Genius...

How do you get more publicity for a business than running a Super Bowl ad and spend not 2.3 million for the 30 seconds but nothing...no money? You pick a controversial topic for the Super Bowl viewing audience...gay dating, and add a potentially overly aggressive sexual adjective to the title of the website and boom - ManCrush! Honestly though...genius. And perhaps the greatest marketing coup in history...

Hamm!

Listening To This...

Because I'm attracted to something of a drifting reality. I'm sitting here working and thinking it's been a while since I faced this thing - Chronicles - really faced it. There was a time very recently where someone said something to me like you know, you're going to have to erase all that - all of it - anything that will lead back - it's gonna have to go. I think it affected me. I think I felt abandoned by it - this - like something in all of my aforementioned could somehow work to sabotage and betray me. Strange, thinking back to what I thought. Of course all of this is now being made hyper dramatic by me - hyper not accessible by me - hyper coy by me but that's how I sometimes have to roll things out - protective like.

Work. At some point or many points along the way I said something like things will change when I stop having to speak for myself. When I don't have to sell myself and take shirts and collars and say listen, please listen I'm fucking yelling and screaming in your face and in your ears and my spit is flying and my teeth are like razors and you can't miss this, not a damn syllable. I don't know if I feel like that anymore. I don't know what I feel like anymore - just that I'm doing work - the only work I should be spending my time doing - finally - and sometimes on the special days when I finally make it out and these words have been dancing and shuffling in my mind and off my tongue all day all day - I don't know how to communicate with anyone but myself and I'm standing in line to buy something to eat and I get to the register and think I'm talking to the cashier and being polite and warm and realize I'm not saying anything, nothing at all and I laugh out loud to try to make things better which only makes things worse. Rogue laughter always makes things worse. I feel like I have everything under control and moving in the right direction. I feel like I'm becoming something - and I'm not trying to sound profound or difficult or anything. I'm just trying to write a post because I haven't written anything on here that's not about Nic Cage and Nic Cage's hair for a long time and it was weighing on me. I just want to do that. And I want to be somebody I think - I just don't know which somebody I want to be.

Gila broke my heart, and I remember driving around in the dark to Heart of Chambers and I think I'm waiting for this one to find its place somewhere - though we usually never know until somewhere down the line - when I can look back and define these emotions I don't really understand or have a tight hold on right now. With growth, maybe I will and then I can say something like yeah, that was it, but by then I'll be working through a new album, lost again, moving again through something immovable for a night or week, looking for progress, always progress.

I Was So Excited...

To post a title that said something like, "See Nic, You're Making This Way Too Easy On Me," and then put up another long hair monster risk surefire CageBomb trailer and just step back, let it play. And this post was totally going to be that until about 30 seconds in, when I realized it wasn't going to be as good or appropriate or funny as I thought it would be...until north of 1 minute in, when I actually thought I might go see this movie...until the end when I thought something like fuck, idiot, of course you're going to be at the midnight show.

Coachella Then Bounce?

Don't know how the chips are gonna fall this year, only that they'll be big and sweeping. This is coming pretty close to D-Day. Kinda tough to ignore this year. Kinda tough to ignore every year. If only I could stand people...

Wow, and Thank You Nic Cage, I Love You Nic Cage, This Should Make You 1 For Your Last 17...

So We Grow...

3:14:57 like this...

