TAKING A DUMP

As I wrote in my first blog, I believe that we all live in our own worlds, governed by our own rules based on our experiences. In mine, one of the rules I've tried to adhere to is not to invite unwanted guests. Now, by "guest", I'm talking about anything, and last weekend I broke that rule. If you're feeling good, and want to stay that way, it's probably NOT a good idea to spend a lot of time thinking of your most embarrassing moments.

Last Friday sucked, not because anything particularly bad happened, but after I wrote my blog I felt like a complete loser. A feeling only amplified after I spoke with a co-worker, sharing my deepest insecurities, instead of projecting a shield of confidence like I (and most men) usually do. By the time I left work, and was on my way home, not even my Best of Idol CD could get me out from under my dark cloud. And when I arrived home, I was ready to binge my blues away.

The next day, I was exhausted. Worn out from looking after my infant son all night, ashamed of myself for succumbing to my "old" eating habits, and getting pissed that I missed an episode of THE BATMAN, did nothing to alleviate my depression, so I sank deeper. My wife was up, tired, but ready to go and finally do our Christmas shopping. This only brought up more feelings of inadequacy because of our limited budget this year; the thought of having to settle for the cheapest price bugged me. Going to the "ghetto mall" instead of the high class malls in Santa Monica and Century City made me feel poorer than shit. I'm not even going to go into my continuing problems with my self-image, I spent years just accepting that I'm African American, but there are times when I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, trying not end up on the corner of Crenshaw and 54th street, sitting on a box, drinking Cobra and talking shit about "Mighty Whitey". That, and I had went off my diet most of the year, gained significant weight, and now most of my clothes are uncomfortable...well, at that point, I just wanted to die.

I packed the kids in the car and off we went to my mother's, where we'd drop off my oldest and make for the "Nigga World" mall. Then the “cherry of my day” happened, I heard a loud clacking sound, smelt something burning, saw small faint streams of smoke coming from my hood, and checked the gauges to see my car was overheating. Great. Car was fine last night; gauges were all in the green, NOW it’s overheating.

One stroke of luck, or so I thought, was this happened across from a Sears' Automotive Center. So against my judgment to move the car, but with no other choice, I drove to Sears. But wait, they don't do radiator work. They do practically everything else, BUT radiators.

It's a Saturday morning, the sun is out, it's hot, I've got my wife and kids in a car parked outside Sears’ Automotive, I'm pissed, depressed, and can't seem to think straight. Then something else happens to make matters all the worse...I notice that people are looking at me. This is bad. I have, or think I have, social anxiety disorder. There are situations where I can deal with it, but negative or embarrassing circumstances are when it's really bad. And when your primary physical reaction to stress is an increase of body temp that results in profuse sweating things can get bad real quick.

The Sears’ mechanic told me of a Pep Boy's down the street, and he’d let me use their water hose to fill my radiator and get me there. I thought my luck was changing, until I started the car and it shut down on me. I called my mother, not because I'm a “momma's boy”, but it's her car (1 of 2), she has Triple A, I needed a tow, and I should let her know what I'm about to do with her property. She flipped on me, blamed me, said she was on her way, called the tow truck who arrived before she did, the car was half-loaded when she made the guy take it down because she continued until we finally had the car towed to a small mechanic nearby.

At this point, I'm wondered to myself - what are my wife's odds of divorcing me and meeting a rich man who’d take care of her and the kids and give them everything they deserve, because I'm headed for the gutter and I don't want to drag them with me.

At the mechanic, my mother tried to get a deal with the owner because he’s Korean, thinking that, because my wife is Korean, I'm now the member of some secret Korean discount club. And I explained to her, that the last thing she should do to get on this guy's good side, is tell him that a black man has "fouled" a Korean woman and "spawned" two kids.

The mechanic was cool, busted out some numbers, cut me a break on the labor, and gave me an estimate. It's good, real good in fact, and any other day I would have the cash in a heartbeat. But it's the holidays - I have a new addition to my family, I'm drowning in the costs for diapers, wipes, bottles, formula, not to mention food for the wife and daughter, and Christmas presents.

It was toss up, pay for the car to get fixed and cancel Christmas for my kids or....

