The Perils of a Multimedia World

Now this is a bad thing. I went analog last night and put the rest of the second part of my Martin story into my notebook. And I left the notebook on my bedside table.

So there shall be no post today. I dropped the ball, and I will make up for it, to be sure. But you'll have to wait until Monday to hear what happens next to Martin, because tomorrow is football day.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:53 AM

 
The Life of Martin

Martin held onto these days because his life depended on them. He wasn’t a dramatic personality, but he recognized how important it was to spend time with his children. He recognized that he needed it, they they needed him, and this made him feel valuable for the first time within distant memory.

Jon was six and Kenny was eight. Martin put them to bed at 8:30 and poured a glass of milk. He reflected on his life and thought about how lucky he was to be here now, drinking innocuous drinks, living with food in his cupboards, thinking abstract thoughts about his children: their future, some vacations, reading books and playing ball.

Life hadnt been easy for Martin and it took a lot of hard work and focus to become a recognizable variation of a normal father and working man. The lifestyle in the new Midwest had become hectic in the beginning of the 21st century, as an influx of professionals from the east coast had changed the prevailing attitudes and the landscapes from Indianopolis to Omaha. Things were different than they had been, and Martin, for a long time, was caught up in the mix of it all.

He started using serious drugs after college. It was 2123 and America was experiencing a dangerous reincarnation of the 1960s. War had exhausted the population. The Bush-era conservatism finally sprouted a backlash, and it was finally fun again to be promiscuous, swear, and push the limits of public media. Not only did the FCC of the early part of the century destroy the progress made by the sexual revolution, but, worst, it warranted another.

Different this time, however, was the technology of chemistry. Instead of pot and acid, college students demanding more freedoms and government transparency were taking cobalt, a risky mix of new pharmaceuticals and cocaine. It was highly addictive and more dangerous to make than crystal meth, but became the drug of choice for kids with an agenda of global change and unimpeded sexual adventures.

Fully gone on this ultra-speed, students performed violent stunts and protests. Wide-eyed kids, awake, alert and reckless for days to come, overcame weak-minded security guards in state capitols and hospitals, insisting on reforms and fairness. They highjacked government radio stations, reading political rants over the background noises of endless orgies.

St. Louis was the center of this new revolution, and Martin was attending college there. He found what he was looking for in this society – girls and drugs. He participated in the revolution because of both, but not because of politics. He had no aspirations of economic or artistic success, so when things began to change and his peers got jobs, bought cars and moved to the fancy suburbs along the Mexican border, Martin stuck with what was working for him.

It wasn’t long before he was looking for places to sleep in between days, weeks, months in lockup for possession, loitering, minor theft. He floated from city to city to keep his face fresh and the beat cops unbiased towards repeated beatings. Eventually he moved to Buffalo, a city that lost out on the westward progress and was just a void between the massive naval ports on the eastern seaboard and the sprawling modern metropolis along the Mississippi and in the cities further west. Buffalo was true squalor, a haven for in-betweens and limbo artists. But Martin found a job there at an old hotel on Delaware Avenue cleaning rooms. It was a flophouse, and it was hard for Martin to stay clean, but he managed for a while.

He met Vanessa at the peak of his sobriety, which was bad luck for both. They got married, honeymooned briefly at Niagara Falls, and started a family. That’s when Jon and Kenny happened. It worked for a while but the pressure of having to provide for three fragile people proved too much for Martin, and he left one night while they were asleep.

He didn’t get far. He had found a connection from the hotel and ended up in county lockup by noon the next day, shaking and screaming in a full-on cobalt overdose. They had ways to combat this in lockup – they injected him with a counter drug, which left him cold and numb. In retaliation, he mustered enough energy to sucker punch a guard during daily exercise. He broke the guard’s jaw before he was beaten into submission by the rest of the crew.

This was the law’s last straw with Martin. He was sentenced to 25 years for felony assault and was shipped out to the state-of-the-art prison facility in Saratoga Springs.

But like all 21st century prisoners not sentenced to life or death, Martin benefitted from massive prison overcrowding and was released before he had served five years.

Martin was a changed man. The first thing he did was go to the airnet library to find out where his children were living. Prison had made him gay and it didn’t have the stigma it had just 20 years before, so he made no apologies about not trying to get Vanessa back. Regardless, Martin wasn’t thinking much starting a relationship with anyone but his children.

The prison bus took him directly into downtown Albany. He carried his duffle bag full of new clothes and the $250 dollars on his prison-issued cash card. He found a library near the governmental buildings and started his search.

For the first time in five years, he allowed himself to visualize seeing his children again. He pictured driving across the state in a rented convertible loaded with stuffed animals and baseball bats. Then he was riding the train, humming along, feeling the almost absent vibration of the electromagnetic core, sleeping soundly for once, his forehead against the window, dreaming of pizza parties and vacations at the beach. Bedtime stories, waiting for the school bus, driving to the mall, giving advice.

He flipped through Buffalo’s citizen history listings and found his boys. They were living with their mother and someone named Anthony in cul-de-sac home in Williamsville, 10 minutes outside of downtown. They had Anthony’s last name.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:05 AM

 
A Necessary Muddling up of Things

I am really not very interested in metaposts, but sometimes I do feel the need to clarify things, and this is one of those times.

I’ve read my last post a few times, in my obsessive manner. And I get a cold feeling in my gut every time I read this line:

“I’m pretty sure that most of the people I pass on the streets arent precisely determined to undermine everything I stand for.”

It’s not because of the misplaced preposition, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s because I’m pretty sure that most of the people I pass on the streets are, indeed, precisely determined to undermine everything I stand for.

Maybe it has something to do with the streets I walk on. Maybe it’s because of the people I pass by. But I’m very sure, the more I think about it, that a lot of people are conspiring to destroy freedom, progress and thoughtfulness. And it’s people like me who deny it who are at least partly to blame for what is sure to be the downfall of American civilization. Which is why I felt the need to retract my statement. It was written in a fit of self-doubt and hate, and it doesn’t deserve to go unchecked.

I’m not going to destroy an entire day’s posting with these thoughts, however. I’m not letting myself off the hook that easily. I’m creating a life for a man named Martin, and through him you will see how tragic things have become. And for him, tomorrow’s words await. He deserves better than being delayed by these explanations and apologies.

- posted by seanmh @ 10:38 AM

 
The View from the Top

Earthquakes are shattering the calm and Michigan State is fouling up the Final Four. It’s only a matter of time before things start falling off the shelves.

It’s another rainy day in the void. Bad omens and bad moons are rising up, trying to take control of the situation, which is chaotic at best and open to furious interlopers with evil intentions. The picking is prime, fellas. Get out your baseball bats and shelter the children.

The Bad Big 10 is the best conference in the nation. The Big East, who’s won the last two, is nowhere to be found. But before you start bemoaning the state of the real basketball conferences, consider that the last non-ACC or non-Big East school to win it all was Michigan State, back in 2000. So the Big 10 isnt just a football conference plus Indiana anymore. It’s a real powerhouse, and the odds-on favorite to take home the title this year – they’ve got a 50-50 chance, which are my kind of odds.

If you werent parked in front of the television on Saturday and Sunday, you missed the best weekend in the history of the tournament, and you should be the designated flood-watcher for your hometown, standing on the riverbanks with a ruler and a cell phone. The only team that doesn’t deserve to be dancing in St. Louis is, clearly, UNC, but their time will come, very soon, and they will cry when it comes, like punished children who don’t understand.

But the bottom line is that I was right about 3 out of the 4 remaining teams, and that doesn’t bode well for avoiding armageddon, since I’m so rarely right about these things. That is another omen, and it’s time to be afraid.

I’ve written thousands of words in these past four weeks. I’m trying to keep up with my determined progress but it hasn’t been easy. Also, it hasn’t always been successful or of high quality. But I’m going to keep going, if only for my faithful readers.

I’m thinking of cutting my daily goal from 1000 to 500 words. This will certainly make it easier for me to keep on keeping on, and I’m in the mood to make things easy on myself. Life is full of betrayal, though, and I’m wary of betraying myself just at the moment when the going gets tough. After all, entire tomes have been written using only cliches. And they’ve sold well. So before I give up on my big-time goals, I should at least consider giving in a bit, if only for the time being, while I straighten myself out and pull myself together.

I don’t know what the answers are. I know that Illinois will win the NCAA Championship and that meteors arent going to fall on my head. I’m pretty sure that most of the people I pass on the streets arent precisely determined to undermine everything I stand for. I know that a lot of things arent as evil as they appear, but I also know that true evil is where you least expect it to be, and that it’s always good to be careful.

What I fear most is that the most destuctive evil for me lies within the words I type, that somehow they will undo me, directly or indirectly. That I am unwittingly laying out my own path of destruction, that years from now faceless robotic researchers will see this destruction as if it were a preventable, predictable element of my existence. It’s true that I’m too close to myself to be able to see this happening, if it is indeed happening, but that doesn’t change the anger I have for it, or its certainty, or, tragically, the fact that I’ll continue on this road despite my worst fears.

I have to continue to work on my narratives, that much I know. Because these reflective essays are hastening the bad effects I have on myself. I have to find another character to kill off.

- posted by seanmh @ 8:44 AM

 
Trying to Kill the Polar Bears

He sat at the typewriter, not moving. The things that came into his head, that he had supposedly been waiting for, all this time, were not fit for the page. He thought of the death of himself and his loved ones. He thought of burning buildings and crashing planes. He thought of despair and gloom, of rain and natural disasters. The words flowed into his head as imagery and were gone just the same, never revealing themselves as anything but horrible ideas and bad things to come.

He told himself that he knew that nothing bad was happening, and that nothing bad was on its way. He repeated this to himself but still felt the same. A numbness settled over his body.

When nothing comes, nothing comes. He dropped his eyes from the empty page and started banging away at the old machine, his old friend, trying to beat it into submission, to punish it for its demands and to bring out some feeling in himself, even if it was from pain in his fingers. Something to know that he was real and not just a bad breathing omen.

He laughed derisively at himself as he thought about how terrible he was making everything to be, even though he couldn’t help it. He hit the keys harder. He repeated the d-key over and over, filling half the page, then pounded the right side of the keyboard with the flesh of his fist. He started crying and he tore the page out and burned it, letting it turn from flame to ash on his floor.

