THESE ARE THE DAYS

I’m just now settling down from a two-day mad-on.

I’m a very paranoid person, and while I know I can’t plan for everything, I try my best. Two days ago, JM told me she saw a strange man pacing in front of our bedroom window last week. I lashed out at her for ten minutes, asking how she could let something like that happen without doing anything or mentioning it to me. I went on and on while she kept quiet and her silence only fueled my tirade. Finally, while washing the dishes and without looking at me, she said it never happened. She was “testing” me to see how much I trusted her. But that only made me angrier and I let her have it with both barrels.

I slept on the couch that night, or tried to anyway. I was so angry I couldn’t fall asleep. I tossed and turned; waking up several times until the alarm finally went off. When JM came into the living room to wake me, it felt like I hadn’t slept at all.

The next day, we spoke on the phone and I was brief. I wanted her to know how angry and insulted I was because she lied to me and treated me like some high school boyfriend. I don’t like tests in general, but I really hate when people test me in any way. Not only do I find it immature, but also it only makes me wonder about their true motives. Women will tell guys they’re just testing them, but no matter what they call it, it’s lying, plain and simple. And, if they can lie about one thing, what else are they lying about? I lay on that couch for the first time in five years questioning my wife’s honesty. My insecurities just went off like a volcano.

I was angry for a long time, but in all honesty, it started subsiding the next day. But, I wasn’t going to let JM know that. I wanted to teach her a lesson. I wanted her to feel bad for what she’d done. And, most important, I wanted her to make up for it. A lot of people have the misconception that with marriage there’s an end to the games people play in relationships. That’s not true. You just graduate to a whole new level. The games have bigger and longer lasting consequences. And, they’re harder to get away with because your “opponent” knows you so well.

I was trying to bluff my wife so she would believe I was still angry when I wasn’t. The pay-off was having her go the extra mile for my forgiveness. I thought I had her when she apologized twice, but she stayed strong. I knew if something didn’t happen soon, she’d eventually get mad at me for holding a grudge. Then the tides would turn and I’d be the one asking for forgiveness.

I had my first appointment with a psychologist yesterday. I call her “Dr. Shrinker.”

I’ve been to counseling before, four years ago, when my wife and I were having trouble, and I enjoyed the experience immensely. But, Dr. Shrinker was nothing like that psychologist. Her office was huge and empty. The shades were drawn and she spoke softly. I sat in her waiting area for a good ten minutes before she came out because she had an “In Session” sign on her door. When she did come out, I learned the sign was there in preparation for my arrival. She spoke real soft, and I almost verbally stepped on her toes, saying hello while she was in the middle of introducing herself. She showed me into her office, and I had no idea where she wanted me to sit. There were two big easy chairs and a couch several feet apart from one another. She gestured for me to sit in one chair, and she sat in the other, almost ten feet away.

I felt like The Shadow had put me in his “blue room”.

We sat looking at one another for seconds before I got the hint she wanted me to just start talking when I felt comfortable. I started with why I was there: anxiety, eating disorder, and poor self-image. But then I started ranting uncontrollably. One minute I was talking about eating, then anxiety, then my need to feel desired, then my family and friends. Only twice did she say anything, and it was only the stereotypical questions, like: “And how did that make you feel?” I had no idea therapists actually ask that question. You’d think they’d phrase it differently or something.

The hour went by fast, and I didn’t expect a diagnosis, but she did give me some insight as to what she was hearing as I rambled on. Her comments were interesting and she asked if I wanted to continue and I said yes before she even finished the question. Again, stepping on her toes in mid-sentence.

I went home and my mother was there. Funny, I’d just spoken about her and there she was. Like she felt her ears burning and knew I was talking shit about her. She stayed for a while, but the mood was uneasy because I was still acting when I felt pretty damn good. My session had left me drained. I’d poured my heart out and still had plenty more left, but was too tired to think about it. It sucked because Shrinker’s initial analysis was so dead on I wanted to talk to her about it, but my time was up. I think shrinks do that on purpose. They give you a hint of your problem and show you the door so it can stew instead of you responding to it immediately without thinking.

The night went on as usual, except I was very quiet, monotone and brief. The kids went to bed early. JM and I watched Inked and Criss Angel: Mindfreak.

Criss Angel is the most disturbing magician I’ve ever seen. If it’s not enough that he looks like a rock star and listens to Korn, he’s also damn convincing as a performer. Seldom do you see a magician or illusionist that has you questioning if magic truly exists. But Angel is like Dr. Strange. He’ll attempt a stunt, and examine it from a metaphysical perspective. He doesn’t treat them as “tricks”, but experimentations that prove the paranormal abilities of the human mind and body. For instance, last night, he had to guess which car had his $100, 000 in a car lot of a Dodge dealership. I forget the method he was using, but it dealt with telepathy through reading a person’s involuntary physical movements. To practice, he challenged a world-class poker champion to five hands of poker and beat her just by reading her body. This cat is so cool, he started flirting with her on camera, but I suspect he was trying to get a response he could read. And I have to admit; she was hot. And, it doesn’t hurt that Angel is built like a superhero. Watching him in action only made me think about a pitch Bloody Pencil and I had to revamp Dr. Strange with special emphasis on his time in the Far East. I won’t spill it here because I still hope to use it someday.

Angel found the money and won a free Viper. Cool stuff.

JM and I were watching that when she came snuggling up to me on the couch. Her period was over, she had on a new patch on, and I couldn’t act any more. It started with caressing my lips on her shoulder. Then her arm, and I kept going lower until caresses became kisses. Kisses became cunnilingus. And, that turned into the best angry sex I’ve ever had.

If the kids weren’t asleep in the next room, I would have slapped her ass and screamed obscenities. I counted five vaginal contractions before a week’s worth of sexual tension, anger, frustration, and love left me. JM lay on the couch, too tired to change positions, while my body went limp and I fell back first into my son’s walker. I screamed and tried to recover, but only ended up smacking myself into the foot stool of my daddy chair before hitting the floor and waking the kids. My son was crying, my daughter was calling for mommy, and JM was stuck on the couch and unable to move.

My older half-brother once told me: “If you fuck your woman and she doesn’t fall asleep or if she gets up right after, you haven’t done your job.”

JM lay on the couch, dreamy eyed, saying: I can’t move. My legs are shaking.” In a half-dead voice and I knew my brother would be proud. I got dressed and answered the call. Daddy slept with the kids while mommy was passed out on the couch.

I awoke today tired and weak from the night before. I had my annual review and passed. I get my salary increase and move up another notch on the pay scale. My supervisor went over her remarks and I felt bad because she filled it with so much fluff I felt undeserving. Plus, she’s a nice person to boot. I fought my compulsion to be honest and tell her she was wrong. I wasn’t a good employee. I sucked. I’d sent a year barely doing anything, but my own work, writing Lazarus, managing production, surfing the net, and trying to hit on a twenty-something med student. But, I kept my mouth shut because one more week and out. And fuck them if I leave a shit load of work behind. Someone did it to me, now I’m returning the favor. Plus, it’s what these people get for treating me the way they did. It was weird though, because she kept mentioning what would have occurred if I’d stayed. It felt like a sales pitch, but things have gone too far for me to back out now, so why make the effort? She mentioned the possibility of my coming back and I almost wanted to laugh. Then I thought about it; considered it, then spent an hour chasing down a specimen and consent, thanking God all the way because I’m leaving. I don’t know what to expect from my new job, but it’s got to be better than this one

The last three days have been fun with one hell of a pay-off. I can’t wait to see what’s coming up next.

A coworker of mine, a receptionist, let’s call her “Big Tits” (Doc, you know of who I speak) wants to talk to me about something. I barely talk to her and now she wants to talk to me about something “personal”. I’ve been eyeing this chick for years. She’s from Chile and has the biggest rack… That, plus an unforgiving accent and long brown hair is enough to drive you mad with lust. I first noticed her when my wife and I were having troubles and I’ll admit, I flirted, hoping she was a skank. Turns out she’s in college and her fiancé just cheated on her. That blew my mind. She’s not in her prime anymore, but when she was, it was beyond me to understand whom and why someone would fuck anyone but her. Even after things were better in my marriage, and I apologized for my aggressive and rude advances, I couldn’t stop looking at her and those huge freckled breasts. She’s forever wearing low cut tops and they just hang there, big, drooping, like their full of milk and Victoria just can’t support secrets that big. Of course, as far as she knows, I’m no longer interested. I only talk to her when she speaks to me. When I moved to her floor, I started greeting her in the morning and that’s it. But every payday, I stand waiting for her to hand over my check, telling her to take her time as I secretly stare at her.

Much like Actor and JG, I tried hooking Big Tits up with a friend of mine, Doc. Boy, is that a story. I’ll wait until he give me the okay before I tell it here, but trust me, it something ALL of my friends still joke about. Three words: Pink, Feather, and Boa.

Then, without my being involved in any way, she started talking to Actor. They hit it off and went out a couple of times, but Actor wasn’t interested in her. Still, despite his unyielding blonde hair and blue eyes Playboy requirements, even he was taken in by her huge chest and seductive accent. And that hair… Fuck! Despite being, “hefty”, and I’ve already admitted being into that; she’s a fucking knockout, amplified by her hot and spicy ways. Doc told me, once she likes you; she’s unapologetic and aggressive as hell. On their date, she stood across from Doc, telling him how she’d do ANYTHING for her man. How he was “wounded” and she wanted to heal him. Doc knew if he was a lesser man, he could have had her that night, and it was their first date.

I think being cheated on changed her. When first met her, she seemed a little uptight, not much, but a good Chilean Catholic girl who wants to get married and destroy her body by having a bunch of kids. Then, after what Doc told me, whatever made her man cheat turned her into a sexual predator. Once she likes you, she’s all over you from day one.

Damn, and I had to go and get married. Fuck!

So, Big Tits calls me over as I’m headed downstairs for a smoke and says she wants to talk with me when I return. But, when I got back, she wasn’t alone and blew me off until tomorrow. I asked her if I was in “trouble”, I knew I wasn’t, it was just my lame attempt at a cute remark. She said no, but whatever it was, it was personal. Too personal to talk about openly and I’m wondering what the fuck it could be.

She knows I’m leaving. Could my fake attempts at non-interest finally have paid off? Will she make a pass at me? Or, will she ask me yet another annoying question about Actor? I hate when she does that. Just run it in my face why doesn’t she. All these years I’ve wanted her and she’s head over hills for Actor, and he doesn’t even like her.