So, I took the bus yesterday, and I'm going over the last few days in my head. I'm spent, I got nothing left, I'm so down, but I put on a good front for my kid who’s with me. We get home, I kicked up my feet, and for some reason I get the itch to watch the supplemental material from LOTR: The Return of the King (extended edition). The first thing they did was talked about Tolkien, and they mentioned how he believed in the idea of "Happily Ever After...". That the light ALWAYS follows dark times, and how that's missing from modern fiction. Life is this constant revolution from good to bad and that no matter how dark it gets, the light will come eventually, and THAT is your ending.

There's something cathartic about depression, like taking a big dump. You're all..."stuffed up", and sick with yourself because you've eaten too much. You're stomach is protruding, you're pants are so tight it’s biting into your skin, and you wonder why you can't just stop eating. And then you take a dump, you're stomach goes down, you're pants get a loose and you even lose a few pounds (especially in the morning). You cut yourself some slack, forgive yourself for being weak, and begin again. I sat there last night, looking at the supplemental, and beginning to see that no matter how things were bad this year, they would get better after the holidays. My wallet would loosen up, as temptation is removed I'd be able to fortify my will power and eat better, and despite gaining weight, I'm not even close to where I was before. And, I'd have the money for the car and be driving again in a few weeks. Things weren't as bad as I thought.

In regards to my writing, I was coming full circle. I first had no idea what I should do with my life, then I believed that I had this innate ability to write and I would automatically become a success, then I learned that I wasn't so great and anyone could do it, and do it better than me. Now, I question if I was destined to write one story, a story I've worked on for nine years, because no matter what I do, I always come back to it. I see it in everything, or it's so classical, that it's a part of everything, and it continues to develop as I do, whether I actually work on it or not.

I won't go into my flights of fantasy; I've embarrassed myself enough, and don't want to invite any more. And my friends will get a big earful in the next few days, so they don't need to read it here. But, while I'm not 100%, I am feeling better. I'm riding the storm, and I can see the crest of a new dawn on the horizon. My children are healthy, my wife loves me (and she proves it everyday, believe me), my friends have my back – no matter how many reasons they have to abandon me, and my writing...my writing continues to be the angel on my shoulder, giving me hope for the future.

JPG.

PS...For all those not in the know, get your assess to

http://progressive.stream.aol.com/aol/us/moviefone/movies/2004/sincity_019736/sincity_trlr_01_dl.mov

to see the trailer for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's SIN CITY, coming in April 2005 (Here comes the sun)!

Things That Didn't Make The List...

* At a strip bar, I approached a stripper for a lap dance and was rejected.

* I flunked 1st grade.

* In high school, I gave the "ugliest" girl in class my Walkman, hoping it would get me laid.

* When I was around 10, I would go to Top Value, take as many Hostess goodies as I could, and hide behind a large bag of dog food, stuffing my face. An employee eventually caught me.

* During my high school years, on Friday nights, I would buy a whole cake, order a family size meal of mojo potatoes and a one-topping pizza, and eat the whole thing by myself while watching Nasty Boys on NBC.

* I would have flunked high school, if not for my three closest and best friends who convinced my religion teacher to pass me.

* I told a friend that I wore 42" waist pants, and he screamed, "MY GOD! I didn't know they made pants that big!"

* I was overheard singing Duran Duran songs in the shower.

* My first real sexual experience - I was 10 (maybe 11) and my father was dating a woman who would take me out with her niece. I don't remember how, but we began making out whenever we saw each other, and she would unzip my pants each time. But, I thought I had forgotten to zip them. So, she would unzip them, and I would zip them back...I was 16 before I realized what she was doing and what I missed out on.

* In 6th grade, I liked this girl and one day she made fun of me, so I took some medical tape (my mother was a nurse) and used it to vandalize the boy's room, writing " (her name) hits the bed naked." Later that day, the teacher asked the class if anyone had tape. When no one answered, he offered extra credit points to whoever had some. I, being an idiot, pulled out the medical tape to get the credit and was promptly escorted to the principal's office.

And finally...

* Once, during a VERY dark time in my life, I went to Santa Monica Blvd. (aka Boy's Town) with my gay friend (long story for another time), wearing a black Dick Tracy (the movie) t-shirt, and bright red sweat shorts that were 1 or 2 sizes too small.

I'm spent.

JPG.

T.M.I. (Too Much Information)

To be a writer, I think you have to be open and honest. Some would disagree; they would say that writers are professional liars. But, if being a successful writer is writing what you know, what if what you know is just living life and the horrendous things that can happen to a person?

