December 31, 2009

Best Of 2009 Part 1...


January 17, 2009
Post Adolescent Molestation And Its Ties To Getting Poor Studio Coverage on Kimberly And Valentine...


We hit the early bird at this buffet place where all the senior citzies rolled. I think we talked about baseball, the wars he'd been in, his distant family or lack of...girlfriends of mine, mysteries of his. At some point, he said something strange, something that knocked me on my heels. He mentioned or asked about...and I need some ellipses here...either my loss of virginity or my taking of virginity. I think I gave him something, maybe out of admiration of his asking something so odd so casually, then told him to top off and to-go the iced tea he was nursing...we were leaving.

On the way home, we made a park detour to look at some newly built youth baseball fields. We parked, got out, looked around...quick. When we got back in the car, he started talking about the military again. By then, I was kind of shut off, ready to fucking go, to get back on with my life. At some point, something about the whole ordeal had become an extreme chore. Something about it had turned odd...maybe because in my mind of minds, I had a feeling about what was coming. I heard it out the side of my ear, something about showering in the military and this joke they would play and then...

Then the old man grabbed my shit - this glancing swipe, reaching across the center console, straight into my crotch. I looked over to him, speechless and bewildered, not really knowing what to say. Mind you, when this happened, I was 30 pounds heavier than I am now, all power, probably hopped up on what would today be an entire regimen of banned and illegal substances. With a finger, I could have snapped the man...maybe that's why I didn't. I'm not really the passive type, but again, in my mind of minds...if that made his day - a man nearing the end of his days, then that's an after the fact gift I suppose I was willing to give. We drove away, moved on. Forgiven, odd, sad, whatever...

February 02, 2009
There Goes The Neighborhood...


Me and Durban finally broke ground on the novel we've been threatening.

We both have this thing that's probably not very charming to anyone outside the two of us -- belief that we're literary gods in the ripening. I suppose only time will tell. But I can tell you this...the novel, the novella...anything that takes time and genuine thought to consume in this world is going extinct. We're ending. When our children's children rule the world, there won't be a world left to rule. I can't explain how that exact notion is going to relate exactly to our mighty pens, but it will.

February 13, 2009
So I'm Starting To Think It's Me...


And I don't know why I'm saying this, other than to work through self-realization...and because I've got these bruises on my shoulder and back...and I was looking in the mirror and realized that I'd forgotten my response to her question in the backseat of my car, asking if she could bite me and then my daring her, then again...then again and soon after just hoping a cop wasn't going to drive by while all the while thinking to myself -- I should have gotten this out of my system in high school.

March 04, 2009
Love Is Carnage...


So this morning, I woke up to find this sweet (I see sweetness in odd things) and direct letter in my in-box that's peppered with words like rude and curt and douchebag. The douchebag thing was more of a warning and not an accusation. We all know I'm not a douchebag -- she does too. There were also quite a few f-bombs...not angry ones, just...expressive. And I think I got the letter because of everything I just mentioned, and my likely resulting behavior due to the laundry list of excuses as to why my life is supposedly in disarray...and it is, it absolutely is, and it will always be in absolute disarray because that's what I need in my life and only people in disarray can understand that.

If you follow me and read me and retain any of these words, you know that I was at least sometime in the last year touched up pretty badly by a girl. You know that before her, I have been touched up pretty badly in the past. You know that I own the sensitivity to handle reverse situations with grace and chivalry and you know of me as being an exemplary enough character that I remember my own broken hearts and that I would at least try my damnedest to never let my actions deal any ill-feelings or broken hearts. I hope you know that -- that I would never apologize for my supposed indiscretions -- but that I would at least always try to do right.