What’s next, JG asking me for Doc’s number?

But, she’s probably going to ask why I’m leaving, or worse, about my weight gain. Great, that’ll be fun. Nothing’s better than admitting your inadequacies to a hot chick.

Tomorrow should be very interesting.

JPG.

THE BIG FAT DISAPPOINTMENT

Even before the Sin City movie premiered, Robert Rodriguez told us what to expect from the dvd release: a slew of bonus material, another Film School segment, the option to play the movie’s three storylines independently, and my favorite, Cooking School.

If my Circuit City is any indication, Sin City will have huge sales numbers this week. At my store, the display case was near empty and had already been re-stocked three times before I arrived.

But, as happy as I was to finally enjoy the film in the privacy of my home with my wife sitting beside me, I was disappointed that none of the options Rodriguez spoke of were included.

Like Marv so eloquently pus it: “It hit me like a kick in the nuts.”

Usually, after I see a movie in the theater and buy the dvd, my opinions change for the better. But, Sin City was as mediocre at home as it was in the theater.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but I don’t see it as the crowning achievement so many held it to be. Its problem is, like some new comic publishers, it cannibalized itself. I never knew what this was until Merlyn explained it to me: Comic book consumers only have so much money and most of it goes to the primary publishers like DC and Marvel. What’s left is spent on one-shots and books from smaller publishers. (In the case of Crossgen) Premiering with two or three books, allowed people the opportunity to try them out. Once they liked them, they would continue to buy those two or three books. But, if the publisher expands too quickly, they lessen the possibility of those consumers’ ability to buy their books. If the consumer can only afford purchasing two or three titles, and the publisher comes out with four of five books, it forces the comics buyer to choose which books they will buy. While the publisher assumes the best, thinking if people like the first three, they’ll continue to buy the additional one or two. Soon, you have customers choosing which three books to buy in a line-up of twenty.

What later happened to Crossgen was they became repetitious. They began with one book covering one genre. But then they came out with two or three books dealing with one genre or it’s sub-genre. Sigil and Negation both dealt with science fiction. Scion, Mystic, and Sojourn dealt with fantasy from different perspectives. Scion was a mixture of fantasy and technology. Mystic was all magic. And, Sojourn was more like Tolkien. There are fans of all three, but at 2.99 an issue, if you only have ten dollars and you also like their other titles, you have to make a choice.

Sin City suffered from the same thing, sort of. Rodriguez took three stories and meshed them into one movie. But, each story was published years apart. The first story, now entitled The Hard Goodbye, was serialized in 1991, ending in 1992. A Dame to Kill For, Miller’s second Sin City story introducing Dwight was published in 1993. The Big Fat Kill was a year later. And, That Yellow Bastard was in 1996. Each of them were six-issue miniseries. Taking three of Miller’s stories originally published separately at yearly intervals and meshing them together allowed for visible repetitions of style and dialogue that weren’t so easily detectable before.

Another problem was the well-intentioned effort to adapt the books panel by panel from the comic. In the Behind the Scenes featurette from the dvd, Rodriguez said he didn’t want to take the comic and turn it into a movie. He wanted to turn the movie into a comic. But, in doing so, he failed to properly interpret the actions in real time. The consequences were scenes that looked frozen and ridiculous, breaking the audience out of their suspension.

Example: In The Big Fat Kill, after getting rid of Shelly’s cop boyfriend, Rafferty, by drowning him in urine, Dwight watches him and his crew leaving in a drunken rage. Standing on a ledge outside Shelly’s window, Dwight jumps to the street below to his car. In the comic, a narrative accompanies Dwight’s action –jumping to the street. One aspect of comics separating them from film is the ability to freeze time. A series of actions can last for pages so we can get into the heads of the people involved. In comics, it works. In film, it doesn’t. The same scene on film looks ridiculous, as Clive Owen hovers on unseen wires, floating in mid-air before hitting the ground.

The same goes for dialogue. Lines like: “My warrior woman; my Valkyrie…” got more laughs than anything else.

I won’t say Rodriguez’s and Miller’s film is how not to do a comic movie. Instead, I see them going from one extreme to the other, from those who re-interpret too greatly, to others who are way too faithful.

The saving grace of Sin City the movie is the same as the comics. It’s violent and unapologetic homage to the hard-hitting noir novels and films of yesteryear. From a technical point of view, the movie is gorgeous, as are the comics. The bright reds and gold against a stark black & white are mesmerizing. And, capturing the textures from the inked pages on film was powerful.

Watching Sin City just reminded me how perfect Batman Begins was, and why. Like Sin City, Batman Begins was a mixture of several chapters from the character’s life or lives, but instead of having only one creator to draw from, they had several. A large chunk was taken from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, but a little Dennis O’Neil was in there to.

Nolan and Goyer took the source material and built on it, removing or slightly altering anything that wouldn’t translate properly. Since 1989’s Batman, many fans feel strongly about not having characters in black leather or rubber suits instead of spandex. But, in Begins, Nolan makes it work by minimizing style and emphasizing function. And, through that, creating it’s a style all it’s own. It’s “funky”, but it worked. Looking at the suit independently, it’s pretty boring. But, within the context of the film, it has a power that’s overwhelming.

With Sin City 2 and 3 on the way, I’m left wondering how fans will respond this time. Will they love it or hate it? But, I think both Miller and Rodriguez may have already learned from their mistakes because rumor reports say Miller is completely re-writing segments and writing an original story for the sequel.

But, I have one major question. With the source material being drained, will Frank or Rodriguez bring the last Sin City story, Hell and Back, to the screen? It’s the only one of Frank’s series to star a black hero and heroine.

Will they be ignored?

UPDATE

Lazarus is moving slow, but it is moving.

The last pages are approved and moving from detailed layouts to finishes. The lettering suffered a major set back during the convention season, but should pick up this week. And, the same goes for the coloring. Glasshouse is putting two people on the job and the boss himself is looking over things.

I’m prepping my Image proposal and while the synopsis will be a synch, thanks to Merlyn, but the cover letter is a bitch.

I hate writing cover letters. I never know what I should write and everyone expects something different. If they want to know about me, I go into too much detail. If they want my experience, it just reads like a resume. And, if they want to know about the project, it comes off like a sales pitch.

I’m to the point of seriously considering just hiring someone to do it for me.

I’m thinking a lot about LAZARUS: The Video Game and having some great ideas, if I can only get a chance to pitch them. I’ve been trying to meet with a designer for months now, and I’m hoping I’ll finally get my chance soon.

The way I’d describe is Devil May Cry in a Grand Theft Auto type world. Lazarus is free-roaming through a Gehenna City full of citizens. The cool part is finding your targets. You’d switch to first person POV to spot a demon. Then, your strategy is to confront the target openly, or try to lure them away from a populated area. In private, it’s a one on one fight. In public, you could attract other demons or their agents and be outnumbered.

Then, my favorite, the flashback sequences would be levels integrated into the gameplay and left separate as bonuses to be won.

You can change clothes and get new tattoos. There are hand-to-hand combat, cool weapons, the whole nine.

But, the idea I would really like to see is damage control. Having Lazarus get fucked up and showing damage and the healing process in real-time. And, the boss battles would be like Final Fantasy with gorgeous cinematic scenes accompanying actual gameplay, like God of War.

If I get to do that… Damn, would that be something!

JPG.

RED DRAGON

Prelude...

What Truths May Come

I have a secret I’ve been holding for most of my life, ever since I gained appreciation for the opposite sex.

I’ve denied it to friends and family. Ridiculed others who shared the same affliction. I’ve even gone out of my way to excuse myself when it looked as if my secret would go public.

But this morning I realized that my ghost has taken a life of it’s own and demands attention. It won’t go away, it no longer will fit in my closet of secrets. I must let it out once and for all.

I like fat chicks.

My one saving grace is, while I like “chunky” women, I’m not so far gone that weight is the only quality they have that attracts me. Facial appearance, shape, breast size, sexual energy, they all factor into it. And, I’m not into the obese or grossly overweight. Nothing can make a women covered in cellulite pretty in my book. But, I can’t hide it anymore, I like fat chicks, and they turn me on.

I think it started with Hispanic women. Most of them are hefty to say the least, but they wear clothes meant for much smaller women. Their confidence and freedom immediately drew me to them. So did their ample bosoms, shapely figures, and round butts. Walter Mosley also had something to do with it. In Easy Rawlins books, he writes fondly of hefty black women; “big mommas” who cradle their men like infants in their cleavage.

As a young man, I would often find these women attractive, but join in when my friends would berate them in public. I would turn my head in disgust while sneaking a peek at them when no one was looking. I successfully convinced all, but my wife that was like everyone else in my disdain for the larger females. Sometimes, I would slip and had to do damage control before anyone caught on. I’d make excuses and even go so far as using some of the words often used by the BBW propaganda machine. Usually, my friends would forgive my lapse of judgment, figuring I was a “breast man” horny for big boobs and that sometimes blinded me to the truth.

I went along with them as long as it kept me secret hidden a little while longer. But, in the dark of my living room, alone, in the early hours of the morning, I would take out my copy of Black Holes or Booty Dreams and salivate over big women with small breasts, fat butts, and kissing thighs.

This morning I awoke from a dream that I’ve never had before. IN it, I was separated from my wife and lived in a small apartment where my neighbor was a blonde BBW who out weighed me and was much taller. None of this happened in the dream, my brain just knew the back-story and plopped me down in the middle. I was in the BBW’s apartment and succumbing to her advances that lead me to her bedroom where she gave me oral sex. That’s all I wanted, and I enjoyed it, but as she proceeded I saw my penis dwarfed by in comparison to her size. Most BBW’s prefer men with large penises because they are so big themselves it’s easier for a well-equipped man to get around them. In my case, the woman was not only bigger in size, but also taller than me, so my average length proved more difficult for her to manage. Things got worse when she positioned herself for a sixty-nine and while I was able to spread her thighs apart, her mound was too far away. I couldn’t reach her to return the favor she was doing me and the whole thing ended abruptly. The last thing I remember is being dressed and walking out of her apartment, questioning if I should ask her to take special care not to mention this to my wife. Or, if by doing that, I would almost guarantee she would.

I lost my virginity to a BBW when I was seventeen and I know from experience how delicate a situation it can be. She was bigger than me and whether I was skilled or not, I was unable to satisfy her because of her girth. After that, I decided that it was best for me to date more petite women, but my Charlie Brown luck kicked in and I learned petite women prefer taller men to shrimps like me.

