AUTHOR.CALHO: If I didn't write it, I would be hitch hiking cross country to Maine and then Alaska in that order. While taking frequent breaks to spread leaflets. And sit in diners. And write on things because I wasn't at a computer. I may still do that in a few years. Writing this also helps me forget about and better understand the limitations of being human, and keeps me busy enough to allow me no free time to burn the world down.
THEMATIC.ABOUT : Collapse often. The things that hold people together and hold them apart and scatter brains. The things that make thoughts go boom. The things that ooh and aah and [expletive deleted]. Sometimes poking around the margins where responsibility ends and the only one to look to is the Original Equipment Manufacturer and say "but, I already pressed 9 for more options and the menus are exactly the same. Can you just replace it?" The answer will be: "please hold." Sometimes hanging out in dark corners. Sometimes following the train tracks. Looking for ways out and ways in and all the while sharing the things seen and heard and done and drawn and written and scorched and healed and teased and caged and dreamed along the way.
9/7/10
Sad Bunny Can't Cum
My writing is now inaccessible (fuck) on sata hard drives, my resume is inaccessible (fuuuck), my porn is sitting idle (fuuuuuuuck), and my music collection is essentially in a vault (FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-) till I get a new motherboard or other PC tower to- okay who gives a shit. I do, but that's boring. Me talking about this is like listening to someone talk about their dead cousin who you never met and they never really talked about before and trying to pretend like they have your undivided attention when it's fourth and inches in a preseason Steelers game and the gaurd they drafted is about to be put to his first real test and show you whether or not the season is going to be worth pinning playoff hopes to. Long, long, long sigh while trying to pay attention to what really matters without looking like a complete dick. Suffice to say, combining a tempermental laptop with a 860 bits per second internet connection and the fact that I have to write in notepad and can throw making after the fact edits squarely out the window has made me a fucking sad bunny.
Maybe I should have talked about that last. Life has turned into a very long jerk session. Like "just blew a rail at the bar and the chick I got into the cab with hopped out midway to my place so I blew another rail and tried to watch a movie to console myself, but couldn't get into it so I tried to rub one out and I'm three hours in and nodding off knowing I won't sleep well at all unless I at least get the small victory of cumming and all signs are pointing to a four a.m. photo finish with passing out sitting at my desk with empty cans of Natty cheering me on from the gallery." But, yeah, you know it's dragging. Been working hard, but obstacles must have eachother on speed dial the way things have continued to stack and you know it's no good when doing the thing you love to do becomes difficult and all you really want to do is sleep. Good news is I've pounded enough coffee to start a coca leaf grow operation in my stomach. Suck on that contra. I'm not sure how the two are related, but hopefully it's close enough to let you fill in the hilarious gaps. Personally, I didn't laugh. Didn't even smirk on that one, but fuck it, it's out there and doing its thing.
So into it (longest intro ever). Five years in bullets:
-started blog because I was pissed at my boss and had no one to tell about it.
-stopped talking about my boss because it was whiny as all hell.
-planned to start a career as a kept man.
-decided my beard deserved my face like modern pop and R&B singers deserve euthanisation.
-spewed hate toward beard haters.
-realized 99% of myspace writers were hacks.
-left myspace because I hated being connected to people.
-left facebook
-went back to facebook and myspace when my communication anxiety faded.
... God this is boring. Worst retrospective ever.
I think there's supposed to be a memoir like tone to the narrative that I am completely whiffing on. I wanted to be a fighter pilot for the longest time.
