"Zip Up Your Alligator Skin..." or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned To Love Cameras.

    There is quite a many thing that has been said over the last several weeks in reference to the dismal state of affairs between law enforcement and everyday folk like you and I, the civilians. Protesters are lining the streets all over our country, the police are on edge, and tensions are running higher than Rick James in a cocaine factory. One thing that is seemingly getting lost in all of this madness, is the topic of police departments having their officers strap on cameras while they are on duty. Why have we stopped asking this question? And furthermore, why are there not more pro-camera police out there? Before you jump to your own conclusions, hear me out.

    Let me start by saying a few things first. I fully realize that even the invocation of this discussion topic will begin a tidal wave of eye rolls, scoffs, and even a few well-warranted sighs of, "enough of this, already." I get it. To understand where I am coming from, I believe that the following quote from The Daily Show's Jon Stewart will sum up the duality of this situation best:


"You can truly grieve for every officer who’s been lost in the line of duty in this country, and still be troubled by cases of police overreach. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive."


    It seems as if lately, you cannot make any sort of statement about police overreach or even worse, cases of police brutality, without it being thrown in your face that you are anti-cop. Conversely, if you post a blue line or blue ribbon on your Facebook page or Twitter, or if you show any sort of support for cops, you can be painted into the corner of being "pro-police brutality" or you can even be accused of wanting to usher in a "police state" that is going to pave the way for the New World Order and the Illuminati are coming for you and your babies....sorry, not sure what happened there. Can I just reiterate what it was that Stewart was saying and say that IT IS OKAY TO FEEL AMBIVALENT ABOUT THIS ISSUE. There. I said it. Breathe easy, civilian.

    Although I am not a police officer, I have been fortunate enough to have a sort of unique perspective on what it is like inside of a police department, even though still technically an outsider to the fraternity. I, just like most everybody else, have several close family members and best friends that are police officers. Also, from the summer of 2009 until the summer of 2013, I was a parking enforcement officer with a municipality in the near-west suburbs of Chicago. Yes, I was THAT guy. If you visited that village at any time within those nearly four years, I more than likely gave you a ticket. Don't be mad, you deserved it and hey, a man's gotta eat.

    During my brief tenure with that department, I was fortunate enough to meet some of the finest human beings you would ever wish to interact with. I saw firsthand the truly awe-inspiring spirit that it takes to put on that uniform every single day knowing in the back of your mind that there is that chance, despite how relatively small it may be, that you will not be going home at the end of your shift. Your commanding officer going to your house, knocking on your door, informing your loved ones of the fate that has befallen you. It takes balls to put that uniform on. And yes, even the women that don the colors have balls of their own, in the form of a grit and courage that many of us common folk only pretend to have. It is a rough job, people. It takes strength of will, character, and a mental fortitude that I for one, know that I did not have.

   My time at the department also showed me something else: it showed me that there really are a couple really, REALLY shitty human beings that put that uniform on every day. The racial slurs, the stories of past back-room/basement beatings, the constant wariness of blacks and Latinos. It was a nightmare at times, trying to put on a happy face around some of these crazy assholes because some of those crazy assholes were my superiors and I had two babies at home that needed food, and there was no way I was upsetting this tight, fraternal apple cart. These select few, however, did not do enough to make me hate the police, nor did it sway my opinion that the police are, in general, a force for good and a necessity for our communities. Don't let a few bad app....eh, you know.