Rejected by big women and small women leaves me feeling like a sexual anomaly. Just like trying to find a pair of pants that fit perfectly, I need a woman somewhere in the middle.

...End of Prelude.

JG wrote me today.

I keep dancing closer and closer into the danger zone with her. One of these days I’ll either say something totally out of line or I’ll creep her out and she’ll disappear.

Luckily, she hasn’t read my latest entries, so I have time to change them.

It’s hard chatting or writing her because when I do there’s something in me that’s awakened and I want to open myself up to things I should leave well enough alone. I regress to the kid who jumped on any girl that liked him, even if it was just a little, or just wanted to be friends. I may have done that today when I asked her if she would give me the time of day if I were single.

Ouch. Could I be more desperate? What am I doing? Why am I so fascinated by tempting fate? Thank god I don’t gamble or I’d have nothing left.

What?
What was the answer?
Oh, that’s the worst part. She said she didn’t know. That she doesn’t have the hindsight to answer a “What if” question like that.

Just shoot me dead where I stand.

I’m not even sure what I’m looking for, asking a question like that.

I’m married. I have kids.
Where am I going with this?
Is it jus the excitement of it all?
The drama?

Per chance to find some validation for living or believing that I may have some self-worth?

Desire is a big thing for me. It’s proof that a person is wanted, that they have some value to someone. Without that, what’s the point of living? If no one desires you, then you have no reason for being. You’re worthless. You could drop dead tomorrow and no one would know. There are differences in desire that could give you some value, but there’s only one that really matters, to me anyway.

I put a lot of weight on the shallow things in life. Physical appearance and stuff like that are far more important to me than anything else. Maybe it’s because I’ve had the other, deeper, qualities in abundance for so long? After a while, you crave what you don’t have over what everyone sees in you. The love of your wife dims in comparison to the primal need of a woman who wants to mount you. Even making love isn’t as exciting as pure fucking. Soon, you begin to question, if not for those emotions like love, would your significant other be attracted to you at all?

I keep asking myself if my wife loves me, or if she’s learned to love me? Is she attracted to me, or does she just appreciate me? Does she rationalize our marriage by assuming her life would be much worse if not for me?

My marriage is such an anomaly that I can’t help, but to question it. How did my wife go from someone who did everything she could to get rid of me and almost overnight changed to someone who couldn’t live without me? And, this is before I became a man. This is when I was a child, still grasping to unrealistic notions about marriage and relationships. How? How could this have happened, when it never worked with anyone else before?

And, I guess that is at the core of it. I’m not some horny husband looking to cheat on his wife. I’m looking for validation, because if someone else can find me desirable, then it would explain why my wife is with me. Without knowing that, I just can’t believe she’s with me for the right reasons.

There’s an event that sticks out in my mind and no amount of counseling has been able to get rid of it. My wife and I had been dating less than a year and already we’d broken up several times for various reasons, most of them stemming from her not being ready for a deep commitment and I was pushing for nothing less. This time around, an old boyfriend had come back and she was calling it quits with me to be with him. I remember it vividly: we were having our last lunch together at Ralph’s on LaBrea and 3rd Street. My wife, let’s call her “JM”, and I finished our meal and she explained why we were breaking up because someone else was in the picture. I was begging her not to leave me, but there was no amount of poetry that would work on her. She wanted to end the date right there in the lunch area, but I insisted I walk her back to her office. There, on the street, in front of anyone walking by, at the front door, I begged for one last kiss. It always worked in the past and I was hoping it would again. But, JM was ready for it. She said no and when I pushed, she pushed back.

I remember the look in her eyes at that moment. I disgusted her. I was the lowliest man she’d ever seen, if I qualified as a man at all. She pushed me back and told me to: “Get the fuck away from me! Leave me alone, I don’t want to be with you!” she went back in her office and let me crushed on the sidewalk to stand alone at the bus stop where everyone had witnessed my undoing.

This is the woman who I know call my wife. That same girl who screamed at me and told me to get the fuck away from her now pledged her love for me.

I always tell my friends never to measure the success of their relationships by what I went through because it was a miracle. A miracle…

As miracles go, this one had a weird sense of humor. As much as I remember that day, I don’t recall how we got back together, but we did. And, as bad as that day was, the worst was yet to come. Fake suicide attempts. Arguments over the phone, infidelity, and lies about blood cults, and the ghost of a fictional dead lover; we went through it all. Somewhere along the way, JM says she fell in love with me. To this day she says she always loved me. Even though she broke up with me, she could never get me out of her head. The one time the tables turned is after I cowered back to her, saying I would let her see someone else, as long as she stayed with me. She was seeing the ex-boyfriend from before and I was getting the leftovers. She told me that seeing two guys was killing her. She was guilty and it wasn’t fair to either one. Hearing the pain in her voice did something to me.

It was a Sunday night, and for the first time, I felt strong. I told her how I didn’t want to be a source of pain for her. If I had to let her go, I would. If she couldn’t make a choice between us, I would do it for her. I let her go and told her to be with the other man. After I said that, the tides turned and she was the one on the phone crying. She was begging me not to do it, not to leave. She told me she didn’t know what she’d do without me. I tried to hang-up the phone, I was going out with my brother to the West End, but she wouldn’t let me go without promising I’d see her the next day.

That Monday afternoon, after we had lunch at the same Ralph’s, we stood in front of her office, just as before, except now, we were kissing passionately. She promised she’d dump the other guy and stay with me. And, I believed her.

She continued seeing the other man for another month before she confessed what was going on and ended it. We were still in our infancy, we hadn’t even passed the six months and we’d put each other through hell. And most often, I was on the receiving end. And then, it all went away. Just like that. I just woke up one day and she loved me. No more fighting. No more denial. No more arguments. We were finally in love. After that, came the day when her mother gave her the ultimatum to go home or stay with me. She chose me and we moved in together, got married, had kids, and the rest is history.

It’s been ten years since we were married. Eleven and a half years from the day we first met. And, as happy as I am, as much as I love her, I still question what happened. What changed in her and why? I ask her all the time if she can remember when she fell in love with me. She’ll say she always did love me, but she was afraid, and one day she just stopped fighting and accepted it.

Accepted it.
Like, “accepting” death?
Like, surrendering?

Did she learn she was in love with me? Or, did she learn to love me?

Things just don’t add up and it’s plagued me for years. JM and I have a deep love, but our passion has always been one sided. I’m hot for her and she’s warm for me. Is that love? Sure, kids can douse the flames of passion, but what if they weren’t there to begin with? Is JM’s love based on me being a good man? Or, is it primal and relentless? Is it the same kind of love I have for her that would make me do anything, denounce God, throw away my pride, and sacrifice self-respect just for a kiss?

And shouldn't we want more than that? If we don't, then aren't we surrendering to the mundane? I want to feel that fire, that passion, that unquenching desire when a woman must have her man. I want to know what that feels like, when a woman surrenders herself to desire and falls into my arms. I want to be on the recieving end of that hunger. it physically hurts not knowing what they feels like. Wondering if I ever will. And realizing that I'm not one to inspire it, not even in my own wife.

I am the Red Dragon Thomas Harris wrote about. I am one who wants to be desired by others, and sometimes I feel like I could kill for that feeling. I look at women and wonder what it would feel like to be wanted and desired by them. I always thought my weight was the one thing that kept me from that, but I was wrong. I lost al that weight and nothing changed. When that happened, I saw no need to be skinny. My own pleasure of accomplishment wasn't enough to sustain me, not without fulfilling my dreams of being desired.

My wife did desire me more, but that only left more questions unanswered. If she treated me one way when I lost weight, then what was she thinking, how did she feel before? And, what would happen if I gained the weight back? I did gain the weight back, and her passion died with it. So, how does she feel? What does she see when she looks at me? What is her love based on if she's with someone she's not attracted to? And, how long before she can't live like that anymore?

Doc said I have no faith. And, in matters of the heart, you need faith. He’s right; I have no faith. To me, faith is admitting you can’t find the answer so you say there isn’t one. But there is an answer. Maybe it’s beyond us. Maybe we’re too afraid of it to see clearly? But, there is an answer for everything. There’s a reason why JM loves me, if she loves me, and I want to find it. If she can’t tell me, then maybe I can find it through someone else? If they can want me, maybe it’s for the same reasons JM does? If someone else finds me special, then maybe that’s why JM does?

Every woman in my life, save one, has rejected me for one reason or another. And, the only one to accept me, at one time, did her best to get rid of me. So, why is she with me now? Why does she love me, when there’s nothing about me that anyone finds desirable?

I'll do anything to find out why...

And that scares me.

JPG.

RATIONALE

Friday was a perfect example of why I'm leaving my division and transferring to a new job in the main hospital.

Ever since the news of my departure was made public, the office has been cold. No one talks to me. It's not like I talked to them all that much, but at least an effort was made to include me. Today, a new enrollment had to get done and nobody even offered me their assistance. When somebody needs help, I try to give him a hand. But today, when it got tough for me, no one even blinked.

My job probably wouldn't have been so bad if not for my coworkers. First, there's Know-It-All, everyone treats him like Mr. Super CRA. He has been there for a long time and knows his job, but there's a laziness about him to. It's not very noticeable at first, but if you pay attention you can see it. He’s very quick to pass the buck and doesn't take into account how the other person is doing before he sends more work their way. His major beef is with the management and his treatment of people isn influenced by that.

When I first started, I knew nothing. My training was abysmal and everyone knew it. But, when the supervisor assigned me with protocols and the first patient came in, Know-It-All sat on the sidelines, sending call after call my way. He hated our supervisor, everyone did except for myself and one other person, and I felt he used me to get back at her. He waited until the very last moment before he helped me and I think he was waiting for me to make a big enough mistake so he could make a stink. Having his help was worst than doing things on my own. He considers himself a learned person and takes any opportunity he can to prove it. When something requires a yes or no answer, he'll lecture for twenty-minutes claiming that he wants to teach, when in fact, he wants to show off. He complains about the system, but does nothing to change it.

His rode dawg is Bitch. Yeah, that's an accurate description. This woman is the epitome of everything I hate about the working world. She talks behind people's back, is incredibly vulgar and self-centered, and just a big pain in the ass. The scarey thing is, she reminds me of my mother.

