It's Always a Battle Between Good and Evil

Spin magazine recently devoted an article to the question of where all the rock stars have gone. The idea is that where the past gave us Led Zeppelin's zany antics with a fish and a vagina, Fleetwood Mac's creative use of inter-band "incest", Motley Crue's general debauchery and Guns and Roses' bi-polar behavior; today our "rock stars" are anything but. In fact, they could easily pass for you and me. But able to play an instrument. Ok. Maybe not.

The irony of the piece is they answer their own question. The stuff that was once taboo is not longer that. Tats are common. Piercings are ubiquitous. In fact, when I was in Vegas, the amount of ink and metal in and on the women made me think they had stepped on an IED at the Bic factory. I'm pretty certain they could qualify for a VA pension. Or at least one from Bic. It's hard to be freaky when everyone is freaky. So I don't lament the passing of the "rock star". I do lament, however, the passing of dangerous rock.

One of Rock's truisms along with "I'll totally respect you in the morning" is that Satan is a vital component of most Rock and Roll. I was born in 1971 (Although I fudge and always say that it's actually "x"-29 where as "x" = Today's Date). That was the year Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" dropped onto record players in America and the dark lord began in earnest to spread his/her/its... whatever... wings over rock music. Granted, I was blissfully unaware of the menace as I was simply a toddler, but I was old enough by 1979 to know about KISS. And specifically what it stood for which, according to my elementary music teacher Mrs. Osbourne, stood for "Kings In Satan's Service". (I've bolded the first letters so you can see the diabolical connection)

I grew up in a house was so idol-ladened with crucified Jesuses a visitor didn't think religious significance but a devotion to Roman era snuff films. The fact that Satan somehow figured into all the blood and suffering visited upon our resident bearded man, it's safe to say I was PETRIFIED at the thought of being possessed by the dark lord and his minions and convinced I would go to hell with prolonged exposure the El Diablo in any and all his forms. That KISS was associated with Beelzebub was some scary shit to a kid weened on my mother's catholicism. That one of the guys was even called "The Demon" only supported Mrs. Osbourne's allegations. It was only later on, when I was older, that I learned to question my sources. And when I was older it would have occurred to me to doubt the veracity of a music teacher who confirmed KISS' satanic roots while then playing The Beatles' White Album which actually DID inspire murder and mayhem. I'm not saying the Beatles were Satanic... I'm just sayin'. So I did not listen to KISS as a kid. There was just too much at stake with my soul being the primary object of a eternal battle between good and evil. Now why good and evil would be so preoccupied with one geeky 13 year old soul is beyond me, but I spent my tweens convinced I was on the precipice of demonic possession. But it is a very dark cloud that doesn't have a silver lining and later on I realized that I had inadvertently spared myself not demonic possession but certain brain damage from such classic lyrics as... ahem... from the KISS classic "Love Gun"... ahem....

I really love you baby
I love what you've got
Lets get together, we can
Get hot
No more tomorrow, baby
Time is today
Girl, I can make you feel
Okay
No place for hidin baby
No place to run
You pull the trigger of my
Love gun, (love gun), love gun
Love gun, (love gun), love gun

Those aren't Satanic Lyrics. Those are lame lyrics. And this was a hit record. The 70's. The decade taste forget. Indeed. Yikes!

That being said, my formulative years for music were in the 80's. This is the decade when I came to be. I started to tap into pop culture. I grew my hair short in the front and long in the back. I pegged my pants. I wore clothes so bright they would have set off a Geiger counter. Despite this I lost my virginity. And I developed my musical taste. Where I started listening to top 40 by the time I met Chuck Albright in the 8th grade I was starting to inadvertently dabble in the dark arts. No, I had not yet turned my back on Catholicism, but instead started to listen to heavy metal. If you were to believe the Iron Maiden album covers, this was Satan's musical home turf.

I think my brain is inherently wired for hard sounds. I like punk, I like alternative, I like emo and scremo and whatever the fuck the kids call it. And I like... dare I say love? Heavy Metal. But when I first started listening to it, it wasn't just a gulity pleasure, there was a threat of eternal damnation. But dammit, I love Iron Maiden. And Metallica. And Ozzy. So I had to manage this situation carefully. I needed something. A method to manage the madness. And to manage the bad-ass.