John mccain is firing the starting gun he doesn't look too old jovial maybe gun first 5 flat 7 open up take it slow move into it easy 2 is 7 minutes good 3 is 7 minutes good 4 and 5 645 slow it down slow it down breathe lungs aren't opening up like they should i'm going to be 85 percent it wont matter when do i tap into that during a marathon second 5 you wanted to get stronger no don't hold steady on 7 flat 7 for the next 5 bathroom hack up a lung lose weight lose time the 3:10 pace just caught up not ready for it get ahead push push push build a pad 6 and 7 flat 7 7 8 and 9 little slower but as long as you stay under 7:17 you're building create space space space not ready for that fight yet strong strong strong my fucking lungs what a gift what a gift i can't breathe all the way in incredible what a gift be thankful for it if you let it break you down you are nothing you are weak you have no business being here 10 through 15 get stronger faster pad pad pad they're coming for you they're going to overtake you keep 'em off as long as you can 10 at 740 losing time 11 8 not good enough pick it up you're giving it up 12 13 14 720 not bad hold them off hold them off more than half way this is about how you close this is about how you finish 15 hurting slowing fight it off back to 730 on 16 bathroom lung comes up breathe breathe try harder get faster they're coming there they are 17 this is earlier than i wanted wanted them at 20 and then they wouldn't have stood a chance keep them in your sights head down work legs are shaking 18 they're still there on a 730 19 they're still there on a 730 survive head down drive arms put your entire life on that road fight harder keep them in your sight fight harder fight harder 20 i'm shaking this is where it begins keep them in your sight don't let them go get your head down drive drive drive find your breath too deep you're choking you're fading don't you dare this is where we get stronger not fade 21 and 22 745 more more more don't let this slip don't let them get away it's beautiful right so beautiful you want to cry good for you let's go life on that road life on that road you have 28 minutes to go 4.2 and Boston is yours head down fight fight harder harder dig it out you have no choice 23 24 gone 14 minutes for 2.2 you have a shot if you die for it you have to move you have to drive 25 in 640 you got it if you can take down 1.2 miles in 720 that's a 620 clip my body just failed breathe stop easy stop easy not today not possible you've had it that was too much easy easy easy dimitri dimitrov is running next to me saying just enjoy please just enjoy I have to this one is going to hurt and bad I can feel it it already does this one is going to be bad this one was so beautiful easy enjoy it breathe enjoy it you earned your life today son you earned your life today breathe no apologies.

Tempe, AZ...

I don't think I ever need to see another college town again - that's pretty much exactly what I was thinking as I was walking Mill Street and passing college kids and college kid energy. Champaign-Urbana took care of that. In spite of what we all think to be true when we're going to college, there is really nothing redeeming about anyone while they're there. They study as little as possible to drink and drug and sleep and fuck as much as possible (not referring to my experience necessarily) and they're impressionable and think they know absolutely everything. Amazing, right? Anyway, recently I feel like I've been making such profound trips to cities like Berlin and Seattle and Chicago and now I'm in Tempe and I was walking through a college town and like I said - don't think I ever need to see another college town again. Pretty sure I knew that coming in though.

Here to take care of business, that's about it. 26.2 and swifter than I've ever been. Maybe see Phoenix and enough of Arizona that my head can own it but yeah...business.

A Slaughter!!!

I remember watching Chuck Barkley on SNL something like 16 years ago and thinking the same thing but as a different word. I don't know what it is, but I think I know exactly what it is - when they bring in someone that has no real business hosting and no real talents as an actor or performer - the show just kills. Because you don't have someone like Taylor Lautner (not terrible) and their supposed appeal and niche guiding the whole episode. The end result is very repetitive and confining. But with Barkley - it's like playing in a fenceless park. This cast is so fucking talented, make no mistake. Maybe the best overall episode of the year...

Free Dodgeball For Life Or What?

Two Lovers...

He is just so good it makes me want to put a period after every word of this sentence. But I'm not going to. I feel like no one saw it. Shame. Shame. Shame.

Absolute genius. Hold it up.

Best. Chorus. Ever...

Best Of 2009 Part 3...

September 04, 2009
Chan Marshall...

I am in love with. Been in love ever since I first heard her song. I was trying to explain this to the girl who was taking me to The Greek to see her tonight. Hadn't been to the Greek all summer - best venue I've ever known, just exquisite. Anyway, when she first waltzed out onto that stage and started that raspy soul sucking shit, I felt like I was falling into the floor. I wanted to meet her, tell her she wooed me, that she should be honored and that so few actually do. I felt like I was saying all of this out loud to my company - possibly foreshadowing lightly of what was to come between the two of us in real life. See, I had been seeing this girl long enough - or better...had enough of a connection and enough respect for her to know we had to talk. We were moving in separate directions and I could feel it. She was absolutely moving into the direction she should have been moving - towards me - and I was...well, standing still. I just wrote an e-mail saying something like, I've only gone on 4+ dates with 2 girls in the 5 years I've been in Los Angeles and loved both of them...before deleting it, as if it was supposed to be some form of consolation for my ending the night with words that led her into slamming my door and starting intentions of not behaving normally around me for the next 3 weeks. I was lucky to be with her. Absolutely and still...this is just how I behave.