- posted by seanmh @ 11:45 AM

 
High Times and Green Grass

Baseball is days away and I hate it. I would like Florida to starve Barry Bonds to death. Even my hero, Bleeding-Socks Curt Schilling, turned into a lying pussy in front of Congress last week. Mark McGwire is in hiding somewhere in California with homeless 14-year-old boy prostitutes and failed movie producers.

The biggest scandal in football is that Jim Haslett admitted to taking steroids in the late 1970s, and declared it was rampant back in the day. That’s like standing across the highway from a flaming 40-car pileup and shouting about the dent in your bumper. No fucking kidding, Jim, but who cares? We all remember Lyle Alzado, we know all about Mike Webster. Keep your mouth shut and focus on your team, the one you’re lucky to not have been fired from, yet. Before you know it, people are actually going to be paying attention to you, and no one cares about 25 years ago. They care about next year’s playoffs, and we all know you’re not going to be in it, again.

Yes, football is fast approaching. I’m a big fan of Haslett. He played for the Bills and even coached for a brief time at the University at Buffalo. But the Saints are going nowhere fast.

What is coming up, quickly, is the draft. Miami will have to decide how far they can throw Ricky Williams, because they have the second pick in the draft. They can either pick a running back or a quarterback. They’d better pick a running back, because Ricky is about as reliable as my neighbor’s ’88 Fiesta, which hasn’t moved in six months.

I don’t blame Ricky for choosing the easy life, stealing all that money, and letting football fall in between his cushions. Football is hard, and not made for pansies or dope smokers. Football is made for speed freaks and demons. The reason for Ricky’s recent wavering is simple: he’s stoned 100% of the time. He cant hold a thought together for more than 15 seconds, so his true intentions are bound to be misunderstood, especially during phone conversations, which he can engage in while lounging on empty pizza boxes in his underwear and flipping through channels on his stolen satellite television. Everything in Ricky’s life is stolen; he’s certainly spent his honest money on weed and first-class airline tickets to Germany and the Bahamas. He’s on illicit cash right now, which is every pothead’s dream. He doesn’t have to work as long as he can keep the bullshit up long enough for people to cut him the slack he needs to draw this thing out until the money is gone. And it will be gone, be sure of that.

I can make some picks about this weekend, if you’d like. But you’d better not bank on them, because my history during the past week is one of laughable failure. I’m losing in my office pool to a 300-pound, overperfumed divorcee who wouldn’t know the top of the key from the tips of her toes, which she hasn’t seen in years. Never bet basketball or your poker hand against rank amateurs. They don’t know enough to recognize a bad bet, and their river will always kill you. That is a fact of life. If you don’t know what a river is, then you should be avoided by all knowledgeable gamblers. Please stand up and be seen.

With that said, here are my picks for the next two rounds of the men’s NCAA tournament: Louisville will beat Texas Tech after each gets past their weak 3rd round matchups, against my wishes to see more Bobby Knight press conferences. It would make me exceedingly happy to see him at the table in the Final Four next week, but it simply isnt going to happen. He’s a great coach, but he’s not there with that team yet. And Pitino is a sneaky little shit, and not a half bad coach himself. Lest you forget the Kentucky dynasty he walked away from.

Speaking of Kentucky, they’re going to lose to Utah. Duke will beat Michigan State, but just barely, and then they’re going to lose to Utah. America is falling apart and there is no better sign of this than an Australian superstar playing in Utah. The metaphor will continue.

Illinois will beat UWM, and then they will beat Oklahoma State. It pains me to say it, but UNC is going to beat both Villanova and, then, NC State. But don’t worry, folks, the road in front of Roy Williams’s ill-fated team drops off quickly and in the near distance.

I’m leaning towards a Utah-Illinois championship game, but let’s take one weekend at a time, okay?

- posted by seanmh @ 9:00 AM

 
Religion on the Fly

George Kline is a fixture in his community, and he likes it that way. Every other Monday he brings a message from God to his neighbors, fellow citizens, and everyone who happens to whizz by in their cars.

Sixteen years ago, Kline assembled a large, crude wooden sign below his mailbox on the other side of the street in front of his 60-year-old farmhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The messages on the sign stay up for two weeks at a time. They’re made from large reflective lettering that Kline keeps looking good by replacing the letters at least once a year.

He spends a few hours each month browsing the Bible, or looking through his tattered psalm book, for passages that he can paraphrase neatly or with a rhyme. He keeps track of them in a small notebook that stays in the basket where he also keeps his mail.

His wife of forty years, Margaret, comments on the responses they get from the neighborhood, “People look at him in the grocery store like he’s lost his mind. Most of these people don’t like being preached to.”

In fact, Kline has reassembled his sign dozens of times over the years. It’s been smashed by bat-swinging, speeding teenagers. It’s been shattered by close range shotgun blasts in broad daylight. For George, the best vandalism was when kids would switch the letters around. The worst was the gasoline fire he found in the winter of 1994 that would have burned his fields if it werent for the fact that it had just started snowing.

But he hasn’t given up. He feels his hobby is a calling.

“People don’t like driving 90 miles an hour down an old country road and seeing a sign lettin them know that Christ wants them to slow down and examine their lives,” he said, mostly muttering, over a coffee one morning. Down the driveway and across the street, his latest sign was laying splintered in the grass, waiting for his reliable repair.

“That one was, I think, ‘Faith is Choice, not Chance,’” he said. “It was up for nine days. Anything over a week is fine. That’s enough time to sink in with the locals, the ones right around here.”

The Klines live on a long, hilly pass between routes 434 and 75 in western Lancaster County, alongside the wide Susquehanna River. There is a lot of truck traffic, and during the day the road is frequented by slow-moving tractors working the nearby hay and corn farms. In the morning and late afternoons, hundreds of expensive cars break the speed limit getting to and from work. They tailgate behind the trucks and tractors and swerve around one another at any opportunity. Margaret Kline suggests that the constant speeding immorality that her husband witnesses each day has kept him in the game.

“I see him, every day, standing at the front window there cursing those damn cars,” she said. “It get worse every year. Those cars, and that speeding. It gets worse and worse.”

Kline put on his coat and hat and trudged across his sprawling front lawn with a box full of reflective letters. His notebook was stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans. I watched him as his figure silhouetted against the rising sun over the horizon of spring green fields. I didn’t ask him what new message he was going to install. I realized my mistake when a blurry black BMW rolled over him without slowing. George Kline, his box, his letters, and his tattered notebook lay sprawled in blood along the gravel shoulder, pieces of paper scattering in the car’s backdraft.

Some would say that justice was done this morning. Others, a cause for improved traffic patterns. But the jury is still out on the effect that George Kline truly had on his community, whether he was a beacon of faith and hope or just a preachy old man who should have kept to himself. Either way, Margaret Kline is buying a new dress for bingo on Friday.

- posted by seanmh @ 8:41 AM

 
This is What Happens on Wednesdays

I’d like an explanation, thank you very much.

We can kill a person, but only slowly. We are more humane to a dog with a worm its gut than we are to a person with a mushed-up brain. If they’re going to kill her, at least have the decency to do it quickly.

I’d rather read my daily blog list than the newspaper. Anything important I can get from newsflashes on fark.com, and anything in depth isnt going to be covered by traditional news sources anyway. Journalism schools need serious revamping if we’re going to continue to expect decency, standards and quality from the industry.

Steroids in baseball, I can handle. The hockey strike has broken me, but I can go on. If the NBA goes up in flames, I’ll finally become a fan. But if Tagliabue cant get a collective bargaining agreement done with his players, I’m going to have a hard time not moving to the UK and rooting for cricket and soccer.

What professional sports in America needs, and you read it here first, is a massive anti-trust movement. Each league needs to be split up like Ma Bell. This will reinvigorate old rivalries and create new ones. It has endless possiblities. Real local sports. Competitive trades instead of money-saving ones. It will cut down the status of sports stars from international celebrities to athletic gems who have to work for a living, just like their fans. All they’d need is a guaranteed pension, strict drug testing and decent health insurance, and they’d still have it better than the more mopes in the stands, and it would make for a real sports environment around here for the first time in generations.

I might be out of the sports gambling business for good this time. My 2005 bracket died quicker than any year prior, in sloppy fashion. By the third day of play, Syracuse and Wake Forest stabbed me in the heart. On the fourth day, Connecticut spat on my grave. I’m going to have to seriously reconsider my options next year. It’s possible that I might not even participate in football betting come fall. I don’t usually do much, but this year it might be nothing at all.

This means that I’ll have to step up my poker game. I might have to move from the $.25-.50 tables to the real money tournaments. Those are the tables where a cinderella sometimes makes it to the big game in Vegas but the hundreds he lucked out against are left squealing and squashed. You can lose your lovers, your children, your house, your entire life savings, on an off-suit kicker. But at least you’re betting on yourself and not on a bunch of kids with guaranteed contracts.

I have to like Louisville and Texas Tech the best. Louisville gets to play Washington, and Tech gets to play West Virginia. Tech-Louisville on Easter weekend will be the best matchup of the tournament. But, chances are, Illinois is going to win, because Oklahoma State is going to tire itself out, and Duke/UNC/Kentucky just arent built to stand up against real opponents. Duke will be lucky to get past Michigan State, and Kentucky might lose to Utah, after all. And forget about North Carolina. The Roy Williams effect killed Kansas and he doesn’t even coach there anymore.

I don’t know yet what to make of all the literary cliques that are out there these days. The ULA is similar to the fathers’ rights groups that swarm the internet. They’re spinning their wheels preaching to the choir but are notoriously ineffective at planning, executing or, in the case of the ULA it seems, simply just writing. Also, I’ve read a few of their writers, and some of them really arent very good.

Maud Newton is popular, but she’s predictably feminist-oriented with a typically liberal emphasis. She’s also safe, which is boring. I like Bookslut, she’s good. She likes comics, which mixes it up a bit. She’s sort of snarky, which isnt bad in small doses.

Mobylives is the best place to get real literary news, I think. I fear that its readership is rather small, but they seem to cull a good deal of information from “out there” and present it in an honest, fairly objective but pointed manner.

Arts and Letters Daily is a good repository of articles – I do need to mention them.