What I devised was a system of acceptable music based on the demon/witch/succubi/dark elements content of the band and it's music. On one end was Stryper, which was a total hairspray band... but... they were Christian metalists. And they sucked, but that was not important because they would serve a practical use in my vinyl collection, which I will get to in a second. On the other end of the spectrum was Slayer, who not only called their album "Hell Awaits" but had pictures of pentagrams, goat head demons and upside down crosses. There was no coy allusion to the dark forces, these guys were "out and proud" if you will. Much like radiation, continued and prolonged exposure to Slayer left only one possibility... possession and slavery to Mephistopheles. With my system is was safe to repeatedly listen to music on the safe end of the demonic scale but dangerous to listen to music on the more satanic end of the scale. My scale was also precise. So I didn't paint a group with a broad brush , I was more considerate of the specific output. For example, Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil" was obviously dangerous and hence important to limit exposure, where later albums such as "Theater of Pain" and "Girls Girls Girls" were pretty much ok because the band had obviously embraced Christianity and stopped writing about Anton La Vey. Iron Maiden was patricularly problematic because they had songs that on one hand were socially conscious... "Run to the Hills"... damn we were some pig fuckers to the native Americans... to philisophical... you are right Bruce, we really are living in the "Golden Years"... to outright satanic... "Number of the Beast"... Oy vey!. So when listening to Iron Maiden, the song was a very important element. My system dictated that I could listen to "The Trooper" all I wanted, but I had to only listen to "Number of the Beast" on special occasions... you know... like Halloween. My system was a precision scalpel and not a blunt force instrument.

But where my system was qualitative, it had a quantitative component. I had to account for the literal demon content of the vinyl. Basically the more satanic the band, the more likely the actual record itself had stored demonic properties in THE DISC ITSELF! (Imagine Dramatic Chipmunk just turned around). Subsequently it was important to follow some rules with disk storage. My records were not arranged according to the alphabet, but according to their demon content. I would not be prudent to store all the metal albums next to one another because the sheer weight of their evil could easily rip a hole in the space/time/mythology continuum and I could easily have a battleground for the lives of all the souls on the planet happening in my bedroom while I tried to "read" the most recent SI Swimsuit Edition. The idea of imps and large demons battling arch angels and Christian warriors above my bed while I simply wanted to get some alone time with Christie Brinkley was incredibly unappealing. And frankly, my room wasn't big enough. We were living in a tiny townhouse as a result of my father's impeccable stewardship of the family finances. My room was a postage stamp. There could not be a final battle in my bedroom for good and evil. There simply wasn't anyplace to put the arch angels. An epic battle deserves an epic battlefield and my townhouse was not it. Unless we knocked down a wall. Then my sister would have been pissed. And both good and evil would have been fucked.

Taking all this in mind, my albums were carefully positioned to put the non-satanic (re. good) albums next to satanic ones. So where there was an Iron Maiden album, right next to it, Depeche Mode. Where there was Metal Church, there was Madonna (The whole church thing was very thematic). And where there was Slayer, there was Stryper (Although frankly, I think Slayer would have kicked the shit out of them). So if you rifled though my albums you would definitely notice a theme. My system was perfect. If you go and read papers from the 80's (or USA Today) you will note the absence of apocalyptic confrontation. It was obviously my doing.

Over the years, I would abandon a lot of the dogmas of Catholicism with its inherent dramatics. Frankly, I just don't buy them. But if I am wrong... and I have been known to be wrong so many times... maybe one tween's clever system may have been a stalwart defense against the powers of Evil while still allowing for the deliciousness of it's sound. And the 80's were allowed to progress unimpeded simply because of my accounting for demonic metrics. Long live rock and roll!

Everybody Wants You...

My love life is what can most generously described as flatlined. To stick with the medical analogy, it feels like it is beyond being revived by a crash cart or resuscitated with a shot of adrenaline like they did in the movie "Pulp Fiction". I have some theories for this of course. The first is general incompetence, as I have explained before. I also have another theory that is somehow linked to my pheromones. Whereas some men (not me) release substances that arouse women and make them want to mate with them... and fix all their emotional issues... I release a pheromone that makes them come to me for advice on how to fix those guys' emotional issues. I am somewhat of a professional friend as a result. But not for lack of trying. I mean it's not like I haven't made a move or two... but it's usually met with "awwwww that's so cute. But I need to run. I gotta help Jimmy get of the smack and hookers. But don't worry someday someone who actually wants to fuck you will think you're as cool as I think you are."

