Happy New Year

Other than being accused of sociopathic behavior it's been a pretty good New Years Eve, even made it to (almost now) midnight- and if you think sitting alone at home blogging is sad, you would be right .

But being drunk and destructive and probably in some sort of trouble would be a lot worse.

Some things that help make tonight better:

First, I was concerned that some of my friends may have somehow gotten the wrong impression from an earlier post- this is second hand info- I have contacted my closest friends and so far no one seems to think I offed myself- so I feel a little better, hopefully it'll pass without harm or more fuss. Oh, oops, nevermind- I did fuck up. I didn't mean to-I really think it's a terrible mistake-but that doesn't matter. I did it if you think I did it and any seed of doubt you have about me might as well be a conviction. I thought I was pretty clear my plans didn't involve suicide , but obviously I wasn't. I had no reason, nothing to gain by trying to do what you claim I did and it stuns me that it's even an issue, that you trust me so little.
If you really cared, you would give me the benefit of the doubt instead of this merciless, unforgiving rush to judgement.
There's nothing else I can say about this.



Anway, if you haven't ditched me by now, I had a great radio show this morning. There were techie glitches, but I am ultra-smooth (lucky) and somehow muddled thru -check this out- I didn't get the suicide mails I was told about, but I did get a fan letter from Canada. First Sweden, France, Mexico, theUK , now Canada- my Fan Club grows every week:

Hi Allan,

My name is Elvin and I have recently started listening to WRIR on the web here in Toronto Canada. I heard your program for the first time a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed your variegated selection of tunes. I just had a few general questions about the show that i hoped you could answer.

Q1. What is it called?

Q2. When does it air and do you usually get started right on time?

Q3. Do you host the entire show by yourself every week, or do you often have a co host/fill-in?

Q4. Who regularly fills in when you are away?

Q5. Are there any news headline updates, community news updates or regular features during the program and, if so, when do they air?

Q6. Is this a permanent time slot for your program, or does the station's schedule change every semester?

You guys have a great station: keep up the good work!

Best and happy new year!
Elvin

I wrote him back promptly, thanked him and answered all his questions. Little things matter. I made someone in Toronto happy just by doing what I love to do.
Cool.

Third, the Twin just sent email from Chicago, so I know he arrived safely. I may move there when it gets warmer, it's a crazy, fucked-up lovable city. A job would help, the Twin maybe could help- a job means I don't have to crash at his place, so finding work for me is in his best interest ,heh!

Last, but not least, my part-time Blogpal Susanne has really done me right- out of the blue she calls me and tells me to expect a knock on my door in about 45 minutes, but don't worry...good thing, otherwise I mighta flushed my stash...anyway, the knock arrives as promised and it's Pizza Guy and he's got a pile of pizzas and goodies, courtesy of Susanne and I swear it's probably the first time a pizza boy ever saw a grown man weep over a stack of pizzas, but it really meant a lot to me.
Susanne, your timing was PERFECT, thankyou!
Susanne has also helped me produce a legitimate resume so maybe I can stop bitching about not having a job and start bitching about having a job instead.

So I can start the year well fed and, if I can't be happy, at least I'm not mortified.
Who am I kidding? I'm pretty set right now.
You should see all this food- the only reason I'm not grinning is my mouth is full!

Happy New Year

Hey

Look, I'm sorry if you thought I had killed myself.
Most of you will be relieved to know that I am fine, some of you might be disappointed -in either case I'm sorry.

What happened is:
-I wrote a long series of really depressing essays in response to some hard questions. It sent me on a sort of emotional snipe hunt, looking for non-existent problems that I was assured were there. Sometimes we look too hard for meanings and we find mistakes instead, make mistakes too.
-The person I wrote these essays for got bored with me before I published them, so I took them down from the blog, as well as some widgets I had put there for that person. There wasn't much left after that but the Dove but I thought it looked nice that way, plus I really didn't have anything nice to say...I go entire days without comments, so I figured I'd just fix it later when I had something a little more upbeat to share. Maybe a new pic or something.

- If you read my no-longer deleted posts , you'll see that I said I didn't plan on suicide, that I had a hard time talking about it in real life because the first thing people think is "hide the guns", even though I don't consider doing it, I do know about it. I mean, yesterday I was blogging about how much I was looking forward to my weekly radio show- if you listen to my show, you will know I am not a suicide- I love what I do and you can hear it when I am on-air.
I make up a lot of silly BS (google Whalanol) here, but I love my radio station and they count on me. I couldn't fix my blog because it was 6 am and I had to be on air. Call the station if you don't believe me, as the commenter on my recent radio post seems to scoff. I really do love doing my show- why should I have to prove that?

- I've already apologized personally to one blogger and my apology was rejected. That's too bad, but there's nothing else I can do. I'm not a mad villain plotting ways to make people cry, I'm just a person who's trying to work some very difficult things out and sometimes it comes out wrong- so I deleted the words- and the deletion came out wrong.
Everything I do comes out wrong but I am not suicidal about it. If I was I'd be Kurt Cobain and I'm not Kurt Cobain.
I'm sorry, I'm confused and hurt , but I'm not an evil person.
I want things to be better and I try as hard as I can not to fall into the old traps and sometimes I goof up, but please...I have a lot going on, if my blog goes away, it'll come back eventually. If you are concerned I am right here at camelsback@msn.com , please, if what I write upsets you write to ME , not to someone I barely know, and ask ME what's up.
Or stop reading it if it's that painful.
I'll miss you, but it's better than hurting you.

Stop Freaking Out

I'll fix this when I get time.

It's better this way

More Radio

I got a key to my new shared office today...I have a yet another unpaid volunteer title at the station and this one ends with the word 'Director', which means I have access to the Tiny Office, a space where I can sit in relative peace and listen to CD's for airplay- I had a show this afternoon, River City Limits, which is all local area bands. It was fun, I came in early and got my ducks in a row so the show was a breeze.
Sometimes the station seems like a huge effort for no money, but I like it anyway. Kind of like this blog, except the radio station has never broken my heart.

Anyway, I'm admistrative director local music, but we all overlap jobs, so I imagine I'll learn a bit about new functions, although I seem to do everything some days and nothing others...I have a younger kick-ass co-director, he's into screening the CD's and keeping up with concert tie-ins and stuff, my job is the oldman agenda- records keeping, scheduling, fixing shit...it's working ok.

I wanted to name the show River City Shuffle( say it 5 times fast) but was voted down.

I have another show tomorrow morning, it's a regular weekly gig even though I don't get paid, I do get to play any music I like for anybody who'd like to listen. Last week was a semi-tranquil winter mix, some ambient, avant-garde , modern Celtic, mainstream rock,No Wave...I like it all...gonna play some funk and blues tomorrow, maybe some more music by bloggers -if?

Didn't Know it Then

I needn't explain how soul-crushing the search for a decent job is- we all know that already- but I will say that its easier now that I have a spiffy new fax/printer/scanner courtesy of the Twin and my grannie- thank you for my miracle box!

I scanned some old baby photos that I found in my mom's boxes and emailed them to my dad, who showed them to my grannie on his new laptop.
We blogger-types take things like photosharing for granted, but my grannie and my dad had never seen such a thing- it's great that my dad is sober and can open email and stuff.

I'm proud of my father for being sober but I'm worried because he still looks terrible. At 61 he looks 80.
He is lucky that the men in our family have a longevity gene, except for the ones who have killed themselves with alcohol or handguns . No one is sure how long they would have lived.

For years, I've been terrified that dad would deliberately kill himself whilst under a spell of alcoholic despair but now I think he's away from that. I just don't think he's ever going to be 'alright' again. He's ...off.
But not suicidal.
A few months ago he told his mother he wanted to die. She's 86 and wants to live and hearing her oldest son declare his desire to die is not good for her health.
This fall we thought she was dying, but it was a false alarm. I talked with her a great deal when we were making plans...during our talks, she revealed what dad had told her about wanting to die.
I had to drive up and do an intervention of sorts after hearing that, a task that was no picnic but it seems to holding so far.