Since I started this blog, I've realized how hard it is to be honest. I think about what my next message will be, and there's plenty I could comment on, but I'm too afraid because my opinions are based on personal experiences.

So as an exercise in honesty and to open myself up more, I've decided to present to you (in a David Letterman fashion) the 10 most embarrassing things that have happened to me…

10. The first time my wife and I had sex (what I still consider the best sexual experience I've ever had), she was feeling suicidal and didn't think she'd be alive the next day.

09. Back when I weighed 238lbs. I thought my wife and I had a pretty good sex life. After I lost the weight, she told me that when I thought she was getting excited, she was actually suffocating and gasping for air. Along those same lines, prior to losing the weight, I believed my wife's least favorite sexual position was being on top. After losing the weight, I learned that she didn't dislike it, but I was just too big to straddle.

08. Okay, this one is a little long so bear with me - Years ago, I knew two people who were ex-boyfriend and girlfriend, but still screwing around, regardless of who they were seeing at the time (by the way, she was pregnant with his kid too). One night, they invited me for a 3-way and I declined, but agreed to watch them go at it. Fast forward to about a month or so later, after the girl had her baby, we hooked-up and when she wanted to have sex I declined. The reason – I told her it was because I wanted to “make love”, but in truth, after seeing her have sex with her ex, I couldn't get aroused because...because he was bigger than me.

07. On the night of my senior prom, my date and I kissed in the limo. When I went for another, she backed away. When I asked what was wrong, she said I kissed like a dog.

(Okay, this is beginning to hurt)

06. After high school, one of my best friends went to UCLA, lived in the dorms, and set me up with a chick that said she liked me. She was a virgin and when it came to intimacy we stayed at 1st base, until one night, we went to 2nd (or what I think is 2nd). I asked her if was okay (this was at the height of the date rape), she agreed, but when I put my hand on her “private area” she ran, crying, into the bathroom, and wouldn't tell me what was wrong, but asked me to leave. Our "relationship" didn't last long after that, and I later found out that she really wanted to be with my best friend who set us up.

05. While I was "wooing" my wife, I did a number of things to impress and manipulate her into staying with me, one of the worst things I did was fake a suicide attempt where I acted as if I'd cut open my wrist. I actually bought a sling, wore it whenever we went out, and faked being in pain when she would try and break-up with me.

04. My wife has a knack for nicknaming people. During our dating life, her AND her siblings lovingly referred to me as "Jack-off Joe".

03. And, on those same lines, years ago, while sitting at a table with my friends (and business partners at the time), my wife blurted out that I "pleasure myself" more than three times a day.


02. Until recently, within the last 2 years, I've been one of several men plagued with "man breasts". Having these "things" has gotten me into two VERY embarrassing moments:

A. Shopping at a men's store with my father, he asked the saleswoman if they sold bras.

B. One of the few women I've been sexual with, when I took my shirt off, thought I was a she-male (not sure if she thought I was going from him to her, or her to him).

And the #1 most embarrassing moment in my life is...I don't know.

I'm trying to think of what would be #1, and I can't think of anything. Sure, I've been in some bad spots, and some of the things here wouldn't be embarrassing to others except me, but nothing that has ever happened to me seems so bad that I would give it a #1.

Hmmmm...Weird.

JPG.

REPETITIOUS NIGHTMARE

This morning, I woke-up from a nightmare, two actually, two that I've had previously and both times it freaked me out. Now there's nothing really bad about them, they're not prophetic in any way. In fact, they're both really stupid, but I keep waking up from them sweating and breathing heavy.

The first one begins in the middle, Morgan Freeman is examining me, there's no mention as to why I'm being examined, but I just know that it's related to my medical insurance. I'm not in an examine room, but my home, and my wife is beside me, with my children somewhere else, but I'm aware that they are in the house. I'm speaking to Morgan, and I find out (or he tells me) that he's a vampire and this whole examination is nothing but a set-up to get victims. I'm face to face with him, nowhere to run, he's going to kill me and my family, and there's nothing I can do about it. Now, here is where I get freaked out, faced with my impending death, I plead for a painless one. I mean I really beg for Morgan to make it as quick as possible. Dreams are fleeting, especially after you wake-up and time passes, but I do remember asking Morgan to let my family go. My wife is there, but she's sort of non-responsive, the focus is on me. So Morgan promises to make it painless, he's gonna bash my head in so fast that I'll just die instantly. So I'm sitting there as he gets ready, I'm gonna die, I know how, and I'm waiting for this vamp to put his fist through my skull. He does it, and everything goes black...