I guess I'll just skip to what's new. I'm realizing more and more that the shit surrounding my island is so ridiculously deep that it is fairly realistic to say there is zero chance of any kind of college sweetheart reunion. Think of it this way: what she has in common with her peers now is like two humans talking to eachother. What she has in common with me is like a person at a zoo talking to animals. While one may be more interesting, it's not what you'd want to spend your life doing. What else. I guess I'm bi. Are there rules for that. I guess I didn't just start one day. If I look back it's pretty obvious. Most people don't really give a shit now anyway which has been a massive relief, because what I feared the most was being hated. Some people look at me differently, maybe, I'm not sure and I don't care all that much to ask them. I'm still the same person with the same anger management issues and the same scars. Someone asked me why I would choose to be something that "will make my life more difficult", but to be perfectly honest it's made my life so much easier to live now that I can understand myself that much better. Even saying what I am feels strange, as though there are brands of people. But, anyway, sex with guys is fun. Sex with girls is fun. Different reasons for both. Girl cum and guy cum are pretty close in taste to me. That's probably the only thing the two have in common for the most part. Guys and girls are attractive for different reasons too. I guess the oddest thing is most gay men are incredibly obnoxious and unattractive. On second thought, not really that odd because most women are also unnattractive. Or maybe, okay further revision: most gay men and women I don't scare away with my being myself are unattractive. That's the qualifier I was tasting on the tip of my tongue. Fuck em. I just wish I was willing to let myself see it sooner and embrace it, but I was so caught up in performing to the rigid framework I grew up in I suppressed and ignored it and raged inwardly and outwardly and not allowing myself to be. I missed out on the whole "rules and standards committee" meetings in college so now I'm still learning about it, but better late than a repression fueled suicide. One of the hardest things to get over was feeling like I've somehow failed as a man. That's actually been the single toughest thing in accepting my sexual self. So much of socialization is the assumption of roles and rejecting the hetero role that framed and formed and malformed so much of my behavior like fucking foot binding was and continues to be difficult, but it's a difficulty that's building toward true normalcy for me and in so being it is worth every ounce of growing pain.
What else. I'm bad at keeping secrets. I've realized that so much of my life has been informed by half truths that propogating them is so extremely distasteful that I just can't do it with believable conviction. A good thing and a bad thing, but mostly a good thing I think. A change for the better. There's still a little voice in my head that talks about dreams of wealth, but there's a louder voice that screams to me to write and ultimately having a nine to five and writing will mean more to me than continuing a foreign quest for status and titles and degrees. I think that's what helps keep me sane. I'm still looking for that elusive community of writers. That still hasn't changed. I came close to finding one. Hopefully that'll turn into something. I think I'm wandering again. I love you. Don't be sad. Life won't drag on forever and that's something we can look forward to, right? Death is going to be the best orgasm ever. I'll still be enthusiastic about it when it rolls around. In the meantime you just have to make the most of the little humps and enjoy the moments you get to spend cumming as much as possible. Also, don't say that to people in casual settings. They'll think you're weird. Also don't tell people you're too depressed to cum. Even as a metaphor, but especially not literally, unless they're the kind of crazy sexy person who would take it as a standing challenge. Even then. You know what, you probably should not be taking advice from me about this.
How's this for some summation of 200 posts: I was born, I lived for a while not knowing there was a world outside the controlled universe of my home until college, I discovered there was a world, I dated a fantastic girl for a long time, I loved my beard, I planned to get in tight with a cougar before I dated, I revised my life mission once I realized none of that was actually going to work, I realized the only thing really important to me was writing, I accepted my creative self, I accepted my sexual self, I loved, I hated life, I had sex, I learned that I'm a violent person, along the way I learned I had real (actual) mental defficiencies that require maintenance, I learned that the best thing I could do was fight it by living with it constructively, and I realized that I'm not the greatest thing to happen to the world, but maybe a good thing to happen to a handful of people. So that's it. Peace.
///Dntel - "Casuals" Walking down an overcast lane and the air is so cool on your face that you can't help looking to the sky to watch the bits of an almost storm chase eachother over the building tops and forget the shit that turned your eyes red that afternoon and feel the slippage of time and understand that you're still you and that's perfectly alright.
8/30/10
Fifth Grade Word Finds and (Sort of) Free Art
There really was no satisfying conclusion to finishing all of the crosswords besides the pride of knowing that I beat the pants of Annette with her stupid times table finger counting trick that I didn't learn until last year and promptly forgot. Fuck you Annette. You looked like Meg Griffin five years before Seth McFarlane dreamt her up. Suck on that coaster thick glasses. I hated her when she beat me at anything because she was a total douche about it. To this day when I beat people at anything I can't help but feel that I should have been more encouraging or at least explain to them why they might have lost and how they could have won. That might be even more annoying than simply sticking a finger in their face and saying a hearty "booyah".