I joke about suicide, but it is something that troubles me -although I don't think it would be my choice- the idea is not unfamiliar to me.
My mother's older brother shot himself last year and my mother made several serious attempts before cancer settled the issue.
Usually a car accident was her thing, but she tried the pistol too-she almost shot me when I took the gun away.

I was 18 and living in Summit Park, Utah. I'd just graduated High School that summer and decided to move from Virginia to Utah, stay with my mom and her new husband until I got a place- I already had a job lined up at the restaurant I had washed dishes at the previous summer...ski resort here I come!

Stepdad was an oilfield worker and was gone four, six, seven weeks at a time which was great, because he was an asshole; but it left my mom alone in a big house in the middle of nowhere and this was killing her.
I didn't know that then, how the years of isolation,abuse and neglect had robbed her of her ability to feel anything but desolation, pain and the utter lack of hope, save for the hope that it would all just end forever, and end soon.
I was still a dumb child in some ways and thought she was just sad and drunk, not sick. I wasn't paying attention and I was all she had, and it wasn't enough.
Things were not at all well with my mother, but I didn't know any of that then.
Suspected, feared, dreaded the worst, but I didn't know.
I wouldn't have admitted it even if I did know, which I did and still won't admit now.

One evening I was playing guitar in my room when I heard a POW! from the kitchen, a heavy jar breaking maybe?, then a second report, unmistakably a gunshot.

As I ran into the kitchen my hearing went white- a close proximity gunshot is louder than the movies would lead you to believe- the bullethole at my feet added a further 100 decibels of panic volume.
Mom was beyond mere drunkenness, she was spinning on a bar stool and trying to shoot herself.
She was so wasted she kept missing, almost hitting me again as I took the weapon away from her- I walked onto the back porch and chucked the gun down the mountainside and deep into the snow-covered forest below.
Not the smartest thing in hindsight, kids maybe finding it and all, but I was overwhelmed. I didn't know what else to do. I just wanted the gun as far away from us as it could get.

I had knocked mom off her perch during our brief tussle for the gun and she couldn't stand on her own.She could talk though.
Her words will be repeated in my nightmares, not here.

Anyway, I carried her into her bedroom, put her on the bed, she couldn't get up ...I walked back to the kitchen and examined the damage.
Four shots, two in the walls, one in the floor and one in the ceiling.

Then the phone rings . It's the Sheriff.
(We lived in what was at that time a very remote and sparsely populated mountain community but the Sheriif lived only a mile or so away- why call?)

"Who's this?"
I introduced myself. I didn't know it then, but the Sheriff had been called to our house before I moved in. Several times.
He didn't seem interested in returning.

"Your mother says you beat her up and stole her gun. Is this true?"

"I stole the gun. I didn't hurt her."
I explained what happened.

"Do I need to come out there? She sounds heavily intoxicated, do you need rescue? "

"No", I said, "I won't be needing rescue".

It was a lie then and it's a lie now, but I didn't know it then.

Matter

Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.

As a child, one of my first enduring loves was for dinosaurs; paleontology to be more precise- I loved my trilobites just as much as my allosaurus ; can't have archaeoptyrx without having 'T.Rex' first (archaEopTyRX, see?), and did you know that some scientists used to speculate that Rex actually had a form of rudimentary plumage, although I think it that idea has been abandoned...

For a period, I refused to watch movies that featured dinosaurs alongside humans- hogwash! I would declare, full of childish indignation- everyone knows the dinosaurs were extinct for millions of years before homo sapiens walked the earth...sheesh. Insufferable fucker, I was.
Was?
At least nowadays I can enjoy movies where dinosaurs eat people without ruining it for everyone else by shouting out how there is no way you would ever see a mastodon and a pterodactyl together in "real life".

When I was ten, I read A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller ; it profoundly changed my thinking, suddenly it dawned on my young mind that not only was man trying to destroy himself, he was going to fail, and he was going to use that failure as inspiration to try harder at the next attempt at self-destruction and so on...

But, as I would cheerily point out, none of it really matters anyway because the sun will eventually explode and destroy the solar system, which will slooowlly be sucked into a black hole at the center of the universe, which will then contract for eons upon eons , crushed by gravity until it eventually vomits forth another universe which will very likely be inhabited by organisms just as wretched as humans could ever wish to be.

I started reading books that were beyond my years or just plain weird: Ellison, Burgess, wildlife guides, Burroughs, atlases,Vonnegut, almanacs, Batman comics,Heller, Illuminatus, various tombstones etc.... nowadays, I doubt that our schools would encourage or even allow such reading by grade-schoolers, but back then it didn't matter.

Often, I didn't even have to attend class.

Did you know that galaxies die? They do.

It's hard to study while galaxies are dying.
As a child, it's hard to explain this to adults without scaring them.
When I got older I had more and more classes that didn't exactly involve attendance, it was easier for every one that way.
It saved a lot of explaining.

I knew the system was bullshit and I played it so that I wouldn't have to do much of anything. I'd just write a few papers about books I would've read anyway, get the teachers all worked up and by the time they discovered what a truly fucked-up child I was- that they'd basically been conned out of giving me 'real' homework and into giving me plum assignments- I'd be whisked away to another school, soon to be standing in front of yet another group of unfamiliar children, explaining how it's better to read the glossary first when you read A Clockwork Orange, otherwise they might find it confusing.


So.

Long ago there were dinosaurs, then they died (and all the smart people knew it was a meteor, even then) and eventually they turned into oil, which we turn into gasoline -which was being rationed back then because OPEC wanted to punish the US for it's support of Israel in whatever war was raging in the Middle East at that time -Yom Kippur, I think, as if it matters.
Yeah, 1973...fuck, it really does seem like yesterday. Like last hour.

Jesus, back then I was too busy watching the nightly 'Nam body counts to understand the nuances of Middle East politics.
(I still don't understand those nuances, perhaps because there are no nuances to understand)

Plus, I was 8 years old and didn't understand a lot of things that I currently don't understand - I just have a better understanding of my lack of understanding now , is all.



Anyhow, the dinosaurs are gone and surely aren't coming back during my wholly insignificant lifetime, besides, like I said, the whole Universe is constantly going BOOM! crush BOOM! anyway, so why bother with anything- every thing's doomed to extinction, subject to be extinguished all at once or over billions of years- what difference does it make?

My 5th grade teacher asked me where I learned to be so nihilistic.

Nowhere. Duh.

I used the same line in 6th grade, in response to the same question.

By the time I was 12, I had used science and reason to soundly establish my own insignificance as well as that of everyone and everything around me. A sort of cosmic resignation sank into my spirit-didn't break it, mind you; though it might seem that way from the outside. In truth, I think I really enjoyed the awesome power of negation that comes with knowing more than is good for oneself.

Suck it up, keep on truckin' yadda yadda 'cos it don't mean shit nohow, right?

Even though I clearly understood, -understand, rather - just how empty, pointless, pathetic and unremarkable my puny existence is, I still didn't lose interest...I can't stop the stars from exploding, but it would be cool to watch one blow up.




















I have been asked, more than once, why I bother carrying on if I feel that life is so hopeless...these inquiries miss the point, misinterpreting my meaning- I never said life is hopeless.

I don't believe life is hopeless- if it was, I would be dead right now because right now all I have is hope.

I am. Therefore. Life is not hopeless.
Sum ergo whatever...

Life, however, is pointless, especially when viewed on a cosmic scale.
Can't argue with that.
We don't mean diddley-squat.
Boom!
Back to dust, wait for gravity to start forming new planets, don't hold your breath 'cos this might take a long time, Rocketman...

I honestly don't care if life is pointless. I'm a lifetime supporter of pointless causes, a pillar of pointlessness in my community, an ardent champion of Things That Don't Mean Shit-which, by my childhood definition, is everything and everyone, past present and future. I'm passionately pointless and pointlessly passionate.