There's a pause, don't ask me why, there just is, and next thing I remember I'm on the run. Same scenario, medical insurance vamps who want me as food, but this time I'm with my wife, we're in a car, and we're on the run from black SUV's chasing us down...

And that's where it ends, no real ending, I just wake up after that.

My wife tells me that repeating dreams are important, but I can't figure out how that one could mean anything. There was one returning dream I had that does make sense, because I don't think it was a dream.

Everything is black, not like space, but a void, there's nothing around except for a closed white door. Now, I'm seeing all this through my eyes, there's no third-person perspective, it's all POV stuff, and I'm moving towards the door and the closer I get the more curious I am to go through it. The door opens, and I feel this pulling sensation, and I realize that my curiousity isn't actually me, but a "presence", some kind of spirit, telling me and pushing me to keep going. Here's the freaky part - the closer I get to the door, the more certain I become that I'll die if I go through it. The door is closed, so I have no idea what's on the other side, and believe me, I'm ripe for hell, so this is no "bible thumper" vision, but I know I'm not waking up if I go through that door.

I've had that dream three times, and each time I KNEW that I would die if I went through the door, and each time the "thing" pushing me was stronger than before. The only thing that saved me was forcing myself to wake-up, that's how conscious I was of what was happening.

Freaky.

JPG.

GOING OFF THE DEEP END

Working in a hospital, I learn and deal with a lot of illnesses. And being a science fiction fan and a writer, I question a lot of what I learn. Take cancer for instance, and the ways we treat it. Chemotherapy, whether it's chemical or radiation, is injecting the body with poisons that annihilate not only the cancer cells, but also the white blood cells that fight off infections. It's a crapshoot, your hoping you can kill the cancer and keep the person alive long enough for their immune system to "reboot". But, even if the patient survives the treatment, you still face the possibility of the cancer coming back.

So I begin to wonder, could there be something inherently wrong with a treatment that is more likely to kill, or contribute to the death of a patient rather than helping them?

I'm not a scientist, I'm just a "collector", I record and report data, that's all I do. But as the average person, I wonder about things that just don't make sense. In science fiction, there's always the argument of man vs. nature, and I think there's one here we could explore. Follow me on this - change, evolution, can sometimes be a very violent act. It can, and has, killed several times over before its purposes are made clear. What if cancer isn't our enemy, but an agent of change? I know, it's an "out there" idea and here is where I cross the line into wacko territory, but I keep wondering about it.

I hear so many horror stories about kids, who beat cancer, only to die from a fungal infection because their immune system was wiped out, that I wonder if we've entered into a war we can't win. And when that happens, the natural questions follow, where we, or maybe just me, question if we should be fighting at all. What if cancer has a purpose? Doesn't everything in nature have a purpose? Doesn't humanity's fault of fearing what we don't understand extend to viruses and illnesses?

It's been my continued experience that there's a reason for everything, the only thing that separates a "random act" from a logical one is our understanding. I man walks into a Mc D's, he pulls a gun, kills nine people, and we all wonder why. But then, we investigate and discover that he did because his mother took him to Mc D's so much that he hated it. Now, no doubt he's crazier than shit, but that still doesn't negate that there is a reason, no matter how insane, for his actions. A child catches a cold, the immune system gets hit, then adapts, and the child becomes that much stronger. By definition, we could say that the child underwent an evolutionary change, and that we undergo several evolutions from infancy to adulthood, achieving increasingly higher, more complex, states of existence.

Just thinking out loud folks...

But ask yourself the same question I do, what if a person lived through cancer? Not the treatment, but the cancer itself. What would they become? What kind of change, evolution, would occur?

Okay, go ahead and laugh, I'm stupid, I know, but it's from questions like this, that bestsellers are written.

OUOTE OF THE DAY: "Facts are like bikinis. What they show is revealing, but what they hide is more important." - A Co-Worker.

JPG.

More Thought Bytes

ORIGINS

Why call this blog "Speaking in Tongues"?