    I really wish that it was easy to, from my little corner of the world, psychically slam some common sense into the heads of some people. One of these people is Patrick Lynch, President of the Patrolman's Benevolence Association (PBA) who said in the wake of the tragic shootings of NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, that the New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, has "blood on his hands" in the deaths of these two officers. And for what you may ask? It was Mayor DeBlasio speaking from personal experience about his worries for, and conversations he has had, with his son Dante, who is bi-racial. Here is what caused such a huge uproar, you be the judge. Link comes from rawstory.com:

DeBlasio Comments in Wake of Eric Garner Verdict


    In this video, DeBlasio does not come out and viciously attack the police as guys like Lynch and Giuliani would have you believe. DeBlasio calls for any protests to be peaceful and for non-violent social unrest if the people want change. Sounds pretty un-American, right?  The most radical thing about this, is that he is the most powerful politician in the city, who happens to disagree with the verdict handed down by the jury. He also happens to have a personal anecdote about having a son who is half black and the worries that come with that in New York City. You know, the city that stops and frisks a huge percentage of people of color. That's it. That is what caused this whole nonsense with PBA President Lynch and former Mayor Rudy "9/11-something something-9/11" Giuliani, saying that everyone from President Obama to DeBlasio and every Sharpton in between is responsible for the deaths of officers Liu and Ramos. Man...what a maniac this DeBlasio guy is, huh? Are you kidding me? This is it? This is why you flat out turn your backs to the guy at funerals and at police officer graduation ceremonies now? Grow up, you guys. This is much deeper than just the Mayor, the POTUS, and yes, even bigger than Al Sharpton (used to be). You are fueling these fires just as much if not more than the protesters that line the streets of our cities. Your culpability in these rising tensions are ever-increasing, Mr. Lynch. As I've been told working many times working in the security field, "Zip up your alligator skin."

                                              PBA President Patrick Lynch

    Policing is hard work on the streets AND behind the scenes. If the mayor wants you to clean up your act because some of the things your department is doing are driving the citizens to freak, you keep your mouth closed and start cleaning house. It does not mean that the mayor wants all cops dead and that everyone who is protesting wants the same. Even if there is a psycho out there who killed two cops who didn't deserve it. Even if there is a percent of a percent of protesters that seem to be out for blood. Don't let a few bad app.....eh, you know the rest, right guys?

    As much as guys like Lynch or Giuliani would hate to admit it, there is a growing distrust of police in this country that is in large part due to the fact that we are failing to see indictments of officers for crimes that are in some cases, very obviously committed. Or, we see "slaps on the wrists" to officers that seem to have gotten very favorable treatment, seemingly gained from the tin star on their chest and gat on their hip. The list is so long, I will not even begin one. We have seen the stories, the footage, heard the testimonies. One thing that we should all be wary of, my friends, are a majority of the "police brutality" videos on YouTube and other sites. I implore you-please let us not turn into those people who watch a video that has been turned on in the middle of a melee between a cop and a perp, and say, "Look how shitty this cop is being to this guy who didn't do anything!" If you don't have the entire video from start to finish, don't even bother. You are merely showing a snippet of a story that, for all we know, the officer was completely in the right. Let's stand for something unequivocally-TRANSPARENCY. Which leads me back to video cameras.

    I think that it is well overdue for us, as a Nation, to call for a sort of federal law requiring all of law enforcement officers to wear as a part of their uniform, a personal camera that operates from the beginning of the shift when you hop into the squad, until you come in and punch out every night in the station. I say this, not so the public will see "how shitty the cops are to people all the time", but so that you, the true blue, honest, public serving, hard working officers can receive the praise and vindication that you so truly are due in these times. You work under immense amounts of stress every day and handle yourselves accordingly, as some of the finest among us all. If some piece of shit on the street tries to lie and say you were too rough after he did nothing wrong, you have your proof right in front of you and more importantly, in front of US. No more videos on YouTube that show a tiny fraction of a small piece of a puzzle.  I hope that all of my loved ones in law enforcement can get behind this idea. And for those of you who are asshole cops, who use your positions of power to abuse, cheat, steal, lie, and assault against those you serve, you are truly the lowest sludge to inhabit the swine pen, and you should be on camera for those who pay your salary to see.