September 18, 2009
Adventureland...

Great movie. And it's not because I spent the summer after my freshman year of college working at a Six Flags in Jackson, New Jersey. I lived in a company house with 8 other baseball players from all over the country. We'd have bonfires of garbage because nobody ever came to pick it up and rave dance parties with the European kids who came over to work for the summer. To get let in, I'd ask them to bring their free park passes, given to any employee after they accumulated a certain number of hours on the job. We'd get blacked out and fuck this house like you wouldn't believe. There was a Czech girl Ieva, beautiful blonde, who was always begging me to have sex with her...to save her from the arranged marriage that was waiting for her back home. I never did...told over over and over that I was in love with some faraway girl named Clark. One morning after a banner party, I stood outside the McDonalds by the park entrance, right off the highway and made 600 dollars selling the Euro kids' passes to suspicious Garden State natives.

October 29, 2009
Muse - Berlin O2 Arena - 10/29/09...

I ordered house made penne with prawns in a lobster cream sauce and a small margherita pizza and a Warsteiner. Half-way through the beer I started to feel my guts, shooting - like all that I was going to be was coming to life. It would have happened without the drugs, sure...I just don't know to what extent, and I don't know how exhaustion would have played its hand. The night was too big to leave things up to chance so I didn't. By the time the food came, I was rolling and starving and all I wanted to do was devour it so I did. Incredible. One of the better meals I have ever had - absolute comfort. I was reading the map and memorizing the subways and squares and parks like a machine and the waitresses were softening to me because I am who I am. I started to ask them how to say things in German, maybe telling them I loved them for teaching me, for bringing me along, for giving me such incredible hospitality while all the while thinking I'm on drugs I'm on drugs I'm on drugs. They sat down at my table and we talked because it was slow and because I am who I am and I promised them I would return. Of course I would return. Of course I would never forget them. Of course. The more oncoming of the two told me I could walk to the O2 and that made me very excited, crossing town in 20 minutes while relying entirely on myself and my feet and my toes, knees, heart, eyes...my brewing fucking insanity.

October 29, 2009
Sometime After 5 AM...

After going to bed at 1 and feeling like I had slept perfectly for days, I got up and went for a run. Today, I went west and went for 6 songs and then turned back, all Killers, set on shuffle. I shot steam with every exhale and in spite of things I've been through over the past few days, my legs felt strong, voracious. My breath was easy. I felt unstoppable and this is how it has to happen for the rest of my life. The TV doesn't work so I read books. I have no friends so I talk and wander and explore. I have no fear so I am fearless. There's an energy charging through me now, in this new city...in every new city from now until I no longer have the urge to do this. I am growing, exponentially when I chase these things and knew this when I booked the ticket a month ago, knew of its coming necessity - of all the reminder a trip like this provides. I need adventure to survive. I need growth to survive. It's easy to forget, to get comfortable and stable in the lives we live. To tuck away and be safe and just fucking hang on. There's a bloody red tattoo inked onto this right wrist of mine - reminding me to suffer, suffer in my pursuits - reminding me I don't need to be understood by anyone but myself.

October 30, 2009
John Durban Arrives...

Today he sent me a text and I told him not to because it's expensive when bouncing from the states and through whatever provider is swiping me out here. I told him to write me in an e-mail, not thinking about who I was dealing with...

H / i / B / u / r / n (slashes denote separate texts)
Are you serious? Stop
Yeah, okay / I didn't make it / are you there? / please don't ignore me / I'm fragile
Motherfucker!
I read / It looked good / Those boys can play / Sorry / Again
Alright cocksucker text me. Drinks on you.
Drinks always on me
You're coming?
don't know
Alright dude...
tone! that's a tone. why do you have a tone?
You should come.
You should talk
Halloween. I met a girl on the flight from NYC.
what's she do?
Fashion, runway.
Yeah?
Has 6 friends, same bill, edge beauty the cast type.
My type
They want to get righteous for Halloween.
Coincidence! so the fuck do I!!
You coming?
I always was. For you not them. Though I look a little false now.
Your MO. When?
7, already in the cab.
Alright.
Do you really think we need another chapter?
Yes. Maybe 2. One more push and they'll publish.
Let's make her famous / the city / maybe a pair of dames, too...