When I was a kid, my mother was, and remains, a religious fanatic, bouncing from one belief to the next. Between the ages of 10 and (I think) 13, she was a "born again" Christian and would attend prayer groups. I remember the first time I was in one, and near the end, these crazies raised their hands and went off into a gibberish rant. They called it "speaking in tongues" and told me that, in the rapture of the Holy Spirit, they were speaking in a divine language. Being young, and just not getting it, they told me of the apostles who were granted this ability after the Holy Spirit descended upon them. The idea, the implication anyway, to me, meant it was a language of truth that transcends everything. So after that, I waited...and waited...and waited to get hit with the spirit and go off into my holy rant, but it never happened. Then, one night, instead of raising my hands and closing my eyes, I looked around at everyone else. I thought of the story again, the apostles spoke in a divine tongue that was UNDERSTOOD BY EVERYONE, a miracle. But, I couldn't understand a word of what these people were saying, was I evil? Or, were they full of it? So I tried something, I raised my hands, closed my eyes, and started letting anything fly out of my mouth. I even used some Michael Jackson lyrics, mama say mamasa mamagoosa, and anything else that would come out (clean of course). Afterwards, I thought my ass was in trouble, it was so obvious what I had done, I thought they'd see me as some disrespectful little brat, but they cheered me, hugged me, I was a "blessed" child, a "prophet in the making". I guess that was what laid the first seed for my feelings on religion...well, not right away, I sucked up the attention first. It was a hell of a ride, having a group of adults listening to what I thought about bible scripture. It was fun, and to be honest, I sort of miss it. But, I never forgot what it means to speak in tongues, and when I started sending emails to my friends about my little observations, honest ones that could have been perceived as ignorant or just stupid, I sent them with this title. So, there you go.

FEAR

Fear is good, to an extent. A lot of things they tell you are bad are good when you think about it. Fear puts you on your guard, keeps you safe, and makes you think twice about walking down that dark alley. Fear makes you plan things very carefully and reduces the odds of failure.

Al Pacino in ANY GIVEN SUNDAY said, "Football is a game of inches." Same can be said for life, about fear, and any other "bad things" out there. Its all about the measurements, what can heal you, could kill you.

The older I get, especially in my marriage, the more I realize, and separate, what's real from what's idealistic, but not humanly possible. When I was younger, I believed in a lot of romantic ideals. Love is unconditional, it's not jealousy, distrustful, or selfish, you know the rap. And I walked into every relationship trying to be Romeo, trying to live up to these notions with disastrous results. I couldn't understand why or how I could follow these "rules" and not have success (with one exception, keep reading...). I was being cheated on, dumped, laughed at, and generally treated like shit. Embarrassing as it is, I lived like this until I was...25? No, 29, after my daughter was born, and I was in conflict between the man I was, and the myth I portrayed myself to being. I had accomplished the unthinkable, the "good guy" had convinced the "bad girl" to stay with him, but the act was wearing thin and the man was seeping through.

There I was, married, a father, and those romantic ideals, or just common "good guy vs. bad guy" things, weren't holding up anymore. I went to a counselor, and my first priority, the first question I asked, was whether or not my whole life were based on a lie. And being a great counselor, she didn't give me a right or wrong answer, but let me work it out. My first step was learning this: the meaning of Romeo and Juliet isn't to point out the power of their love, but the consequences of their immaturity. After that, I questioned everything, and so much began to make sense.

Love is unconditional, but what is unconditional love worth? It's free, but nothing of real value is free. If a person will love you no matter what, then why aspire to please them? Why treat them right? Why be faithful if they'll love you regardless (the implication being they'll stay with you)? Love is trust, but people treasure what they want and could lose. It goes with jealousy and envy, we covet what we cannot have, and we safeguard what others would take from us. So if we trust someone not to cheat, if we trust someone not to leave, then how does that affect our desire for that person? If we have no jealousy over someone, then how much do we treasure or appreciate them? These thoughts continued and I began to question the idea of "falling in love". No question that love does and should exist in a relationship, but it's being dominated by emotion that troubled me. Emotions are so fleeting, they change on a dime, you're happy today and miserable tomorrow. So is it hard to believe that we can love someone today and hate him or her the next day or five years later?