   For all you civilians, get out there on the streets, people. Protest. Yell. March. BE HEARD. But remember, peace will beget peace in the end. Stand up against brutality in ALL of its forms, be it from police or violent protesters,  and don't let anyone tell you that protesting such abuses, while simultaneously grieving for those who serve for us, need be mutually exclusive. Run from people like that, they are trying to sell you something. For all of my non-civilian law enforcement friends and family: get out there, protest, be heard, BE SEEN (on camera), vindicate yourselves, turn in those among you that should not be on the job, you know who they are. We will all be safer for it. Hashtag-ALL LIFE MATTERS.

Happy New Year, my friends. Whether you're protesting for our rights or suiting up for our protection, stay safe out there.

   



  

"...You mustn't lose it."

"You are only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."
-Robin Williams: 1951-2014


    As I sit at this desk and begin, my heart is still lodged somewhere between my stomach and my small intestine. On my way out the door two nights ago my wife asked me, "Did you hear that Robin Williams died?"

    "What!?", I had said alarmingly. "No...come on...you're kidding me, right?"

    I was, at that point, unsure if I had even heard her correctly, even though there was no possible way to mistake those words.

    "Yeah", she said, "it was suicide."

    It was at that moment when my heart began its nosedive into the deepest pit of my gut, where it is slowly climbing back up from a couple days later. I kissed my wife goodbye and threw her a facetious "Thanks", for hitting me with this awful news on my way out to work. I wasn't mad at her, but the built-in self defense mechanism of sarcasm kicked in completely involuntarily. My feelings were beginning to run away from me.

    I grabbed my gear and headed to the car. I think I may have been shaking my head in disbelief between my stoop and the Nissan, but at that point a certain numbness had vaulted from my ever-receding hairline down to my Barney Rubble toes.

    The first half of the drive into work was quiet inside of the car. No radio, no podcasts, no Spotify. Just the windows down, my cigarette up. "God dammit", I found myself muttering between every third or fourth drag. "God dammit."

    Five minutes or so into the drive, I began wondering why in the Hell my heart has decided to cut and run so deep into my belly. Why has my well-rested, easy mood turned so irreversibly sour over the death of someone that I have never met? Another big name celebrity gone. So what? This has no effect on my life, right? When Phillip Seymour Hoffman died a few months back, I had felt a similar tinge of heartache but it subsided fairly quickly - and I consider him to be quite possibly the greatest actor I have ever seen and consider myself a very devoted fan of his. Why did it hurt? It felt like a childhood friend was gone. It was like your grandfather or your favorite uncle passed on. It was at that point that my eyes began to fill with the tiny little pools of salty heartbreak that every single one of us knows all too well. My brain began firing off rapid doses of words and images.

    Rainbow suspenders. Peter Pan. "Your move, Chief". Dead poets. Popeye. Mania. Fisher King. Depression. Children left behind. World's Greatest Dad. Julliard. Comedy Store. Microphone. Blue eyes. Toys. Arm hair. Booze. Family. Addiction. Laughter. Cocaine. Crying clowns.  Awakenings. Enlightenment. Peace.

   The warm streak of sadness barely made it to my cheek before it was wiped away. I shook some sense into my mind and rubbed my eyes. Somewhere in that moment I had found the answer to the "Why?" It was because arguably the world's greatest clown was dead. A face that I have been laughing with and at since I was a boy, was gone. A man, that devoted his life to making millions laugh, had failed to find enough laughter and joy to keep for himself because he gave it all to us. The battles that his mind waged against itself were finally over. His little spark of madness was to be irrevocably lost.

   As I finally decided that some music would help deter my mind, I turned on the radio and I began a sort of condensed, lightning-fast version of the stages of grief. My brain was already trying to deny that I had heard this horrific news. I moved directly to anger. He had kids. He had a wife. He had countless friends and admiring fans. He was honored and respected by so many of his peers (even after years of alleged joke stealing.) What kind of a selfish asshole would do that to them? Another drag from my cigarette. Another "God dammit."