Maybe it’s a mother thing, but I can smell her neediness from a mile away. It’s like body odor or some biological stench like a skunk. She finds a way of turning every conversation so it ultimately becomes about her. She constantly bitches about how she suffers and how the bosses are overloading her with work, but God forbid of someone else showed up, then it’s all about fixing their mistakes. She talks at an unusual volume, making sure everyone here’s her. And, she has no sense of what should and shouldn’t be spoke of in a professional environment.

Today, Bitch really pissed me off and I almost let loose. I was busy with shipping a specimen and Know-It-All mentions he’s been receiving several inquires about the positions they have available, including mine. Bitch lets out this blanket statement: “Well, I just hope they hire people who’ll do some work instead of just warming the seat for a while.” I waited for her to say: Present company excepted.” But, she never did. She just left it out there, including me in her statement, making a passive aggressive attack on me and everyone else who’d left recently for greener pastures.

One of the few things that I just can’t stand are people with no balls, and this is a perfect example. Office politics demand, even if she was talking about me, she exclude me from her statement to keep the peace. Here’s someone who never came to me once to complain. Never spoke to me once about her feelings, about me not pulling my weight. To my face, she agreed that I’d been mismanaged and when the word went out of my leaving, she said nothing about it. I’m sure she knew ahead of time because I’ve made no attempts to hide my feelings, but she still had nothing to say. Now, I’m leaving, people are calling in, and she take a stab at me for no reason. She didn’t have the balls to come to me and express herself, so she delivers a blanket statement and walks away.

I wanted to get in her face so bad, I almost risked my performance evaluation to do it. But, as I get older, I try to avoid confrontation. Not because I’m a coward, but it’s such an energy drain. It saps everything out of me and I get nothing out of it. Sometimes, getting into it is fruitful. I’m lucky to come across someone who’s able to step out of their skin, see a situation from several perspectives and in the end we’ve come to understand each other a little better. But, most of the time, the person in front of me is like my mother and Bitch, someone totally unable to see outside their own viewpoint. Everything is being done to them, nothing is their fault, and they know everything.

So I sat there stewing in my anger with her comment on replay in my brain. I was under a deadline to get this specimen out and everything had gone wrong. Know-It-All had asked me if I needed help, but I knew it was insincere, he asked just so he could say he did. I almost didn’t answer. I wanted him and Bitch to know I knew the score. I heard and understood what she said and I was pissed. But, what would that have accomplished? So, I said I was okay and kept working without looking at him.
I did my job, got the specimen out on time, only for it to mean nothing because the patient was ruled ineligible for the treatment trial. My wife called when I got the news and vented to her about Bitch and her comment. I unloaded by visiting Circuit City, paying $60 for the Thundercats dvd boxset, bought two quarts of Baskin Robbins ice cream, and went home to plant my ass in my daddy seat.

By the end of the first Thundercats disk I was feeling better. Nothing like nostalgia to make a person feel better. I was hoping my daughter would love Thundercats as much as I did as a kid, and I can’t explain how cool it was to see her singing the theme song by the second episode. We sat together in my daddy chair watching the first eleven episodes before she went to bed and I tuned in for Battlestar Galactica.

I pulled an all-nighter, falling asleep and waking up to see the Night Court marathon start on TVLand. And by Saturday morning breakfast I’d forgotten Friday ever happened. Now, it’s Sunday night, the Night Court marathon is winding down and tomorrow is another Monday at the CTO. They extended my transfer by another week on a technicality, so Monday is my official last two weeks. And, just when I was feeling bad and questioning my decisions, Friday happened, and I’m sure I’m doing the right thing. I can’t wait to start my life again. This is my opportunity to get back what I lost when I accepted the CRC job two years ago. A chance to undo the mistake I made when I let my boss creep into my brain and forgot who I was and what I was meant to do.

This week I have my first appointment with a psychologist and I’m looking forward to spilling the beans on a lot of things. Who knows, maybe with someone to talk to about these things, I won’t have to come here anymore.

We’ll see.

JPG.

BULLET IN THE HEAD

A friend once told me: “If you constantly tell your girlfriend she deserves better than you. One day, she’ll believe it.”

For years I’ve referred to myself as an idiot. I think people are starting to believe it and it’s pissing me off.

I’ve been trying not to preface a lot of what I say and write. It’s a habit of mine to protect myself when expressing my thoughts and opinions in case I’m wrong. I’ve always been afraid of saying or writing something ignorant. As a kid, I would listen to adults and try to join in on their conversations, but my parents would shut me up. I remember when I was around ten or eleven, my mother took me to a prayer group and I tried to participate by using football as an analogy for some religious message. While the other adults seemed intrigued and impressed, my mother stopped me and told me to be quiet. Afterwards, she yelled at me for speaking. I have several recollections of her telling me I talk too much, to think before I speak or don’t say anything at all.

I can’t remember being afraid to speak in public any time before that, and plenty of things happened afterwards.

I was at my father's restaurant listening to old black Tuskegee airmen talk about World War 2. The Gulf War was in full effect and I was amazed at the stories these men were telling about white American pilots challenging them to air duels and they had to shoot them down. Mr. LaDough had me hooked when he told me several American pilots weren't shot down by Germans, but crashed or was "accidentally" shot down in those duels. I opened my mouth to mention something; I don't remember what, and my dad told me to be quiet before I said something stupid. I gave my father no reason to think I had anything of value to say, but his comment hurt just the same.

In high school, I was partnered with Doc in a debate about birth control in third world countries and we were for it. It was a two-week assignment and we crunched out a report and debate material during our fifteen-minute nutrition break before class. And we would have won the debate, if not for me. One of the opposing team members asked if I was for abortion and I said no. The class thought I was hypocritical and voted against us. All their reports said I cost is the debate. None of them understood the difference between abortion and other means of birth control where the egg and sperm aren't allowed to meet. My thinking was simple: Use a condom the pill, the egg and sperm don't meet, there's no fetus and no death. Abortion is the opposite, it's the lack of birth control, and you get pregnant and kill the fetus. I knew what I meant. Doc knew what I meant. The fucking teacher knew what I meant. But everyone in the class said we lost and it was my fault.

Even when I'm sure of a topic, I've been burnt. One night Bloody Pencil, Merlyn, and myself were discussing Mark Millar's first Ultimates issue. Merlyn hated it and it's portrayal of Captain America. I liked it and said how great it was that someone finally got it right, showing Cap as the soldier he's always been. Merlyn immediately countered by saying Cap was never a soldier. He's been portrayed as such in recent times, but he was never originally a soldier. Merlyn took great pleasure in catching me off guard and laughing his ass off. But since that day, even in a comic store, I'm hesitant to speak my mind. The one thing I always thought I knew was comics and without knowing Merlyn had taken that away.

It’s not Merlyn’s fault. I was wrong and he called me on it.
It’s not my dad’s fault. He was joking and my family doesn’t abide with people having weak skin.
I don’t even blame my classmates who stole the victory from us. For over ten years, Doc has told me we should be thankful we got through it at all because we blew it off until the last minute.
I do blame my mother a little because she took a child to places he shouldn’t have been. But, at the same time, I do have a habit of talking without thinking first. And all this comes together to form a massive insecurity about speaking in public, sharing my opinions, and generally feeling like I’m a fool.

Now, I question everything I say. I run it through my head a dozen times before I utter a word. I think carefully about the subject matter and decide if I should speak at all. If I voice an opinion, I get nervous. I preface with: “In my opinion…” or “As far as I know…” And, my personal favorite: “I know I’m an idiot, but…” I also use that as a closing if I’m trying to be funny or become uncertain of what I’ve said during my delivery.

In elementary school, I remember talking to a friend as he watched a porn video. Our conversation wasn’t about the sex, but a scene where someone sang a song called “I May Be Dumb, But I’m Not Stupid.” In high school, I got into the habit of saying that often when someone seemed surprised at my level of intelligence or knowledge on a subject. Instead of berating them for thinking so little of me, or enjoying their flattery, I denounced their discovery by insisting I was ignorant, just not as ignorant as they thought.

I’m getting older and I’m starting to hate people for treating me like I don’t have clue. It’s not their fault; I’ve done it to myself. Even if I told them to stop, I doubt it would make a difference because they’ve grown too accustom to thinking that way. Trying to change things now would probably start a fight and I’m tired of confrontation. I’m not a coward, I just don’t like drama as much as I used to. I’m more of a connoisseur now. I only like certain kinds of drama in my life, like getting mixed up with a pretty med student, and anything else is not worth my time.

Ironically, the smartest man I know and ever met is the only person to treat me like I’m not a drooling moron. He’s the first to stop me when I put myself down. Here, I call him “Doc.”

I’ve known Doc going on twenty years. We met through a mutual friend, and though he had no idea who I was, I knew him before we ever saw each other. We attended the same elementary school, but he left before I arrived. And, as dumb kids will do, they saw me as Doc’s replacement and went out of their way to show they weren’t happy about it. Funny thing was, Doc told me his classmates were not warm to him either. So, when I told him about the whole he left, he couldn’t understand it.

Not to digress for long, but there is a weird transformation that occurs in students before a major transition, like going from eighth grade to high school, or graduating high school to college. Suddenly, everyone is your friend and they give a damn. It’s the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever experienced. People who never knew I was alive suddenly wanted my signature in their yearbook or asked me if I was going to prom. I remember going to senior prom and everyone shook my hand and gave me the nod. Well, not everyone. My date asked me to the prom only to make her boyfriend jealous, and he spent the whole night bumping into me on the dance floor, acting like it was my fault. Fucker. And fuck her to. I wanted my high school years to play out like a John Hughes movie, and it did…if John was a racist high on crack.

Soon after Doc and I were formally introduced we hit it off. In retrospect, how we became such close friends is beyond me. We couldn’t have been any more different. Doc comes from a respected and accomplished family. At fifteen, he already spoke two languages and familiar with writing in Japanese. He’d seen more of the world than people three times his age and just looking at him you knew he was going somewhere. I was still new to LA after living in Orange County. I’d just spent half a year among the worst kids imaginable who inflicted horrors upon me in the name of somebody I didn’t know and they didn’t even like. Most of those kids went to the same high school, so it all just carried over. I was a D average student who hated school. My family life was non-existent. And, I’d already avoided one fight my first week because I was a black kid wearing a denim jacket instead of Fila. Still, from the first handshake, we were tighter than… I don’t thing there’s any comparison.