But I don’t know where they’re all going. I think Mobylives has the best chance at contributing to change, because the guy who writes the summaries there, and the columns he chooses, are practical and accessible. If you read the ULA’s blog, they seem ready to literally string people up. Revolutions are fine, but without guns, they don’t work, and we live in a police state. So slow easy change is probably most likely, although painful.

Unlike most of my essays, this one doesn’t wrap up very well. I guess you’ll have to just take it and go.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:19 AM

 
MidStream

In from the rain, the club was crowded and noisy. He followed the building back away from the front door; it ran back fifty or sixty feet, then there was a curtain. Behind the curtain was the audience and the stage. But before the stage was a small bar, and he round an empty stool at the corner.

He ordered a beer, a Yeungling. It was a cheap beer but not something he saw much in bars, so he ordered it. It came and he paid and he arranged the space around him. Putting his wool cap into his bag, he found inside the bag his notebook and laid it on the table. Into the top spiral was stuck a pen, and he pulled it out. He opened the notebook to the first blank page, clicked the pen three times, and set it down open on the page.

The Yeungling tasted good. He wiped his palm across his head and blew on his hands. It would take him a while to fully dry off, but he shaked the water from his hands and got to writing.

There was a young woman on stage reading. He didn’t pay very much attention. He took another pull on his glass and began a poem that would tell the story beginning from his walk around the block. Poetry readings were new to him. The whole environment was simultaneously inspiring and fearful. Within the Bowery there seemed to be something real going on. The audience was comprised of old and young, most paying close attention. Behind the poet was a smattering of melodies from a small keyboard manned by David Amram, the Beat contemporary, a presence of relevence. There were many connections to be made in verse.

He wrote a few lines and then scanned the audience for familiar faces. Some of the writers on the site included their picture on their site profiles. Up in front three people were sitting at a little round table just below the edge of the stage. He recognized them as Jacob, Carrie and Bonnie, the moderators of the site and organizers of the event. Behind them, at other tables, were some other young men and women, presumably also writers, including a slim, striking woman. She seemed to be tall, she was dressed in black, with blonde hair. She smoked and watched the stage reading. He couldn’t help but stare at her eyes. In the dark of the crowd, she seemed to glow.

He caught himself and tried to listen to the poet as she read. She simply wasn’t compelling, and he went back to his own poem, struck by her amateur attempts at fitting in. of course, they werent much different from his, except that he kept his thoughts to himself. Or tried to. He wondered if he was dressed okay, if he held himself properly and drank his beer like a poet. He wished he had a cigarette, and that he smoked.

The pot was taking effect full and strong. He was glad that he stopped for food. They had chips at the bar and he might have seen some cakes and candy at the front, where they serve coffee, but nothing that could have replaced the ten dollar hamburger he had up the street. His poem moved along nicely. He was thinking of 1950 San Francisco and the first hat-passing reading of Howl. He was thinking of momentary lucidity in even amateur writing, and he was thinking of silly small efforts to make a footprint on history, as they all are, right to the last.

After this poet was done, the guy who looked like Jacob walked up to the microphone to announce the next performer. He held himself small and had a nervous sway, but had a good voice. Carr listened as Jacob announced Christiana Cash. The blonde dressed in black stood up and, head down, strode to the stage. She wore jeans and high-legged high-heeled black boots. From her shoulders to her ankles there hung a flowing black coat. Her blonde hair hung way low and Carr went into a visual meditation as he watched her take the stage.

First she read a collaborative story, and then she read a heart-wrenching poem that she wrote about a friend who died too young. Carr didn’t move. She was humble and seemed shy when she got the applause that her very skills demanded. After she was done, she stepped down from the stage and made her way back to her back corner chair in the audience.

Carr listened carefully to the rest of the performers. None warranted his attention. He finished his poem, wasn’t sure what to do with it, but closed the pages of his notebook, satisfied, over it and finished his beer.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:26 AM

 
Fighting from the Grave (3/19/05)

And in the foul year of our Lord 2005, The determined and muscular Kentucky Wildcats advance to the Sweet 16, past the fighting but annually fraudulent Cincinnati Bearcats. Moving up within perhaps the weekest bracket, where the favorite sleeper in Syracuse has already been shot down, the bluegrass hoopsters seem to be honoring the memory of their gonzo son.

At the same time, across the sheet, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons are about to lose to West Virginia. Wake had the lead early and for most of the game. But it’s still a one-point game, with 27.9 seconds left.

I’ve been fighting my desire to like and even appreciate Kentucy ever since Tubby Smith took over from the crude Rick Pitino. This might be the year where I finally give in to myself.

There have been quite a few upsets this year, between last night and today, but Wake-West Virginia doesn’t seem to be one of them. Wake just took it to overtime, and despite what Syracuse did to themselves last night, an underdog generally doesn’t want to give the favorite a clear do or die situation with as much time as 5:00 left on the clock. That is precisely what overtime is.

But, a couple of minutes in, West Virginia has created new momentum and seem to own the outcome. We’ll see. If Wake misses, Texas Tech must be the favorite in that region to get to the Final Four. Washington is still an upstart. And Tech played big-time basketball this afternoon. Bobby Knight needed to win that game. It’s been a decade since his last Sweet 16 appearance, and that’s too long. A lot of people don’t like Bobby Knight. Personally, I love him. I don’t know if I’d ever send my son to play for him. I guess it depends a lot on the personality of my son. I don’t think Knight harms a certain many kinds of people. But some just arent for him. But he can be a great teacher, and I hope that his career continues strongly.

I pedaled strongly on the eliptical machine today. I had to suffer through 15 minutes of women’s tennis and some musical program while a middle aged and weakly bearded faggot in a tank top had his way with the visuals. I wanted to pound my fist and yell and force the issue. Instead I focused on the passenger-side headlight of my car, parked just on the other side of the window down a floor and in front of me. I dug in and I flew on that machine. Burned 450 calories in 32 minutes.

I think that the pretender watching the women’s tennis game at the gym would have been eaten alive by Bobby Knight. This guy was just the type to take a chair to the head or at least some hardy verbal abuse. If I had the strength and compassion, I’d do it myself. But I really didn’t care.

If West Virginia gets by Wake, there is no way they will get by Tech. This year, the Big East does not match up against a veteran midwesterner like Bobby Knight, and doesn’t stand a chance against big-time college athletics like you find in Texas.

West Virginia is obviously going to lose this game. You don’t give an increasingly angry giant this many chances to bury you. It’s like escaping from the hitman in the woods and then going back to throw dirt in his eye. Bad idea. Two overtimes now. Tech will have to deal with Wake, and it’s going to be fun.

This is college basketball. This is March madness.

I should be a fucking commercial.

- posted by seanmh @ 10:06 AM

 
Dateline Later Night Friday, March 18, 2005

My brackets were shot. Gambling on the fortunes of others wasn’t going very well. So I joined a hold em table on my internet poker site and settled in with my lucky $33 to see what I could do for myself.

There were marks everywhere. These guys were drawing dead and were deliberate and loose about it. I do it for the cash, not for the obsession or the gambling. My rule is, I play until I’m ten dollars up or ten dollars down, then I leave the table. I made about $600 last summer pretty easily. i havent been playing much lately because we’re stealing our internet connection from the sucker with wireless service who’s dumb enough to be our neighbor, and my laptop from work is wireless-enabled. But, still, the connection isnt reliable and often goes out for weeks at a time. But I play when I can. Over the past month or so, I’m up about $40.

Marks are fish – suckers, losers. Drawing dead is hoping to make your hand, and paying to wait to see it, even when your best possible hand is already beaten. I threw two amateurs off the table, broke them, even though I only played for about twenty minutes.

I knew I was on a roll when I folded an Ace-7 after the flop, even though I paired the ace on the flop. One of the fish was betting hard, but not too hard. The river was another A, and still I didn’t regret my move. Then he turned over A-J, having drawn to a full house. It was my night. At that point I was six bucks down. But when I saw how my luck worked out on that hand, I was envigorated.

I was dealt a 9-6 clubs. Normally not a great hand, but the pre-flop bets were light and I limped in feeling sexy. The flop came 10-9-5. I always open the betting if I can when I’ve got the second highest pair on a bad flop. Everyone called. I checked and called on the turn, which was something small; no straights out there still. Then on the river came my 6. By this time it was just me and the fish who won on the full house. He kept betting. I raised to the limit on my two pair and beat him handily. He was out of money, but didn’t leave the table, instead refilling another ten bucks. This was too easy.

When you’re beat, as he was, on two pair, which can happen on literally any hand and is one of the toughest hands to read, you have to leave the table. That’s not to say you have to stop playing, but there are dozens of other tables with players who didn’t just see you lose like that and at whom you’re not tilting mad. It’s a bad idea to stay at the scene of your rape. Better to seek help and a new view.

I was up exactly nine dollars and sixty-five cents. Under normal circumstances, I’d round up and leave for the night. But I was feeling good. I stuck around for a few hands, just losing my blinds, when they dealt me two tens. The flop delivered for me, along with a low card and a Queen. My fish apparently had the Q, but when the low card paired on the river, I had my own full house, and he had no chance. Busted him again, along with the player to his right, and I took in more than ten bucks on that hand. Now up a full l5, I smiled, said thank you, and called it an evening. It was as if they were lining up for me, and I felt good.

Things werent going entirely well for the favorites tonight, however. Duke had a rough night. Wisconsin almost lost, so did Louisville. Syracuse actually did lose. Kansas is down 28-21 to Bucknell.

Fifteen years ago I lost a heartbreaking race to Bucknell at the Frostbite Regatta in Philadelphia. It was my junior year of college and my second year on the rowing team. It was the last racing weekend of the fall season. The Frostbite is a sprint race – 2000 meters down the curve in the Schuykill River.

I was rowing stroke in the heavyweight 8 event. At 1000 meters we were down 4 seats on Bucknell, but feeling good. We took a quick 10 and gained 2 or 3 seats. Without even trying, we then started moving right through them. The boat took on a life of its own, and we were feeling the critical rhythm required to make a 200-pound wooden boat pick up off the surface and fly.

By 1500 meters, we were 4 seats up and moving easily. water splashing and eyes wide open. At 1500 meters your legs feel like they’re going to burn through the bottom of the boat, unless you’re winning. If you’re winning all you feel is your heart beating out of your chest.