    My higher primate sense of better judgment slowly eased back into place. Nobody really knows what is going on in the mind of a person who is about to throw in the great big towel. We are hearing now that Robin Williams' long history of depression was growing more and more severe in recent months. Hearing that, I can't help but picture Robin's face from his movies when he acted upset. The scrunched brow. The hound dog frown. The very real sadness that radiated out of his eyes. I began thinking how easy it really is to say that Robin taking his own life was selfish or cowardly. It is easy and it is wrong.

    Speaking from personal experience, I know that the crushing weight of depression, anxiety, and/or addiction is very real and very, very serious. When faced with these troublesome aspects of their personality, bearers of these traits (in their most severe forms) can ultimately lead themselves to the conclusion that the world might just be better off without them in it. Oh, how we wish we could convince them to the contrary. Also, let me say this: as a parent and as a person who has had issues with depression, anxiety, and addiction, the overwhelming negativity and sense of doom that surfaces can VERY easily beat back the positivity in your life, i.e. beautiful healthy kids, gainful employment, a fridge full of food. Logic and reasoning do not dwell alongside severe depression and anxiety, they are in a very high stakes war with one another. Most of those who live with these dark inclinations can almost always find a way back off of the ledge, back into the light. Unfortunately there are those who decide that the shadow is the only place left to go. But it is not for us left behind to judge the one's who decide to check out early, we were not in their shoes. We knew not their pain.

    If there is anything to be learned from the passing of Robin Williams, it is that nobody can ever really be sure how tremendous the struggles of our neighbors, friends, and family. We can never be completely certain how we will leave this place but we can all take a page out of Robin's playbook. Love each other, entertain each other, try and make one another laugh. Give charitably, always put your bravest face forward, and most of all, to quote Plato, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."


God dammit, Robin. God dammit.

Fear and Loathing on the South Shore pt. 1

    One week ago yesterday, I was on an evening flight that touched its wheels down in Chicago's Midway airport at approximately 10:00 p.m. It had been five days since I had been on a similar aircraft, lifting off at half a mach, bounding in the complete and opposite direction. It was a strange feeling to be gone from the wife and kids for that long, although I had been to my former home of Long Island without them in the past. Something was different this time. Something was definitely amiss. It was the homesickness-something that had not hit me this hard before. I have lived in the near-west suburbs of Chicago now for the better part of a decade and I had not felt the tug of The Island this forcefully before. I had some airline vouchers to spend. My mind and body were burnt. I was gone.

    The flight was full. Just a tip: don't be a fat guy on a full Southwest Airlines flight. You will not find yourself to be in the slightest bit of comfort. I had picked up a copy of Rolling Stone magazine in the airport, which is the only time you will ever catch me buying any magazine, especially Rolling Stone. This flimsy overpriced booklet was to be my only entertainment for the flight. Leave the phone alone. Save the battery. It's going to be a long five days. I tried to shift myself into the most comfortable position possible and skimmed through the magazine. Without much delay, we were off the ground.  I was homeward bound for New York. To the Island that is Long. My wife and kids were somewhere down there on the ground and here I was, hurdling through space and time (heading into another time zone is sort of like time travel, isn't it?). When we reached the proper altitude the flight attendant came by for my beverage request I went with water, rather than what my reptilian brain was calling for, which was scotch. This was to be some much needed R&R time for me and I was quite certain I didn't want to start off with bad breath and an even worse hangover. One thing was chewing at me from beneath my skin, though: I did not know which version of myself would hit the ground on the other side in New York City. Was it to be the mad man set loose from his padded cage, swallowing all that was within his grasp? Or was it to be the fairly calm, tired father of two just looking for somewhere quiet to sit with a pair of headphones and a pack of smokes? Either way one thing was for sure: this was going to be a long five days.