Ironically, my marriage didn't begin to prosper until I flipped the script on all these things. I started to embrace what I believe to be the "human condition", instead of aspiring to be Romeo or the romantic ideal for our time, I embraced being human. Humans are jealous, we're distrustful, we covet what we can't have and treasure what others want. Those things, in moderation, when directed towards another person could equal desire, appreciation, love, lust, etc. Realizing either person in a relationship could walk out the door at any second, that fear of failure, the feelings of jealousy (another person with your lover), the feelings of envy (them moving on while you remain alone) brings forth another aspect of love we don't often see or acknowledge, possession. My wife is MINE and I don't want anyone else to have her. That wasn't based on emotion, per say, but a conscious decision that the woman who is my wife is something special, so special, that I don't want to lose, nor take the risk, of losing her. Further, I don't want any other man, or woman, to have "it". Now, some might say this is the most chauvinistic comment a person could make, but my marriage prospered based on it, and we're about to celebrate our ten year anniversary in 2005, when we were so close to divorce court...VERY close. A friend of mine said something that, at the time I thought was pretty damn mean and negative, but in retro was pretty smart, "Never tell someone (your partner) that you don't deserve them. Because after a while, they'll believe it and leave your ass." If there's any secret to marriage and relationships, I've found it to be this, love someone for who they are inside, but lust after the person on the outside. Nuff said.

FINALLY, TO THE POINT

One of the purposes of this blog is to discuss my writing career and the thoughts I have, share them with friends, see them bounce around, and mainly to get them out of my head and on "paper".

Being a writer who wants to become the "next big thing" in my chosen medium, comic books, I look at what's out there now and try to find the new spin that would equal fortune and glory. One of my passions is the comic vigilante, Wildcat, Sandman, Batman, and The Shadow. Even super powered ones like Spider-Man, Daredevil, and...Hmph, I've gone blank, but you get the idea.

I was thinking about the "with great power comes great responsibility" theme of Spider-Man and how that really speaks to people. But, it's coming from someone who's a good guy at heart, so what's the challenge? Follow - you're Peter Parker, bitten by a spider, has powers, and in a moment of selfishness you let a crook go who later kills your uncle...but, are you REALLY to blame? Sure, you could have stopped him (or her - that's an interesting thought, the crook doesn't have to be a guy), but so could have the a few dozen others. Especially in the movie version, where Uncle Ben is carjacked on the streets of New York. Is it really your fault? And that Peter would feel guilty and eventually do the right thing, is that such a leap? Now, I'm not downing Spider-Man, just looking at the concept and twisting it around. The same goes for Daredevil, if you're a kid who'll risk your life at such a young age, powers or not, to save someone, what's the temptation, the odds, that you wouldn't fight crime on some level? Where's the temptation to "go bad" or stop what you're doing?

Here's where I'm going with this, where is the greater source of conflict (drama), with the good kid who tries to do the right thing? Or the bad guy who tries to do the right thing? What if Peter was a juvenile delinquent? What if, and stick with me here, what if HE was the CROOK? He rips someone off, pats himself on the back, then goes home to find out that his family has been struck down by crime? How much...meatier would it be for him to fight everyday to do the right thing, to use his powers for good and not evil? Because he'd truly understand how easy life could be on the "other side". It's like a murderer; the fear is, once you've killed, it's that much easier to kill again. So, if you've committed any crime, you're more inclined to continue, and if you get away with it, the temptation is even greater. What if Batman killed? What if he found and killed Joe Chill, the mugger who stole the life of his parents, and his childhood? He kills, realizes that the act is evil and heals nothing, scarring him even further, so when he swears to never use a gun it means more. But, it's also all the more tempting to kill the Joker isn't it? Especially after he kills Robin and paralyzes Batgirl.

Okay, a quick story before I cut this loose, I'm twenty minutes late for work one day and I arrive angry with myself. It's just another day of my being late, I realize that I'm f'ing up, and I want to change and do what's right, be on time. I set the alarm the night before, go to bed early, the whole nine, but when the alarm goes off, I hit the snooze, and I'm out for an hour before I get up, yell "Oh shit!" and hit the shower. I then spend forty-minutes on the bus cursing myself for being a loser and trying to figure out why I keep f'ing up. I get to work, relieve my coworker who was covering my ass, and ask her out right, "Why can't I just do right?" Years later, I'm here, trying to come up with a character in the spirit of those others I love so much, and I remember those words, "Why can't I just do right?"