But love is carnage. Absolute fucking carnage. And no matter how clean we try to make it, no matter how great the intentions or how remarkable both involved parties are capable of being, someone always gets touched up. It's the price we should all be willing to pay. Because to me, there is nothing as awe inspiring in this world as being in love. The thought of it literally inspires my every turn. And the higher you rise and the better it gets, the greater the crater...and someone always winds up in the crater, always. The truth, there have been a short few that have left me there...some deep, others glancing. The truth, I've left many, many more - and don't you dare think that's me holding a trophy, that's the last thing I would ever do. It's a definition, a self-realization. Because every time I wake up with one of these letters, I'm reminded of my sweet incapability. I'm reminded of my true romance...

March 30, 2009
My Behavior II...


I'm at a bar and this girl is hawking me all night, because I'm a specimen or for whatever reasons people hawk other people, fill in your own shit. I write a lot about girl plural and the pursuit of good things that sometimes associate with them because the entire process defines fascination to me. This has all been said before. For the last month or so, in so many words, I've been absolutely out of the game - and I do this often, all the time, actually...because catch this theme as I make it obvious...it also suits me. Why? Well, because at this point in my life, I'm going to dish hurt to everyone and I'm going to dish it quickly. So I certainly tell people to tell people not to chase me. I certainly do that. And in the rare, rare case that I do actually meet a game changer, and they change my game, I know that in the end, I'll lose. They'll cut my legs out. Why? Because I think let them...because ultimately, I think that's exactly what I want. Because I look at myself and I hear what you don't hear and I can say because I know, I am incapable of anything but these absolutes, these extremes. Because it's destructive, unrealistic, temporary. Because it keeps me clean.

April 29, 2009
Mt. Baldy...


It took me about an hour to get down the first ridge. If you want me to fractionalize, I will...I was about 1/15th of the way down, just fucked. Have I made this abundantly clear yet? I started talking to the rocks, because they were so fickle. Most rocks were small and most steps caused them and about 30 of their ankle smashing friends to slide. So when I'd find a good one to grip, I'd say things like be strong my friend or take care of me now. Please don't think I'm kidding. There were at least two instances where I lost my footing and saved myself from a tumble with three fingers of an outstretched arm. Sometimes, I'd laugh it or the pain I'd recently suffered off, but most of the way, I was a little more panicked than I wanted to be, wondering what things were going to be like when the sun goes down.

December 30, 2009

Gordon Ramsey...

Let's play genius again. The man comes from passion, everything. Love it. This first one is just lunatic shit, just fucking lunatic.

Genius happens later, after development, after we get camera ready - losing some weight/little plastic surgery - and hit the Brit version of Kitchen Nightmares. Once again, lunatic shit, but more collected, composed, moving in another direction. Genius. I fucking love Gordon Ramsey. Sometimes I'm sitting around watching him and want to scream it out loud.

December 25, 2009

Home...


It's snowing outside. Light, white. Everything feels very clean in Lake Forest. I was sitting at the table with my family and we were sipping some Grand Mariner and started talking about old times - growing up in this town. High school was trying for me in a lot of ways. I used to hang with this group of guys, an irreplaceable group of guys. Let me run with this one a little bit...

Lake Forest High School football sucks. Terrible. We never really competed for anything - never made much of a splash in the conference - rarely made the state playoffs. We were a town that bred tall, big armed throwers and ran the option, year after year with backfields full of slow white kids. Anyway, once every 20 or so years, fates would line up and we would somehow field a trio of runners that could compete and go down state. I'm 28 years old - we had 1 team in all of my memory that put it together...and guess what, I can still remember the 3 kids' names from the backfield: Klapper, Comstock, Boeder. They were amazing. I only mention them because me and my friends were like that - that lining of such destined talent. Only our talent fell in different fields...like drinking, fighting, vandalism (allegedly), theft, grand theft (allegedly)...honestly, I could go as far as the imagination could roll. We were like that, terrible youth or so the authorities liked to believe. Actually, we were not very well behaved, I won't pretend otherwise. At some point during our sophomore year, after the state of Illinois allowed us to drive cars, the entire high school population and their parents started calling us this awful name that will be mentioned later in this post...and then it stuck. Comedy. A lot of people come out of high school and tell stories of their glory days and of the hell they used to raise and I just listen and nod and say things like wow that's amazing you guys were hard. I have nothing to say.