For no reason.
I can't justify it.
I don't have to- I don't even pretend that any of it means anything.
Why should I?

I know it's useless, that nothing I do will ever mean anything, that my old fantasies are absurd and that there might not be any new dreams to replace them with... but so what?

I don't have the willpower necessary to give up living.
I'm too lazy to do nothing.
It's hard work, this doing of nothing. Just thinking about it wears me out.

I might as well try to do something. If nothing matters, it can't hurt to try.

Things Being Relative

"Hi!"

"Hey!"

*hug*

"How was your christmas?"

"S'ok, I s'pose. You?"

"It was awesome. Totally rocked!"

"Eh? Whatcha do?"

"I didn't see my mother-in -law for 24 hours."

"How's that?"

"I pulled a double at the veterinary clinic and spent the entire day watching animals suffer and die."

"Are you serious? You love animals...that sounds horrible."

"No, it was better than being home. I'd rather be stabbed in the eye with a stick than spend five minutes with her."

" Wow..."

"Wow... what?"

"I should stop complaining so much."

Eat Your Clone

The FDA has just given Big Meat the go ahead to start the factory clone farms; apparently cloning technology is BAD in the context of medical stem-cell research, but is GOOD when used to help Taco Bell increase profits.

The Food and Drug Administration proposed today that cloned animal products be sold without separate safeguards based on studies showing they pose no more risks than natural-born goods.

What does this mean? No more Clone Warning labels?
What if I am allergic to clones?
Eating clones doesn't sound so healthy:

Some US consumer groups maintain that surrogate mothers, in which the cloned animals are grown, are treated with high levels of hormones. They claim that clones are often born with severely compromised immune systems and receive massive doses of antibiotics, opening the way for large quantities of pharmaceuticals to enter the food supply.

Right now, there aren't any cloned products on the market, but you can bet your last strand of DNA that the technology to mass-produce heifers customized to meet Big Mac specifications is nearly ready for use- there was undoubtably some heavy lobbying going on to get this draft passed-
the FDA didn't introduce this proposal for no reason- someone stands to make big bucks cloning McCows and they don't want squeamish consumers put off just because their cloned products are even deadlier than the current, traditional variety.

Make money butchering clones. It's the future.

But how?

Cloning is a lot more expensive than breeding- at least it is now. If this draft is passed, Big Meat can 'transition' from bred animals to cloned animals without notifying the consumers that their hamburgers no longer have parents.
The research is being done to find a way to clone food animals in a manner that is more profitable than the artificial insemination techniques currently used- the animal husbandry days of cows fucking are long since gone...

If we reach the point where we have giant clone factories to meet our demands for fast food and filet mignon, then it's not a stretch to take it to the next level and start cloning humans- I don't wanna sound too 'X-Files' here, but if Big Meat develops the capacity to manufacture an endless herd of customized ubercattle, then the next step is...well, let's just say this is how Clone Wars get started.

I'm quitting meat.

I'm not against cloning- for instance, it would be great if one day we could clone new organs for people with faulty original parts-but the idea of perverting something with so much potential for good into just another way to poison the unquestioning consumer masses appalls me.

One of our greatest scientific achievements, served with fries.

.

Rumours Of Gwar

This is Dave.
Dave and I and quite a few other people shared a large house for several years. We had a long -running Dungeons and Dragons campaign- Dave was our DungeonMaster, of course.
Our long-term mission was to escape from the Nine Planes of Hell... our characters were given dozens of Sisyphean quests , but something always happened and we'd wind up remaining stuck in Hell-No Exit meets Lord of the Rings via Dante- with polyhedral dice, crappy brickweed and copius malt liquor.


When we called our game quits after about three years, Dave told us that there was never any way out for our D&D characters- he'd been fucking with us for three years! Sonuvabitch!


Dave is better known as Oderus Urungus ,the lead singer for scumrock legends GWAR, so I guess he's somewhat of a celebrity- and I tend to avoid celebrity gossip, but this
is too funny not to blog about:

I heard from a mutual ex-roomie that Dave, in Oderus persona, is now writing Porn Movie Reviews for Hustler Magazine. Even if that news isn't true, it should be.
It probably is true though.
That is the perfect Dave Job.
Fuck, it's the perfect Scum Job, period.
Other than being lead singer in a rock band.

Delete Me

*RING!*

Usually I screen my calls but I'm kinda trembly with anticipation for a certain call, so I pick this one up.

It's the no-nonsense baritone of my arch-nemesis, Mason from Collections.

"Mr. C., you said you weren't employed."

"That is true."

"You answered the phone at your job."

"I answered the phone at home. I am at home."

"You answered at work." Mason , sadly, has never lied to me. I call my old workphone.

"Hello, you have reached the desk of Allan C..."

What the $^3@!!? The New Guy still hasn't changed the answering message? It's been 6 weeks since I quit.

Now I have to prove that I don't have a job so I can keep these wolves off my porch until I do get a job and can start paying them again. I try to reach my old boss, but all I get is his voice mail. I wonder if he still works there?
Maybe everyone's been replaced and no one has bothered changing any messages...it makes sense to not change them if you think about it:
A drone is a drone is a drone. Nobody gives a fuck what your name is.

Eh.

Now I'm hungry. Might as well have some Christmas leftovers. Yummy, made the gravy and dressing from scratch, I did. It's better the day after, the flavors have settled in...mmmm...
OUCH! MOTHERFUCK!
I just lost a filling and it feels like I cracked a tooth chewing on the dislodged dentrifice.
Sure wish I had insurance.
Sure wish I had a lot of things.
Some Tylenol would be a start. Better go get some, I don't seem to have any.

I do have a new MagLite that I got for Xmas. I should put it in the trunk of my new (for me ) 1990 Volvo, which is actually a really nice car for being so old- the only decent car I've ever had. It's my pride and joy.
It's almost cherry, all leather, power everything, nice.

Oh. It's not.

It has a giant-ass dent in the trunk, like someone hit it with a hammer. Twice.
That dent wasn't there last night. Was someone trying to break in? My old car was once vandalized when parked in this same spot , but they smashed the glass...this is weird, like something fell from above. The taillights are OK, not like a car hit it. Fuck.
So much for the one nice thing that I own.
I guess I am just not meant to have or do anything that isn't fucked-up.
This isn't the first time I've had this thought.

So I go back inside, my tooth aching and my brain seething, and there's a message on my machine, blinkity-blink-blink.
Mason has already called- maybe this is the Twin.
Maybe it's a call-back for a job?
Perhaps it's something even better than that?

It's my date! Yes! Been waiting for this call...

Oh wow. She's sorry to have to give such short notice and all, but it seems she's met someone else and that she's sorry , but he's the one she's sticking with...this is harsh stuff for a voice mail. I wonder if she was watching my apartment , waiting for me to leave before she called?


Met someone else? Since Saturday?

I just met this woman on Saturday- she must meet a lot of men.

Thinking about this makes me feel absolutely awful but it does take my mind off my toothache and my trashed car for a minute or two. Actually, it distracts me for about fifteen minutes, because I play the recording over and over, hoping for a different message.

As soon as I hear the words: " I'll see you tonight", I will walk outside and find that my car has been magically repaired.
Then my tooth will stop hurting.
I'll close my eyes and when I open them I'll be someone else, somewhere else and all this will go away.

But after the tenth playback of her sixty-second 'Dear John' I decide that the words are gonna stay just the way they are, so I hit DELETE.

*poof*

Reset to zero.

Photo Filler (A memoir)

This is one of my first Richmond apartments- it's 1986ish, so I was 19-20 years old. That is me looking into the wardrobe, probably searching for Narnia.

It wasn't there.
--------------------------
This is part of an early incarnation of Electric Whip circa 1986 and the only pic of me playing that I can find.I don't know where this was taken, probably at a party. I still have the guitar- the hair is gone. That's Jorge and Bobby. Jorge later founded Bio Ritmo. Bobby was already schizophrenic and would get much worse over the ten or so years that we played together.
He was a great drummer though.

