Chester Himes

Reading If He Hollers Let Him Go and wondering why they didn't add this to the books I read in high school.

I've probably said it before but I love Chester Himes' writing, especially in his Harlem detective novels (though I've only managed to read three). I can't stand scenes that are overdone; details ought to count. Himes usually nails it.

The broken concrete paving was strewn with broken glass bottles, rags and diverse objects thrown from the back windows: a rusty bed spring, a cotton mattress with a big hole burnt in the middle, several worn-out automobile tires, the half-dried carcass of a black cat with its left foot missing and its eyes eaten out by rats.
- The Real Cool Killers

Resolved

I know they're corny, but I'm all for new year's resolutions. There's a ton of shit I want to change in my life, things that aren't happening for me the way I want them to. There's a lot of self-hatred, a lot of missed opportunities. Way too much frustration and anger, more than I ever show to friends. A lot of sadness and fear that I'm not going to live to be an old man. At least not the way I've been living.

There's been times over the past several months where I thought I needed to talk to someone. A "professional." But deep down, I know it's about making smarter decisions, mostly about everything. I'm just not making enough of them.

I spent the morning on New Year's Day seeing an old friend I hadn't seen in about 12 years, even though he lives right across the bay. (Thanks, Mark Zuckerberg.) It was good to see my friend hadn't changed all that much, really at all. He's the same caring, thoughtful, honest dude he always was. I think beyond all the crazy resolutions I'm going after in 2011, I need to hang on to the good, thoughtful, honest people in my life, and try to be one myself.

Sort of like a flu shot for depression

It happens every Christmas without fail: After unwrapping presents, one of the kids figures out his or her load is smaller than everyone else's, and the tears start to flow. Even though you emptied your checking account and stayed up half the night wrapping presents, you do a quick comparison and realize the kid is right; there is an imbalance.

The ensuing depression is contagious. No matter the reason, if your kids are crying on Christmas, you feel like a failure.

This year, however, as it all began to unravel, I wasn't all that fazed. I didn't even reach for a drink. Before the big day, I had tried something different: I consumed a steady stream of Saint Vitus and Charles Bukowski. And while I'm not exactly sure why, that did the trick.

Can you believe this shit?

It's really hard to write about my mom without making her sound like some crazy roommate from hell. For one thing, she's a great liar. Not because she's a believable liar, but because she refuses to throw in the towel.

After she kicked my dad out, my mom really took control of the house. My sister and I could always stay there. We just couldn't use the stove. Or the microwave. Or the toaster oven, the washer, the dryer, or the garage door. Basically anything with moving parts. Personally I think it was her way of kicking us out and keeping us from moving back in. This way, she could spend her days undisturbed and in her bedroom, surrounded by People magazines, throwing back Tostino's pizza rolls, and watching Montel with the ferocity of a heroin addict.

Anyway, because Mom had no idea how to fix stuff and was too stubborn to ask my dad to come over to help, most of the appliances we were forbidden to use eventually broke down. Yet she had a hard time facing this fact.

The kicker came when the sewage line broke and Mom's, ahem, collective fecal output began erupting into the backyard. Fortunately I was gone by then. But when I came back, saw it, and tried to inform her, she refused to acknowledge it.

"Look," I said, having dragged her down to the back porch. "It's spewing shit."

Below us, little burps came from a pond of smooth, greenish-chocolate mud. Sprinkled on its surface, like coconut flakes, were tiny bits of toilet paper. A cloud of bugs circled and landed, as if we were watching the world's tiniest, busiest airport.

"No it's not," Mom said. "I don't see anything."

She turned back toward the house, shaking her head and pointing at me.

"You're seeing things," she added, holding up the bottom of her bathrobe as she climbed the top stair. "I think you need to lay off the sauce."

From the corner of her mouth I caught the edge of a sly grin. Then Mom quickly shut the back door, as if I wouldn't be able to hear her laugh.

Gray skies

I used to love hot weather. I sweat a lot, and when it was hot I could sort of resign myself to this, not worry about it, and then go play basketball for three hours. But now, in my 40s, the heat bugs the shit out of me.

I can't focus. Thoughts and plans reel off inside my head. It's like flipping through the pages of an art book and not being able to stop. The best remedy is cold beer, but with kids and work, drinking during the day is pretty much out of the question.

Hope came today with the overcast skies. I have no idea whether such weather is healthy or not, but it sure feels like it. Whatever it is, the condensation, cool air hitting my throat -- I feel as though my body is getting what it needs.

In my 20s, an overcast morning usually meant perfect surfing conditions: warm water, glassy waves, even if the waves were smallish. It meant hot coffee, reading the newspaper outside, and smoking Camels. It meant being at ease with myself, even if I was in debt and not getting laid. That stuff could be fixed. I had time.

Man, I wish that feeling would come back. It won't, but at least the gray has.

Ridin' the no-sleep train

OK, not really. Everyone needs sleep. But I'm finding out that the more I deprive myself of adequate slumber, the more I get done -- even if it's executed in a fitful, manic sort of way.

I'm also finding that with very little sleep comes near-catastrophic visions of genius (at least that's what it feels like), coupled with the impulse to off myself if my beer, while it's precariously balanced on the arm of my infant son's high chair, happens to spill. Good thing I don't own a gun.

They say Edison survived on naps. That he slept in a chair while holding ball bearings, and when the bearings fell, it would wake him up. Then he'd be back inventing toaster ovens.

I've been trying that. But truth is, naps leave me zoned and insane. For example, my oldest son just now walked into the living room and, for lack of anything better to do, pee on, or destroy, decided to kick a ball across the floor and knock over my 22-ounce bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale.

I've already boxed his remains. The funeral's in two hours. After my nap.

You're tearing me apart, Tommy Wiseau!