Our roles were defined the first day we met. Doc already earned several colored belts in karate and when he asked I told him I knew a little. I didn’t. I didn’t know a damn thing. I was use to playing kung fu with kids in second and third grade. We all thought we knew kung fu from watching movies. We’d challenge each other on the daily basis and make up styles based on movies and animals. When a kid asked if you knew kung fu, you just assumed that he was full of shit and went along with it. But Doc was the real thing, and when he asked I had no idea he could back it up. We met after school at a park, him, his crew, myself and one other person, but I don’t remember who it was. I don’t think it was “Fitz”. Doc showed up in a karate gi and I knew I was in trouble, but I had no way out. He asked to see my kata and I had no idea what a kata was.

He said: “Let me see what you can do.” And I started my routine. I’ll say this for myself; I’ve been in some embarrassing situations, walking into things no rational person would dare get into, but I got through them. I endured them. I didn’t run or find an easy way out, I went head on into the fire, got burned, but survived the ordeal. Here was a situation I knew was bad. Doc was a real deal martial artist and I was full of shit. In front of his peeps and my one supporter, who believed I knew something, I was about to embarrass myself. I could have talked my way out of it. I could have just admitted to being full of shit. But there was no way in hell I was going to back down. So, I started my routine. I channeled every kung fu movie I ever saw, every Chinese comic I’d read, every anime I’d seen and did the funkiest thing… Man, it was bad. Doc fell to the ground laughing, and I’ve done my best to keep him laughing no matter what happens. Even when we split-up after three years of being inseparable, I still tried to make him laugh. I don’t remember why or how we split. Doc and I had our own small group of geeks we hung with. Doc will say I was the leader. If not for me, none of us would have gathered. But, I say whoever sits at the head of the table is the boss and that was Doc. He gave the rest of us clout. We weren’t just geeks, we were nerds, and there is a difference. Geeks are lowly weird people ignorant about everything except what they’re obsessed with, like comics. Nerds are smart, misunderstood, and turn obsession into lucrative careers; they legitimize it and go mainstream. I was a geek masquerading among nerds.

Before Doc, I was always Sherlock Holmes and my friends were Watson. I was Huck to their Tom. I was the cool one. But my friendship with Doc was the first time I felt like a sidekick and I put myself there because it seemed to fit. But after a while it got to me and I lashed out. I remember accusing him of being a racist. Of not wanting me to stand up to him and thinking I was beneath him. He didn’t think that, I did. I saw him excelling while I stood still. Things were fine, but I soon became jealous of all he had that I wanted. Everyone accepted him. He was a freshman in high school that hung around college students and adults. His mother would let him drink beer and attend an annual Christmas party with strippers. Just the fact he lived with is mother while mine dumped me on my father made me mad. And, one year the stripper was Asian. Doc liked Asian women and Asian women like Doc. I watched as this gorgeous Philippine woman worked Doc over and she loved it more than he did. I watched as people cheered, but when she came near me, she left before I could even smile at her. That night, as much as I loved Doc, I watched him surrounded by his mates drinking Corona’s and I hated him. Things eventually came a head and our friendship was “interrupted”.

Thankfully, things worked themselves out and we recovered. I told Doc about my inferiority complex and he told me about what his life was really like. We saw each other in two totally different ways. To me, Doc was Superman. He had it all and I wanted it. To Doc, his life was crap; he was barley getting by and saw me as a kick-ass warrior surviving on my wits. I reminded him how much he has to be thankful for and all he’s accomplished. He told me something that I’ve always needed to hear: “If you only applied yourself, there’s nothing you couldn’t do. You’re one of the smartest people I know, you just don’t have any confidence in yourself.”

From that point on our roles changed. I wasn’t a sidekick anymore. I was his peer. I think it was at that moment I actually saw myself as his friend and not his pupil. I look at Doc now with no envy or jealousy, just happiness. He’s still Sherlock to my Watson, but I play the part differently. I’m not the bumbling fat man without a clue. I’m the leaned doctor who puts forth his two cents. I help in the investigations, even if my point of view only helps Holmes think out of the box long enough to see what’s missing. I stand in the background, watching Doc from afar as he lights up the sky.

A rocket doesn’t take off all on it’s own. Someone has to design it, build it, do the maintenance and keep it working. Someone has to pilot it and get it out there and back in one piece. I play a small role in that and it makes me happy. And, a selfish part of me knows when Doc is teaching at a huge University he’ll give a lecture and somewhere in it mention my name.

Life is a play and we all have a part. God, could I be anymore cliché? But, it’s true. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean we all play our parts well. Sometimes we get lost in them; we misunderstand them. By the time we realize our mistake, the show is over and the play is ruined. Other instances, we’re only meant to play a part for a short while, but we try to extend it. We get too used to a character and never go beyond that. Some of us just play every role the same.

We need to learn how to accept new roles instead of being typecast. That’s a problem I have. It’s hard for me not to take on a negative role once it’s become too comfortable. And, it’s even harder to change once I’ve learned my mistake. People hate for me to change my character because once I’ve accepted a part I’m damn good at it. If I’m the bumbling buffoon, then I’m a damn good buffoon and people like it. But, sooner or later I get tired. I want to change, try on a new look and go in a different direction. That’s when I get shot down and slammed back to where I started.

For a long time I played the part of an idiot on purpose and now people expect it of me. Hell, I expect it from myself. But, that’s not who I am. At least, that’s not who I want to be. Not anymore anyway. I want to play the genius, the know-it-all, the all-seeing oracle or the wise shaman. Of course, the more I try, the more I get slammed. My mother still sees me as her black sheep, the delinquent, and the kid who’d join a gang just to fit in. I think my father sees me differently now. I’m a father myself and he’s accepted and respects me for keeping my family together. I don’t think I’m the loser Actor thought I was. I hope Doc, Heller, and Bloody Pencil see me as Sam to their Frodo. And, I’d like to think Merlyn doesn’t see Arthur the squire anymore. When we met, I pulled Excalibur thinking it was just a sword, but now I know better. JG probably pictures me a mix of HST and Denis Leary with Ron Jeremy thrown in; I hope. Ironically, I don’t think my wife sees me any different than when we first met. I will always be her Elissar. And to my kids, I’m Gandalf.

I look in the mirror and have no idea who’s looking back at me. When the curtain falls, and play is over, who am I really? Am I any of those other people or none at all? I hope I'm just me, but I have no idea what that means.

I don't even know why I titled this entry the way I did.

JPG.

FIGHT OR DIE

Tonight was more eventful than most sundays that precede another week of monotony. Doc spent some time away in Europe and we got together to catch up. He treated to beer, cyder, and coffee. We discussed our lives, marriage, and he proposed that my lack of assurance in me stemmed from a lack of faith in general. I’m agnostic, which means I don’t subscribe to religion’s beliefs about God or the afterlife. But, while I’m not an atheist, the concept of faith is something I have trouble with. I believe there’s an answer for everything, even if we lack the ability to find it. My lack of faith could be responsible for my uncertainty when it comes to me and my marriage. It’s not easy for me to accept my wife loves me without a detailed answer as to why. In these situations, you have faith and just accept the one you love feels as you do. But, I must know why and not knowing leaves too many unanswered questions.

This turned the conversation from self-esteem to spirituality where we both agreed we are living in the last days of our species. But, where he accepts it, I ponder if we have the ability to stop it if we take our heads out of our ass long enough to see what’s happening around us. I consider myself a humanist. I believe there’s nothing we can’t do if we accept responsibility for ourselves and embrace our power and forgo our dependance on spiritual belief. The question isn’t whether or not God exists. It’s why we feel we must believe or disbelieve there’s anything at all. I look at God’s existence from two possibilities: If there is a God, then He could be afraid of us. Or, there is no God, we’ve just personified life and given it a name.

Looking at the first possibility, why do I think God is afraid of us? Well, several mythologies tell the story of one all-powerful being destroyed by its offspring. If we are children of God, we are his offspring and destined to destroy him. It’s no different from a parent fearing their accomplishments will be surpassed by their children. It’s natural, although dysfunctional, for parents to see their progeny as a sign of their own demise. The stronger and more independent their children become, they see themselves becoming older and weaker and death becomes more inevitable. If you accept the bible as truth that it’s the word of God written by those who were inspired by him, then the Old Testament could be a system of checks and balances to ensure our dependence, inhibiting our own growth and empowerment. Think about it, anyone who doesn’t believe in him is evil and immediately destroyed. Why is our belief in him so important? Why must we surrender ourselves to his will? Why must we surrender at all? Think about this: God gave us free-will, and yet our destinies are predetermined. Sure, we have a choice, but if we make the wrong choice, not following God’s laws, then we are punished. Why aren’t the nonbelievers allowed to live in peace? What does God have to fear from people who don’t believe in him and, if all power comes from God, are essentially powerless? Even though Jesus rewrote the covenant set by the ten commandments and made one law for us to follow the results are still the same, believe or die. No matter what we choose, in the end, our fates have been decided already. So, is there free-will or is that a ruse to hide the truth? Jesus said we all could have his power, on the condition that we believe in God because that’s where it comes from. Okay, maybe it does, like any child, we share traits given to us by our parents. But, what we decide to do with them is our choice.

I’m a big Jesus fan, which doesn’t mean I’m a Christian, I just dig what he was about. But, he did have one problem that was his ultimate demise, he lived his life based on religious prophecies. Despite being a rebel, Jesus was Jewish and believed as they did. He was dependent upon those teachings as anyone else of that time. It never occurred to him that his power came from anything other than God. And yet, from what we know of the event, it was not in God’s plan for Jesus to resurrect Lazarus, but he did so anyway, without invoking God’s name. Throughout the King James’ bible, Jesus speaks often of a prophecy and he followed that prophecy to its conclusion. Jesus had the will to do what he felt must be done. But, that willpower doesn’t negate the question if it had to be done. Jesus’ sacrifice set forth a dangerous precedent played out for generations after his death. Great men who felt it were their fate to die in the service of a greater good. Is it blasphemous to ask what would have happened if Jesus had lived? What did his death truly accomplish? It erased original sin, but not our ability to sin again. Sure, we’re no longer damned from birth, but does that matter when we have a lifetime to earn our damnation a thousand times over? The same goes for Malcolm X, JFK, and any other “messiah” who answered the call of servitude to the people. They all walked head first into death when they didn’t have to.