------------------------------------

This is a handbill, year unknown, probably 1987-88. Art by Greg, our bassist. By then, I'd developed a reputation for acting strangely on stage, and this poster spoofs on that. For a long time this was only an act.

We'd sneak out at night, usually in pairs, and furtively plaster the campus area with fliers before our shows- laws were passed to stop us and our ilk from doing this, but we persisted and eventually the campus cops gave up trying to stop it.
Nowdays, you'd be secretly videotaped, arrested and probably jailed if you tried to post handbills on campus outside the moderated kiosks.

Then again, every band has a myspace now...

Scanner #1

Mom, the Twin and I ( early1967?)

I miss you mom.
Love, Allan

-----------


My childhood nickname was "Big Head".

The Morning After The Morning Before

I should know better than to plan anything, ever.
It never works out the way I intend.

I have a weekly radio show on Sunday mornings, and I'm pretty much dependent on music to fill the two hours alotted to me...I mean I could talk for two hours with no problem, but who'd listen? I think music is a more listener-friendly approach.

Thirty minutes before my show, I was standing on my porch, preparing to go the station when a thought crossed my mind:

"My CDs and my car keys are inside my apartment. My LOCKED apartment."

Now, I'm not going to blog the details of how I was able to enter my LOCKED apartment in just under thirty seconds without smashing anything, but I managed to do it and make it look easy.
(disconcertingly easy, it was)

I got my CD stash and my keys, still had time to hit 7-11 for two 24 oz. coffees before arriving at the station at 6:50 am.

Ten minutes to spare- I usually try for twenty...ten is OK...

The show that precedes mine is a modern Gospel Christian r&b kinda thing, real heavy with the "Praise!" and "God Loves You " stuffs and things, which I am learning, with great difficulty, to ignore.
(The reason it's so hard to ignore is that the person spouting it is eighteen inches away from my ear as I cue up songs...)

My show is much different.
For Christmas Eve I've assembled a not-so motley assortment of not-so Christmas music- in fact , I've gone out of my way to find songs with themes of nature, pagan spiritualism and goddess worship- and of course, I've already been touched by the Hand of Chaos, being locked out and musicless just scant minutes before and all...
hey, buddy, Chaos ain't done yet...lookie here:
One of my carefully labelled 'mix' CDs has suddenly added 76 random blank tracks to itself...76 tracks of 0:00. Nothing matches what I have written down.

Loki smiles on me today, I mumble to myself, I shoulda known this would happen.

I have about two minutes to find the real songs and do my top-of-the-hour announcements.
Oops. I step on the headphone cable, unplugging the headphones.
Good. That racket was distracting me...uh...I can't hear anything...fuckity...*tangle*...egh.

I got it worked out with eight seconds to spare. Eight seconds is a long time in DJ terms.

I play:

1- Track 5 of a 1993 Point Records promo CD- the CD is of Phillip Glass conducting Eno/Bowie tunes, but I really like the 'anonymous' bonus tracks which are not Glass. There is no clue on the sleeve or CD as to who it is. It's track 5 and all I know is I like the bells. A lot.

2-Midnight Syndicate- Black Woods: This track sounds like a Glass adaption of the theme from Hitchcock's Psycho. I like it. It's what you might expect to hear shortly before a werewolf mauls you- other than the howls, that is... the Christmas/Lycanthropy connection is often overlooked, but not by me, no sir.

3-Track 6, see #1.

4- Loreena McKennitt- Hearts in Space: I found McKennitt whilst browsing the web. I love her music, I could listen to it all day- if I had some CD's. I've already asked. Familiar but different and quite haunting.

5- Anuna- Winter , Fire and Snow: I've been a fan of this choral group for a long time and finally had a chance to play them on air. This is one of the prettiest songs I've ever heard; based on a poem by MacDara Woods

6- Angela Baldwin- The Faery Queen: As the last notes of this elegant piano piece faded away I found myself completely transfixed- I was supposed to talk but I was speechless, so I played another song instead...

7- ????- Found on internet , labeled 'Circle'. Rockin' jig in odd time, gave me a few minutes to sweep my heart under the rug.

8-Eleanor McEvoy- Whisper a Prayer to the Moon: Gut-wrenching and timely ballad of unrequited love, another internet discovery for me- turns out she's pretty well-known.
When I grow up I want to play in her band. It could happen.

9- Hot Tuna- Watch the North Wind Rise: When I was a teen I had sexy dreams about Grace Slick- now, thanks to the updated Hot Tuna website, those days are over. Jorma is still on my top 10 guitarist list though...dude can play. Jack's no slouch either, for an embalmed guy.
My Jefferson Airplane vinyl still gets airtime when the mood strikes- a great branch of American rock, that crew.

Runnin' out of steam...here's the rest

10- Steeleye Span- Blacksmith
11-The Who- The Rock
12-Stranglers- Always the Sun: I knew it.
13-Clannad- theHunter
14-Pentangle- Light Flight
15-Angela Baldwin- Troubador: Again with the speechless thing
16-Damien Dempsey-Celtic Tiger
17-West of Eden- Where the Ivy Grows
18-Pentangle-The Storyteller: Another oldie fave
19-Anuna-Eiri Na Griene
20-Celtic Women- Wealthy Widow
21 Tuxedomoon- Holiday for Plywood/In a Manner of Speaking: Don't ask me how I learned how to do that- just be glad that I do.
22-Clannad- oops, wrong song....
23-Anuna- Siul a Ruin
24-Siobhan Skates-Cornwall
25-Billie Holliday- Come Rain or Come Shine/Don't Explain

And Brian Eno-Some Faraway Beach: I love ya Brian, but I'm not re-numbering my entire list just 'cos I fergot ya.

Christmas Past

Once upon a time , I had a girlfriend whose kitchen sink had a very unpleasant personality. The first time I used it , the annoying water-filter her ex-husband had put on the faucet leaked, squirting water into my eye.
Then the pipes started squealing; a painfully loud, high-pitched scream, a banshee wail capable of shattering wineglasses fifty feet away. Fortunately, we mostly drank straight from the bottle at that time, but it was a truly horrible sound nonetheless.
(Years later, I realized that the plumbing was warning me to get out, run as far away from this place and this person as I could get. I paid it no heed.)
I stood, dumbfounded, twisting this knob, then that knob, wiggling the filter- nothing helped. I couldn't even get the water to stop.
So I did the manly thing:
I yelled, "Nancy! Help! I broke your sink and now it's attacking me!"

So Nancy ran in to save me.
"The trick" , she explained, "is to push it past the point that it screams".
She demonstrated by first turning the spigot full-on (the screaming stopped), then deftly cranking both knobs to 'off', which brought my watery disaster to an end.

'Push it past the point that it screams'?, I thought that could apply to a lot of things, especially when it involves Nancy. It would also make a great song lyric.

"Woman!", I bellowed, " bring me my guitar, post-haste! The Muse has brought me a gift and I must have my instrument now! Chop-chop!"

(Actually I said, " Honey, do you mind if I play your guitar in the basement after I finish the dishes?-I'll keep it quiet- do you have a pen and paper I can use?";but that sort of first-person milquetoast wimpiness is not fun to write about, even if it is true)

So I'm in her basement , trying to incorporate the line "push it past the point that it screams" into a heartfelt love song that I could present to Nancy on Christmas; which was only a few days away. I was using one of those cheap-ass acoustic guitars that comes in a K-Mart beginner's kit- the kind that cannot be properly tuned, ever. It didn't matter to me. It was the holiday season and I was in love with the most beautiful woman on the planet. She had these eyes...so deep I could swim in them forever and never come back- why would I want to return?
I saw so much in those eyes, so many things that I'd given up all hope of ever seeing...this was going to be the best Christmas ever- the first holiday I'd ever spent with a 'special someone' in my whole pathetic, loveless life.

"Holy Fucking Shit!" , screamed the most beautiful woman on the planet, "get your goddamn shirt and shoes on- my Dad's coming up the driveway!"