I probably will this on myself subconsciously, but why fess up to this when it's easier to cast blame elsewhere. It is a great American tradition afterall. And I consider myself a great American. And like most Americans, I have routines. One part of my routines is getting out of bed every morning. This is usually followed by scratching and then peeing. Not always in that order but enough times that I consider it a routine. Once I am done peeing I walk into my living room area, look around and then wonder what it all means. Not what my living room means, but what life means. And how I figure into things. And on the universal time frame are we in a period equivalent to the Neolithic period of Earth's history and hence we haven't gotten far enough to see aliens because we have not progressed far enough in terms of technology and know-how? And what is time really? Is it linear in nature or more like a mobius loop? You know. Stuff like that. But not on this Tuesday. Nope. Because my routine was interrupted by a small postcard slipped under my door. I picked it up and what I found is below:





Needless to say at first I was a little shocked. Not that someone had come up to my door to do this and I could have easily been walking out my door at the time. Not because I officially had a stalker (Yah!). Because that is kinda cool. Not that my stalker hadn't though enough of me that they would have used something other than a freebie postcard from a bathroom urinal to profess their love. Instead I was shocked that someone thought I was handsome. I mean that's pretty exciting when you don't hear it a lot. Then I got to the signature line and found it was signed by "Max". (As you have noticed, I have altered the postcard to protect the innocent and, frankly, myself.) Of course I figured it was a guy, because I do live in a predominantly gay part of town, but "Max" is also a slightly unisex name. So because I don't think of myself as gay, I held out hope that maybe this "Max" was a she. But how could I know? Thank god for the internet.

I am a very impressive cybersleuth. If you have put anything on the internet, I can most likely find you and what you look like. So if not Google, then Friendster. If not Friendster, then Facebook. If not Facebook, then Myspace. And since I had an email address, I just went to myspace and searched via email and, viola!, there it was her page. Except she was a he, which really wasn't a surprise, but what was surprising was I was on his myspace page. Right there under the "Who You Would Like Meet" section. Where is said, "The chubby guy with glasses next door. And other gays."

I couldn't believe that my stalker thought I was fat. Granted, I am not LA thin, but I'm no lard-ass. I work out everyday. I do the elliptical trainer. Or the stationary bike. And I lift weights. And I watch what I eat. For the most part. So despite all this effort, the person that has the most illogical attraction to me, my stalker, thinks that I am calorically dense.

And see, this is not exactly what I need. Everyone can use a stalker. Well, as long as their not dangerous. Or armed. Or both. Because there is something ego-affirming about someone who has an unnatural attraction to you. I mean it feels good that whatever fun-house image you see in the mirror, it is not what someone else sees. Especially someone who lives next-door and uses free postcards from a urinal and has you on their myspace page. But when you find out that they reinforce your illogical insecurity it's the emotional equivalent of scratching a mosquito bite too long. At first it feels good but then when you go too long it starts to sting. And bleed. And it might get infected. And all that sucks.

So I found myself no longer wanting a stalker. At least not one that thinks I'm fat. So I polled my friends and my sister. For the most part they all had the same answer, except my sister who assessed my present romantic condition and told me to "go for it." They all told me to ignore it. Which I have. And I haven't heard anything from "Max." Except that every now and then I wonder if someday I might get yet another stalker. Except this time it will be a chick, or post-op tranny, and they will understand that I neither fat or chubby but instead "big-boned".

Jim's Fix

I attended the University of Texas in the early nineties. This was the time of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and grunge. It was also the heyday of Lollapalooza, a music fest of diverse acts from Seattle that, to maintain its diversity, had a "which one of these is not like the others" band in the line-up. In 1993 between Primus, Rage Against the Machine and Alice in Chains there was this hippy-ish rap band from Atlanta... Arrested Development Their shtick was that they were not Mac-10-toting gangsta rappers from south-central but peace loving hippy agrarians from the south. So whereas the other acts on the bill had stages designed to resemble post-apocalyptic dystopias, Arrested Development had a stage that looked like a rural paradise complete with an outhouse. Because, as we all know, Utopia has bliss but no indoor plumbing.