But in a sudden horrible instant, the boat lurched to port and there was a yelling from bow. If someone caught a crab, letting their oar get stuck in the water too long, they had to recover quickly. In this case the boat would right itself, though violently, and within two strokes you could get the whole thing back on track. But, now, the boat hung there. It dragged the whole thing on its keel. My oar was on the port side, and it was hell trying to get it out of the water at the finish. I had to jam the handle into my balls and push against the heels of my hands in panic, or I’d find my own oarblade diving under the surface. I yelled something to the front of the boat, to those idiots behind me who were wrecking everything. Bucknell moved right through us. There was lots of splashing and screaming. The coxsie had no idea what was going on. It was all chaos. We lost by a full boat length.

What happened was that the oarlock back in two-seat had jammed around the collar of the oar, the plastic ring that keeps the oar in the oarlock. This caused the collar to twist itself loose from the oar shaft. This is no easy task. The carbon fibers of the shaft broke on the surface and left the oar beyond repair. The oarsman in 2-seat was infamous for being too rough with his equipment, and I’m sure that he tightened the screw on his fucking oarlock too hard and caused the disgraceful event with his stupidity.

Team sports are difficult to handle, and even more difficult to bet upon. There are simply too many variables for the cautious or excitable gambler. My retreat is poker, which isnt gambling, just valuable confidence.

- posted by seanmh @ 10:44 PM

 
Dateline Late Friday, March 18, 2005

Friday night. Drunk. High. Dogs been out. I been fed. Syracuse playing on the big screen. Mark McGwire sitting home lamenting his no more hero status. Mark McGwire is forever cursed, like Shoeless Joe Jackson, and he’ll probably never be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Already his hometeam town of St. Louis is trying to unname their I-70 from Mark McGwire to I-70. St. Louis is looking for anonymity now, after being unavoidably associated with perhaps the greatest liar in the history of the game.

My sons’ NCAA bracket is not in last place in the office pool. The only real upset so far was a 12 over a 5, so things are normal and good. But it’s only the second night, and anything will happen, still.

My only complaint is that the television station here is showing the Duke-Delaware State game. They cut away after the first four minutes of the Syracuse-Vermont game to show this shit. Granted, we’re a couple hours from Delaware, and Duke is a favorite opponent of Baltimore, an hour’s drive from here. But Pittsburgh, Villanova and Georgetown of the Big East are all within a similar radius, and the Orange’s Gerry McNamars is from nearby Scranton. Above all, Syracuse is a 4-13 and Duke is 1 seed. So I’m watching this illogical crap, and Duke is already up 10-3. And I get from the game I want to watch is the tiny type scoreboard in the upper reaches of the tv screen.

Of the five players other than Jose Canseco who appeared before Congress on Thursday, McGwire was the only one who left the public with the clear, new knowledge that he took steroids. Palmeiro and Sosa categorically denied it, under oath, as did Frank Thomas, who phoned it in. Curt Schilling didn’t need to deny anything. He was only there because years ago he had declared steroid use in baseball to be a rampant problem. While Schilling did back off of that hardline stance at the hearings, saying he had exaggerated the problem, McGwire’s position of no comment simply another way of admitting the truth. The truth is that McGwire used steroids, knowingly and consistently.

Perhaps Sosa is lying. Maybe we’ll never know. But his statements were clear and firm: that he never did. If you’re going to lie, you might as well do it. I cant respect someone who cant even commit to his own inventions. McGwire didn’t have the balls to lie and didn’t have the balls to admit he did it. He’s shrunk, literally and figuratively.

Not that Mark won’t be fine in the future court of public opinion. Even Ollie North has a radio show. And McGwire’s not a gambler, exactly. America doesn’t like gamblers, ask Shoeless Joe and Charlie Hustle. Drug addicts we can handle, and that’s the best way for Mark to get around the situation, even if his bust will never have a place in Cooperstown. In fact, his best option is probably to not only blame his lying on his dependence on some arbitrary habit, like Vicodin or Xanax, but on the steroids! Pull out all the stops, buddy. Quickest way to redemption is by displaying the affects on national television. His cowardice will become bravery, his selfishness mere quiet pride.

Donald Fehr confirmed my previous opinion of him: a fantastically corrupt individual not threatened by the puny brains of all those who should bow to him. Selig acted like a newly hands-on corporate CEO: greedy, and practical to a fault in business, but well-versed in nice-sounding, reassuring rhetoric. I’d never been so wrapped up in a Congressional hearing since it was Ollie North as the villian. Him, I could accept. It’s been assumed for years the politics, and the military, are preternaturally corrupt and manipulative. But it’s new that sports - baseball - can muster such an image. They may have waited, but they did it right. Before you know it, baseball will be about as relevent as professional wrestling and boxing.

If there were to be an unexpected delight right now, it would be for Duke to lose in the first round to Delaware State. They’re down 13-12, having surrendered an 11-1 run since we last visited them. Seeing Duke lose to a 16 seed would justify my watching them, for once.

I’ve been doing a lot of smoking lately, and more drinking than usual. I wonder if this is bad. It probably is. It certainly is. In order to make this work, I’m going to have to do more writing as I go.

It doesn’t look good for Duke, who’s got 2 players already in foul trouble. They’re trying to play tough and it’s not working, and that’s not good for the big favorites. They’re losing their cool. And they’re on the road, in Charlotte - Tobacco Road country as far as the crowd in concerned. Chances are, they’re hang on and outlast the untested underdog, but the tireder Duke gets, the less chance they’ll make it past Syracuse, or even to Syracuse. I have to cling to something, and with 7 minutes left in the first halves of the first round of the NCAAs, there’s lots of things to cling to, so I might as well go for broke.

And two hours later, nothing rips your heart out like your team losing in the first round to Vermont. Syracuse did what they do best – they beat themselves. It was painful to watch. I knew they’d go out too early, but I didn’t figure it would be like this.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:43 AM

 
March Madness

I’ve never been more excited about baseball in March than I am right now. As I start this entry, the biggest and most obviously fraudulent baseball players of the past 15 years are sweating it out in the Congressional green room along with their sniveling and cowardly commissioner, waiting to be called in to talk about the systematic cheating that has changed the game.

The fraudulent reporters, starting in the early nineties, were writing articles about the rumors of ball juicing. That is how they tried to explain the sudden rise in home runs. Anyone with semi-accurate eyesight, or a simple measuring tape, could see that it was the players who were cheating, not baseball manufacturers.

“It’s not (the players’) game, it’s ours,” said congressmen Jim Bunning in the opening statements of the hearing. Tough talk. I hope it pays off.

As you read this, we’re one day into the big tournament. I’m going out on a limb to predict that the bracket built by my 4-year-old son will beat my own. He has Duke winning it all. I didn’t help him much, outside of filling in the No. 1 seeds to advance to the next round. He broke my heart by picking ’Cuse to lose in the second round, but he’s probably right. He’s not betting with his heart, he’s using pure random speculation, and the odds are in his favor.

By Monday all our brackets will be very messy. Upsets will be the norm this year, as even the best and highest seeded teams are overrated. A major favorite in UNC is coached by Roy Williams, who could never win the big one with Kansas, and consistently failed in the tournament. Duke is falsely inflated, running on the steam of their truly great coach. Illinois is the sentimental favorite, which has Sweet-16 written all over it, but if they get past that round, they’ll have to beat Oklahoma State, which is a sleeping giant that loves to run, and familiar with big-time basketball. Wake is angry, so is Louisville, about their seeding. Emotions are running high, and the favorites are tired. Prepare yourself.

Bunning is talking tough – suggesting killing all the records of steriod abusers. That’s not going to help to get these players to talk, and it’s just posturing. But it’s a strong statement, and coming from a former player. But he was a pitcher, the ultimate foe of steroid users (excepting that horse, Roger Clemens), and he’s also a congressman. So his opinion is mostly meant for soundbites. It will be interesting to see if baseball caves. Commissioners are famous for their stubborness, and Congress is famous for inaction. So don’t get your hopes up. But it sure does make for great television.

The tournament is sure up against a formidable foe in the ratings game right now, but I think that the purity and speed of the youngsters on the court will still upstage the inflated everything of the congressional hearings on steroids in basketball. Maybe if Congress were questioning Rumsfeld about prisoner abuse, things would be different. But right now it’s taking a back seat to the wonder of real competition. The NCAA may be a lot of things, including deceptive, corrupt, and incompetent, but it doesn’t allow steroids, and so it’s still better than Major League Baseball.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:48 AM

 
Interview with the Author

QUESTIONER: What makes you keep coming back for more?

AUTHOR: I have a penchant for punishment. I’m not really here for any reason other than to sort of make my voice heard. Even if the only entities that hear it are binary receptors on some server’s brain. The fact that it’s written down is enough for me. Aside from my notebook, that is. This is more formal, and that’s appealing to me.

Q: Are you ever going to go into politics?

A: Probably not. I think if I were in politics, like most of the normal people I know, my candidacy would last about a day and a half. Just long enough to pull my history, have me make a quick futile attempt at salvaging the disaster through a news conference at whatever South Beach hotel I was drinking it up in at the time, and then just bag the whole thing as an ill-conceived vanity play.

Q: But I assume you have ideas.

A: Of course.

Q: Do you want to expand on that?

A: Not really.

Q: OK. Describe, if you will, your relationship with the writer J.

A: She’s a much better writer than I am. Any good sentence you read of mine is probably hers, just something I stole along the way. She’s taught me a lot about how to write well and stop beating around the bush. I have stupid ideas, I think, and I’m afraid of putting them down on paper. She’s helped me overcome that fear, even though I still think most of what I write is misguided. We have a great relationship overall. Before I met her, I never thought that I could find someone with whom I had more in common than a half dozen favorite records. And we have pretty much everything in common. Sometimes this makes life crazy. But that’s ok. Life is crazy unless you’re hiding.

Q: Do you find you have anything in common with literary characters? You must have read a lot of books.

A: I’ve read some books. Not as many as I’d like. That’s a pretty stupid question, though. I’m not sure how to answer it. I think I’ve found more in common with writers, not so much their characters. I’m sort of like Charlie Brown. I’m bald and kind of round, and when I get angry my mouth gets all squiggly. And my dog is constantly tricking me into giving her food that I didn’t intend for her to have. And I hang around with lesbians, or I wish I did anyway.

Q: You lost me there.