When dessert came out, I mentioned something about LakeForester archives, grabbed my Mac, paid 3 bucks and took a little trip down memory lane. Oh baby did this throw some hell into my life, and then so too the felony charges that would soon follow...

...

Six charged with mob action
DANIEL I. DORFMAN STAFF WRITER
Published: February 24, 2000


Six area teen-agers were arrested and charged with mob action among other crimes Feb. 13 after police say they instigated a fight at an unsupervised party. According to Lake Forest Police Commander Patricia Lord, at approximately 4 a.m., the six suspects attempted to gain access to a party on the 200 block of East Vine in Lake Forest.

A front window to the home was broken, leading to some fighting. A Lake Forest police officer was in the area when he heard the glass brake and began to investigate.

"They knowingly got together to do an unlawful act which in this case was criminal trespass to residence," Lord said.

Matthew T. Krawiec, 18, 284 Granby Road, Lake Forest was charged with one count of criminal trespass to residence, three counts of battery, one count of mob action and one count of criminal damage to property. His bond was set at $15,000. Krawiec was arrested in January for breaking a window at another unsupervised party.

Gary L. Jester, 17, 12533 W. Meadow Circle, Lake Bluff, was charged with one count of criminal trespass to residence and one count of mob action. He posted $500 as bond and has a scheduled court date of March 6.

Patrick J. McConachie, 17, 701 Sheffield Court, Lake Forest was charged with criminal trespass to residence, one count of battery, and one count of mob action. He posted a $1,000 bond and has a scheduled court date of March 6.

Michael T. Hutchen, 18, 971 Coventry, Lake Forest, Reilly Smith, 18, 185 Washington Circle, Lake Forest, Austin C. Smith, 17, 883 N. McKinley Road, Lake Forest, were all charged with one count of criminal trespass to residence and one count of mob action. All posted $500, and have a scheduled court date of March 6.

Frat Boys
The six suspects are believed to have ties to a group known as "The Frat Boys." That group has been linked to at least one act of vandalism.

"The gentlemen arrested are part of a group which is self-described as the Frat Boys," Lord said.

The words Frat Boys were painted on mural designed by a Lake Forest High School student across the street from the Gorton Center on Illinois Road.

Lake Forest High School Principal Marilyn Howell conceded school officials are aware of the "Frat Boys." Describing them as elusive.

"We have some idea who belongs, but we are not sure who belongs each week." Howell said Tuesday.

She added this is not the first time problems of this type have emerged.

"Senior boys will emerge with a group with a catch name and they are accused of doing acts that are not appropriate to the school or the community."

Howell would not comment if "The Frat Boys" have been under suspicion for other acts inside the school.

...

Ten years later, the machine and everyone in it above are still such a joke to me. These were "adults" handling us "children." We the "evil" element of this pristine North Shore town. Comedy, comedy...all of it comedy. I would love to sit down again with these people, all of these people who sat me down and have a face to face about their lives today, about all of the judgements they laid upon me, about the "guidance" they were giving me - these people inside this small high school and in this small town, trying to "teach" me about life and what movements within it should be deemed appropriate and not. Unbelievable.

Someone sent the article to my soon to be college baseball coach at Illinois. They were on a road trip to Michigan State and he stood up and read it out loud to the team before a game. They told me I couldn't play baseball, that they were going to take away my scholarship. They told me a lot of things. I thought about running away - I thought about a lot of things. Growth. We hired a good lawyer and everything of mine got thrown out. A couple of my friends didn't talk to me for a week - thought I cut some sort of deal with the prosecutor. Things were never the same between us. That was tough. I like to think it made me tough.

I like to believe a lot of the things that happened from my 15-18 made a great deal of the man I am today.