    Hitting the ground at LaGuardia in Queens was beyond a relief. My neck and back were invariably stiff from the near three hour flight. The large black woman next to me was probably not very thrilled with me either, I'm sure. There she was: sandwiched between her average-sized friend and me, the humongous, unshaven white man who forgot to put on his deodorant on his way out the door that morning. If she hadn't been a racist before, I guarantee she is one now. Nonetheless, we deplaned fairly quickly and I made my way through the terminal. The terminals at LaGuardia by the way, might as well be directly modelled after the shittiest airport on the outskirts of Calcutta. Every time I pass through this airport, I am always surprised when I don't see crates of livestock stacked on top of one another. I am out on the street without any problems because my decision to not check any bags was apparently a brilliant one. Without haste I pulled a Marlboro from my pocket. That first post-flight cigarette is like a gift from God himself. All of you smokers know what I'm talking about. All the rest of you...I almost pity you for not knowing how amazing this is. Sucks to be you, I guess.

   Within seconds I see my brother Ian, who is miraculously passing right in front of me almost immediately after I pass through the doors and light up. My short walk to the car was bombarded with little pieces of New York. Yellow cabs, exhaust fumes, honking car horns, those incessant fucking horns. But these sounds were to fade quickly as we sped away from the city, the Empire State building looming large behind us. We exchange all the normal pleasantries and catch up a bit on work, wives and his new band. A question is raised as we give a listen to the latest demos: "How in the Hell is he ALWAYS in a great sounding band?" He really might be the most talented singer/songwriter that you've never heard before. We hit Chipotle and stop at his place on the north shore of The Island to check out his new stereo system and to look up some of his favorite new music. We listen to "The Milk Carton Kids". These guys are incredible. They sound like a modern day Simon & Garfunkle with double guitars. The harmonies are on point and somber. Listening closely, it seems as if every lyric I manage to catch is about me... where I am and what I am doing there. They sing about being alone, missing someone, being in New York, etc...I was only on The Island for two hours so far and already I missed my wife. I missed my kids. This was going to be a long five days.

    We head back to my parent's house shortly thereafter and nobody was home. There was a house key in the usual hiding spot and on the island in the kitchen was the crux of my whole visit-a key to the beater of a Honda my folks bought from my uncle when my step-dad's truck went out during this dismal winter. Ian leaves and I head up to my old room which is now converted into a beautiful guest room. This room is light years away from its former self. Oh, the things this room has seen! This is where normally the writer would state a generic list of the debaucheries that occurred within those four walls. These are going to be purposefully omitted for the sake of the relatives of mine that still view me as a decent person who may or may not end up reading this. Besides, some of you were there and you know all about these things already. I try not to fester in this room for long so I grab the phone charger for the car and I head downstairs and grab the key. I am hitting the road.

    My first stop is at the southern end of my parent's street. This is where the marina sits, overlooking the bay and across to the splinter of sand dunes and brush that conceals the Atlantic on its opposite shore. I park the car and light a smoke. I roll the windows down and turn up my old favorite local station and ease the seat back slightly. Just enough to lounge but not too much as to not impede my view of the bay. To say that this spot is beautiful would be an understatement and lazy. FYI: I am lazy and I like to understate things. It is a beautiful spot, perhaps my favorite in the whole town. My mother used to drive me down here during violent storms so we could watch the lightning split the sky and touch the whitecaps stirring in the bay. I loved those storms. Finishing my cigarette, I touch base with the wife and kids on the phone. My son sounds sad, my daughter sounds somewhat indifferent to my being gone. The call is brief and I hang up with a heavy heart. God damn do I miss them already. In order to avoid thinking too much and feeling depressed about it, I put the car in drive and once again, I'm on the move.