A: I figured.

Q: How are sales of your first novel?

A: That’s pretty funny. I think this interview is pretty much over.

- posted by seanmh @ 10:23 AM

 
Crazy People all up in my Shit

If I ever were to allow myself to become a nonsensical idiot, I think the profession I would choose to pursue would be an afternoon radio talk show host. Probably for a sports station.

I was driving back to work with my gas station lunch. Gas stations are brilliant conglomerates these days. They sell you gas and food. Not just regular food, either, but deli food, hot sandwiches and little entrees. You can also get first aid supplies, basic medication, newspapers and Pringles. It’s not just about motor oil anymore. They have ice cream, toys, dairy products and every conceivable white trash magazine on the market. If you’re looking for gambling, they have it. They have a little bank teller holed up in a clunky box who will give you your money for a fee. That isnt all – they can sell you sunglasses, toilet paper, A1 steak sauce and a case of Dinty Moore chili.

But if you want a bag you have to fax in your request three hours in advance. No one gives bags anymore. If you’re not prepared for it, you won’t get one – you’ll give the slow-witted bitch at the register all your money and before you know it, she’s ringing up the toothless farmer for filling up his gas can and you’re struggling out the door with 3 cans of energy drinks, a leaking half italian sub, and something hot that smells like a cardboard-scented candle.

In the car, Dan Patrick is making illogical leaps that would impress the most practiced defense attorney. He’s not making any sense, but he’s very determined to get his points across, despite their not having any basis in reality. Over on 1460, Jim Rome is entertaining us with agonizing consecutive seconds of dead air in between repetitive blathering about, what, I can not tell. I flip over to Rush. It’s horrible. I need to stab something, and I’m on my way back to work.

You have to order the gas station food at a small computer screen boasting colorful animated icons and a happy voice helper. Despite the glitz, once on your plate, it always ends up being barely edible. But I ate it. I was at work and subjecting myself to seemingly willfull torture seemed like the thing to do. Things werent going well at the office. I took a walk. Every day I swing by the color printer, by the back door, to catch a glimpse of my Ford Ranger out in the way back parking lot, out by the woods. The plates are expired. Two months ago my landlord threatened to tow it, so I had to move it somewhere. I don’t know anyone in this town because they’re all a bunch of fucking assholes around here. The only place for me to put it was in the way back parking lot, out next to the woods. It was out of the way. I should be able to save up for new plates by spring, only a few weeks away as long as nothing else comes up. I took my look and the truck was there.

Two hours later I’m feeling sick from something I ate and I’m cursing the gas station and the phone rings. It’s the receptionist, this nosey old lady who walks around with her lips pursed, watching and judging. If I could fire her, I would, but my boss hired her five years ago and my boss still works here and they have some kind of attachment. I don’t understand it and I don’t care, since it’s not going to help me get rid of her anyway. She tells me with an unusual air of innocence dripping from her voice that I have a call on line 2.

It’s the cops. I’m being followed by cops these days it seems. He tells me that the receptionist in my office called 911 to report a truck in the parking lot that’s been there for a few weeks.

I have sudden fantasies of throwing rocks at my receptionist until she bleeds and dies. I explain the situation to the cop and it’s fine with him as long as someone with some authority doesn’t care about the truck being there.

I could do an entire segment on my radio show about how I’m surrounded by nosey and incompetent people who are trying to wreck my life and tempt my murderous tendencies. I wouldn’t exactly need to make sense, I could just start talking and even around my inexact vocal talents the truth would come out. I could sell thousands of dollars in ads per hour and even take some under the table cash from the government to promote questionable administration initiatives.

I wouldn’t have to work here anymore; I could afford decent food from real restaurants. I could fire my secretary for looking at me wrong and I could laugh about it on the air. I could laugh about everything on the air. Bad things arent real when they’re separated by commercials.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:41 AM

 
The Perils of the One Night Stand

It was late and we had been drinking heavily. Carol was also flying on some kind of narcotics that she had stolen from her cousin’s purse at the bar. I was keeping myself up with caffeine pills and Red Bull. Because of my heightened level of alertness, I was acutely aware of exactly how wasted I was, and it was an uncomfortable feeling.

She was wearing one of those flimsy blouses and a very short skirt. I had been standing beside her for the last two hours at the bar. She was on her barstool and her legs were driving me mad. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. Close to closing she went to the bathroom, so I followed her back there and was able to make my move.

In the car, I felt her up all the way to her house. As soon as we opened the front door we threw ourselves on the floor of the foyer and started going at it like dogs. Despite the booze, I had no problems with my gear, and everything was rolling along smoothly until I started to come and she jammed her finger in my ass.

Before I could catch my breath the front door swung open. It was a loud disturbance, in addition to letting in the cold air. The umbrella stand took the brunt of it, but I’m pretty sure that that’s also when the framed picture of the Key Largo landscape went down as well.

I sobered up quick and backed away from the door, mostly naked and still flushed and messy. Carol screamed and I grabbed her by the shoulder to get her away from them. That was my reflexes working, but I should have offered her up immediately. The only thing that could have distracted these thugs was something for themselves, but that opportunity passed quickly. I was simply too drunk to think right. It was two state cops in full dress uniforms. One kicked the door closed with the heel of his boot. They both flashed their badges at us, as if that mattered.

“You’re both in big trouble, you’d better waive your rights to attorneys fast or we’re going to really let you have it,” said the tall one who had kicked the door closed. The other one was fat and was really keeping his eyes on Carol. At least they didn’t seem to be watching me too closely. One danger was out of the way.

Carol shouted: “What the fuck are you doing here?” I needed far more information before I was going to open my mouth.

“You’re both under arrest for sodomy. It’s a filthy thing and you’ll both be locked up for 18 months, at least. You’d better get dressed.”

“Sodomy?” screamed Carol. She started shaking and it was at this point that I realized I should have just run out the back door as soon as I heard them come in. “Get out of my house! What are you doing here?’

“We’ve been monitoring both your activities for weeks. If you don’t cooperate, we’re going to arrest you on rape charges too. I think you should cooperate or else you’ll find yourself on the list of sexual predators.”

I saw my out: “She fucking raped me, man – I had no idea what this crazy bitch was up to. I was only looking for a quick lay.” I felt her eyes on me but she didn’t say anything.

“You’re nothing but a fornicator, sir, and you know what they do with fornicators upstate, don’t you?”

“I’m very damn sure that I don’t, officer. I’d prefer to get dressed and file rape charges, officer.”

“You’re not fooling us, pal. I can see you’re under the influence of several substances and if you resist this arrest, you’ll go down for internal drug possession too. Face it, we’ve got you by your balls.”

“I’ve only been drinking and you cant prove anything else!”

“I don’t need to prove anything else. Are you going to keep talking?”

“Hell, no.”

The fat one grabbed me by my waist. Maybe I had been wrong about his sexual proclivities. I scrambled for my clothes and he let me get dressed. The tall one started walking towards Carol and she got the message. She dressed and was really crying now.

They led us out of her house and as I stepped through the front door and out into the night, I put my shoe on the broken glass of the Key Largo landscape. I looked down. The sun looked to be dipping itself in the dark blue of the ocean, pausing in the good feeling of it. It was beautiful, and that image would stick in my head for a long time to come.

- posted by seanmh @ 10:06 AM

 
Dont Need Marketing

The psychological torture inflicted upon the most sturdy inmates in Guantanemo Bay is probably nothing compared to sitting in a meeting with my boss as she slaughters all reason, the English language and my valuable time into a steaming pile of pig feed.

I thought I was just going into her office for a brief and one-way conversation about the state of the budget reports that I was waiting for. Instead, it turned into another dragged-out exercise in endurance between herself and the media marketing manager. I had been in the middle of this discussion before, I was sure. Or at least on the outside looking in, to use a more appropriate cliché. For I didn’t say but a dozen words in the two hours I was chained to the chair while they bantered about things that neither of them understood. They were speaking a different language. Unfortunately for the media marketing manager, my boss’s language consisted of misinterpretations of wrong assumptions centered around the misconstrued notion that she knew what she was talking about. It was truly painful.

The last meeting we had like this was over a month ago, and that one ended the same way this one finally did. The media marketing manager put his pen down and declared that he was going to start on the most basic part of the assignment and they’d have to work it out as they went along. She’d be sure to change her mind about everything by the time the first stage was complete, anyway, which, if history was to be repeated, wouldn’t happen prior to the next meeting anyway.

Nothing goes right around here. Working with actual monkeys would at least be entertaining. My quality control supervisor is a born-again Christian. The variations on what that means are endless, and result in a never-ending stream of people into my office to complain about being criticized for either their work or personal habits.

Over in marketing it’s worse. Marketing managers are no different from weathermen, although the jig isnt quite up with them yet. Nobody realizes it, but I do. Marketing managers are completely useless to the foundation of a company and offer nothing against the investment put into them. They provide no information in meetings or in product planning except to either push for the status quo or “something different this time.” If any one group of people could be utterly destroyed in corporate America without affecting the economy whatsoever it would be marketing managers. And weathermen. If only I had known how much money I could have made at a career based on looking pretty and making random guesses about my field of interest! I never would have wasted time trying to learn anything in college.

At the bottom of the ladder is my staff. Most of them cant bear to be at work at 8:30 in the morning. The previous manager here didn’t seem to mind having half the staff wander in between 11 and 2 in the afternoon. But I mind. It’s a simple request, I had thought, to have them come in on time. So far, though, I’ve had to fire three of the motherfuckers, and I’ve only been here a month. It’s been a lot of paperwork, but it’s been worth it. The fear in everyone’s eyes brings me tears of joy. I want to hug their fear, embrace it warmly and raise it as if it were my own. The only way to handle one’s minions is to inflict fear upon in large and indiscriminate doses.

When I look at my staff, these poor kids, I feel great compassion for them because I’ve been in those meetings with my boss, a vice president of operations, a big wig and a bigger cheese, and I know for a fact that she’s 75% dumber than anyone on the floor, despite her rank and experience, which makes her fully twice as dumb on top of that, because she’s not only an idiot, but she obviously hasn’t learned anything. So these kids have no role models. Except for me. So I do my best to straighten my tie and polish my shoes and pronounce my words like I’ve been to school, just so they have someone to look up to. Someday, they’ll recognize how valuable I’ve been to them. Until then, they better just worry about getting here on time.