November 01, 2009
Amsterdam...

It's almost midnight. I have five hours to kill. At least. At least. Smoking doesn't work on me - even in Amsterdam. I'm not going to buy mushrooms and get on a 14 hour plane ride - probably wouldn't do it anyway. I'm not going to pick up some girl so I can share her bed for a few hours - it's not really my style. Sex echoes too much in me. There are candles in front of me - candles everywhere in this part of the world. I'm still trying to reel in everything that has happened over the last few days, can't believe it's a Sunday and I'm sitting with 3 drunks in a bar in Amsterdam, on my computer, about to be told to move along.

November 20, 2009

To place true value upon anything but that which is internal is at best a fickle fight, and at worst absolute self-destruction. I refuse to participate. Something will be done...

November 20, 2009
Ah, Berlin Through The Eyes of My JFK to Tegel Journeybeauty...

A couple weeks back, I think when I was flying home and then maybe even in recent stretches, this girl got me thinking about the psychology of attraction and why we work or why we don't...why we're inspired or why we're not. We sat next to each other on an airplane from New York to the much aforementioned German city and things happened. Most were real, some were probably invented, but things happened. We traded info and were going to paint town at some point and then it never really happened. I think she sent me an e-mail about Halloween and I sent one back and then didn't hear anything. I was out to dinner one night before I went out and I sent her a text to come meet me and didn't hear anything and something appeared in me. I say this without hubris and in full truth - I don't often get rejected. Usually it's me and apologies and some beautiful thing disclosing herself on the corner of a busy street and my uttering incapabilities and apologies over and over and over. Some of them shed a tear there or when they leave, or slam doors, or tell me to grow up and fuck myself in no particular order. I'm not making fun of any of this - I know how dire the straights of love are to navigate, and I think it's why I so, so rarely even think of fucking with that kind of force. But this girl was different - or maybe what was different about her was that it and she would have been my ideal in that moment - a foreign city and beautiful girl for 4 days and then lots of these: ???????? Maybe that's not universally appealing, and that's something I'm learning too - that everything universally appealing to me isn't necessarily universally appealing. Anyway, the point - it's obvious I'm still learning to move through it with grace...life and rejection. Looking back, I'm not sure where the attraction fell, in the girl or in her refusal of my advance. In her case, it felt like an 80/20 - because she was as curious in the first 6-8 hours as any girl I've met.

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...

Best Of 2009 Part 2...

May 10, 2009
Girl, Girl, Girl...

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about what it was that I was looking for -- about what in a girl and chase appealed to me right now. I told him I was after someone above me, someone with only a touch of time for me, someone who adored and respected me and at the same time, may or may not be off fucking someone else's prince in a faraway country. He said I was out of my mind and I told him I'd long ago given up on trying to abide by the ever changing definitions of world sanity. I told him that my desire for her potential indiscretions weren't due to a lack of self-respect. Actually, quite the contrary - I have a great deal of respect for myself. Maybe, instead, it has something to do with self-preservation...that's what I said. But I think in the end, all I'm interested in right now is honesty. That was me being honest, I said. I don't know if he believed me...or if anyone ever believes me anymore and I don't know exactly when that happened.

May 24, 2009
26.2 Coming...

I've been burning on nerves all weekend. Saturday, I was driving down Olympic, on my way to pick up bib "#706 - Burn" for the Los Angeles marathon and I could feel a turning in my stomach. Over my head, somewhere East of Vermont, a banner was tied on two ends and blowing in the wind. It read, "Mile 23." On my I-Pod, The Killers' "Dustland Fairytale" was just getting going and Brandon Flowers was saying something exactly like, "I saw the devil wrappin' up his hands, he's getting' ready for the showdown," and I thought that to be about right...my chase of 26.2 miles under 3:11:00.

May 26, 2009
So I'm Not Okay With This...