Right now, well, I don't keep up with anything and am a selfish cockface so I have no idea what anyone is really up to. When I'm home, I do what I can to change that. Maybe tomorrow. These boys are in my blood - them and the handful who didn't appear in publication for this particular happening - who made up the 50 some compiled arrests over those 4 years. I wonder what's bendin' their lives. I wonder how they're moving...

December 20, 2009

I Think I Have A New Hero...

Until they pull this one...


And one hell of a musical guest to go with him...

December 17, 2009

Madison Reese...

I think she said she wrote me sometime in July for the first time. Some kind of spill her guts e-mail saying things like, wow you're great...I've read your history - It's kept me up late nights many nights. Then she told me I was all at once an egotistical cocksucker...called me fascinating...then boring...smug and false...judging my missteps and conquests with women...dealing with all the dickhead selfish and hurtful things I constantly say and claim. Every now and then I get an e-mail from some girl posing either as herself or someone else, telling me I moved her, telling me I wow her, essentially wanting to have a better connection with me - some guy who writes about things on the internet, hopefully truthfully, maybe over dramatically, but always with honesty.

Anyway, Reese came to me because she was in need of something. At first, because we're trained to do so, I thought it might all be a bit too much. After all, here was a girl who wasn't even offering me her name, her identity, and she was spilling her life to me...asking me to spill my life to her. I don't remember the point, but there was certainly a point where things changed between us, at least for me. I stopped seeing her as some girl trying to reach out and grab something she could never have - statements like that piss her off wildly and she'll be sure to tell me all about it, leaning back on the ever too familiar, you're such an incredibly arrogant motherfucker, or something in the ballpark. I don't mean for this to sound overly sentimental, but at some point she turned into a friend...and at some point I sat back in my chair after sending a long reply to a long e-mail she had sent and thought to myself something like, wow...28 years old and does a girl in this world know me better in this moment than one I've never met...one who hasn't even given me her name. Interesting moment for a reflective soul, I'll give that.

It's something after 8 on a Thursday. We've both been busy for the past few weeks, trading e-mails about meeting up, a face-to-face but it hasn't yet been allowed to happen. Tonight works. I'm taking a drive to the Beverly Hills Hotel. I'm going to have a cocktail in the Polo Lounge and told Reese to meet me there. She'll read this sometime before or after she goes and will undoubtedly give me shit - especially for preemptively stealing her thunder about giving me shit for writing another post about her. I think she's thinking a little bit too much about this right now. I think it's working her up, nerves and such. I think she is nervous as hell to see me, to reveal herself to me and I understand why but don't. I love myself and think I'm hot shit but mostly for the sake of arc. Maybe she thinks I'm something I'm not. Maybe I fail to give myself proper credit. Is that even possible? I'm going to tell her that I don't want to know her real name...because to me it will always be false. Reality and truth came in the form of a false reach out a long time ago. Seeing this girl and meeting this girl isn't going to change anything for me. What she is has been engraved - this struggling and talented and fierce and wounded and confused fucking bitch that I want to sit in front of and say something like, I got you if you got me. We're gonna be just fine.

December 11, 2009

Las Vegas...


I can arrange for that Rei, getting tazed. You just let me know.

Dan Nesser

December 10, 2009

This Is My Graceland...


Tonight, after I get off work, I'm driving out to Las Vegas. It's been a few years since I've been - stretching to my days of haze and black out. This time it's different or it's going to be different. I'm buying some new running shoes on my way out that I need to break in before January 17th. That means I'm getting up to run for 90 or so minutes both mornings - no matter what. Done are the days when I set myself up to fail because of the poison I ingest the night previous. I'm meeting a friend there who hails from the city of sin. He's going to show me around - my Graceland because we're going to the trailer park where Brandon Flowers used to write his music from - during the in betweens between his shifts as a bellhop. The Killers' second album, one of the greatest rock albums of all time is either named after the trailer park he grew up in or the casino he worked at - I'm not sure which is the truth. That's why I'm going - to feel the roots of one of the great bands and a frontmen who moves me greatly.