Where was I. Crosswords, check. Annette was really smart, but a total bitch, check. Oh yeah, what's different about me. So here's what's different about me now from the me of five years ago in order of importance to me (sorry, this is so me themed today, but I'm not really, but I'd feel guilty if I didn't say something to acknowledge the fact that I'm being really really narcissistic [sort of]):
1: I don't think of myself as a funny person anymore. I used to think I was funny, but I'm not. I'm easy to laugh at and I think I'm fine with that.
2: I'm weird. No two ways about it. I am one of the weird ones and will probably be thought of as one of the creepy ones when I get too old to be weird and when I'm too old to be creepy I'll be one of the pleasantly eccentric ones you try to ignore, but who somehow end up miles away from their home health aide at a highway rest stop asking you for change so they can buy a colostomy bag from the potato chip vending machine.
3: I will probably never be married or will not have kids of my own. This will happen because I've realized I am impossible to start a family with. No really. I dare you to try. My heart is fucking Thunderdome. Raising kids and being with me will be like trying to keep track of the lost kids of never never land. If you were to combine Bill Cosby's sagely aspects, Peter Griffin's story telling, Homer's scheming, Seinfeld's eye for human interaction, and a middle aged Golden Retriever's eagerness to do everything, with a Bull's eagerness to do nothing except watch the world go by and bone constantly you'd roughly have an approximation of day to day life with me. Throw in "unconventional" tastes in design and home decor and art and general errata and my home probably won't even be a safe place to raise a kid from one hour to the next.
4: I will never be a kept man. I'm too damn old. Missed that boat, but it was fun to imagine what could have been had I really stepped up the training back when I first starting writing this and my biggest concern was beards and whether or not to shave my nuts.
5: I share my work openly. In the past I sat on it because I was somewhat embarrassed by it. Now, even better than simply not giving a fuck what people think of it, I honestly feel that it is worth sharing. It's become worth more time and attention than my own. How much time and attention is absolutely up for debate (whether its 1.01 person's T&A or 100 it's still greater than 1). Why more time is needed is also up for debate. Dear universe: I am at a highly impressionable point in my writing career... send me mentors or something. Jesus does not count as a mentor.
6: I've sort of come to understand that the people I grew up with, by and large, did not grow up "with" me. That's taken a lot of getting used to. How the hell to I grow myself into their circles if, apparently, I didn't do it successfully when they were right next to me. Frustrating. It's like everybody I knew went into a hall of mirrors together and somehow I ended up outside of the building in the alley with the alley cats and half eaten funnel cakes and everyone else went out the exit proper and I have no fucking clue how I ended up on the outside of everything.
7: I don't think there's a seven, but it's there for balances sake.
I've got an idea. Send me your address and I'll send you a handwritten poem on heavy stock plain white paper. Seriously. No scheme. No game. No angle. Just some art that'll only cost you the time and effort it takes to shoot me an email. You're address won't get shared (not just because I have no one to share it with but because if I gave someone my address I would want it destroyed immediately after it was no longer in use by the specific person I loaned it to). You won't suddenly have spam roll into your mailbox. I won't randomly show up your door with a handle of Vodka and tell you to drink as you run out to go to work in the morning. You won't get signed up for... well shit I could go on for another thirty lines about what won't happen.
What will happen: I'll send you a poem. That's it. A new fresh from my mental presses poem and maybe a scribble too. Bam, done. inacinch@gmail.com. and actually, by putting that there I will probably get a ton of spam, but I'm not mad about it. I just like to send people art. It's fun.
Or don't. It's not like I'm going to kill myself or anything if no one does this. I'll just keep doing what I usually do: write poetry, whack off till I fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night in tears, write a story, knock myself unconscious with five shots of whiskey, wake up at a reasonable hour and repeat. The question is: how much of that is true. The answer is: most of it. Lulz. Anyway. Don't forget to see if you can fill out the crossword puzzle with all expletives. What is life if not a challenge to be more awesome than you were yesterday.