And, what if there is no God, just life, how could it be evil? It’s not. It’s just a system with no good or bad. It just does what it’s meant to do. Think of the ocean, it can give life or take it away in a tsunami. When that happens, you don’t say the ocean is evil. If there’s an earthquake that kills thousands, you don’t say the earth was evil and killed a bunch of people. What if God, a.k.a. life, works in the same way? It’s a system, and disasters happen because we injected ourselves into a series of events that didn’t include us. We become the variable in an equation. Like comedians have said time and again, we’re the dumb fucks who build our homes on a dirt hill, then wonder why it collapses in a rain storm. We live near volcanos and act surprise when they erupt and destroy everything. So, God is life, and we are sired from it. Therefore, we have that same power in us, God’s power, and it’s ours to control if we’re aware of it. I see life like a great ocean and our bodies are a glass. If you took the glass and filled it with ocean water, what do you have? The water doesn’t change, it’s still ocean water, it’s just trapped in the glass, limiting its power. The more glasses you fill, the more you take from the ocean, reducing its power. Soon, the amount of water in glasses will overshadow the ocean. If freed from the glasses, that water could become a greater ocean than the one it came from. The ocean is the energy of life that I think is the soul. The glass is our body. Within us is the power of life and with every birth the source becomes more depleted. Soon, the power within us will become more powerful than its source. And death becomes the instrument that refills the source, creating a cycle and life and death.

Here’s where I really get crazy: take the two ideas and combine them. If the Christian God is the source of life, then every birth takes away his power until we become more powerful than he. God can’t stop it, so his only alternative is to control it. How? By making us dependent on him is one way. The other is through death, and those most powerful, whose souls shine the brightest, are ensured to die before their time based on Jesus’ example.

Okay, that’s way out there, but I keep thinking about death and whether or not we have the ability to stop it. In a meeting, a doctor spoke of a patient having a “nice death” because he accepted that he was dying. Well, what is a “nice death?” When a person dies nicely, it always means they accepted their fate. And those that don’t accept it, despite trying to stay alive, still believe it’s a losing battle. The idea that no one can defy death is ingrained in us at an early age. Fairytales and Disney cartoons program us to believe death is something to fear, and time turns into inevitability. Even though medical science searches for ways to avoid death, we still don’t think we can do it ourselves and look to technology to help us. What if the answer is our own will power? What if we truly embraced what could be the true power of free will and chose not to die? I can’t help thinking acceptance is synonymous with surrender. When we accept our death, we’re surrendering to it. And, if we can choose to surrender, we can choose to fight. And, if we fight, then there is the chance we may win. But, it’s not as simple as just deciding to fight because our programming goes too deep. The body is controlled by the mind that turns our will into physical action. What would happen if a person’s will were so strong they could keep their heart beating after a heart attack? What if they could will their lungs to keep breathing, or stop the body from dying?

If we stopped death, then the ocean of life would never refill itself. God would become weaker as we continued in number and he would eventually die.

God needs us to believe him, because if we don’t...then what?

God’s fate is in OUR hands.

JPG.

ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT

I finished an hour of exercise during a double episode of Nip/Tuck reruns. The kids are asleep with their mother and I concluded my workout with a smoke while staring at the beautiful Saturday night sky. I’m watching another classic episode of Married with Children and all is right with the world.

I’m bored out of my mind.

I finally have my transfer to another division in the hospital. I’ve waited for this and now that it’s about to happen I’m more than a little nervous. I’ve spent the last seven years in the same department, surrounded by the same people every week. Now, I’m leaving and I can’t shake feeling like a deserter. My department has suffered a series of resignations. I’m one of the last four researchers left, and when I go, there’s only three people to cover four programs. Two of them will have to double up and handle all the studies themselves until a replacements are found.

I’m 75% done with my cover letter for Image Comics. I’ll have to get that edited and reduce the length of my synopsis from four to one page. My letterer went to the convention in Chicago and I have to make sure everything is ready on his return. Actor and I got the screenwriting gig, I’m excited about it, but scared to. It will require regular visitations to the set during filming, but with a new job, I can’t just leave. Actor and I will have to take turns. Thank god for wireless connections and emails or I’d truly be fucked.

Speaking of fucking, I’ve been anxiously awaiting a follow-up email from JG. She sent me part one of a two-part message where she writes how she feels about my entry in her honor. She wrote she was flattered, but left me at a cliffhanger about worrying what my wife would think. Believe me, I took my wife’s reaction to account when I wrote my little "confession." I don’t see anything wrong with a man admitting his attraction to another woman. I think it’s healthy. Just because I’m married doesn’t mean I can’t lust for someone else. In fact, I think it makes a relationship more profound when a man or woman is attracted to other people, but stays faithful to their significant other. I decided years ago the decision to stay with someone meant more than falling in love with them. Certainly, love is a factor, it has to be, but choice is more important. Emotions are flimsy, they come and go too easily. A person falls in love on Tuesday and then drops out of love two days later. A person will love someone, get married, and then come to some epiphany that they don’t love the person anymore, if they ever did. I’m not denouncing love, it is very important, but so is making the decision to be with someone. It’s not feuled by love, lust, desperation, or dependence. It’s a conscious choice, and with it comes honesty and freedom. When a relationship is decided by emotions there’s always the fear those emotions will change partners. But, when I told my wife that I chose to be with her, I gained the freedom to feel without being afraid that my wife may misunderstand my intentions. I can admit I like someone, have a crush, or lust for someone without my wife feeling threatened I would “fall in love” and leave her. The only downside to this is my wife is a woman.

Women are ruled by their emotions, they can’t stop feeling and what’s really frightening is their lack of understanding about how things make them feel. A lot of people say women are complex. I disagree, women aren’t complex, they’re confused. So, while I think one thing, and my wife says she agrees, who knows when that may change. When we were dating, she would watch my porns and read my Playboys. I’ll never forget the night I returned from a nudie bar to find her crying because, and I quote: I didn’t make her feel like she was the center of my world. I was shocked, who was this woman? When I wrote my entry “Saying Goodbye to Possibility” I did so knowing there could be repercussions from JG and my wife, so I chose my words very carefully. I used a series of digressions to break up the emotional energy. If you read the entry without them, it could seem that I was almost on the verge of committing adultery if given the chance. Hopefully, the constant interruptions kept that from happening. I was still nervous about what my wife would think, but knowing I did nothing wrong, I said “Fuck it” and made my move. I’d held my lust in for an entire year. Going to work every week, talking to her and trying not to flirt. Looking at her and trying not to stare. Prying into her life, hoping she’d confide and give up some juicy details I could later fantasize and masturbate to. What’s the worst that could happen? JG’s out of state now, she’s gone. At worst, she thinks I’m a creep and writes me off. At best, we write sexy emails to one another. That would be cool. Maybe things would get hot & heavy, she’d send me nude pictures and I’d write her love poems, all within the safe boundaries of distance and nonphysical contact.

Did I already mention how bored I am?

I’m watching a rerun of Roseanne, after they one the lottery. I hated those episodes. I liked the show better when they were poor. Part of it is jealousy, but creatively, I think the show took a header and that’s why it was cancelled shortly after. To that point, the show was real. It had real people and real relationships. The appeal was similar to Good Times because it made the mundane and harsh living of the middle class and working poor a little more doable. We could laugh at things that normally make us cry. The Connors and Evans were running from creditors, just getting by, and so were we. We weren’t alone in our suffering and their companionship, though fictional, was appreciated. When the Connors struck it rich, we hated them for it. They ceased to be real and became just actors on a television show. At least the Evans left their good fortune for the last episode. The Evans left us with something to aspire to. The Connors just traded up for a higher money earning audience.

I’m getting sick of regular radio. I got the good news about the screenwriting gig on Friday and I was so happy I drove home hungry to sing along with some great music. Instead of listening to Lykis, I hit the scan button and waited for a great song. A forty minute drive from work to my house, and the radio was scanning all the way. Twenty minutes away from home, I became so desperate I started singing Van Halen tunes to myself, but I didn’t know all the words, so I just kept restarting the song over and over again and singing the chorus while imagining I was Eddie Van Halen, playing a concert in JG’s town where I was blowing her away with my musical abilities I’d kept a secret from everyone. That’s a recurring fantasy of mine by the way, surprising people with some cool talent no one knew I had. The fantasy began in high school, I’d imagine the student body is assembling in the gym where a scientist will demonstrate his new invention, a virtual reality machine that places people in different scenarios from motion pictures and they have to find a way out or die. Yeah, like that could ever happen? So, as I’m acting out a movie on a video cassette (this was before dvd’s), I’m imagining the class is watching me, astounded at my strength, courage, and charm. After high school, the fantasy changed to a seminar or demonstration in a mall and my friends and I pay to try the machine out as our girlfriends and wives watch in amazement and I prove myself a true champion. My wife is amazed, never truly knowing how great I was and all the others are envious of her because she’s with me. At my job, I have a similar fantasy, but instead of a machine, it’s a benefit and each division has to perform in a talent show. I show up with a band and blow the roof off the joint. Eventually, Van Halen got bored and I started singing old songs no one even knew existed. Songs from saturday morning cartoons, back when CBS and NBC thought it worth while and before ABC became Disney's bitch. Anyone remember Kidd Video? How about The Guys Next Door? The New Monkees? Yeah, I got them all in my head and I scan through them with amazing recollection. I can't remember when I lost my first tooth, or the last Christmas I spent with my father, but I know the opening song to the Karate Kid cartoon and sang it word for word like a top 40's hit.

Samurai Champoo is on. Good show. I’m gaining increasing respect for the creator of Cowboy Bebop. I was never into that show, but after his episodes in the Animatrix were two of the best in the collection, I gave his show a try and liked it. Now, he’s gone from super futuristic to medieval Japan and it’s very cool. I’m itching to see Steamboy, but can’t decide if I should get the American translation or buy the import at SunDevilDVD.com. They have Japanese animation, entire series, as low as $30.00. The only downside is they’re not dubbed, but subtitled. But, I like that. It ensures you’re getting the complete story and not what the American distributors is trying to sell you because our “sensibilities are different.”

The clocks ticking and I better hit the sheets. I’ll pop in a movie and wait for me to fall asleep.

Just another Saturday night.

JPG.

TOO MUCH T.V.