What kind of hero would you have then? There is a difference, nothing GOES right for Peter. But, what if Peter couldn't DO right?

That's a road I want to travel for a while...

LAST ONE

I'm afraid for my son, he's healthy and all that, but I'm afraid for his future. He's a DOUBLE Scorpio, and if you're into astrology like my wife, you know he could either become one of the most famous and successful people alive, or a total nut job like Manson...who was successful when you think about it.

Now I know it all comes down to how I raise him, but what if I inadvertently do something, like show him WWE wrestling at too early an age? I did that with my daughter, and then her favorite game was to play fighting. I thank heaven that she's finally moved on to Disney Princesses and playing kitchen. But then I think about how many of those nut jobs came from "good homes"? What if by shielding him, I make him some repressed serial rapist? Hey, my mother tried to shield me, and you wouldn't believe the mess I got into...

Two Words: GAY NIGHTCLUBS!

All I can do is play it by ear I guess, and hope for the best. Still, some nights I'm holding him and wondering, "Could he be the Anti-Christ?"

And then I smile, because that means a black man (okay, half-black) will be President someday, and you gotta take the good with the bad, right?

I'm Every Woman

It's Saturday, the wife and daughter are at the
movies, I'm watching over my son who's asleep (and
stirring, so I best make this quick), and I've got MTV
(More Television) on, suffering through Laguna Beach
because there's just nothing better on.

I'm having a weird thought, fueled by 18 yr old chicks
(god I hope their legal, or I may have a problem) in
bikinis. It makes absolutely no sense, but for some
reason, I can accept it. And that is, I think...no, I
know my wife can be any women I want her to be.

I know, it's weird, but just thinking about it, I feel
like any type of women I may desire, she can become.
I'd never have the balls to put this to the test, but
I'm more perplexed, not that by the thought, but my
acceptance, as if it was true. Is it true? Have I just
realized some secret to marital longevity? Or, am I
just horny and hot for my wife? But it makes that
song, "I'm Every Woman" make so much more sense to me
now.

Women seem to have the incredible power of
transformation that men lack. I first noticed it
during my wife's first pregnancy, her body changed,
her moods changed, and she changed. She was totally
unprepared for the future that was coming, motherhood,
and so was I. But, where I totally lost it, she
adapted. And the physical changes she and all women go
through are obvious enough...

Babies crying, gotta fly.

TO BE CONTINUED.

JPG.



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Thought Bytes

(Three in one day...can you tell I'm addicted?)

* Saw the new pic from the Fantastic Four movie and was totally unmoved. I don't think that's a good thing you would think that a comic fan of over twenty years would be jazzed to see; yet another, comic hit the big screen, but I'm not. This can't be good. Funny how comic movies may share the same fate as the periodicals, over saturation of the marketplace by superheroes.

* The third Blade movie hit (not exaclty a superhero, but still...) this week, and I don't think I'll bother seeing it until it's on dvd. I'm not even interested about the new Superman movie. Okay, maybe I'll get pumped when it's closer to release, now that Spacey is signed (or about to be signed) for Lex Luthor, how could I miss that.

* The cover for DC's new event just hit, COUNTDOWN, only reminding me that it's been seven months since I last bought comics, REALLY bought comics. I'm sort of afraid to even walk into a comics store again, like a recovering junky that's afraid of the neighborhood crack house. Will I have the strength to resist going crazy and buying everything? If there's any down side to being a father, it's all about the money. It's hard to come home on a pay day and watch 75% of my cash disappear. I know I have responsibilities, and I do my best to meet them. But damn if it doesn't hurt.

* On the same note, it's been two and a half months since I've had sex and I'm starting to grab myself more than when I was a teenager. We just had our second child, so no intimacy until January of 2005. The expectation is dwarfing everything else in my life right now. The holidays are just not as important, as I anxiously await the first night alone with my wife. What will we do? I keep thinking it should be something special, but nothing weird...

* As I get older, my attraction to female anatomy is descending (I guess this goes back to the horny thing). My earliest memories are of my attraction to their hair, especially redheads. Then, it was the breasts, couldn't get enough, the bigger the better. Now I find myself staring at their butts. How long before I become a feet man?