    Kept company only by my phone, smokes, and WEHM, I careen through the back streets of Mastic Beach. I'm a man on a mission, I think. What that mission is exactly, if there even is one, escapes me at the time. My hometown is full of bungalows, historical sights, and slumlord-run properties that should have been condemned decades ago. I pass the houses of old friends and acquaintances, which sends old memories spiraling through my skull. "Isn't that where so-and-so used to live?" "Wasn't that the place with the party and the guy who did that thing and then there was that girl that threw up everywhere?" Some of those facts I remember like it was yesterday. But more often than not, I struggled with the names, the faces, the dates. One fact got shoved in my face on that drive-I am getting old. Better yet, I  AM old. Just another underachiever, shat out of this town that grows old with me, even as I reside nearly a thousand miles away. I make my way down to my Aunt Sharon's house, (which used to be my great-grandparent's after they abandoned Brooklyn due to the well-known "Hipster Gentrification Invasion of 1945") and we have tea. My cousin Isabella comes home from school while we sit and talk. She is ten now and so much older than when I saw her last, which was only a year ago. We talk about life and look through a bag of old photos she found upstairs. Pictures from when I was young, pictures of my parents and their parents and their parents. It was perfect, in a way, being home and looking over those old scenes from the great beyond. My parents, aunts and uncles, all young and naive, broke and trying to figure it out. It was then that I realized for just about the one-millionth time that we all go through the same shit, just in different eras. We are all the same. I needed this re-realization. This is part of why I was here, I think.

   After sitting awhile with my aunt and cousin Bella, I head home to say hi to my step dad and my brother Patrick. Again, I find the house empty and very still aside from the aging Killian Red, the dog that has been with the family for the better part of fifteen years. I set myself on a chair in the living room and I close my eyes. The stillness of it all was almost anxiety inducing. It feels as if it had been years since I have felt this sense of calm. The quiet was cut by the squeaking back door. Dad was home from work and we meet with our standard "it's been awhile" big hug. I ask him how his day at work was and he answers the same way he's answered that question everyday for decades, "Work was good." He asks me about how my job was and I mirror his earlier reply with "Work is good."

    This is a slight bending of the truth. The fact that I am employed is a good thing. I consider myself lucky to have been seen employable by someone, by anyone for that matter. The truth about my work is that I am a hospital security guard, not living up to my potential, working odd hours (mostly midnights), staying home with my kids during the day while my wife works. Staying up for 20-30 hours at a clip with 3-4 hours of sleep in between is quite normal now. The shifting hours and long stretches with minimal sleep helped to usher in the stomach virus from Hell right before I left, lasting five days and leaving me a dehydrated and weak shell of a human being. It was only a day before I left for this trek did I even start feeling somewhat normal again. No worries, I had remembered to pack the Immodium, just in case. But I digest...

    Dad tells me that he has to get ready for his school board meeting and my brother will be out late. He apologizes for having to go and for nothing being planned for dinner. This apology is far from necessary, though. I have keys to a car, nowhere to be, and a boat load of people I could stop in on. I make no phone calls, and set no agenda. I get in the car and put NoFX's "Punk in Drublic" in the CD player. I put the car in drive. Well, I reverse out of the driveway first, smartasses, and I drive aimlessly once again. The sense of open-ended nothingness is nearly overwhelming but I just let it hit me like a violent wave from beyond the dunes across from the marina down the street. I light up a cigarette and ask myself, "Where to?" I have no answers and I like it. This was definitely going to be a long five days.

  

   

State of The Human Address.

I want to start out by saying this: The state of this human and his brain is...meh.


At just about a third of the way through 2014, I keep finding myself asking ridiculously deep, introspective questions that have me spiralling down a very deep, very dark rabbit hole. Sort of like Alice did upon her descent into Wonderland. She and I have a lot in common in that respect...if Alice were a man, horrendously overweight, and balding. One other thing that Alice and I do have in common is that we have some pretty big fans in the "Bear" community.

These questions are pretty basic stuff that we all ask ourselves from time to time. "What the hell am I doing with myself?" "How in the Hell did I get here?" "Am I doing what I am meant to be doing?"