I wondered to myself what the big deal was- after all Nancy had been divorced for almost a year, right? It's perfectly decent for her to be seeing a new man, right? Right?

She ran downstairs, her lovely green eyes bulging almost comically. I would have laughed, but she was so obviously freaked it started to worry me.
"Listen", she began briefing me, " you and I went to Blankity-blank High School. Our homeroom teacher was Mrs. X. You are a friend of Joannie Z, and just dropped in to say hello, and now you are leaving to go see her. This is what you are going to tell my father."

Knock. Knock.

"Hi, Sweetie", said her dad, knocking snow off his boots, "I came by to help put up your lights since Darren is away."

Away? I thought his divorced ass was living on a sofa-bed in Daytona Beach. This was getting weird.

"Hi Daddy- do you remember Allan X? We had homeroom together back in '82 and he's trying to find Joannie Z. " Damn. I have forgotten my lines.

We shook hands.
His mouth said "hello."
His eyes said: "I know that you are fucking my daughter. She does this sort of thing all the time and I pretend I don't know it because it's easier that way."

Nancy's father had very sad eyes.

"Nice meeting you, sir", I said, "it was great seeing you again, Nancy", I added,making the lie even worse. She gave me one of those awkward arms-only hugs where the hugger makes certain that their body never touches the huggee. It's the sort of hug you'd give a leper, after which you'd be inclined to burn your clothing and bathe in Listerine.

When I got to my car, I noticed it had a light dusting of last night's snow on it. There were no tire tracks in the fresh powder. You didn't need to be Colombo to tell that my car had been there overnight.

Nancy called me at work the next day.

"I love you, but I can't see you anymore. Please don't call the house."

So I closed the door to my office and cried for awhile. Then I went home early and got drunk alone. I didn't know it at the time, but this was to become a personal holiday tradition.

Every Christmas , I think about Nancy, and the way she made me feel when we were together; thinking that finally I had found someone that made me happy, and ,most importantly, someone that I could make happy, just by being there. I think that's as close to love as I've ever been, and it turned out to be a lie.

Despite their wondrous beauty, it's not Nancy's eyes I see when I remember her.

I see her father and his sad, sad eyes.

Check Out My Humility

I deserve medals for all the wonderful things I do.
Large gold medallions with bold and inspirational messages such as "I'm #1!" and "I Rock!" inscribed upon them, or perhaps just bearing my name spelled out in precious gemstones.
Diamonds would be ostentatious, emeralds are better.

I should also be presented with a likewise bejewelled golden crown in honor of My humility. I don't like to brag about My unsurpassed humility, so I'd like a flashy and expensive bauble to do it for me.
I'm very proud of how humble I am, but I don't feel comfortable boasting about it. It's undignified, even if it is justifiable.

But all that's not enough-not nearly. My Birthday should be a national holiday. Anyone who doesn't want to celebrate My birth will be given the option of celebrating My twin brother's birthday instead.
I don't like to work on My birthday, so why should I expect anyone else to?
By law, this would be a paid holiday.
Mark your calenders.
Let's get some laws passed, people.

Also, immediately upon the event of My passing, a life-size statue of Myself should be placed at the entrance to all buildings public and private; done so in order that the sad and lonely persons who never once had opportunity to bask in the awesome radiance of Me, can (at the very least) console themselves by crying upon the unwavering stone shoulder of My graven image.

They can rub my granite belly and wonder why life is so unfair.

There's Always Next Year

If I buy my gift wrapping paper today I will save a dollar.

The cost of a Saturday newpaper is a mere 75 cents, while a Sunday fishwrap costs $1.75; it used to be worth the extra buck just because the colorful Sunday Funnies made such excellent gift-wrap but the comics section is so small these days that it's virtually useless as wrapping.

I miss that double sized-funny papers section.

When using 'newswrapper' today, care must be taken to avoid using headlines like " Car Bomb Kills 38" when wrapping gifts , especially on those presents that are intended for persons with delicate sensibilities.

This is harder than it sounds.

Ah...I'm kidding. I'm not using newspaper to wrap gifts this year.

I have none to wrap.

The things that I have to offer on Christmas are the same things that I have to offer on the 364 other days of the year- not much to offer at all, really, not that it stops me from trying.
Here.
Take this.
What's that?
A flimsy box of jagged, bloody shards , the prettiest scars left by the deepest cuts from the dullest blades , gaily decorated with the headlines of yesterday's murders.

With bells and ribbons.

Who wants that?

Put that box under the tree , toss the rope over the lowest stout branch.

Giddeyap.

File Sharing

I have been downloading mp3s from the internet for days now...looking for obscure stuff, trying new things, discovering arists that I have never heard of and learning that I am curious for more.
I will be playing some of these gems on my radio show Christmas Eve 7am EST (featuring some bonus blogger music too!)

Anyway, here's why I like file sharing:
I have found a few artists whose work I really like, but I don't trust the songtitles and such on the downloads, so I google the artist.
If the artist has a working web page, I use the media contact links to say hello, I'm with this station, I like your music and would like to promote it on my show. Can you send promos? Thanks, etc, yers truly.

If I was an indie artist, I would check the veracity of such requests and then send whatever I had- if someone asks for stuff, they are more likely to actually play it, one would think.

If I get responses, I'll play the songs and plug the artists on the web. I may have to make a new blog...awww....

Hopefully, I'll eventually have a steady flow of fresh, quality music coming in- catered to the shows I produce. This will save me endless hours of sifting unsolicited overload and help me find material for my show-which is taking a turn for the Celtic, btw.

Playing unheard music really thrills me; it's a great, albeit small way to help get the word out about worthy unknowns; sometimes someone will call and ask for more info- I live for those calls! It means I picked a winner- Pleasing the Audience is job #1, barely ahead of #2, Not Playing Crap.

Indy media, blogs, community radio- this is the future of human communication- or it should be anyway.
We are working on it, trust me.
Help us by avoiding corporate media whenever possible and supporting community programming in all forms-volunteer for something that you might be good at.
Look around. The opportunities are there.

As mentioned elsewhere and previously, Sunday's show will be sort of mixing blogland with radio a little, so perhaps you'll take a break from the same ole' X-mas songs and get your Druid Groove goin' for a couple hours. I gotta admit I like the idea of a small group of distant strangers all linked by various blogs, all listening at the same time.
Groovy, ya know?

Peace.

Dents

This morning I went to the station to drop off some CD's. A friend of mine was in the office doing the paperwork for his show.

"Hey, howzit goin'?"

"Ok, I s'pose. Just droppin' these spots off...recorded them last night, they'll be on the shelf..."

"Allan?"

"Yes?"

"What's wrong with your head?"

"GODDAMN IT! I am sick,sick,sick,of that question! There is abso-lute-lee nothing wrong with my head at all and maybe if you people stopped pointing out how troubled I am , then maybe I'd stop pouring gasoline on dead ashes and expecting a motherfucking Phoenix!
Maybe I don't want to deal with certain shit because I don't have to deal with it- it's pointless and it's fucking stupid and it's too late anyway - what the fuck is wrong with my head?
Who fucking cares what's wrong with my head?
What the fuck is wrong with you that you have to ask me that?"

My friend looks at me. I'm startled by his lack of alarm. He shrugs.


"Um. Well, if you say so...I was asking about the dents."

"The dents?"

"The dents in your head. Do they hurt?"

I walk down the hall and examine my bald head in the bathroom mirror.
Sure enough, there's a series of rounded dents crossing the top of my shiny dome, ear to ear.
Oh.
Earlier, I had my clunky old studio headphones on for hours- the padding is shot and they are too small for me anyway, so the metal connecting band has left dents in my scalp. It looks like the treadmarks left by a tank or bulldozer.
Ooops.

I walk back to the office, apologize to my friend:

"So...um...sorry 'bout that. I didn't know I had dents in my head."

He looks up and smiles.

"It's ok. I hate christmas too."