I'm staying at The Hard Rock tonight and Friday before taking in what I'm really in town to take in. About a month ago, I jumped on a plane and flew to Berlin, mostly because I didn't think these boys, the Muse boys, were going to make it over to the States...

On Saturday night, they're playing The Joint - at The Hard Rock. I'm there to take them in again - this time on my home soil. After the show, I'm driving home to make my 9am Sunday class. That's what the weekend is going to be like - something to look forward to. I put out an invite to Durban for Friday because I miss him and because I could use him and because we need to talk about these new book and life developments. He said he might show but I never know for sure. It's Durban.

December 09, 2009

Time To Put This Down...

I posted a picture on November 20th with a title that said something exactly like Trouble Coming. There was a picture of a boat in blue water. I had Google searched something like Thailand Beaches and it seemed like the best one to fit what was in my head. I used it as a flag, something of a nod to myself to mark the moment I decided that this coming April, when my lease in LA expires, I'm buying a one way ticket to live in Thailand for a bit of time. It's not an I've had enough or an expat thing, quite the contrary. In my mind, the one life I want to live sounds exactly like this: see the world, place your voice in that world, give it life. I've always had this notion of selling a script or getting an advance on a book and using it to wipe away the 10,000 I owe in debt and then escape to the world and live somewhere where I don't have to worry about that shit and just create. Bleeding artist, I know, but if you know any truth to me, you know that's my heart. That's what I've got to stay true to. Something happened to me recently, some sort of epiphany I always knew was there. I'm a slave. The job I work runs me in circles just to support me and allow me time to write and create from Los Angeles. I love Los Angeles - there's nowhere like it...and I live a good life, I do. My complaints are so petty but still, this notion that's echoing, and it is, is saying something like what the fuck are you waiting for what the fuck are you waiting for what the fuck are you waiting for? Maybe I would feel more chained if I didn't have an escape, but the truth and my great fortune is that I have a golden ticket - a piece of paper that could remove my debt and get me where I want to go - a land where I can rent a shanty on a cliff on a beach for 5 dollars a day, where I can eat all I need for 2, where I could stretch one thousand dollars forever if I needed to. What the fuck am I waiting for? I'm not anymore. I'm gone.

This Monday, I met with a book manager that Team Burn set me up with. We had drinks in Culver City and he said something like I read everything...fucking everything from unpublished authors and this is the best thing I've read in a long time. Then he said these two magic words that went exactly like this, maybe ever. Then he told me we were going to sell it in the new year, to be ready to storm New York in February. Two days prior, the Bestselling NY Times Titan I got the book to sent me an e-mail apologizing for the wait, but that he was nearly done and that it was exactly, really...really good...very impressive. Then he told me to check back in two weeks. I didn't tell him I close strong, that if I had him early, I'll most certainly have him late. In both cases, I don't know what I felt. I've always had belief. Maybe at some point, I thought some form of validation would come but now I don't think it ever will. None of this matters. It can't matter so I'm glad it doesn't. Whether I sell this thing or whether it gets published matters but can't. If my work never sniffs a screen or a hardcover matters but can't. I was in a pure place on November 20th, alone, me and my pen and what we came up with, me and my pen, was something exactly like, we know exactly what this next book is going to be about...we know what we want to say...write it...do it...make it happen. It's in Thailand, life and my story after the work that remains in-between. I find myself often taking breaths and thinking about that and it fixes anything in the world that could possibly ail me. What else could be the path if there is one...

December 07, 2009

I've Spoke About This Quite A Bit...

But when the world no longer asks me to speak for myself, when it begins to speak for me, I worry about my future here, HERE, on this page, but that's okay, a thing deserving support, good for me, the world, because I'm an egomaniac like that and that's what I'm thinking, right now, for the past week, with a growing beat, 5 years in the making and ready to get at what's coming.

That's all. Goodnight.

Everybody Gets Pitchforks!

December 02, 2009

Eddie Van Who?

My brother, who plays the guitar, no notice, only take...

December 01, 2009