* A friend of mine, and an insightful one at that, noticed that I'm happy in my life right now. And you know what, I am. I think I'm the happiest I've ever been. I like my life, with my wife, my kids, not my job - that sucks, but my REAL job -as a writer - is looking up for the first time since I started in...1992 (DAMN!).

* Speaking of which, the book is coming together nicely (LAZARUS: Immortal Coils - Look for it in 2005), the pages are rolling in, not as fast as I would like, but the final results are worth it, and the reactions I've received are good all around. I find the time between emails from my artist to be mundane at best. Same old thing, day after day, and then "BAM!" new pages.

* Yesterday I was in a debate with some coworkers about following tradition vs. being rebellious, and I went on a rant about disliking the expanding "gray area" between right and wrong. I think we're headed for a time when a lot of what we consider wrong will become "understood" and accepted. How long before pedophiles actually earn our sympathies? Sure, not everything is so clear, and there are things that belong in that space in-between, but we keep adding to it. And, perhaps, not everything we add should be in there. And I began wondering if those gray areas are manmade, fallacies, and not real ones. Like murder, it can be black, white, and it does fall in the gray sometimes. But, bottom-line, it's wrong to kill, period. Anything else is an excuse we've created to relieve ourselves of guilt...isn't it? Or, is it vice versa? It's not wrong to kill, it's natural, and we've turned it into a crime for fear of losing our own lives. It makes you think, we take it for granted that everyday will follow the next. I wonder if the animals take it for granted that everyday could be their last?

* Okay, here's a thought, they say that a person is born gay. All right, I'll accept that, because society says I have to or have "conservative" stamped to my head. But then, how is it that a child, and I have two, is born not knowing anything, or being anything really, but is gay? I can't get around that. The baby comes out, and it's a blank slate. Literally, nothing going on inside, everything is new and forming, but it's already gay. And the mutation theory just scares the shit out of me. Nope, I can't buy it. When I look into the eyes of my children, everything is too new to them for me to believe that their sexual orientation is predetermined. And hey, if our lives are our own, if our fates are ours to decide, then why not our sexual desires/partners?

* Am I the only one that thinks, because so many women have fake boobs, that real boobs have become the new "special thing"?

* Bush Jr. cheated his ass off in the last election, he had to. And you know what, I think he's smarter than we think. It's a scarey thing, either we, the American people, are really stupid and he's really smart. Or, he's really stupid and we... No, that doesn't work, we're dumb either way.

All for now...

JPG.

What is the Point?

Okay, so Howard Stern is moving to satellite. Am I the only one who thinks this will actually hurt him? No, I don't stand with those who feel he's abandoning radio, and I'm not unhappy that he's leaving. But, for a while, I've wondered about what is the big attraction to his radio show. It's radio. I can understand if it was about the cursing, but radio is not a visual medium, so who cares if there's a naked chick in the studio?

I think Howard won't change much after the big move, except for his language. We'll get a lot of cursing for sure, sex talk, that kind of thing, but I predict not much of an actual change. He'll still be Howard, he'll continue to do what he's been doing, and then people will see just how tame Howard is really.

Until radio comes with vid screens, or Howard's E! show moves to HBO, I'll continue to wonder about the fuss or excitement over having naked chicks on a radio show...

YOU CAN'T SEE THEM!

JPG.

Test Drive

Okay, so I've come this far, might as well go the whole nine, right?

What the hell am I doing? Do I honestly think I'm THIS important to deserve my own shrine for my thoughts? Where others can see just how stupid I really am?

UGH!

Well, too late to back out now.

So, why am I doing this? Mostly for myself, to fuel my delusions of grandeur. That I may someday be the new Ellis or King, where people will read my little ditties and comment on how insightful I am.

But does it really matter?

My comments are about my world, not yours. We all live in our own space, our own perceptions of reality,governed by rules we've created, foundations that allow us to live our lives as we see fit. So, does what I say about anything really matter to you? My world. My rules. YOUR world. YOUR rules.

I've learned all too often that sometimes we just need the hear our own voices. Diaries, journals, blogs, it's all the same. We just need to think openly, but we're being more honest about it now, admitting that no matter how secret we try to be, we really want to express them to someone, anyone. Because, what's the point otherwise? Sure, we say we don't want others to know our secrets, but then we tell someone knowing that it'll spread. It's a lesson we all learned in highschool.

Hey, but maybe that's just me. Like I wrote earlier, MY world. And here, we all want to be heard by someone.