Cautionary Comics

I loved comics when I was a kid.
As a child, no one considered comic books to be 'collector items'; unsold newsstand copies were often re-bundled and sold in discounted bulk packages of three books, usually for less than the price of one 'new' comic .

Many of these bundles passed through my trembly young hands.

On the outside, there would be copies of titles like Amazing Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk, which anyone with any sense would recognize as 'real' comics, but the third book, the one hidden on the inside, would often be utter shit.
Richie Rich?
Archie?
Ptooey, my young self said. Those are kid stuff.
The worst of all were the dreaded "Girl Comics", such as SGF Lois Lane, (#13 shown):

It was distressing to watch otherwise cool dudes like Superman and Green Lantern act like total dumbasses just because there was a woman in the story...that could never happen in real life,could it?

Not to me.

I mean , c'mon Superdude. Your girlfriend is wearing a metal block on her head while she packs a suitcase.

Even I can tell that this is a bad sign. I am not exactly Super, but I'm smarter than the Man of Steel.

Shave my head and call me Lex.




Years later, I learned how these semi-absurdist spin-off comic stories were created- it seems that the artists and writers at DC comics had become somewhat bored with the whole "Superman Family" and coming up with interesting stories for characters like Jimmy Olsen, Krypto and Lois Lane had turned into a real chore. Every 30 days they needed a new story and the guidelines of that era were very confining.

To challenge each other- and to keep their jobs, which things like TV and rock 'n' roll were starting to endanger- the artist would often produce a cover such as the one above, hand it to the editor, who would then pick a hapless, desperate writer and say: "here's the cover- write the story."

The idea was to create illustrations so ridiculous that it would be impossible to construct a narrative around them; the writer would then labor to produce a script that would somehow 'tie-in' with the cover.

This artist/editor/writer arrangement worked for many years.

Next, we see SFGLL #133, a full one hundred and twenty issues later. For ten years, a new story, month after month after month...Alan Smithee did a lot of the work, often using pseudonyms.


Note to Superdude: Ten years is a long time to stick with someone who needs Global Rescue every 30 days.
A little PMS is one thing, but Lois is literally melting a city here.

At least stand up.

Maybe it's Superman's fault. Lois wouldn't keep getting get into these binds if it wasn't for all the attention Superman was getting- and if he wasn't so busy being Super, maybe Lois would realize that he was just mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent after all.

He is afraid to tell her who he is because he is afraid she will leave him once she finds out how ordinary he really is. This is a valid fear.

She, on the other hand, is fooled by the thick-framed glasses that Clark Kent uses for a disguise. This sort of inattention to detail is not such a good trait for an investigative reporter, but it's all too common in reality nonetheless.

My Superadvice would be to take the glasses off and say hello. If Lois melts the Earth, there is always Earth Two or even Bizarro World.

It's better than the Fortress of Solitude.

Doesn't Take Much

For such a miserable wretch, it sure doesn't take much to make me happy.
I've gotta admit that this Beta thing is much easier and switching was a breeze once I was finally allowed to- but what's really great is this Limewire thing. It's been a long time since I used a file-sharing program, but this one, coupled with a good anti-virus program, is a real winner- it's already consumed the first five hours of my day...man, I need more gigabytes, somewhere to put this stuff, ya know?

Try it, you'll like it.

Am I advocating music piracy? Arrrr, matey.

Of course, we pay publisher fees at the station and I honest-to -Godzilla really am downloading music for the public airwaves and being able to run specific searches totally rocks my world.

I'm so backwards.
This is brand new to me- I'm still playing LP's fer chrissake.

Here is how I used to look for new songs for my shows- whatever the cat doesn't pee on gets played.:

I'm Such a Hypocrite

After endless kvetching about Blooger and many words wasted in defense of the old ways, I have finally been granted access to the formerly exclusive realm known as "beta".
Whee.

A Jar of Wings

Hungry.

Until a few days ago , there was a decent coffeeshop directly behind my apartment, but Starbucks recently opened a franchise two blocks down and my local shop couldn't compete.

Local Shop had better coffee, better atmosphere, better prices and cute college girls who knew my name and flirted with me.

Starbucks has bitter coffee, loud crowds, higher prices and stressed-out college girls who call me "sir".

I want a bagel or a pastry, but I refuse to give Barfucks my money.

All the corner markets in my neighborhood have closed over the last few years except for the one that specializes in 40 oz. bottles of malt liquor (99 cents, 8.0% alcohol, oh yeah!) so either I drive or I make do with what's in the cupboard.

I don't feel like driving, so let's see... plenty of coffee already made , two bananas and a cardboard jar of oatmeal. This is excellent- some honey, cinnamon, stir it up, very tasty and very healthy.

Except there's only about a teaspoon of oat flakes rattling around in the empty jar. Who put the empty jar back anyway? Jerk.

Oh, right. There's a full one on the top shelf.

I pull it down and remove the plastic lid.
Hmm.
There 's a tiny hole in the protective seal, near the edge of the jar. Has someone tampered with my oatmeal? That would be my luck- done in by poisoned oatmeal.

The jar feels unbalanced, like the contents haven't settled properly.

Poised, ready for anything, I rip the the seal off with a vigorous tug.

everything goes...tan.

Tan?

Ahhh...there are moths everywhere. My tiny kitchen is swarming with tiny tan moths, hundreds, maybe thousands of them...I'm a big , brave boy so I don't scream.

I yell.
I can be pretty obscene , even at 7 am.

Yelling at insects is futile.
I light a couple of incense sticks in the kitchen, open the door and remove the screens from the windows. I use a pair of album covers as fans , creating wind , trying to blow the little brown bastards out of my home.

My cats think it's the best day ever- they are jumpin' , swattin', crushin,' eatin' and generally having a great time with all these new flapping, fuzzy toys- I make a mental note to study genetics; if one could crossbreed moths and catnip, soon there would be no moths.

Between the smoke and the wind, it takes about 30 minutes before I reduce the mighty swarm to a few stragglers. The cats will take care of them.

Whew.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Still hungry.

I look into the Moth Jar.

There are no oats in it, only dead moths and about two fingers of a granulated yellow powder at the bottom. What is that stuff?
Oh yuck.
It has to be moth turds.

Not hungry anymore.

My Absent Friend

I used to have this friend , right? And my friend was brilliant at everything he did- and he did a lot considering he wasn't especially the fastest car on the lot, if ya get my meaning. When I first met him we were both in active bands and he was doing pretty well, he'd taught himself a couple barre chords and a year later he was playing lead guitar in one or two bands at a time, recording other groups in his basement, I think he even wrote some comic books back when the indie comic trade was lucrative- he was a great cook too, come to think of it. Used to eat at his place all the time, I did. The fucker was good at everything except life. I always thought he'd get famous or something but I don't think he did.

We were very much alike, so it follows we got into the same sort of things: hyper-competitive creativity, ingenious self-abuse and a healthy appetite for anything addictive, illegal or dangerous.
We partied a lot and it seemed so vivid then, but now I'm a bit blurry and jumbled about those days- but I was recently asked: "what happened to that guy?"

And the truth is I don't know.

The last time I saw him we were both really drunk , and shortly after that , I got really sick and almost died, and after that I pretty much said good-bye to my drinking buddies. I didn't have that many left anyway.

So I don't know what happened to my friend. I hate to sound uncaring, but I don't wish to ever see him again. After years of good times, something changed in my friend, I don't know what it was with him, one day he was up on stage and the next he was locked in his basement, refusing to see anyone.
At least it seemed like he snapped overnight, like I said it's been a while. I think he was there when his mother died or something- an unhealthy number of our mutual friends died around the same time, so I don't know if it was a combination of things- I do remember his girlfriend dumped him after his mother died but I think she ditched him because he drank. She would have seen him through the grief, I think, but not the drinking and the crazy mood swings...I dunno , I didn't know her that well, but she seemed nice. Better than he deserved.