I have no delusions that I am in any way alone in asking these questions. We as a species have been asking these questions of ourselves for thousands of years and will continue to do so for eons more. The issue that I have been finding in dealing with these questions, is that they seem to induce a deluge of mania when I'm left alone with them for too long. A frenzy of synaptic firings that have me feeling that it is too late for me to change. Too late to go after whatever it is that would make me happier, i.e. professionally, physically, and spiritually (whatever that means).

Back in December I started my current job as a security guard at a community hospital. The hours are not pleasant, I never get enough sleep, the work is stressful, and the pay is abysmal. I haven't been happy with my work in quite sometime. The overriding theme on slow nights is "What am I doing here?" My palms start to sweat, my stomach contorts, and my brain swirls to nearly exploding. I am self aware enough to realize that this is anxiety and that everything is okay. Then I begin to remember why I am there. It is for my kids-the little girl and not much little-er boy that anchor me in a semi-responsible, mature adult head space. Me caveman. Me provide. Me bring home bacon.

Usually it is at this time in my mini manic episode that the madness begins to wane. I realize something: no matter what I do for work, no matter my personal doubts,  I am a father. I do have a purpose in life that far exceeds any other personal endeavor. Raising children in this world is a challenge that I fully accept, although I admit at times never fully appreciate. But my tiny anxiety attacks seem to quell when I see their faces in my mind. That may be the purpose behind these episodes, I wonder. The brain starts going wild with fear and balance is restored when I remember my main goal on this planet. I'm a dad. Or just "Dada", if you ask my daughter.

I have the most important occupation in the world. One that I share with millions of others and one that doesn't cut you a check at the end of the week. I just need to remember this fact BEFORE the sweaty hands, Niagara-like brow sweat, and the soon-to-be stomach ulcer nervousness.

I need another source of personal satisfaction. As I stated in the previous post, I want to create. I have been writing again almost everyday. I've been putting projects together in my head that span over several different mediums that I can hopefully share with you guys one day. Better yet, maybe we can do some of these things together. The state of this humans brain WILL be strong. Maybe not tomorrow, next week, or even this year. But it will be...someday.

Thanks for reading, I have rambled long enough. I promise to refine these a bit better as they go on, I'm still not really used to this.


I love you guys.

This is Only a Test...

Hey Gang, 



This is your good pal Jesse sitting down to holler at you for a minute. Please bear with me as this is merely an exercise in self-indulgence, boredom, stress, and a bit of a nose dive into self-exploration via my own cozy little corner of the Internet. This blog is going to serve as a bit of an outlet for my weirdo rantings and opinions, as well as any other little projects I am constantly thinking and talking about starting and never actually (but hopefully one day) doing. I know that most people will gloss over this page as just another writer's attempt at clogging up your Twitter feeds and Facebook walls with some sort of delusions-of-grandure laden, pseudo-intellectual, masturbatory drivel. And you should. This is exactly what this is-for the most part, anyway.


What I can do, however, is promise you this. If you do decide to take some time out from posting pictures of your awesome vacation (that I hate you for taking because I'm not there), or tweeting about how great your barista made your coffee this morning (that I hate because this whole coffee game is getting really irritating), or browsing YouTube until your eyeballs almost fall out (I do not hate this because I do the same), I promise to try and make at least one of you laugh or think or cry. The latter of which would be pretty flippin' sweet. I'm sorry. I'm just a little morbid like that.


I have been consumed with the idea of creating something creative, truthful, funny, artistic, awful, beautiful, destructive, and so many other adjectives that it has nearly eaten away at my brain. It has been so overwhelming at times, that it has led to a sort of self-imposed nihilism that was born out of not seeing a starting line through the fog. But here it is. Right in front of me. My own little cozy corner of the universe. Let's do this.

And so it begins.


"Buy the ticket, take the ride."
-Hunter S. Thompson