- posted by seanmh @ 10:54 AM

 
March On

Once in a while I fear that there is no God. Then March rolls around. Then, just when I’m moaning in despair over endless ESPN coverage of fat, bloated or artificially bulked-up baseball players stretching in the Florida sun, here comes college basketball with all its force and beauty.

There is nothing like watching a naïve, slightly clumsy but vigorous club from somewhere in the midwest take down a Kentucky or a Duke or a Connecticut. They usually do it by shooting 3-pointers like at practice, and by stealing the basketball. Beware: if a nowhere nobody team hits more than 3 3-pointers in the first 5 minutes of a game and has a favorable turnover ratio, there’s going to be an upset. In this case, keep watching. When a nowhere nobody team takes down an established program during the NCAA tournament, it is one of the most powerfully emotional moments in sports.

I’ve always favored college basketballl over the NBA. Even before I knew why, I liked college ball better. Now I know why: because using a flexible zone defense, having to rely on teamwork instead of star power, and the inherent sense of meaning found in the college game are far more exciting and compelling to watch than NBA stars playing defense one man at a time, getting the rock to the the star and, even in the playoffs, only needing to win just over 50% of their games in order to advance.

In college, the players’ careers depend, very often, on that one trip to the tournament. Even on the outside chance that one of the hundreds of Division 1 schools get there more than once in the three or four years of a player’s career, it’s even rarer to get there with everything clicking. In other words, at best, a college player has one shot at the title. Even the established programs only win once about every 5 years. There are no second chances in the NCAA.

And now, with baseball gearing up just as the major stars of the last decade are being ordered to appear before Congress to explain how they got so fucking big and starting hitting so many home runs, the NCAA overshadows not only the NBA, but also America’s very pastime. Not to mention the NHL, which may or not return next year. The NCAA is the only place left in mainstream sports where a skinny guy can dominate. So much so that it’s taken for granted that even though he’s the star now, he’s going to have a long few months in the weight room before he can even be taken seriously in the NBA draft. Hakim Warrick and Mike Dunleavy spring to mind, but there are many more. There is nothing artificial about the stars in college ball. They run on heart and skill, with perhaps some illegally offered booster cash. But you cant blame a guy for wanting to pimp his ride just a little bit, or eat three meals a day. The NCAA is a cash cow that sees its players as minions, slaves to their empire.

But the tournament, because of the structure and the players, transcends the incompetence of the bureaucracy of the NCAA. Unlike the NHL, where the corporation has imploded the thing, or Major League Baseball, whose unflinchingly self-serving players union has the owners by the balls so dearly that the owners have allowed the players to come to work grunting like laboratory horses, the NCAA offers a built-in attrition plan that works to its advantage once a year in a thing of unmatched dramatic beauty.

The only other major sport to offer a do or die playoffs? That’s right, the NFL. Which is why the NFL will always be the most exciting sport on the planet. Except in March, when a bunch of skinny kids, most of whom are playing their last chance game, descend on fortunate cities all over the country for a chance at knocking off an equally desperate team, if only for that single moment of glory. It’s damn beautiful, indeed, and we have to enjoy such pure beauty in sport as long as we can get it.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:20 PM

 
The Bitch has got Jesus in her Holster

There’s snow on the way, but right now it’s 62 degrees and calm. Whenever we have unseasonal weather the level of my fear rises. It seems that something unjust and unsettling is on the way.

When I got home today there were three hoodlums in the parking lot in front of our place fixing a car. An undersized one-year-old girl was wandering around. She looked into the pocket of the driver’s side door and one of the hoodlums told her to get out of there and leave the rubbers alone. They also had their dog out, the big pit bull that belongs to the drug dealer next door. These were his friends; I recognized one of them as the guy who we swung our headlights around one time after being out drinking to find him pissing on the side of our house. He didn’t even look up. He just zipped up and walked into our neighbor’s door. It was the perfect response, one of a practiced villain. By not acknowledging us he made us question what we had seen. Surely anyone with any sense who’s just been nabbed pissing on a house will panic in humiliation and fear. But he just zipped up and walked away. For just enough time, I doubted what I had seen. Once I realized that I had been right all along, it was too late to go pounding on the door. After all, I had been drinking, and the three guys fixing the car in the parking lot were all short-haired fat blonde teenagers. It could have been anyone. There even might have been twice as many as that in their apartment had I challenged his public urination.

The dogs were hopping around. Partly because they had to relieve themselves and party because they knew that the dying and slow pitbull was out there. But I wasn’t as stupid as those dogs. I knew that theyd still be eaten alive if they challenged that beast. I had to keep my wits about me if any of us were to make it out of this place alive, including them.

I calmed them down long enough for me to get comfortable – remove my belt, put away my wallet and keys, take off my watch and shoes. I heard the dog go inside next door and started getting them ready to go – the bigger dog had to be leashed or she’d run around the neighborhood for two hours. Just then I heard a commotion outside. It was the next neighbor down. She was a short and fat middle aged woman who lived with her husband and granddaughter. She was a true welfare case and she beat her husband constantly. Her best attribute was that she knew absolutely everthing about anything you could think of to ask her, talk to her about, or mention within earshot. If I was outside, at the mailbox or dumpster or car, and I felt her doorknob turning, I wouldn’t take any chances that it wasn’t her, and I’d have to sprint to our door to get inside before she shook me down for something.

Now she was screaming at the three fat boys up in the parking lot. There must have been a quieter beginning to the altercation, because this was the first I was noticing any talking outside and this was definitely the middle of something, not the start.

She was cursing loudly at one of them. He responded with something like, “Careful when you make a statement.” It’s not important what he said. But he must have made a threat, because the next thing I could make out (or the only thing I could really remember, likely) was her saying,

“I’ll get you! I’ll come after you! I will! I’ll have someone take care of you! I’ll kill you with Jesus! I don’t have a gun, I carry Jesus!”

surprisingly, the fat boy didn’t respond to that. How do you possibly respond to it, though?

Once I was taking the bus back to Hoboken from Port Authority in the middle of the night, drunk. The 126 was full, though, nearly, despite the hour. You always have to wait a long time for the Port Authority buses in the middle of the night. The late night bus picked us up in a nicer part of the terminal than the usual gate up in the top filthy levels of the parking-garage-like building. But there was still only one bench, and the rest of us were on the floor.

Finally we got on the bus and the driver starts taking us down and around and out. I was as scared as I’ve ever been on any type of public transportation, including cross-town cabs. He knocked at least 2 people out of their seats, swerving and jerking. He flew through the Lincoln Tunnel like a coked-up squirrel chasing an F-18. I clung to my seat in a panic for the entire 20 minute ride. When we came into town, I hit the bell 7 blocks from my apartment just to get off that thing. I practiced over and over what I was going to say when I got off the bus. I thought about it for awhile and worked on the words, which wasn’t easy because I was drunk. Finally I got it. I walked all the way up to the front door so I could pass the driver, and I passed him, and I said,

“You’re fucking crazy, man. You shouldn’t be allowed to drive a bike.”

And he looked at me and said, “Thank you, sir, God Bless.”

He invoked God! That was a cheap shot. I couldn’t respond. I had been right – he drove us like he was trying to kill us. But invoking God is the ultimate trump card. You cant choose the other side, so you’re left to silently agree. That fucking motherfucker. Just like every other God-invoker, he’d never change. If I ever saw him again I’d have to bring a helmet.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:00 PM

 
The Really Dead Writers are Still Alive

I just realized something. Of the ten writers appearing in my Pretty-Boy Files, which is a timeline of 20th century subversive geniuses, only two are still alive, and one of those is essentially still unpublished.

I suppose that the timeline is a bit heavy on the late 50s-70s, so it’s not surprising that many of them are gone. But I don’t have a penchant for hippies or hipsters or drug-addled protestors. Well, let me qualify that. Actually, I guess I should just edit that line right out. But then again, I think my penchant for hipsters and drug-addled protestors (fuck the hippies, yes) isnt due to some fashion fetish but rather to the content of their messages. And, the fact is, writing in the last quarter century has been relatively void of anything truly subversive, as soon as you take out the gratuitous shock of the 80s novelists or the hippie pandering of the late 90s-early 21st century internet writers.

The most subversive content we’ve had of late is Bono swearing at an awards show, Janet Jackson pretending to accidentally show us her tit, and journalists talking frankly about Clinton’s cock stains.

There were three people that everyone looked for to comment on the death of Doc Thompson: Mailer, Steadman and Wolfe. All contemporaries of the man, to be sure. But at the same time, all now essentially irrelevent to the literary world. If the past is prologue, man, nobody’s even getting to chapter one these days. Our new writers are cute little fucks drolled out by the McSweeneys crew. Aside from their overwrought ironies, they have one thing in common – they all got rich before they turned 30. No one on my list of Pretty-Boys was rich by 30. Or, if they were, they blew it on blow, booze or gambling debts. (Mr. Burroughs, I’m speaking of you, sir. Good sir.)

Struggle feeds genius. There’s no such thing as a genius with a martini and a pedicure. Once a man starts getting his nails done or starts timing his shaves with photo shoots for book sleeves and newspaper interviews, he’s lost whatever genius he had, crapped it right out his unspeakable ass.

These new writers don’t know struggle. Getting a half million dollar advance on your first novel as a 23-year-old sucks out any real insights you might have been able to put to paper. But make no mistake, it’s not the fault of the publishing world that you’re a bad writer, just because they funded your downfall. It’s just that you’re part of a trend, and all trends die, because trends arent movements, any more than shitting away your intelligence and perspective is a movement. Because shitting is supposed to be for the bad stuff, not for the only stuff that makes you real. If that were the case, we’d all be dead in our diapers.

I have to get back to my writing, so this part is done. But I’m saving a slot there for you, if you can get off the crapper long enough to write something of worth instead of posing for Writers Lifestyle Weekly. And comb your fucking hair. Nobody cares.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:38 AM

 
I May Be a Jerk, But at Least I'm Not a Cop

I heard a bang like a crashing and went to check on things in the back of the apartment. I brought the big dog with me just in case. It was a loud crashing bang.