He started acting really weird, not talking for days at a time except for work and such. Then, one day, he seemed he had this other, really sweet-hearted girlfriend, but she got busted for DWI twice in two weeks span and no one really saw her much after that. Or him, for that matter. He stopped everything except drinking I think.
I don't know where she wound up. She had problems, but I thought she was nice. Didn't know her that well.
Maybe that's what did it , what broke him, when that girl flipped out. I don't know.
To me they seemed really happy together, but who really knows ? All I know is my friend had so much unhappiness that it was devouring him, maybe there were lots of reasons. Maybe he had a rotten childhood- I can relate to that. My childhood sucked too.

At 40, I'm outgrowing my childhood now and I really hadn't thought about my friend for a long time.
Today I try to do things that make me feel good ; useful (or at least harmless) things, and that doesn't involve hanging out with my drunk buddy while he recites every unfair break and dirty deed done to him, dirt cheap. Shit, he had as much chance as I did and you won't see me wallowing in a puddle of self-pity and remorse.

I plan on moving forward. Slow and steady wins the race.

Last year I got an award for my volunteer work, which is something my friend would never have received. He gave up on himself, so helping others was pretty much out of the question.

More recently , a wonderful woman asked me some hard , necessary questions. I tried my best to anwer them because I want her to ask me more.
I have questions of my own.
It's a learning experience and I've always been a good student, even if I didn't go to school.
(WhichI should do, I think)

My friend would have hung up the phone. He was a coward at the end.

I don't know where he went, but it's unlikely I'll see him again.

I have a lot of new responsibilities, new plans to make , serious thinking to do and none of it includes him.

Good riddance.

Minefields, Sledgehammers and Blindfolds

I tend to think that most media-sourced 'Dating Advice' is total bullshit- stupid checklists such as: "10 Ways to let her Know You Care"...jeezus, if you can't figure out how to 'show you care' without consulting MSN.com , maybe you just don't care that much after all.

I also think that most of what is accepted as 'common wisdom' regarding alcoholism is bunk. I say this after 15 months of sobriety without a single Jesus Moment, AA meeting or similar 're-birth/recovery' epiphany...if those things work for you, that is good-better than booze anyway- but they don't work for me.

That being said, this article has some good points as well as one that I disagree with:

Nashville resident Suzie Coates had no idea she was dating an alcoholic. “He hid it very well in the beginning,” she recalls. “I saw a great person with lots of potential and loving, caring, giving qualities. But when drinking took over, all that was lost. I would not have even dated him in the first place if I had known about his drinking.”

Ouch. This is true.
Suzie Coates sounds exactly like one of my ex's. I was that guy and I'm really sorry that I put Suzie through all that crap.
I'm not kidding about that.
If you want to drink, you should only date drunks.
Being drunk does not give you the right to hurt the people you love, but it sure as hell gives you the means to do so and you will hurt them, even if you don't wish to.
It isn't fair to expect your lover to clean up your sorry ass.
That is up to you and only you.

Today, if I feel that I am interested in someone, I tell them upfront what I am going through , what I have been through and that I very much want to stay sober.
This almost always kills the 'buzz' and drives them away , coversation falters, dates are broken at the last minute and not rescheduled... but I'd rather just get it out - if I can tell someone about my problems and they are willing to take a chance, great.
If not, well this is my fault, so I'd better learn to cope on my own.


It hasn't happened yet, but it's my view that if I can remain true to myself, then the rest will follow: love, security, consistency- my drinking life was filled with chaos- unhappy, overlapping lies, so much confusion without any clarity; a truly heartbreaking and quite amoral existence it was, but I didn't care as long as I had my drink going.
Sometimes I was alone, sometime not.

Nowadays, I am always alone but I still haven't started drinking again and I feel that this must indicate I have some hope for the future, that I'm not so scared anymore-or at least I can manage my fears with thoughts, deeds and communication. And maybe, just maybe, I'll find a little love.
Maybe not.
I have a lot of love to give- I've been hoarding it for years now- it's a new feeling for me and it's scary- often I feel as if I'm trying to clear a minefield with a sledgehammer...one mistake and it's *boom!*- goodbye Charlie.
Ohyeah, did I mention the blinfold?

Minefields, sledgehammers and blindfolds. This is all I know.
There has to be more.
There has to be more.

I recently saw a girl I briefly dated back then- she's married now- and I asked her why we broke up...she laughed, "I don't remember, we were drunk is all, I guess", which is funny now, but what if we had been sober instead?
What if?
'What if' is for losers and insomniacs- which describes me fairly well.

Social drinkers might use a drink to relax and enhance who they are or their experience. For an alcoholic, it becomes their primary need or a core necessity

Yep. I could date a social drinker but I can never be one. I cannot have 'a beer or two'. At my nadir, I could drink 24 beers in 8 hours and still go to work.
If you think that such a lifestyle must certainly be fatal, you are correct.
I didn't just look Death in the eye, it was a bloody staring contest, is what it was.
And I do mean bloody.
Death blinked first.

Also be on the look-out for unexplained gaps in their schedule with no logical explanation and a negative change in their love-making.
“If this sounds like someone having an affair, you are right,” Knippers says. “They are having an affair with alcohol.”

True.
I left good women for bad liquor and didn't even know I was doing it. It was a terrible thing to do, they didn't deserve that, no one does. It had nothing to do with them but they got hurt anyway.

If you think you’re dating a problem drinker, our experts suggest talking to your date.

True, but do you really have to be an 'expert' to know that honest communication is a really good idea? If you think you are dating a drunk, you are. It's unmistakable.
What to do?
Talking to a drunk is not easy and is seldom helpful.
Cutting them loose might be the only way to save yourself-getting clean is the responsibility of the drunk, not yours.
Maybe you can help, probably not though...if you love them you can be there for them when they 'come back'.
If they do.
This sounds cold, but they might not come back, ever, so be ready for that. Know what you are dealing with.

'Coming back' is the loneliest , hardest thing I've ever done and I've had to do it alone largely because I drove so many people away. Some are still here and I'm grateful , but I cannot think about the people I've lost forever without crying, even today.
Even right now.

No matter how the conversation goes, there is one thing anyone dating a problem drinker should know, Chapman says: “The alcoholic is powerless over his or her drinking, and the date is, too. It is totally in the hands in the alcoholic to reach out and ask for help.”

Part true.
The date is powerless.
However, I take issue with the basic AA tenet that the alkie is powerless over booze. I am powerless over a great many things, but not my drinking. It's my problem and it's up to me to deal with it.
Only I can make myself drink, only I can stop myself.
If I blame anyone or anything other than myself, I cannot make progress. I know my approach works for me; I'm not saying it'll work for anyone else.

For me:
Drinking is a choice and it's a very easy one to make.
Drink= dead.
Sober= ?
I don't know what sober has to offer. After 15 months I'm starting to get a little more comfortable with being myself, maybe I should explore this world a bit, see what I've been missing all these years. I am very curious and even a little optimistic - I know what'll happen if I drink, but this new life of feeling things is mysterious and alluring, even if it is frighteneing.
I want to learn more about life. Simple, eh?

And if the drinking continues? “Get some self-respect and leave the relationship,”

Ouch again.

See, I would get dumped and I'd create elaborate, convoluted mazes of lies to explain "why" to myself- when the simple fact was I was unbearable to be around because I was drunk.

So it's easy.

1) Don't drink.

2) Be Honest.

How hard can that be?

Ask me again in a year.

Something Beta That Doesn't Suck

Beta Blooger is giving me conniption fits, but so far I have nothing but good things to say about Beta Records- it's a free file hosting thingie, I was able to claim the name 'Allan' so I don't know how many users it has, but it works just like it says it should, which is not something I associate with the 'b-word'.

Here, this is my brand-new music site. You can join my Fan Club.

I have joined the Fan Club of Angela, who introduced me to this site, so I encourage you to do the same. Despite her protests, her music is not sleepytime music at all, it is deceptively tranquil, but the dynamics and moods are subtle, dramatic and evocative, elegance without ostentation.
The RainMaker is a good song to blog to:" here is an idea", it says. It encourages reflection and then there's the torrent- notes not words- but it reminds me of the writing process- just listen, huh?

