You’re The Man Now, Dog!

Some days, I don’t know why I keep at this blog, sometimes pecking out ideas in a futile attempt to communicate, and other times assaulting my innocent keyboard with vicious, violent strikes at its delicate plastic keys, struggling to open a vein and pour a little blood into the transient, meaningless electronic world of the Internet. Today is one of the sanguine days, and I find myself doubting my commitment to continue giving a damn about you bunch of monstrous bastards.

I tried to center myself earlier this evening, but my foolish attempts to counter the hideous gelatinous blob of depression as it slouches ever forward towards me in all of its terrible, mucilaginous glory were thwarted at every turn. For whatever reason, I was seeking escape and solace from the Depression Blob’s corpulent putrescence within the warm, comforting cloud of hitting a baseball. In addition, I wanted to take Brittany to the batting cages, as she confessed to the terrifying sin of never having hit a baseball – seriously. However, since the universe delights in visiting upon me unrestricted misery of the most detestable variety, the batting cages near my home are not yet open. That’s right, baseball season officially started yesterday – but the powerful microphallic gods of southeast Texas have decided that it’s Too Soon. God damn lazy bastards had boxes of balls just sitting there, waiting to be fed into the eager, gaping maws of the pitching machines, but I guess they’re waiting for Hell to freeze before finally getting around to it.

I then decided to drive by my childhood home, which is currently being reconstructed after having been unmade at the hands of Hurricane Ike. It’s destined to come back greater and stronger than ever before, thankfully, but it’s been a slow process that’s taken ages to get going. It’s in full swing now though, and walking through the bare framework skeleton of the home I grew up in was a strange experience. I went there in search of some of my old baseball paraphernalia, but only managed to find a couple of dry-rotted gloves and three softballs. However, since I never played softball, I have no idea what business those ghastly abominations had being in my parents’ garage. I cursed them and was ready to move on, when Brittany and my mother decided to prove to me that the gloves were fine by engaging in a pitiable mockery of pitch-and-catch. Brittany would toss, with an effeminate underhanded throw, the elephantine mass of the softball to my mother – who was, at best, five feet away from her, and attempting to catch it with Flourish. It was…interesting.

The giggling as they chased the inevitable dropped ball was fun for a few minutes, but quickly devolved into a blasphemy of the game that I could no longer tolerate. We gave up, packed it in, and headed home – and that’s when I realized, somewhat to my horror, that I’ve already found the American Dream.

I want to make it clear right here, right now, that I have no interest in the American Dream. It’s a waking nightmare that, once started, cannot be easily escaped. It occurs to me now that the ultimate goal of the average American male is pretty simple, and can best be described as a vapid, pointless state of existence that should terrify a younger man into a life of endless wine, women, and song whilst luring older men into its deceptively safe arms even as it waits to devour them whole and send their shrieking, tormented souls into the abyss.

Yes, I know I can be melodramatic. Let’s just call it a flaw in my character and move on. Let me paint the picture for you, of what I arrived home to do this evening. Resigned to a foiled evening of fun and zen, we pulled into the driveway and walked inside the house. I made myself my drink of choice – a Ciroc Cape Cod – and sat down to keyfuck my computer and write today’s blog entry. Brittany hopped onboard the exercise machine and started working out in front of the television. I sat here, blank and open to inspiration, when it hit me that this is the best that most American men ever dream of hoping for.

I’m sure that everyone will deny it with the sort righteous vehemence normally reserved for pre-pubescent felicitating clergy, but that will just reinforce my belief that you’re all a bunch of rotting zombies, working your way towards your inevitable lonely graves with every career-minded shuffling footstep. Are you still unsure of what it is I’m describing?

Here, I’ll detail it for you, right quick.

We wake in the morning, dazed and confused from the night’s dreaming flights of fancy, and we start the day with a little caffeine and a little breakfast. Some of you shove protein power bars in your sagging faces, and others shovel as much fat into your mouth holes as possible. It doesn’t matter which type of guy you are, the end result is the same. You eventually make your way to your car, and you commute your sorry ass to work.
There, you piddle around for eight hours or so for the glory and riches of someone else, trying to find your own identity from within the rigid, uncaring parameters of progress reports, pointless, rambling meetings and a terrifying, endless ocean of terrible projects. Eventually, you get to go home and redefine yourself with your Personal Time.

And what do most of you do? You come in, you grab a drink while the little woman exercises or, if you’re a truly misogynistic asshat, she cooks your dinner, and eventually the two of you sit down to a delicious meal of growth hormones and processed meat before settling down in front of the Glass Teat for a little mind-numbing boob-tubing until it’s time for bed. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a little boring sleepy sex before you roll over and pass out, but that’s only if your significant other still gives a damn about you instead of getting her rocks off by piddling some unwashed Generation Loser for whom the idea of hygiene is an awful and foreign concept of which he’ll have no part. (Ok, so maybe that last bit is a little personal from the days of my Horrible Mistake and of the ex-wife and the repellant, viscous evacuations from her love cave that were the consequence of unhygienic rumpy-bumpy. Your milage may vary.)

Anyway, my point here is that the American Dream was supposed to be something different. It was supposed to be the stuff of, well – dreams! You have an Idea, you work at it, you develop it, you nurture it and care for it, and you define yourself by it, and it by you. You give a crap about the world and your place in it, and if you don’t like what you see, then by fuck, you go and do something about it! You don’t just give up and give in, and resign yourself to a meaningless life of acquiesced mediocrity, where you’re of no use beyond your capacity to suckle at the cock of industry, hoping and praying to make it cum just a little bit and squirt out just enough of the good-life-baby-gravy to get you through middle age, before you eventually retire to rot and die in some mosquito-infested malaria Hellhole in Florida.

Wake up. Tim Leary remains as wrong today as he was in the sixties, and he’s been dead for almost thirteen years. At least the hippies had the courage to actually tune it, turn on, and drop out. Sure, they were being led by a mad Pied Piper with good intentions, and they all wound up molested and broken in the wet caves of Hamelin – but they committed. All the worthless skinsacks running around today seem to have missed that point. They’re chasing the dollar and living the dream, but it’s the same sad song the hippies were singing while gathered around the clamy walls of the Piper’s cave. You’ve tuned in. You’ve turned on. You’ve dropped out. YOU DO NOT MATTER.

“Are you hungry, seeker?”
“How about a nice bowl full of shit – don’t worry, I’m full of the stuff!”

What is a life that doesn’t matter? Is it to raise children who will also live lives without consequence? Without risk? Without hope? No, I don’t think it is. I think it’s something different. Something more. I have to – and that’s why I’m here. That’s why I keep coming back to this horrid little corner of the Internet, to stand on my soapbox and shout love at the heart of the world. To raise my middle finger in the time honored salute of the malcontent, and hope some of what I say sticks. If it doesn’t, and if there’s no one else like me out there doing the same thing and hoping the same hope, then we might as well pack it in now and shuffle off to bed with our pot-bellied beer guts and tummy-tucked wives to have the passionless, mournful sex of the dead before we roll over, pass out, and dream of a world worth living in.

Yeah, it’s cheesy.
Bite me.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

You're welcome.

Short Stories
Available now from the following retailers

The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
Available now from the following retailers

What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.