3 of 10)

He kisses me on the cheek first and then on the lips. This is what he always does.  And if he leaves before I do he always gives me a kiss.  I have no idea why since it is never long before we see one another again.  His kiss is exactly the same whether he is kissing me goodbye or hello, whether it is in the morning or right before bed, whether he just saw me 30 minutes ago or whether he’s come back from a long visit away with his family.  Always the cheek first, close to the corner of my mouth and then on the lips.  Half the time his lips are chapped and cracking and I hate the way they feel against mine but I never tell him this.  I never would have imagined the span of a few seconds can feel so tortuous. 

My memories are funny things and sometimes when I close my eyes to remember or I look through old photo albums – its weird being able to remember when photos existed more in binders and clear plastic sheets than on computers and phones – I can feel exactly how I felt during those moments.  But when I close the book or open my eyes the feelings leave in an instant and even though I know this is going to happen it is still always somehow a surprise.  I am detached from both the people in those old photos and what’s around me has started to look decayed.  There’s a dull throbbing between my temples and more and more it sparks a sudden rush of panic and my brain’s instant defense response – deniability – has become almost completely ineffective. 

Yet there is so much beauty to be found around me if I look close and if I have the will.  I want to create and give life to new and exciting things.  It springs forth from my fingertips without effort sometimes.  The image is in my brain and then it is reality and I can give it to someone and see them smile.  Or sometimes it is not effortless at all and it is grueling and painful but I love that too and there is almost nothing more to which I’d rather devote my time.  Why are we denied so much of this? 

I made you a scarf.  I don’t know why I did not tell him this.  I’ve made things for many people before.  What was different about this?  I only worked on it when he wasn’t around and even though it was only gray and black I spent a silly amount of time looking at different shades.  It took about five times as long to make as it should have and I loved every second of its creation.  I hid it in my purse one morning; wrapped it in paper and placed it underneath my gloves and checkbook and little orange bottles of pills.  My insides fluttered in a way I did not think possible anymore on the day I gave it to you.  I waited until no one else was around.  You said you loved it and I believe you.  It is a moment I travel back to often but only when I’m alone. 

On Sunday mornings I worship and I pray and then I spend the rest of my time sinning.  I don’t ask for forgiveness anymore.  Maybe that doesn’t make me as much of a hypocrite as I used to be but I imagine it’s all the same to God.  I don’t want to pretend.  I love both of you more than anything and that will never change.  Every morning I wake up and I still feel the same pride and happiness as on the first days that I knew you and the first days when we finally met.  But neither of you are going to be with me for much longer.  I don’t think I’ll be able to pretend when you’re gone.  That’s the fear that presses down on my chest in the middle of the night and makes my heart beat a little faster around closing time where our roles become more defined and far less easy to hide from. 

There is much more than this.  You were right when you said that to me.  Even though it’s something I’ve known for years I keep that thought locked up tight somewhere.  But why did you say that? How could you have such desperation in your eyes?  How could you feel exactly what I’m feeling?

I said you shouldn’t be walking.  I can give you a ride there.  That’s what I wanted to say.  There would be no harm in that.  I can give you ride and make sure you’re safe.  I’ll turn on the radio or put on something from my phone and we can talk about music.  You can tell if you liked that book.  You can tell me where you grew up.  We can talk about where we would go. 

I only feign indifference.  You must realize that on some level.  I want you to be happy.  This desire was unexpected and wonderful.  I’m not allowed to feel it but sometimes I let it happen just for a little while.  If nothing else I want you to remember that I wish you heaven.  I don’t know why it’s important to me but maybe if that’s all there is then maybe that will be enough.  When so many weeks pass by I start to worry we will never see each other again but this is never true.  You never stay away for too long.  I don’t allow myself to indulge but someone joked – thankfully not to him – that you are weak and powerless and in love.  I allowed myself to believe that for a day.  I experienced more happiness than I’d ever dreamed.  Then I banished those feelings.   

This is all only fantasy.  A wish fulfillment of the saddest and most obvious kind.  Of course, I am incapable of truly understanding.  This is all shattered ego and tortured desire screaming for attention.  But it is nothing worthy of a second thought. 

You told me once that you liked to paint.  I would love to see one of your paintings.