I'm sitting here now and I can feel this tightening in my body...this tightening in my mind, this need to find and lock onto the weaknesses in my life so that I can destroy them. Maybe this is obsession, maybe not. I'm proud of the time I ran yesterday, sure, and the fight I put in...because I fucking bled myself out on that course, I did...but not enough. Something's missing. I can tell you what I am proud of...this reaction, what's happening to me right now, the parts of me that are holding onto the disappointment of 14 minutes. I can't handle that. Because this isn't just about running. Truth, it probably has nothing to do with running. It's about settling for 3:25 or saying fuck that...I'm better than that...and I'm not going to celebrate a fucking drop until I get exactly what I want. And maybe I'll never get that. Maybe 3:11 makes way for 3:05 makes way for 2:55 makes way for me grinding myself into the ground. Maybe...but I'm ready for that. I'm prepared for that.

June 01, 2009
The Day I Finished...

My horoscope in the Chicago Tribune said exactly...

"If you're going to write a story about your adventures, give it a good ending. Have the hero emerge enormously successful."

July 12, 2009
Let Me Tell You Why I'm Single...

I was leaving a party tonight, on a Sunday with this girl who I had earlier traded numbers with. She liked me, maybe quite a bit, and went out of her way to make that known before things came to an end at the end of the night. I'm superficial. I liked her too. Remember Diddy's white party - she was there, hired to hang out. We said goodbye and went our separate ways and I told her I would call her or that we would hang out but I hadn't yet decided if it was truth, not whether I wanted to...only if it was truth. I remember thinking as I was walking away something like dear oh dear...my dear you have no idea. And I think all people who think they're difficult and complex like to say things like that in their mind. I certainly do. I was getting into my car when she drove by and asked me if I wanted to hear her favorite song. I smiled and got inside and we didn't listen long before she put her seat down and back and things began to happen. Not much, but things. She spoke some words between action and I smiled and laughed and thought it to be a perfect cap to the evening, listening to Radiohead and then some in some pretty girl's car. She was playing games I thought, very sweet but semi rehearsed and maybe calculated but I was okay with that because I was just there. There were moments between where we'd have short conversations and I don't remember what she was saying, only that I was thinking we were crossing the point I'd crossed with past girls and told them how messy and awful I am, warning them of how messy and awful I might turn out to be, immediately and always laying down jagged and holed roads. But I didn't, and felt like I was over that sort of behavior...actually felt growth in the moment of my realization. Instead, I just smiled...or laughed, and all I was thinking of was how maniacal I felt, knowing she must have been thinking of how sweet and cute I seemed to be. I wasn't interested in telling her I didn't much live for a tomorrow girl or any girl unless she spits acid and scares the shit from me - thus insinuating she did neither. But still...something had pulled me into that car. At some point, when the crossroads came, I gave her a shot at the crown, because Kings Road wasn't far and because for whatever reason, I felt so rarely inclined. I knew what was coming. She balked, as if the invitation were laced with such scandal. Then she surrounded the word tomorrow with a series of other unimportant words. I think I'm supposed to call her.

July 27, 2009
Madison Reese...

Every now and again, I get reader e-mail. This one turned my head for a handful of reasons, and since I'm a glutton for fodder, perhaps it's best we discuss it here...because I'm a firm believer that with smoke comes fire...because fires need to either be fed or extinguished. I'm not sure which I'm doing here. The only thing I'm taking out will be potentially identifiable characteristics. I haven't a clue who this...but someone might. So...

...

Your Blog...