The band had a monster hit in the early 90’s with the song "Everyday People" and a lesser hit with the catchy ditty "Mr. Wendle", a song about an otherwise brilliant homeless man that in between delusional bouts of talking to himself, drinking his own urine and eating the accumulated gunk in the cracks of the sidewalk, held an uncommon wisdom we would be privy to if only we would stop and pay attention. So inbetween bouts of incoherent shouting and alcohol-induced hallucinations, Mr. Wendel was a wellspring of uncommon wisdom and possibly even winning lottery number combinations. But we, the oblivious universe, would never know because we were too wrapped up in our minor dramas to look past a face covered in feces and really see, I mean reeeeaaaalllllyyyy see, the man behind the image.

I recently rediscovered this song on iTunes, a music service designed as a co-venture between Apple Computer and the Legions of Hell. Although it has an infectious groove that some might describe as bootylicious, the message seemed a little naive and idealistic. I mean... really... who buys that there is a brilliant mind under five years of accumulated grime. But as I was driving to the office the other day I noticed a dirty, shirtless man who happened to be waving and gesticulating to nobody in particular. He wore a back pack, his homeless kit I presumed, and shorts that were a little unfashionable in their length. He was at the crosswalk at the intersection and seemed to be caught in some odd rhythm, dancing to a soundtrack only he could hear. I just looked at him trying to figure out what the hell was up with the schizophrenic hand-jive when suddenly the “don't walk” signal changed to” walk” and he started... to jog. And it hit me. He was a homeless jogger. His shorts weren't walking shorts. They were running shorts. And not unfashionable, just filthy. And he didn't need an iPod. He had all the songs he needed right there, in his head, stored in-between the voices. The backpack kept him mobile. And maybe had a number for the LA Marathon.

Los Angeles is for the most part a wildcatter’s town, except that instead of drilling for oil, we drill for fame or fortune or recognition. Some of us even drill for self-worth, but most of that was drilled out of the region when the Native Americans left the area to aspiring actors. And like most prospecting towns, the line between bounty and despair is very thin. One day you’re up. The next day you’re down. Rinse. Repeat.

Being that we are a nation defined by a work ethic fueled by blind, irrational optimism it is important to be prepared for every and all possibilities. That means all possibilities. So as much as I like to spend time planning for my bacchanalian feasts, drug-fueled orgies and Saturday football in the mansion in the Hills I will one day own, I find that it is important to prepare for the other, inverse possibility... homelessness.

I have done a good amount of field research at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at the corner of Sunset and Fairfax into the different kinds of homeless people. Generally they can be split into two large groups... male and female... and further divided into two subgroups... active and bat-shit crazy. Although both smell like urine, the females are distinguished from the males by a tendency to wear pink. The actives are distinguished from the bat-shit crazies because they are active where as the bat-shit crazy are bat-shot crazy. So to classify the jogger I mentioned previously… he would be a male, active homeless because he... and I have to assume this because I had the AC on in my car... smelled like urine, was not wearing pink and was jogging. The homeless guy on the corner of Robertson and Third Street is also a male, active because he, one, smells like urine, two, does not wear pink and, three, dances all day to the songs in his head.

So assuming my life takes a turn for the worse, it is important for me to be proactive in my choices and not simply settle into whatever homeless type presents itself. I would make choices. Bold choices. First, I would choose to be male as I do not own pink. Second I would choose to be an active because what I failed to mention is that both of the homeless male, actives mentioned previously had killer abs. I mean… their abs were SHREDDED! There was so much definition is would make Merriam-Webster cry. And I would choose to be a hybrid between the dancing and the jogging. So I would jog to various street corners where I would dance until it was time to jog to another street corner. And… see this is where preparation and planning come in… when the inevitable reinvention happens... because if Flav can do it, so can I… and I was able to stop jogging and running from street corner to street corner in Los Angeles... and I reclaim my mansion up in the hills... I would return to my life of bacchanalian feasts, drug-fueled orgies and Saturday football but this time I would do it with killer abs. Sick, crazy, defined abs. Simply, I would be better the second time around. Kinda like homemade soup that has had time to marinate in the fridge overnight. And that is what I call progress.