///Cowboy Bebop OST - "Blue" I think my opinion still holds that some of the best music is written and heard and felt in languages that you can't understand specifically because the worst thing anyway can do to some art is make it readily understandable and take away the pleasure of dawning reason and the avenue of organic access each person has to make when no person can make an inroad for the masses. The idea of masslessness comes to mind, but I'm pretty sure that's just more errata and artifice and artifacting. Sometimes I need a good paint chipper for my brain.
3/16/10
...and a shave
the shitting thing ive gotten used to as well. i can accept that as necessary too. in fact ive come to enjoy flushing my body of, well, shit on a regular basis. better to do it than not do it and wish to god you could. you know. those lonely mornings. youre about to be late for work. you know youve got a 45 minute car or train ride ahead of you. do you do it. do you take the chance. you do. and you regret it. because all you made was a rabbit turd but the pressure is still there isnt it. oh yes it is. youre not going anywhere for the next 15, maybe even 20, minutes. you are going to be late. bet you wish you ate that bran muffin instead of cold triple cheese pizza for breakfast yesterday. bet you wish you had vegetables with your dinner instead of another slice of double thick cream pie. but yeah. ive gotten used to enjoying regular shits.
the shaving thing i have not gotten used to. why does america hate people that dont shave. why do i have to be either A) famous B) infamous C) a pro athlete D) an award winner or E) ridiculously rich to wear a beard??? that makes no god damn sense. who am i hurting by wearing a beard? why is it that the guy with the beard has a worse chance of being hired, befriended, or whatever if he has a beard. i love my beard. i would never stop wearing my beard ever if it wasnt ripped off of my face but ridiculous policies. my beard is awesome. its comfortable, its clean, its groomed. men have hair on their faces! okay america!!! i cant fucking help it!!! i am a guy!!! i grow hair on my body. its part of being manly and awesome. when did that stop being the case. when did it become more manly to shampoo with delicate fragrances and wax your fucking back. what the @#$%@ i hate you america. i hate you so much for that reason. me having a beard doesnt affect how i do my job or how i interact with other people. it doesnt catch food or strain my soups. all it does is make my life a little brighter and you have to fucking take it away from me. hate you. whatever. there's one part of my body that i shave consistently and that is my pubes. the one place where hair is gross cuz it well if you're a guy and you sweat AT ALL and your prick isnt the size of a thimble you know what kind of strange smells and general unpleasantness can accumulate down there. but whatever. fine. ill shave my face. ill fall in line. cuz at the end of the day a job pays me money and my beard doesnt (yet, but if anyone wants to do some old school hairy manly man bangs hot chick with afro pubes on a shag rug with lava lamps in the background and a "huge" 24 inch color tube set in the foreground while her boyfriend calls her on her curly cord rotary phone and it rings and rings cuz answering machines werent within the budget cuz they were fucking expensive back then... we'll see who has the last laugh).
///Air - "Radian" that song you refused to listen to because it sounded like one of those dumb atmospheric "electronica" techno whatever tracks mushroom eating idiots who swear by pink floyd love to listen to when their high or whatever, except you forgot to turn it off and two and a half minutes in the atmosphere broke into some kind of jazz that you love to listen but never told anyone about because you thought they would criticize you for criticizing its functional synonym in a different medium but now you can understand why somebody might like that other stuff you hate but it doesnt really matter cuz youre still going to pretend to hate it anyway for appearances sake.
11/12/05
to shave or not to shave 11/12/05
In training myself up for my future career as a kept man the issue of cleanliness will always come up.
A kept man must ask himself how far he is willing to go to land a spot in that special 54 year old jet setting blonde's back pocket. The answer must always be "madame, if you want to do me in the rear a strap on in the can is not going far enough... make it two please" especially when this 54 year old jet setter with a fetish for domination wants to buy a nice new Masserati to keep her little cabana boy entertained when she's not around. So when the time comes to shave the kiwis or not to shave, clearly the only answer must be to cup those puppies and take it slow and easy.
Practice makes perfect, and so with a razor in one hand and some lather in another i practice, because i must! Because it's nice having some cushion down there to reduce chafing of the sack, but it's also nice to have a 54 year old woman with gobs of money who loves your little shaven walnuts so much so that she bankrolls your entire life (as long as she gets to fondle them at her convenience).
The training continues!