I’m here, but I don’t have anything to comment on. I’m not depressed, mad, confused, horny, or anything else that would pass for a muse nowadays. I’m feeling pretty damn good, despite the eerie feeling of doom looming over my head. Like something is just waiting to fall and crack my skull open. I’m being very careful about what I say and write because I know all it takes is one word of satisfaction and it’s all over. But, I find no harm in saying that, at this moment, I’m feeling pretty good.

JG wrote me yesterday after spanning the globe, doing what young people do and old people wish they did. I must admit it felt good reading her email. What is it about a woman that can make a man feel special? Just seeing the sentence: “You are so sweet” had me giddy all day. She sent some cool pictures from her travels, but the only ones I really paid attention to have her in them. God, I’m terrible. I’m two months shy of my ten-year anniversary and here I am thinking about banging a girl almost ten years younger than me.

The longer I live, the more confusing life becomes. Just when you think you know the answers, something happens to disprove whatever theory you’ve concocted to get from today to tomorrow. You get married and are convinced that woman is the only one you’ll ever find attractive. Then, you’ll see another woman who may not even look as good as your wife, but something about her just clicks and you can’t stop the fantasies. Next, you’re jacking off with her picture in your head. Then, a few years pass; you get older and you think you’ve solved the problem. But no, some other woman comes along and you’re right back where you started, with your dick in your hand and some unattainable femme fatale on your mind. If you’re lucky enough to make it to ten, you think you’ve finally found the answer. One woman can be every woman, but sure enough here comes someone who defies that rule again. There’s no way your wife can be her, and dammit, you want her. So, you figure it’s all about the old and the new. After you’ve been with one woman for so long you just figure its boredom. How long has it been since your wife smelled of perfume? Wore cosmetics? How long since she dressed young and vibrant, showing off her body? (Uh, just about two weeks ago) With age comes limitations and you take some comfort in that. It’s only natural for you to want something new, young, fresh and clean, right? Then you go home, ready to settle in your humdrum life, and there you are sitting in your daddy chair, looking at your woman sprawled out on the floor watching television. She’s wearing old jeans that are too small because dinner was too big. Her black t-shirt is so faded its gray in some areas and white in others. You look at her just laying there, doing nothing, and then you’re hit with an impulse and say: “I’m gonna f- you tonight.”

She looks at you funny, “Uh…okay. And what about the kids?”

“I’m not going to do it now. I just want you to know, sometime tonight, I’m gonna f- you.”

“Okay.” And she puts her head back down.

Just like that. Of course, the night comes and goes, you’re tired, she’s asleep, snuggling between two children and you’re just lucky to find a place at the foot of the bed like the family dog. But, that’s not the point. Just when you thought you knew the score, life changes things on you. And, out of the blue, your wife becomes hotter than any twenty year old. The polarities switch and what you can’t have reminds you of what you do. What incentive is there to get married? The freedom to walk up to a woman and grab her breast, ass, or crotch saying, “Let’s fuck” without getting slapped, kicked, or charged with sexual harassment and assault.

What do you do?

What can you do?

Just go with whatever life brings you.

But, what about the repercussions? Should we forget the lesson learned from Risky Business (1983)? Sometimes, going with the flow and pissing in the wind leaves you with wet pants. How do you balance it out?

I don’t know.

I’ve been looking at women’s cleavage a lot lately. That, or more women are flashing their shit this summer, and they all have freckles. But, if you look hard and long enough, it’s almost like you’re seeing the whole breast. Especially if it jiggles, it’s not really leaving much to the imagination.

I’ve never been with a Hispanic woman and that still bothers me.

Nip/Tuck is a little over a month away and I can’t wait to see what happens to Christian.

I’ve gotten in the habit of relying on “the next big thing” to get me through life, otherwise I could be dead and not really care. I remember the first time I saw the trailer for The Matrix. I went home begging God to keep me alive long enough to see it. Then, after it opened, I couldn’t give shit what happened to me. I think I’m still recouping from the Lord of the Rings being over. Three years spent looking forward to Christmas, just so I could see a movie. Last year, my wife and I really didn’t know what to do with ourselves, LOTR had quickly become our tradition and we were really bothered that we didn’t have another “big thing” waiting for us. Yeah, we had the DVDs, but it’s not the same as reserving tickets at a theater and seeing it there on the big screen. This year the “big thing” was Batman, but now that’s gone and I feel blah about everything. I’m hoping the new fall television season will give me reason to live.

My God… I feel like Al Bundy after realizing how pathetic his life has become. I’m looking for television to give me a reason why I should keep breathing. I can’t remember when I became so dependant on television. I think when I was younger, say around eleven, and my mother would leave me alone, I watched a lot of television and there was something soothing about it. Even now, I get that feeling when I see reruns of Good Times and I Love Lucy. I’m starting to see how these shows affected me. They taught me how to live and act. Probably one of the reasons I adapt so well to my wife’s quirky behavior is because I watched I Loved Lucy every day for years and thought she was so cute. The first month of our marriage, my wife burned a whole in the living room floor because she was ironing her dress on the carpet. I swear I felt like Ricky at that moment, listening to my wife explaining what happened with that little hint of newlywed fear. And it changes, just like switching a channel. When we’re lazy and poor, we’re Rosie and Dan Connor. When I’m feeling exceptionally parental I’m Andy Taylor. When my wife and I are being parental, but cute and enjoying our marriage we’re the Huxtables. Many times she’ll do or say something and I’ll just look at her like Ricky, Cliff, or Al, then I’ll look at the imaginary audience and play a laugh track in my head. My friends are an assortment of co-stars, from Grady to Fred. Some are Barney, others are Cool Breeze, Poppo, and Head.

The one television show that I loved and closely mirrors my marriage is Mad About You. Some things my wife and I go through are right out of that show. I remember once, during a particular tough time in our relationship, my wife asked if I saw us growing old together, and I said yes because Paul and Helen stayed together on the show. She said they didn’t, they eventually got a divorce in the last episode. But, I reminded her that near the end, in the last ten minutes, after spending some years apart, they were still in love and reconciled. Sometimes I feel like my wife and I are destined to split. But, we’ll still love one another and reconcile. I think we’re too curious about divorce and what it would be like not to try it out. But I know we’d get back together, just like Ross and Rachel on Friends. But, I don’t want to tempt fate, because just when you think you know what will happen, life changes, just like on television. Dillon and Kelly never worked things out in Beverly Hills. They were meant for one another, but couldn’t make it work. So, you never know.

I better get out of here; Rescue Me is on tonight and love Denise Leary. See, just when I think there’s nothing to look forward to, I found something. That should keep me going for another five hours and twelve minutes.

JPG.

THOUGHT BYTES FOR 2005 (Pt.6)

This Saturday marks one month since I last reported here, so I better write something or feel the wrath of those few who stop by on the regular basis. My last entry sort of tired me out. After that, there was nothing to report. How do people do this on the daily basis? Am I the only one who gets bored with life and world events?

MAJOR EVENT IN JULY

My wife celebrated her 30th birthday and I made it my mission to make it a celebration. She busts her ass twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, I wasn’t going to let this go by without some acknowledgement of how special she is and all the hard work she does raising my off-spring. First, I gave her $200 spending money. Second, I decided to surprise her with a small party. It would have been a big party, but she doesn’t have that many friends. Something I feel bad and happy for at the same time. In Eddie Murphy’s last stand-up movie and probably the most infamous, RAW, he spoke of women and how their friends can influence the worst in a marriage. For that reason, I’m happy my wife doesn’t have female friends. The last thing I need is someone telling her how bad a husband I am. Let her continue the delusion of being the luckiest woman in the world. Of course, the bad side is she’s more than likely to wake-up one morning, realize she has no life of her own and leave me with two kids I can’t take care of by myself. I try to convince her to seek out more female companionship, but it never goes well. Good. Either she has no interest in them, or she discovers they are lesbians. My wife is a female who believes that men and women can be friends without sexual attraction being present. I disagree and point out how most of the male friends she had previously were pissed off when she dated me. She says it was because they see her like a sister and want to protect her. I tell her it was really because they wanted to bang her and didn’t need me in the way in addition to the other seven “brothers” they were competing against. But, my friends are her friends and she says she prefers it, that way it’s less work. If she doesn’t want to talk to anyone or deal with the responsibility of having relationships, she doesn’t have to.

In preparation for the surprise, I took the day off from work, but didn’t tell her. I ordered a huge cake from a fancy bakery. My wife’s favorite food is Italian, so I ordered from Olive Garden. Originally, I wanted three different types: Mexican, Italian, and Korean, but the cost was too high and I still had other things to buy. I straight out asked my wife what her favorite Italian dish is and ordered that from her favorite restaurant. I added a peach cobbler to my order at the bakery, bought balloons, plates, napkins, and ice cream from Coldstone’s. Last, I reserved a table at a small jazz and blues club in Hollywood where Cheryl Bentyn was performing.

My mother got my wife and kids out of the house and brought them to her place where I had everything set up and screamed, “Surprise!” when my wife opened the door. She was really surprised and never saw it coming. We enjoyed a birthday lunch and later went to the club for the first show. Our booth was secluded and candle lit. She wore my favorite dress; it was so low cut that two cars with male drivers stopped to watch her walk by. We snuggled during the show, I bought her drinks and she got toasted. I bought her Cheryl’s cd and we took a long time driving home via the Sunset Strip.

It was a great night.

EXAM TIME

I turned 33 this year and my employee counselor suggested I see a doctor and get a physical and mental exam. Yeah, a mental exam; I go to see her about the problems I’m having at work and she suggests I’m crazy. It took a month to get an appointment and I was happy about it because it’s been over two years since my last check-up and I could have cancer for all I know. My doctor is female, in her fifties, and no taller than 4’. Everything went normally, but I was nervous when she said it was time to check my balls.

The last time I had my balls felt up by a doctor was in my early teens and the physician was an exceptionally attractive white woman. She juggled my nuts in her hand for a few seconds and I got an erection. I was so embarrassed, but excited that a female was feeling me up. This time, I was afraid history would repeat itself, even though my doctor’s beauty exhausted itself a long time ago. Instead of popping wood, my nuts shrank, pushing into my stomach to keep her hand away. I thought I was going to vomit. Then, that which all men fear was about to happen to me. She said, “Okay, lie on your side and spread your cheeks.” BUTT CHECK! But, I consider myself lucky. I watched my wife get her ass checked during both her pregnancies by a 6’+ black man with hands like a sledgehammer. My wife can’t stand it when I put my tongue up there during oral sex and here was a brotha with a finger bigger than my penis giving her an anal exam. My having a doctor with tiny fingers was good, and I had already told her about my hemorrhoid, so I wasn’t too embarrassed by that. It felt good having her poke around.