But It's a Dry Heat...

Los Angeles is in the midst of what can best be described as a scorching heat wave. The general topic of conversation has been either, one, complaining about the heat or, two, comparing one's relative suffering at the hands of the atmospheric inferno. Keep in mind that I am originally from Texas and this is nothing compared to what I grew up with in Houston. But this was not in the brochure when I signed up for California living. I want 75 and sunny. Not 85 and humid. I also don't want to sweat. Ever. Unless I am running. And then it should evaporate immediately. In fact, the weather should be so dry that I am personally at risk of turning into a wildfire at any given moment. But complaining really isn't the point of this. This is really about giving back.

The biggest problems facing America today are, in no particular order, immigration and global warming. Bear with me as I solve these with precision, verve and panache.

America is a nation of immigrants despite what the minutemen might think. If you were to take the average American's DNA and subject it to testing, you would most likely turn up at least three or four ethnic lines and at least eighty percent would be willing members of your double helix. We for the most part aren't what the Nazi's would consider ethnically pure. So technically speaking. We would be very hard to sort. So you might be asking yourself, "How can I solve the immigration problem in America without self-reflexively deporting myself? I just don't think it can be done."

But America is not about finding excuses. America is about finding a way. And that way is to simply declare "American" an ethnicity, patent it and begin signing people up. The only genetic test would be to play Kanye West's "Gold Digger" and see if a bootyquake occurs. Because only a pagan, factory-worshipping communist... or the French... would not instantly begin to groove to what my sister describes as "The Jam". Suddenly, viola! No immigrants. Just god-fearing, red meat eating, NASCAR watching, rump-shaking, gawddamn Americans spawned in the bowels of the US of muthafuckin' A. I'm surprised my keyboard didn't short out as my tears of ethnic, national pride poured down my face. So now you might be wondering. "OK, that was easy, but what about this global warming thing that may or may not exist depending on whether you are talking to someone who makes a living drilling, refining or reselling fossil fuels?"

For once, we must look to our neighbors... dare I say siblings... to the north, the Canadians.

Someone told me that 90% of the Canadian population resides within 100 miles of the border. So you might be asking yourself, "Doesn't that make for a tight fit? I mean, don't get me wrong, the idea of groovin' in a pile with some hot canuckians makes me quiver in my loins. And I have seen pictures of the night clubs in Montreal... but I mean at some point it's really not them, it's just that you know... we need our space... and it's not like we're really broken up... it's more like we are on a break... because even though I may not sleep with someone else... I mean I may fuck them... but definitely no sleeping... I will do that only with you and alone... it just seems a little... you know... tight."

But see... that is the genius of global warming. Canada will no longer be a frigid wasteland of polar bears, hockey sticks and Inuits. It will instead be a temperate paradise with Hockey pushed to the hinterlands and baseball taking its place in the fertile fields of what was once known as the Northwest Territories. We will have pushed the Canadians further north where they can occupy a 100 mile strip between America's new northern border and what was once the North Pole. Because we as a people should have the compassion to help the Canadians maintain a lifestyle that they, or at least 90%, have become accustomed to. The remaining ten percent, especially the ones that look like Natasha Henstridge, can live with us, the Americans as guest workers. That leaves the whole of what we once knew as the Unites States to be occupied by Mexican immigrants who have wanted to explore the area known to them as "El Norte". Subsequently we will have eliminated global warming as a problem and instead turned it, using American know-how and pluck, into an asset that will allow us to give Canada new meaning and Mexican immigrants a legal place to hang out.

And it is that simple. With a little desire, reclassification, optimism and suspension of disbelief... something that is in the very fabric of the American creed... we have wiped out two pressing problems which leaves us time to engage more pressing concerns. And we didn't even need a politician. Just some common sense.

I Want to Be an Anorexic

Los Angeles is a competitive town. It is also a vainglorious town. And it is a really thin town.