In other music news, it looks like I'll be on the radio quite a bit in the weeks to follow, which you can see on my new music site which I will link to again here.

And I've taken some new roles on at the radio station- details to follow- so let me repeat my offer- if you or someone you know is making good music and wants to get played on our local station, I am glad to help with that. Listen for a song or two by young Mr. Adam Taylor (Charlie's son) on an upcoming Sunday show, and of course there will be the beautiful Angela on Christmas Eve.
The last time I played Adam, a fellow DJ said he had a 'Elvis Costello' aesthetic, even though he doesn't sound like EC, I agree. The world hasn't broken this young man's spirit and , by gum, I hope it never does.
On the other hand, his Dad is quite the curmudgeon and I'd avoid his blog, which is here,
unless you enjoy depression. You can't swing a dead cat these days without swatting a depressed blogger, so maybe you'll enjoy his cranky rants - which you can read here if you must.
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We are indy media, we support indy artists and if you have spent the time to create and record your music then the least I can do is give you some airtime, albeit small.
So let me know.
I'll join your Fan Club.

Light and Not Light

A good friend once told me :

"Three posts in one day is a Red Flag".

They meant it was a bad sign, like maybe they were going crazy...I reckon they might be right but then again maybe they ain't. Maybe three posts in one day is just three posts in one day.
It don't necessarily have to mean nothin', but then again maybe it does.
I git confused when I try to think about this stuff and now my head hurts- maybe that's what the Red Flag means.

This is my third post today and that's pretty much a record for me, but I can't say as to how exactly I feel like it's a Red Flag.

My day felt more like one of them Rubik's Cubes mixed up with one o' those old Magic Eight Ball "ask again later" toys and maybe lightly showered with some rose petals there towards the end.
It might not make a great deal of sense, but it's not such a bad sort of day at all, although it started that way.

First, I purged about a gig of digital junk from my PC- mostly crap songs I don't feel like working on, and maybe , just maybe, if my computer machine memory acts real good , I'll have room to play with these giant-ass .wav files, which is kinda like a hobby of mine except when it makes my head hurt...I wound up getting my software to work, but couldn't find the music groove after the tech struggle.

Hey, when in doubt, blog, right? I can't make small talk without risking a panic attack, but I'm almost never too tense to blog. This is maybe not such a good trait but we all do what we know, and I what I know is how to blog.
There are familiar voices and comfortable places there...I will visit them.

Well, this is right around the time when Blooger finally stopped dealing with old bloogers and the simple act of saying ''hello" to my blogpals became infuriating. It sucks when the things that usually calm you down get you pissed off instead, but I 'spose that is pretty much the way things are sometimes, so no point in getting freeked over it- I can still post, mostly, which is the way it's always been anyway.

So I did some more thinking, but not the make-my-head-hurt kind.
My thinking was a little dizzy and sorta sweet, like a hit of nitrous oxide mixed with whipped cream.

I made some calls, wrote some letters and found out that if I need a dead-end office job somewhere I can always move backwards to that-but also that are people who are helping me do the things that I am not so good at , which is a lot of things- including preparing an honest resume , so maybe I should be thankful that I have such good people in my life and with enough help it might be plumb difficult for me to fail- if someone who isn't me believes in me, then maybe I'm a lot more real than I think I am and maybe I can start believing that I exist again.
And I think maybe that it's good that I should feel like existin' because I didn't used to.
Exist , that is. Or feel like it anyway.
I'm not born-again or nothin' like that, I'm just new is all.
And I ain't no baby , neither, 'cept when I cry, which is never, me being all tuff n' stuff.

Man, instead of freekin' , I should be looking at the options- I am tied to nothing save my family - those bonds will survive distance- and the radio station, which is really important to me but can survive without me.
I always have lots of things that are important to me- sometimes I have so much importance going on I get it all mixed-up and wind up getting nothing done, so from the outside it looks like maybe I don't care at all, which aint quite correct, because I do care about a lot of stuff.
Sometimes I don't give a damn though.
Sometimes it feels like there is nothing for me anywhere. No one will hear, so why yell?

This passes pretty quick though and before I knew it I started noticing that what I thought was some sort of giant marble-on-a-stick was actually a light bulb on a lamp.
On.
Brighter.
I sorta like the way things look with the lights on. It's pretty messy, but it could be shined up real good with a little effort. Even with the mess, I can tell that the shine is there. It's not hard to see, you don't have to squint or anything, just look is all. Just look.
I like this light bulb and the things it can do; I can't help it, but I know it's just a matter of time before I start looking into the shadows ...there is nothing there to fear, it is where the heart lives, the shadows.
Mostly folks don't like it when I talk about hearts and shadows, but it's not a bad thing, just a by-product of light is all and really the shadow heart is the brightest heart of all , it just doesn't shine quite the same way as a light bulb heart.

My head is hurtin' again, but I do know one thing and it's a fact just like there are 50 states or the sky is blue:
I know that I like that light bulb.

I think maybe I'll leave it on for a while.

Pain in My Ass

Why can't I switch to Blogger in beta?

While the new version of Blogger is still in beta, some users with certain types of blogs will not be able to switch to it. We'll be adding support for these blogs as soon as possible, so everyone can join in the fun. But for now, if you have any of the following on your account, you'll need to hold off for a bit:

• A very large blog. (More than a couple thousand posts + comments.)

Note that, even if your blog is eligible to switch, you may not have the link to do so on your dashboard.


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Truth or Con She Quenches

Not five minutes ago I was telling myself that I will keep this a secret- no avail.

My heart is fairly bursting with joy and I feel like I must share my good news with all of the Interworld!

I have met the Perfect Woman. I found her on the Interweb, or rather she found me... and it was Whalanol that brought us together.
You see, this summer I did some in-depth investigative journalism into the prospect of converting whale oil into something you could put in your automobile ( by 'Journalism', I mean 'Fiction') and that is how I met my beloved.


She was converting my Fiction into her Journalism.

I suppose that is what she meant when she wrote this in her bio:

"Two years of ‘Teaching Journalism’ in undergraduate colleges have given me insight to what helped me as a professional."

Actually, I have no idea what that means, except that it might help explain the current sorry state of 'journalism'...a professional journalist should do a cursory fact check before publishing, at the very least. If they aren't teaching that in college, then what are they teaching?

Anyhow...

All my life I have wanted to meet the perfect woman, someone who shares my ideals, my love of nature and- most importantly- my unquenchable passion for art, music, words...something my beloved Irani ( it's her name, not her nationality) eloquently expresses with this:

"As a student of journalism myself, writing and getting articles on environment related issues published in national dailies have bolstered my confidence, encouraging all the way to be a watchdog and spokesperson on the planet ailments and their healing tips."

Smitten, I am.
Can't you feel the love?
Move the monitor closer to your head- now can you feel it?
Good.

The dowry is currently being negotiated...huh?
What's this?

Excuse me a moment- I need to check something.

(eleven seconds later)

Irani, I am sorry, but my heart is no longer yours.

Superman Would Never Date Judith Miller

I suppose I should've mentioned the Iraq Study Group report before today, but why hurry?

It took Bush four years just to spend five minutes ignoring the fact that he's ignoring the facts, so I let it slide a few days...it's not exactly a shocker anyway, the Report, it's really just a completely useless and expensive way of explaining how completely useless and expensive the Iraq War is.

Basically it says: "None of this is likely to work, it's hopeless , but we have to try something"...


The most viable idea is to wait for Superman to spin the world backwards so fast that time reverses to 2000 or earlier; after which Supes switches to his Clark Kent identity; then he and his girlfriend, ace investigative reporter Lois Lane, can write a front page story for the Daily Planet exposing the PNAC and it's pre-9/11 plans for an American Empire, thus causing BushCo to actually lose the election that he actually did lose .

In Bizarro World we'd have peace and prosperity.