I like getting checked out by the doctor, it’s relaxing. The result was I’m healthy as a clam. Fat, but no high blood pressure and labs are clean. Now I have to get my head examined, but I’m looking for a shrink who also specializes in eating disorders. I like shrinks. The last therapy I received saved my life and my marriage, so I’m looking forward to seeing “Dr. Shrinker” and getting my shit worked out. It feels great having my thoughts and ideas validated by someone with a degree.

NEW JOB

I arrived early to work today because I have an interview this afternoon. It feels like I won’t be here, at this hospital, too much longer. I have two interviews this week, and I’m still waiting for an update on my last interview in a different department. So, I might still be here, but I won’t be in this department anymore. I’ve been here for seven years and it feels strange and exciting that I may leave. I’m really looking forward to it. In retrospect, it’s not bad here, but I think I just out stayed my welcome. I need a fresh start. New place and faces to meet; new things to see and do and a much simpler job for more money.

REVIEWS

Saw Fantastic Four and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But, I think that was the plan of the marketing at FOX. Reverse psychology: have people thinking the movie is a big pile of shit, so when they see it, it has to be better than what they were expecting. And it was, it worked, and now a sequel is two years away. The main problem with FF was the story structure; nothing was explained properly. You never knew why things were happening, and before long you found yourself in the middle of a fight with no dramatic reasoning. It was like watching kids playing Fantastic Four instead of actually seeing the FF duke it out.

I bought The Crow: Wicked Prayer. My God, what was Jeff Most thinking letting that pile of shit hit the stores? Better to squash the whole thing. Eddie Furlong plays the latest goth avenger and he is without a doubt the worst at it. Each installment in the franchise after the first movie has been bad, but their saving graces were passion and creativity. The people involved gave a damn, they had imagination and were truly trying to be original and build upon the mythos. Salvation was bad, but after a few viewings it grew on me. Once I forgot about the other movies, it took on it’s own personality. The special effects were sub-par, but the ideas were enough to get me through the bad mechanics. Alex Corvis, a death row inmate framed by crooked cops for his girlfriends rape and murder, who gets executed and raised by the crow is a damn good idea that separates it from the previous movies. Having him discover his “crow face” by tearing away the scarred remnants of burnt flesh was cool to watch. Better, was the idea of him turning into a crow and flying across the city. And it was interesting to watch Fred Ward as the villain who weakens Corvis, not by directly harming the crow, but taking away Alex’s belief that he was not responsible for his ladylove’s demise. Wicked Prayer had a lot of cool ideas to play with: Native American mythology, a cool old west feel, and a main character who was a murderer and irredeemable. All gone to waste with bad acting, worse villains, and dialogue that was indirect rips from all three films. The director and writer introduced nothing new to the mythos. And despite my love of David Boreanaz, he sucked in this movie. In a nutshell, he was Angelus under a different name, but his acting was far below anything Whedon would allow. And if you wonder why Tara Reid has been reduced to reporting for the E! Channel, you’ll know after you see this movie.

XXX: State of the Union was fun to watch. Ice Cube was a little stiff. It’s hard for me to see him in an action movie like this. Or, perhaps it’s hard to see his character assume a mantle that was meant for someone else. The whole concept of XXX was taking the James Bond spy stories and amp them up for the younger crowd. But this movie had nothing to do with espionage or an over the top spy vs. spy style. It felt more like the old Masquerade show from the eighties, where the CIA would get different people for different situations. A more recent example would be Tom Cruise’s version of Mission Impossible. For people who liked the first movie with Diesel, they might find its sequel slapping him in the face on several occasions. First, they dismiss Xander’s death as nothing more important than squashing a roach. Then, Ice Cube has several lines that put down Vin’s character throughout. Call me a geek, but if Vin wouldn’t do the movie, better to find another actor to play Xander and stick to the original script than have Ice Cube go from roadie to main character. The change comes off like Doughboy from Boy’s in the Hood joining the military, becoming a S.E.A.L., getting imprisoned, escaping, and now gets to blow up the capital to save the president. And what was up with all the cars? They totally moved the story away from any chance to show Ice Cube as a ladies man and surrounded him with automobiles. Whether it’s reality or fiction, there’s no explanation for me to believe a buffed up and chiseled Ice Cube is more interested in saving the President or attracted to a scrawny white girl, not while Nona Gaye is standing in front of him in a black dress with her boobs pushed up to her chin. Worse, Diesel got busy in his movie with two different women. Ice Cube gets no play at all. Diesel gets to lounge with a chick a Bora Bora. Cube gets a car and immediately set-up for replacement, but not without being marked with the XXX tat. Or, perhaps I should call it a “brand”?

SCRATCHING MY HEAD

Still working on my new story, a couple in fact. But, things have slowed since I was offered a chance to help on a screenplay. Actor brought me in on the gig and last week was spent hammering out an “audition”. This week is about getting my bearings back. I’ve got too much I’m trying to do, that’s for sure. It’s a sure thing that, when you try to do too much, you’ll fail. So, I have to re-access what I want to do first, get that done, and then move on.

I’m mostly excited about my vigilante story. It’s not copyrighted yet, so I won’t write anything about it yet. Besides, it’s still only a plot, but the idea is coming along.

Lazarus is almost done. Yeah, I know, but by “almost” I mean less than five pages. I haven’t heard from the colorist in a couple of weeks, so I have to drop him a line. Lettering is proceeding and I just got word that Image will look at proofs. I have to put together a package and send that out ASAP. If I get on the Image bandwagon, this whole thing takes on a totally different head; totally.

But things do feel like they’ve slowed down a bit. Sometimes there’s a week when I’m getting updated nonstop and then another week there’s nothing new to report. The only person I feel like is churning & burning is my penciler. He’s doing some great stuff with the last chapter of the book. It all comes down to a huge fight above the city between Laz and a demon he’s been chasing throughout the book, and it looks great. Carlos is drawing the epilogue, wrapping things up, but I needed to make some changes to Laz’s last page. On page 109, Laz is in a Catholic Church lighting prayer candles for his deceased family and I felt it was too religious. It made Laz seem like he was a Catholic and this was his chosen place of worship. But, what the scene represents is him still feeling responsible for their deaths, where he pays tribute is inconsequential. If he were in Japan, he’d light candles at a Buddhist temple. It’s just that, in this case, it’s a Catholic church. So, I need to show he has no allegiance to the church by changing one panel on the page to show a more “disrespectful” attitude. Besides, Laz knows Jesus was black, but every church he goes to has a white guy on the cross. He may not comment on it, but he is pissed about it.

After this, we go back and fix some trouble pages, and then we’re done with pencils. It will be nice not to worry about pencils anymore and just focus on two instead of three things. Focusing on one thing, I tend to forget the other two and leave them in the dark. A week or two will go by and I haven’t asked for a report because I was concentrating on pencils. But, having the pencils done, I can push on the colors and lettering. It also gives me more to show people and start seeking out other avenues for the project.

BOARD OF IGNORANCE

My vigilante story has a black main character. Black heroes don’t do good in American comics and I’ve gone back and fourth with other creators about why that is, then Merlyn told me how he posted an inquiry on a message board asking why or what White readers don’t like black heroes. So, I went to different boards and did the same, and the experience has confirmed that message boards are a waste of time for people who have no lives.

My post garnered one of three responses; my inquiry was criticized, belittled, or treated seriously in only one of several respects. I asked what people don’t like about black superhero comics and included some questions they could answer along with giving their personal opinions. The first half-dozen comments were people attempting to be funny and not treating the topic seriously. Then, you had people giving their opinions, but not really answering the questions. Instead, they chose to comment on the book I used as an example, Spawn, to discuss whether or not he was black. One pro did take the time to give his opinion, but fluffed it with mentioning his own book several times: “ I hate when comics are like this, BUT IN MY BOOK…” Another pro semi-attacked me, insinuating I was closed minded for using the term: black superhero comics. He clamed there are no such things, and I could have rebutted by pointing out it was a term I didn’t create, but heard used on several occasions. There’s even website devoted to black superheroes, and a panel at the SD convention two years ago where black creators gathered to discuss black heroes in comics. But, since the person plays in major role with a publisher I’m trying to get into, I kept my rebuttal to myself.

What really discouraged me was the lack of honesty. Or, maybe it’s not that anyone was being dishonest, but they were truly ignorant of the marketplace and their own habits. Most of the responses were generic replies like: “If the story and character is written well, I’d buy it regardless of the character’s race.” And that’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever read. Several ethnic heroes are written well, but they all still tanked in the marketplace. Probably the most popular black superhero, Black Panther, has seen failure time and time again for this same reason.

In the comicbook world, Black and White unite against their common dislike for ethnic heroes. Hell, even I don’t like Black Panther, and it’s because he’s too black for me. I’m so used to white heroes of all kinds that any black hero I see is too “out there”, even though they look more like me than I do Superman. I remember speaking with Merlyn once about Black Panther and how I thought it was “too black”. I think I said something about it not being realistic that an African nation could be so technologically advance and he wanted to slap my head clean off my shoulders. But no matter how programmed I may be, at least I was honest about it and continue not to pull punches. I’m not a fan of black heroes because most of them are all about being black and not being a hero. Those that don’t follow that mold do great disadvantage to the character by omitting race completely. What I’m looking for is a balance, characters that are true to themselves without using any racial gimmicks. And that’s hard because you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I could write a character that doesn’t like rap, but then he’s too white. But, if he does like rap, then he’s just like all the other stereotypes. So, where do you draw the line?

I went to the boards looking for honesty and all I found was bullshit. I wanted to know what people don’t like so I could avoid those things, but instead I found out why people continue to fail, because no one is being honest. No one wants to be the racist who says: “ I hate John Stewart as Green Lantern because I can’t believe the Guardians would choose a black guy to have the most powerful weapon in the universe.” A black writer writes the Panther now and it’s still not a top seller. Worse, people have openly admitted to hating his work, calling it racist. So, if the black hero is a carbon copy, then they are “inferior product”. But, if the writer gives it a unique flavor, he’s a racist.

Comics could be one of the few bastions of racism in this country and I don’t see it ending soon. Sure, I want to find a way to end it, but what chance does anyone have when the majority of readers won’t admit their crime of prejudice?

JPG.