I am not per se... fat... but I am also not thin. But by this town's standards, I am surprised that Greenpeace isn't following me around making sure I don't get harpooned by Japanese tourists. Throw on top of that that everyone is also preternaturally beautiful and you create a breeder reactor for insecurity.

In the early nineties there was a school of educational thought that posited that best way to stem the inevitable soul-crushing insecurity of adulthood was to bolster a kid's self-esteem. So if you tried out for the football team... you're on the team. If you wanted to be a cheerleader... you made it. If you wanted to be a high class hooker with a heart of gold... done. The reasoning was that kids with amazing self-esteem, which was a result of not knowing failure and disappointment, would be incapable of insecurity because they didn't know what it was. It would follow that with a whole generation of children with amazing self-esteem would then go out into the world and be a force for good and unbridled capitalism. The whole world would be transformed into a utopian paradise of ideas where we would use sexually charged images to sell each other jeans.

Needless to say, the experiment failed. The reality is that even though you may not give something a name doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Kinda like not knowing Ebola is called "Ebola" doesn't keep it from melting your liver. Hence failure would eventually rear its ugly head in the form of college admissions. Apparently the very same colleges that had devised the whole self-esteem notion has failed to apply it to their admissions process. So the march to Utopia was halted by a scantron sheet and the SAT people. And insecurity would set in. So much for progress.

Today we find ourselves mired in Iraq, the economy is stagnant for everyone but the top one percent and it seems like there are no great challenges or big ideas. No moon to get to. No new political systems to try. No new calorie free sweeteners. Nothing. So the challenges must then be internal. Self-imposed. But also, it's not to say that self esteem isn't a cure for crushing insecurity. It is. But it must be gained honestly. By overcoming obstacles and adversity to reach a goal. The American way.

That gets me back to my weight. When I fell out of my mom I thought I was going to be thin. I was a beanpole up until the second grade. Then something happened. Not sure whether it was football, genetic factors or all the beige food I was subjected to growing up, but I was a rotund little kid. Dare I say husky? I am not saying that I was necessarily obese (and according to Time Magazine, if I went back today I would svelte compared to the juice-fattened kids of today) but I wasn't thin. Asking me to run a mile in the fifth grade was the equivalent of asking me to run the Boston Marathon backwards. An impossible task or at least near impossible.

In college I managed to drop a ton of weight and I looked pretty good if I do say so myself. It was a glorious three year period that was eventually derailed by the working world. When I first moved to LA, I was still able to mix into the crowd of attractive twenty somethings but before long the commitment to being bound to a desk caused an east-west expansion of my waistline. The next years were spent with a back and forth battle between "dude, you look like you've lost some weight." and "dude, you need to lose some weight."

I consider myself a goal-setter and goal-achiever. I think I learned it in football when I realized that I would not be allowed to quit no matter how much I wanted to and that I would never lose my virginity if I quit because cheerleaders don't fuck fat kids. But they do fuck football players. Every year I would set a goal. And that goal was to make it to the end of the season without being paralyzed. Was I succesful? Let me put it this way. I can get around without blowing into a tube.

It was this ability to realize goals that helped me get ahead. It got me through college and it got me to LA. But somewhere along the way, I became lax in maintaining this practice. So as part of a self-improvement regimen I picked it back up. I first implemented it in my professional life and things are going swimmingly. But that old bugaboo still haunts me and that thing is my weight. It has always been the major source for my insecurity and I have made up my mind to not let it beat me anymore. So this is a new year and it is a new year of challenges and that challenge is weight. I want to lose weight and there is no sure fire way to drop pounds like simply not eating. And what is the most effective way to not eat? Anorexia.

It's really a straightforward plan. If I can simply succeed at starving myself to emaciation I will have not only solved a practical problem, weight gain, I will have solved some existential problems as well. I will not only be thin, I will also know internally that I can... one... achieve anything I set my mind to and... two... suppress any self-doubt by achieving a goal. I will have created a colossal store of self-esteem that will not only keep me thin but will also bleed over into other aspects of my life. As the pounds melt off of me, I will suddenly find myself amazingly capable and successful in so many other aspects of my life. I will be the self-actualized man. I will be the Nietzschean Uberman. And I will be strikingly thin. And popular. Because thin people are popular. Although you can say that really fat people are popular too, but just not as long lived.