So here is the thing….I have debated for months on whether to write you or not….you came into my world in the fall of 2008----I took you spinning class at equinox---no I wasn’t one of the ******* ** ***** * *** * ***** ** **** ******* *** ******* huffing and puffing and trying not to get ass sweat (sexy I know). I thought you were gay….dont be offended being a ******* girl I think most men in LA are gay…unless they tell me otherwise. You never noticed me. You never looked in my direction…but I took your class a couple more times listened to you guide us with your cosmic energy watched as you pushed the girls (and lets be honest most of the guys) with your charm and your playlist….heavy on Kings of Leon and Radiohead….I could tell you were a lover, a manipulator, and man with a story. It wasn’t until 5 months ago when I began reading your blog that I began to put your life together…extremely confident, somewhat talented, and the most passionate person I have ever known (seen/read/been aware of). I guess to say I know you would be wrong. I know the point of your blog is to put your thoughts out there I don’t know if its for peace of mind or the hopes that your true love will read it or someone in the industry namely Danny McBride (I asked BJ-his asst---he hasn’t heard anything about it) would stumble upon your yearning to write for EAD. You make me happy and angry all at once. You are so confident, almost cocky, we have mutual friends, I respect you for some, I question you for others. I admire your commitment to health (this shouldn’t mean much I mainly eat my feelings---mostly mcdonalds---and rarely exercising---it’s a form of self loathing). I think you are a great hustler in a town of hustlers---you have waited on me before----I was with * *********---a ****** *****----you barely looked at me---instead you told a story of baseball and Illinois---and made quips---you thought were charming----I thought were annoying. You have magnetism---and you know it. You are very self aware---and to be honest you are a great writer---I wonder if you have a small dick---I get that you have huge balls---but where are the faults??? You say all these women hit on you---I do not doubt it----but no self deprecating humor---no questioning---every time I read your blog I buy into the bullshit---ive read it in its entirety---I have a lot of a sleepless nights---im **********---ok to be honest ive never really been ********---living off of * ***** and hating every minute---we are beyond different---our problems are never the same---so I guess the reason I am writing is to find out----is it real??? Are you this person or are you projecting?? Have you had the successes with your specs and scripts or are you moonlighting as someone on the verge of success??? Do you believe in happily ever after??? I don’t know what answers I am looking for I don’t even know why I am writing ----just give me something---another letter will come again---when my thoughts are more clear----until then…..

Ps I used no punctuation and bad grammar to piss you off??? Did it work?? Do you get mad about stuff like that???

My name isnt madison reese----it isnt even close----im too much of a coward to reveal my identity---too scared you wont respond

pps this is by far the creepiest thing i have EVER done

Madison

...

I wrote back saying this is the kind of thing I would do, writing someone like this. I'm the kind of guy who has dozens of unsent e-mails sitting in his outbox, addressed to guess who(s), never having any intention of sending them. So I get it, and the whole art of expression through words. I don't know why exactly, but I felt like this one needs to be taken on here. This is not creepy. Or, if it is...then I'm creepy too and fuck the world. I'm right, they're wrong.

I got this e-mail as I was leaving to drive to San Francisco on friday and it moved me through some self-reflection, which is essentially what this entire blog is. It's selfish and self stroking and now this letter is a part of that, because to be honest, it got me off...and I don't think that was the intention. Sure, there are some digs and it might make you wonder if, say, my confidence is compensation for having a small dick, but in full disclosure, it's an ego feeder. So thank you, sweet Madison. Now, this may be a one time thing and I'll be over it tomorrow, but if you write a blog in this world and people get invested...so much that they come at you...I think you owe them something. So, let's begin...

- Not Gay.
- Somewhat talented? Please.
- Peace of mind.
- My true love (word choice) will never have to read my blog.
- No agency is going to give a spec episode of EBD to Danny McBride, too much hustle too little money.
- Hustler? I could have fucked my way out of the service industry a long time ago. I work.
- I make quips behind the bars I work. I am charming. You probably weren't THAT annoyed. I know what I'm doing.
- I am very self aware, hyper sensitive. Sometimes, I have a hard time dealing because of it.
- No.
- My blog, so far, is essentially about my failure to be the two things in this world I desire to be - a lover and a writer. I've never put a term on that before, because that's not the kind of thing I do, but if I had to pick a term, what would it be more than self-deprecation?
- I've had "success" as a writer. You're writing me, aren't you? Truth, no...not really. After all, I still work in a restaurant and have made that pretty clear. People like me don't choose to work in a restaurant. In terms of EBD...all that stuff is either true or a large handful of industry people are conspiring to fuck with me. It's 30 pages, it's a great script. I can write. I played baseball. As you know, I have something of an ego. I know recreational drug abuse. Clearly, you know the show. Do the math.
- Did my last spec get love then get blasted in studio coverage? Yes. Did it get me signed? Yes. Am I on the verge of success? By world definition...I believe so. Could I be wrong? No.
- Happily ever after? I think you're asking about two lovers and I don't know that. If I died tomorrow and someone were writing my story, they could say I lived happily ever after. And I'm alone. Right now, I've everything I need. So yes.
- Bad grammar pisses me off. Spelling is worse.