It was snowing hard through the sliding glass window on the other side of the kids’ playroom. I peeked through the blinds to see if there was anything to see. Nothing was out there, no footprints even. Nothing. I noticed the box of Lincoln logs on the floor, tipped over. It was a minor thing but could have made the noise in a fall. I realize now that I didn’t pick it up and put it where it belonged. I’m lucky to have a girl that’s sticking with me, that’s for sure. I’ll have to clean that up when I get home tonight…

On the way back I poured a bourbon over ice. I had to get some writing done, and that’s been doing the trick lately. I kept the television on. Julie was upstairs writing with the window open, even in the storm, because she was smoking. She was also blowing the smoke out the window with a big floor fan. Christ, what a fucking jerk I am. She was probably freezing up there.

I leaned back in my chair with the laptop and starting going at it. I have no idea what was on the television. The big dog was hanging around beside me. She was happy to be of use for me, although I wondered why she didn’t go running back there when the crash happened. It probably was just that box of toys.

Then Julie poked her head down the stairway.

“There’s a bunch of cops outside. Just make sure things are put away.”

I put the grass and the pipe in a basket on the bookshelf. There’s no books on the bookshelves, but they’re painted pretty and they sure look nice. My Kerouac lineup is on the bottom recessed shelf of a desk. That’s what I get for not cleaning up and making her sit by an open window in the middle of winter with a fan blowing on her.

I tried to listen to what was going on outside but only for a minute. I knew that Julie was listening from upstairs. If she couldn’t hear anything upstairs, she’d be down soon. I knew it was a mistake to get involved with the people next door, but it was inevitable. They live so close, they’re always outside with their dog, a dying pitbull, or smoking or just fucking around. People are coming and going constantly – the kid over there sells drugs. Eventually, I needed a weed connection and in the two years we’ve been here, we still don’t know anyone. So now we’re on a first-name basis with our drug-dealing neighbors.

The cops were out there for a long time. Julie did end up coming downstairs to get a better ear on the scene. She moved right up against the door to listen. It’s not unusual for cops to be hanging around this place. Our neighbor, the drug dealer…I don’t think he really does well in the public relations arena of his industry. He seems to be making a lot of enemies. Sometimes girls come over screaming, sometimes guys. Once there was something about a gun.

This is serious white trash ghettoland over here where we live. It wasn’t our first choice, but it turned out to be our only choice. We’ve been here for almost two years because we cant afford to get out, even though the rent for this small 3-bedroom is higher than we’d pay for a decent little house somewhere on some quiet street. Many of the residents in this complex are on federal or state assistance. These are the type of people that have kids in order to get more child support. They hang around their front doors once a week and then flock to the mailboxes when their checks come, like ducks to bread, shit sticking to their feet, squawking – they don’t care. Just get the bread, motherfuckers, and get out of my way.

Our apartment is an overpriced shitbox. The can in the downstairs bathroom is impossible to keep free of mold. I punched the wall next to the kitchen once and nearly went through it. I don’t like to bring that up, but it wasn’t my fault. Still, I feel bad about it. The sliding glass door in the back room, the playroom, has been broken since we moved here. The door, not the glass, so it’s not so bad, but it’s hard to close. We’ll certainly be charged for that, even though the handle was basically scotch-taped together when we moved in.

When the cops left we let the dogs out. I don’t like opening the door when there’s cops outside, even if I don’t have anything in my house that smells funny. Any opportunity to talk to the cops is just asking for trouble, even if you didn’t do anything wrong. When the big dog was taking a dump in the snow, the neighbor came out for a smoke. Told me that someone shot out his sliding glass window with a bb gun. The cops followed the tracks in the snow right to this guy’s house, but didn’t make any arrests.

“Fucking cops are useless,” I told him. Poor kid – he’s barely out of high school. His mom set him up with the cash to start dealing. He’s had everything handed to him, even though most of it’s been complete shit. He’ll learn in time, I suppose.

His place must be freezing, but I’m glad they hit the right house. My kids play in that playroom, for fuck’s sake. I’ll keep my door closed as long as I can. But if someone starts fucking around with the safety of my family they’d better not leave tracks in the snow. Because I already know that cops are useless.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:00 AM

 
Johnny Was

Johnny was a badass. He took his own life at the Sunday dinner table, with his sister laughing, his mother screaming and his father drowning his corn in the gravy, just like every other fucking Sunday.

Johnny went to school in dirty clothes and broken shoes, because he wanted to. He used to get beat up a lot, but by the 7th grade he was used to it. He’d laugh during the beatings, encouraging the bullies for more but establishing a reputation as a crazy person. That was just what he was looking for, both.

Johnny wrote music in his basement apartment while his little sister argued upstairs about her curfew. The little slut. He wrote songs about his sister the slut, his mother the villain, his father the wreckless sadist. He wrote his songs and set them to bass music. He wanted to be Sid Vicious.

“I got a sister, she’s such a slut. She doesn’t know much. She’s in a rut. I got a sister, she’s such a slut. Kelly’s a slut, Kelly’s a slut, Kelly’s a slut, Kelly’s a slut.”

Later his songs became more personal.

“I get terrors, in the demon night. I see horrors, wanna lose my sight. I get terrors, in the demon night. Fuck the terrors, fuck the terrors, fuck the terrors, fuck the terrors.”

Johnny started a band in the twelfth grade with a couple of guys from his Social Studies class. He didn’t know them, didn’t know anyone except for the people who’d kick his ass, but they had long hair and dressed poorly. If he didn’t have his own Malcolm McClaren, Johnny figured, he could do his own organizing.

Johnny taught himself to play the guitar and drums so he could teach Joe and Penny how to play. He bought the instruments himself with the money he saved from working at the pizza shop. Penny would be the drummer, Joe would play guitar. Johnny lured them to his basement bedroom with promises of beer and a guarantee they’d always get laid as long as they were in a band.

They played and played but never got very good. But they were loud. Sometimes, girls from the neighborhood would stop by the house to listen to the music. Johnny got laid by this girl from around the corner. She had green eyes. Afterwards, in bed, still panting, he told her to fuck off. He figured it was the right thing to do, even though he wanted to see her again. She kicked his ass, naked, and got dressed and left. Nothing had changed for Johnny, except now he was getting laid. Things were improving.

“I got a chick, she blew my mind. I had a chick, she blew my time. I got a chick, she blew my mind. Stupid chicks, stupid chicks, stupid chicks, stupid chicks.”

After graduation Penny quit the band to go to college. Joe started playing speed metal, so Johnny fired him. Johnny bought a synthesizer from the money he earned at the warehouse. He recorded the bass and drum parts and played guitar over them, and sang. He taped his songs on his boombox and brought them around to local clubs. Nobody wanted to hear his shit; they all said it was horrible and, besides, where’s the band? It’s just a bad recording, Johnny told them, he didn’t have good recording equipment. But they still wouldn’t let him play, because he didn’t have a band.

Johnny stole $500 from his father’s wallet on a Saturday morning after his father’s payday. He bought a cheap 4-track recording deck and recorded a demo tape of his songs that morning. He had eight of them. He had started hanging out at the clubs so they’d know his face. He brought girls home from the clubs and fucked them in his basement bedroom, before telling them to fuck off, getting beaten up or at least slapped, holding his breath through their sometimes tears, and falling asleep until 2 the next day. Things were working out for Johnny.

Johnny’s father thought it was Kelly who stole his money, and he beat the shit out of her. Johnny wrapped up his recording session in time to find his sister upstairs hysterical crying, with bruises on her arms and legs. He went to confront his father, and his father promptly broke his nose, sent him downstairs to think about it for a while, and then kept Johnny’s next four paychecks, more than making up for the stolen money.

Johnny couldn’t go to the clubs without any money, and he couldn’t steal any more because his father had smartened up. This was a serious problem, and Johnny didn’t see any way out of it.

“Fuck em all I got a gun. Fuck em all they better run. Fuck em all I got a gun. It’s them or me, it’s them or me.”

He had broken into Penny’s house for the gun. He knew that Penny’s father had guns. He had to buy the bullets at Walmart, but that wasn’t a problem – Kelly had enough in her dresser drawer for the bullets, and he only needed a little box.

Johnny’s mother made a great big spread again on Sunday afternoon. Sunday was the big dinner day. Johnny loaded his new stolen gun and pushed it into his pants. Fuckers will pay, he recited to his bedroom mirror.

He had thought about killing each one. He could do it fast, before anyone had the chance to get away. But when he got to the table and sat down, he figured they had a better chance than him at doing anything in this life, which was no place for a bad punk rocker with no friends.

And that was the end of Johnny. He was a real badass while he lasted.

- posted by seanmh @ 10:13 AM

 
Football Friday - Biding our Time

Oh yes, the days will be long and the weeks will be longer until training camp starts, which is when the torture really begins. Summer football kills me. I’m a fan, I’m a big fan. But I cant watch summer football – preseason games. Football isnt about the yards gained or the passes thrown or the cuts made on the turf. Football is about do or die coaching decisions. Football is about whether you gain 2 yards or 5 on first down, and that that difference is critical. Football is about hitting someone to end not just the drive, but the game. Football is about winning, at all costs.

And preseason football is not about that. Preseason football is about rookie wide receivers hoping the one pass that comes their way is on target. It’s about keeping your star players healthy. It’s a low investment low risk situation. As soon as you remove the “at all costs” factor, it’s just about fat guys in tights rubbing up against one another.

But this isnt about preseason football. This is about football in March, of which there is little. But there is the NFL rookie combine, where Maurice Clarett ran about as slow as one black man can run with that many tough-looking white men watching. A tragedy, really. I’ve been on this guy’s side since Ohio State unceremoniously bounced him for behaving like the spoiled 19-year-old they helped create. He had to go to the Supreme Court to try to get a job in his field, and even they denied him his pursuit of happiness. The fall that he was cut, I figured what he should do is transfer, even to a smaller school. I guess the NFL dream got the better of him, but I cant blame him for that. Millions of dollars are a sweet proposition for a young man with skills.

The most disturbing thing to me about Clarett’s combine wasn’t his performance, however. It was that the Buffalo Bills’ GM and their coach were the ones picked by ESPN’s SportCenter for quotes on Clarett. Are (were) the Bills actually considering drafting him? They got fortunate enough when they brought in Miami’s Willis McGahee – a crap shoot after the dramatic knee injury he suffered in his bowl game only months earlier. At least the gods cut in and didn’t let the Bills push their luck again with another back.