So when you are driving down the street and you see a walking skeleton with a distended stomach but an amazing air of confidence, honk and give me a big thumbs-up because what you will be witnessing is the absolute destruction of self-imposed limits and the creation of a boundless fountain of self-esteem. And that’s a good thing.

You Can't Stop Progress

I really don't consider myself much of an adult. Granted, I am starting to get wrinkles, I don't rebound from debauchery the way I once did and 18 year olds think I am someone to be mocked as opposed to emulated. But there seem to be subtle suggestions that I might be slowly but surely entering adulthood. For instance, I recently bought a toiler paper holder. There I said. I bought it. And I even went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy it. I... get this... intended to buy it. A plastic and metal cylindar designed to store and hide in plain sight three additional rolls of toilet paper besides the one already available to the bathroom user on the dispenser. I got in my car. Turned the key. Got on the road. And walked through the door of Bed, Bath & Beyond with one thing on my list - toilet paper holder.

There is a book called The Tipping Point which I am sure you have heard of but if you haven't it examines how trends begin and reach critical mass. When they really explode is what is called the tipping point. I think that adulthood for a guy has a tipping point. It occurs when you voluntarily enter a Pottery Barn as opposed to being coerced by someone... most likely someone you are trying to nail. Or at least see naked. Without paying them for that. And love.

I've always considered myself to have some level of design-conciousness. When I was a kid I liked giant japanese robots with swords. Then I got into D&D. Then I collected comics. OK. I was a geek growing up. In fact, I used to were the same colored shirt everyday in the eight grade. My friends called me "Blue Shirt". I convinced myself it was a style choice, but frankly money was tight and blue pinpoint oxford short sleeved shirts were inexpensive. But it did give me some indavertant level of stylistic simplicity, allowed me to know at an early age what pinpoint oxford was and, most importantly, reinforced my geekdom.

In High School, I was able to start shedding my outward geek tendencies even though I harbored geek tendencies internally. (I closet collected transformers in the ninth grade - seriously) Eventually in college I came into my own and found some measure of style by working in a hip clothing store. So again, I had an external presentation of cool. And at that point 18 year olds thought I was cool. They even said so. And I could date them without looking like a pedophile. Finally I was spurt out of the college system into the adult world which at that point means that you start in what some of us call "the working world".

And therein lies the rub. I am supposed to be an adult but if a FBI profiler went to my apartment, they would conclude that it was occupied by a kid. Mismatched furniture. Black furniture. Sheets under 500 thread count. Non-natural fibers. So you could really say that while I was maintaining the appearance of an adult, the lair was giving me away. And it was like that through most of my twenties.

Then it occurred. Not sure when. But it did. I walked past a Pottery Barn and as opposed to being deflected like an up-quark in a partical collider... I walked in. Not only did I walk in... I liked it. All of it. The furniture. The window treaments (I didn't know that phrase before Pottery Barn). The candles. All of it. And thus began a subtle transformation wherein one externally presented adult was becoming and internally registered adult.

So it began with pottery barn and then led to overstock.com then to me getting in my car to go buy a toilet paper holder at Bed, Bath & Beyond. And as I was walking in the store I walked past a group of 18 year olds and as they looked at me in what I interpreted as an internally mocking manner I thought, "Dude, pull up your pants."

Golden Years

I was in the third grade once. Although at the time is was somehow committed to guaranteeing that I would one day say I was in the third grade twice.

Grade three is where you ostensibly begin your journey into what will hopefully lead to true higher learning. You are introduced to cursive. You are introduced to complex sentences. You are introduced to multiplication tables. You are introduced into the abject humiliation of not being able to do any of these well and having them memorialized in silly displays designed to be fun and educational. Like the parachutes we made for our multiplication tables in Mrs. (but it could have been Ms.) Emmitt's third grade class.

In case your wondering what in the hell I am talking about, one day in class we had made these cool little parachutists out of construction paper, cloth and yarn (which is cornerstone of elementary school arts and crafts). I am pretty sure I thought mine was cool. He had a cloth shoot with yarn cords holding his construction paper body to it. Cool is not what I would be feeling in the upcoming days.