Is this me? Am I this?

Yes.

July 31, 2009
My Mother...

I've always had the sort of parents that have been game for anything. When I showed up with my first tattoo as a 12 year old, they said okay. The first time I was arrested, they said okay (not so much on the subsequent and escalating ones). When I wanted to play baseball for a living, they said okay. When I wanted to move to Hollywood and try to write movies and later books and television shows for a living, they said okay. When I packed my bags and left to blindly tour the world, they said okay. We've always had something of an understanding that life was mine and that I could do with it what I wanted. Amazing concept - I don't think everyone grows up with. Anyway, I talk a lot of shit on here and in life about my personal pursuits and recently, my old man (who is actually closer to 22) asked if I'd send him a copy of the Eastbound and Down I wrote. I sent it about a week ago and knew he printed it up and that it was sitting somewhere in my Lake Forest home when I got this text from my mother today, quoting...

"Only pussies, assholes and/or fags off themselves with pills."

How lucky can one guy be? Honestly.

August 07, 2009
Ladies And Gentlemen I Present To You The Hands Of A Girl I Once Loved...

I hadn't seen them in over a year, or spoken to the mouth above them in over a year because things didn't end so pretty for the two of us. There was a point in the relationship - which by world standards was brief, and she was quick to point this out - where I fell for something I originally promised not to fall for. Soon after, we fell out and I spent the next 2-4 months dealing with the sort of things someone deals with when these things happen. It was a fine period in my life, and if one were so inclined, they could literally go back on here, back to last July until November and see the process of my driving a speeding car, seatbelt off and knives pointing out from the steering wheel, straight into a brick wall. I haven't looked back, but someday I will...and I'll thank her in a note, saying something like, thank you...you amazing bitch...thank you.

I sat down and we talked about the things we were chasing, the worlds we were occupying and the people we were fucking. Right away she said something like okay we're going to talk about that and then we're going to talk about how crazy you are. Then she smiled. From that smile on, within moments of my sitting down, everything was light and easy, the way it should be...the way it should have been but never could have been until today. We talked about my faults and hers, taking turns calling out and then defending each other, trading apologies and inabilities we both hoped to one day separately conquer. We sat there for close to 2 hours and she held me that entire time, and I never once worried about the thousand things I had to do or the thousand and one worlds I had to conquer. I was there and could have stayed there forever, honestly...that kind of girl.

When she got up to go to the bathroom, I found myself thinking back to times long ago, back to a brief stretch when we were wild about each other. I remember telling her I thought she was rarity, that she stood me up like no one I had ever experienced, that no matter what happened...even if things got bad between us...we had to fight to keep a friendly fragment of what we had intact...and not just because I thought I might always want to bed this girl. Then I remembered another conversation that went something like, when this ends it's gonna end bad, before we laughed about it and fucking dared each other to break it off...constantly. We were madly wrong and right for each other - a total floating disaster, covered in gasoline, pissing on an open flame.

One year and change later, today, we were walking to our cars on the sidewalk of Highland. She said she was sorry that I got hurt, that she cried too for the same reasons, my getting hurt, and I told her to stop. I didn't know what we were apologizing for...the shit we're made of that made us fall, then fall apart - the shit that allowed us as strangers to spit fire and laughter for two hours at some coffee shop in Hollywood - the shit that's going to carry us with grace through the remains of our lives? Fuck that. I'm sorry it took us a year to speak, sure, but I'm not sorry that I flipped out and picked a raw fight and she's not sorry that she responded by hanging me out...and we both admitted this and then laughed about it. That was us...we're still all that. If we weren't all those things, we never would have known any of this. I'll take that. I think she would too.

August 21, 2009
70,446...

And every single word that survived survived a fucking war. I don't know what I feel right now. I wrote Durban and he said he didn't know what to say, only that he felt light and that if he felt light, that I should allow myself the same. Today, I did the last 4,000 words. I don't know what I feel right now, only that I'm spinning. The last thing he asked me was if he could tell people what it was going to be called...as if he had to get permission from me - something he claimed I earlier wouldn't allow. I don't remember this, but I suppose it is something I would say. I told him to go tell the world...

We Are The Dusk.