What the Bills need is a veteran quarterback to fill the shoes of Bledsoe, who headed south after being released, to join up with the hubris-heavy Bill Parcells, who seems determined to win with as few players in their prime as he can. It’s clear that Parcells has lost his touch in recognizing talent; he’s just running on the fumes of his past. That’s not going to get him far. Without an offensive line built from concrete slabs with full military air support, Bledsoe’s not going to get much done.

So now the Bills are stuck with JP Losman, who should have been playing the last half the the 2004 season in place of Bledsoe, as long as he was on his way out anyway. I’d hate to think that the decision to release him came so quickly. Maybe it did. But things don’t generally happen fast in Buffalo, especially during the winter. So I think it was just bad coaching. Either way, I’m not thrilled about 2005 for Buffalo.

One thing that actually does make sense is Randy Moss finally finding his team. Al Davis must be melting in his rhinestone boots over Randy’s arrival. Raider Nation is going to love him, and he’s going to love California. Finally he’ll get to date models and singers. As far as football goes, Collins likes to pass downfield. And Moss is lining up across the field from Jerry Porter, a good receiver. But a quick-strike football team requires patience when you're not paying attention, and the question will be whether or not Moss can be patient enough to last in a town that, despite recent history, values winning more than any bundled-up Minnesotan.

But rest assured that whatever happens, football will still be the best sport in the nation come late August when the games count and blood is spilled. The salary cap may have destroyed the dynasty forever (sorry, New England, you’re not), but it saved the game as a form of entertainment and source of constant destruction. The games arent as well played as they used to be, the locks are few, and it’s harder to follow the revolving doors outside the locker rooms of your favorite teams, but at least we can count on it coming around every Sunday. In this day and age, we need something to rely on. And with baseball season approaching, we need something to wait for.

- posted by seanmh @ 4:07 PM

 
Is This Life?

In the middle of the night we drove downtown to meet Julie’s friend for her going away party. The lucky little bitch, she was moving to Florida. Anyplace but here, I thought, as we passed the empty streets. We found our parking spot – driving the wrong way into the exit lane of a parking garage, we pulled into a spot along the side of the lane going out, in a place marked for the bank. Banking hours were over, and it was close to the club, and it was cold.

At the door we had to show our IDs. Absurd. The bouncer was at least 10 years younger than us. He had a handheld electronic device through which he swiped our drivers licenses. The year of our ages blinked on the display in 72 point type for him to see. Quite a high-technology effort. Once we got inside the club, it was hard to believe that it was working. Even the hottest girls had hips like little leaguers. And the boys needed a lesson in color control and overall appearance. The look of the night was light-colored Polo golf shirts worn over white longsleeves. And there were too many khaki pants in the house. One guy, in a scarf over his shoulders, short and trying too hard, was wearing white sneakers with the laces done up like I did when I was 12 years old. The fabric of the laces pulled flat and then strung between the eyelets simply back and forth instead of gradually diagonally up. He was a damn fool, and I think he knew it, because the permanent smirk on his face was one of great insecurity.

But first we had to get into the place. In a small town display of pathetic overkill, there were two entrances off the street, about 20 feet apart. The complex consists of a street-level bar, a comedy club in the back, a dance floor downstairs and a lounge beside that. From the entrance we used, a long flight of stairs took us to a cashier outside the dance floor. I reached into my pocket and pulled out all three of my dollars. It wasn’t enough. Julie bailed me out – she had all the cash. They stamped the backs of our hands and we went in. It was crowded and loud, the peak of the evening. I wished I was stoned and for the first time in my entire life wished we had some coke. I needed a lift if I was going to get through this scene standing up.

The lounge is called Rain Lounge. It’s dark and has lots of plushy love seats and coffee tables. It feels humid, I think they’re pumping in moisture through the vents. Behind the bar are four large television screens showing a slow-motion loop of water splashing around. Something to keep your eyes on while they hold you up getting your drinks with bad service and deaf bartenders. Both of them. We peeked into the Buddha room to look for Chelsea but she wasn’t there. There were a few small groups of people there sitting in the love seats, but they looked tiring and dreary. So we went back to the bar for drinks. Julie is an elegant creature, a stubborn and beautiful princess. She’s rightfully above leaning into the bar waving a twenty at the kid with the drinks, so I shouldn’t have left her there waiting, but I did. We were standing there for about twenty minutes and I couldn’t take it anymore, so I stepped away for a bit to collect myself. But, then I was just standing against the wall. She wasn’t getting anywhere so I went back to her. People werent pushing ahead of her, but she hadnt advanced, either. She was only one level back. The ones in front of her, standing at the bar, were amateurs. They couldn’t have been more than 15 years old. I changed my order from a Bacardi on the rocks to a shot of Jack and a Budweiser. Fuck this elitist shit. These people were chugging their martinis. What I needed was to get drunk fast, not fuck around with nice ice and small glasses.

Finally we got our drinks. Julie took away 2 Jack and Cokes, he poured us a shot she didn’t ask for, and we left a small tip, determined to stick with the waitresses if we could. I drank my shot in one quick gasp at the bar. We went back to the Buddha room to see if Chelsea would come around.

The Buddha room was separated from the main room by pulled-back curtains. Love seats lined the three walls, a round coffee table in the middle, and a giant gold Buddha in the back of the room was looming over us. His eyes were shut tight and he was concentrating hard on his meditation, nearly jittering with effort to avoid turning over tables and kicking down chairs. On his meditative lap was a little black “Reserved” sign.

We sat there for a while. At one point the fat one of a group of four young women asked a bouncer if she could dance on the coffee table. Somehow she personified the pity I had for these people, and I felt like weeping. Fortunately Chelsea showed up for the distraction from the everywhere surrounding tragedy. She had changed her hair from blonde to black, so we werent sure if it was her, but I approached her to find out, and it was. She was thrilled to see Julie and lept into her lap. She introduced us to one of her friends, this gay boy in a black shirt that was too tight, and sadly unbuttoned too far, with a big ol gold bling hanging on his chest. Julie caught up with her friend for a minute, but it was close to closing time, and before we knew it the lights were gradually brightening. We made it to the dance floor before the crowd held us up. It was a near stampede getting out the door, up the stairs and out the door. There were too many people. Suddenly the crowd changed from poorly dressed teenagers into ghetto dancers and broad shouldered men with even eyes. It was a much tighter scene, and I missed all the narrow hips that had been inside where we were.

But it was only a momentary panic. The street outside was quiet and calm. Everybody was happy.

When we got into the car everything was still fine. It wasn’t until we drove towards the street that we realized we were trapped. The fuckers had closed off the exit lane with a wire line. I got out of the car and checked it out – it was all sealed up at the end and we were effectively locked in by a wire line. Two hours ago it was open, even though the bank had been closed for hours, and now it was closed. It had been a trap. We backed up and looked for another way out, but this part of the garage wasn’t connected to the rest of it, and there was no way out, just more exits blocked by wire. When we started looking closer at a corner exit in the back, adjacent to the alley, someone alerted us to the cops who were watching from the car at the corner. Julie wisely decided to give it a few minutes, so we re-parked, right where we had been, and walked back to the street that the club was on, hoping to find a pizza shop open. There wasn’t one, but there was a sidewalk Coke machine, so we bought a Coke and started meandering back to the car. In those short crucial minutes, someone had cut the line. We drove out fast and got out of there. If only we could do that for real.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:25 AM

 
Seeking Something New

I wonder how many writers have stared for desperate hours at the blank screen or the blank page and followed up with the perfect story. Or even the perfect line. I cant think that it’s happened very often, or else that technique would have ended up in one or a few of the millions of how-to-write-effectively books.

But I’m still going to do it, or I’m going to try. I’m going to stare at this blank screen for desperate hours and move forward with confidence that I will follow that up with the perfect story, or at least the perfect line.

But first I’m going to pour a drink, and probably have a few puffs from my pipe. I’m certain that this has been done before. There arent that many combinations of controlled substances, not compared to the number of writers out there. And there arent that many ways to pour a drink or smoke a pipe. This is a completely unoriginal scene.

The only originality that can come from this would be in the writing. So that is what I need to focus on.

There is no originality in my appearance, my location, the circumstances I find myself in, or those that have led to this. I’m not the first person to react to my environment in the way that I have, whether it be crossing the street at this time or that, or choosing for whom to vote, or responding to a personal conflict with either anger or passivity. Others have chosen my same career path. I’m not the only person to kiss the girls I’ve kissed. Lots of people drive my car.

But I have this chance. Because what is unique here is what’s in my head, for better or worse, and I have this inclination to write. It’s one of the ways I use to work things out in my head. Maybe that’s backwards. I don’t know anymore. I’ve lost track of the progress of things. I think it’s backwards, yes. I’ve written so much over the past 20 years, or more, that the way I work things out in my head before they even hit the page is by setting my thoughts to prose. It’s habit.

I first noticed this when I got a job in Manhattan and spent a lot of time walking between train stops, on the streets of New York and Hoboken, along the river, through the mall of the World Trade Center, where my train let off each day. I would walk to work and walk home thinking of things and making sentences out of them, opening sentences, clincher lines, even just sometimes for the turn of the phrase. Sometimes if I was lucky I’d make it to my notebook in time to transcribe what I had just run through in my head. By the time I became used to it, I didn’t mind stopping on the way – finding a bench to sit on or a wall to lean against and get the thing down on paper.

It took me a while to get to that point, I suppose. But it had to be a hard fought battle, just like everything else that means something in this cloudy and muddy place. In this great big world. The one that beats you down.

But, sometimes, things get worked out on the page. Sometimes things start as feelings, or less, and I seek the blank screen, sit, and then I just start typing. Sometimes I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m saying, and then I realize at the period at the end of the sentence that there really was something there. It’s those times that I appreciate the blank screen. That is the beauty of writing.

There’s also the nights, though, when nothing comes. When feelings or thoughts don’t materialize into anything in letters. I pour a drink, have a smoke, and rail against the resistance. Usually if I have to try so hard, it’s futile from the start. Even though I know this, I still keep at it. I sit there and try. This is the torture of writing.

Either way, it’s something to be in front of the blank screen, the blank page. It means something. And at the end of it, there’s 700 words that I’m damn sure have never been done before.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:00 AM