A day after we had completed these little guys, Mrs. Emmitt started to erect a rather ominous mural on the wall. Except it wasn't really much of anything except a bunch of horizontal lines with a number next to them. They started with a zero on top and ended with a 12 on the bottom. I left that day wondering what in the hell that wall was for. When I returned the next day I noticed that all of our little parachutists were at the top line, zero. Mrs. Emmitt then explained to us that we were to learn our multiplication tables, or times tables in the common vernacular. We would start on the zero line and as we passed the test for that level, we would descend until our parachutist hit the twelve line. Keep in mind the test were timed (no relation to "times"). Twelve would be our final test and if we passed that we would get a passing grade and a gold star. Those damn gold stars. In the third grade I would've killed a man with my bare hands for a gold star. The only thing better than a gold star was a scratch and sniff sticker. You would of thought the blueberry one had brown horse in it. In the third grade I would've fucked my priest voluntarily for a scratch and sniff sticker.

Anyways, my adolescent mind assumed that the task of these "times tables" would somehow equate emotionally with the joy that making that little parachute had brought me. So I figured, how hard can this be? We started with the zeros. Anything times zero is zero. Duh. Those were a breeze. As were the ones. The twos were really easy as well. Then came the threes.

The reality is you have to memorize the tables. I, being a somewhat bored and lazy kid, was actually just doing quick addition on the twos. The threes were not so quick to be added up. So when I got to threes my ability to add quickly fell well short of the time limit. And there I stalled. My parachutist in space.

If my little guy had been actually flesh and blood, he would have cried to the heavens for the largess delivered by a benevolent god to keep him suspended in mid-air. Scientific publications in this parallel world would have rushed to figure out the principals behind the parachutinal mid-air suspension. Time Magazine would have put one of those scientists on the cover. But my little guy was wasn't flesh and blood. He was string, construction paper and cloth. And although he was not in any danger of hitting the ground, my self-esteem was starting to reach terminal velocity as it plummeted to the cold, hard ground. And there he was. Just floating.

Most of the kids in the class eventually started to work their way down. Some did better than others. The class genius, Robbie L., was done in what seemed like hours, although I think it was a few days. I took refuge in knowing that his parachutist in that parallel universe only cursed his name as he rocketed to his impending doom. But that was little comfort as my guy hung there, suspended with fewer and fewer parachutists to take the attention off of him.

A week stretched into weeks and my guy had only managed to drop to the fours. Again, I knew I was supposed to memorize the table, but my hard-headedness only forced me into learning to add threes really, really quickly. I stalled on four. There was some company for my misery. Rex, the class... uhh... slow one had stalled out on three. At the very least I was saved the complete humiliation of knowing I finished last. But you can never hide from yourself and underneath all my self-deception I knew I sucked at math. And a lot of other things by extension. The fact that Rex's parachutist hung perilously close to mine on that wall was proof I was almost clinically retarded. At least that is how it must look to the outside world. And test after test... no dice. Until one day when I came in and those parachutists were gone. Taken away by the same force, Mrs. Emmitt, that had put them there in the first place.

I am not sure how I managed to get past that year, but somehow I pulled it out. Considering that the majority of that year's recesses were spent doing equations behind the teacher while the other kids played, jealously looking onto the playground and seeing the kids frolic while I tried to remember what five times six was. But I must have made up for it somehow and somehow I passed. And even though there was some joy in knowing I would go to fourth grade, I have always wondered what went through my parachutist's mind as he sat suspended in space and suddenly was crumpled and blown to dust by an extension of the god that had held him there for all those weeks. Because he, much like me in that recess, sat exposed.

For those of you who believe in destiny, it might have been that gentle stranger who delivered what you see below. That’s right. My third grade class picture. And in it you will see a little kid in a brown shirt with a horizontal stripe. Like Charlie Brown with hair and about the same self image. But don’t let the smile fool you. It is a smile to hold back the tears that only that kid, and a particular parachutist, could truly understand.

Apparently I am Complex

Who Should Paint You: Pablo Picasso

Your an expressive soul who shows many emotions, with many subtleties Only a master painter could represent your glorious contradictions

I guess my mother wasn't lying. Or maybe she was. If I knew who my mother was.