I highly, highly recommend the film "The Room" -- not in the manner in which it was conceived, but in the way it will make you pee your pants before going out to toss a football in a tuxedo while talking like a vaguely European, half-dead smack addict.

The following interview with director, producer, writer and star Tommy Wiseau provides just a glimpse of this movie's absolute glory. Personally, I don't know how the interviewer managed to keep a straight face:



Choice lines from the film:

"I like you. Very much. Lover. Boy."

"I got the results of the tests back. I definitely have breast cancer."

"I did not hit her. It's not true. It's bullshit! I did not hit her, I did NOT! Oh, hi Mark."

"I gotta go see Michelle in a little bit, to go make out with her."

"You betray me. You're not good. You're just chicken. Cheep cheep cheep cheep..."

"You don't understand anything, man. Leave your stupid comments in your pocket."

"Thank you honey, this is a beautiful party, you invited all my friends. Good thinking!"

And my personal favorite:

"I'm fed up with this worwald."

Another day, another exercise in futility

Battling a fly. This is what it's come down to.

It was brazenly flying around my face in the bathroom, unable to find the two-inch hole ripped in the window screen. I tried to whip-kill it with an unnamed family member's swimsuit (shh, no one tell) and thought I had gotten it. But it resurrected himself during my shower. Flying on half power, but still alive.

Confronted by its will to live, I could no longer kill. So I tried to steer it toward the two-inch hole. I could not grab it because my hands were wet. It circled ever so close to freedom, but could not find it. Our frustration was in perfect sync -- the fly, slowly walking across the screen wondering how to get out, and me, cursing and wishing the fly understood English. It didn't seem to matter that flies only live for days, and that this one may have only had one day left to live, should it have escaped.

Finally, I gave up, only after I began to turn pruny in the shower and after my frustration had grown to wanting to kill it again. Only at that point did I realize the fly had to be someone I knew, just had to be. And it was just another one of her damn, dirty tricks.

Insomnia

I can't sleep. It's too hot.

Couldn't stand the kids tonite. I played with them like a madman, throwing Sonny and Deck all over the living room, then got sick of it and sort of shoved them away. Felt pretty bad about it but I had very little sleep the night before and was totally fucked. Of course I had to hike four miles in 100 degree weather Sunday and nearly died of heat stroke. Still recovering from that.

It was so hot I couldn't cook, so I ordered Domino's. The driver was on drugs. I did the online ordering thing and saw that it took him over a half an hour after the pizza was done to get here. He called to say he was running late, I'll give him that. When he arrived, though, he smashed right into all our empty garbage cans. They went all over the street. Mary happened to be following him as she came up the hill and saw the whole thing. I'm sure he was out scoring. He had the same tone of voice and bullshit patter that Mary's brother has when he doesn't do what he says he's gonna.

The pizza was still warm though, so I tipped him anyway. I thought about complaining but figured you can't really rat out someone who delivers pizzas for a living. I mean how much lower can you sink? If I had that job, I'd probably be on drugs too. Plus his arms were covered with these really shitty tattoos. I felt bad. I did, however, give him a dollar less than I usually give the old Chinese guy from Round Table. That guy is funny and seems genuinely happy to have a job. Plus he actually acknowledges the presence of my kids. That's gold to me.

I should have tried to sleep but He Got Game was on. I'm a sucker for sports movies and I like Spike Lee and Ray Allen. Ray is one of my favorite players and Spike's movies are very drippy but he's got certain style and I dig how his characters are riddled with imperfections. Then I noticed it was almost 2 a.m. so I talked myself into driving down to 7-11 and getting a Mickey's tall boy, thinking it would help me sleep. So I came home and watched the end of Carrie--because it was on and you sort of have to. Now I'm energized, but only blandly so, in a I-can't-sleep-but-I-should-do-something sort of way. So I made a to-do list and now I'm writing and maybe I'll get back to Tropic of Cancer.

It's been so fucking hot out these past couple of days, it's ridiculous. It was over 100 yesterday and probably close to it today. I have a hard time working when it's that hot. I have to totally psyche myself up for it. Part of the problem is that I sweat like someone with much darker skin. Always have. Throughout school I played sports during lunchtime and came back to class completely soaked. Now it pours down my arms and down my nose and right onto the keyboard. The only way through is to strip down to my boxers, surround myself with fans, position the laptop "upstream," and focus on some deadline like my ass depends on it.

Music helps. Lately I've been going through an old school punk thing. Germs, Stooges, Saints, etc. Sort of coming to terms with the fact that I'm not a huge Minutemen fan. I listened to them back in the 80s and now I understand why I stopped. I dig who they were and what they were about and their originality and talent. If I was a friend of the band I'd probably go to every show. Everything I've read and seen about them makes them out to be really swell guys. But easily four out of five of their songs I could do without. That other one-fifth is some pretty awesome shit, though.

OK enough of this...

Poem

In the drive thru line
Marysa shotgun, Joey in back
complaining again.
I don't want Taco Bell, he says
I'm thirsty.
Ahead of us a bumper sticker
some crap about Christ and hell
and how we have to choose
I pick Jesus, Marysa says
What about you?
She waits patiently for my answer
with perfect blue eyes
and face like fresh pancake batter
It's hard to imagine she'll ever face the Dark
or feel differently about such things
She says, well?
I say
I don't know about that stuff
(because I don't)
I say,
Sorry.
She smirks like I'm crazy
like it's so square peg=square hole. Hello?
Shaking her head as a voice behind us says
He chooses Sprite

Workplace hazards

Back from Disneyland almost a week now. I've lost a little weight. Except for rare instances, I've quit drinking and eating fast food and all meat besides seafood. I started running again and I'm spending more time with the kids. I feel good. I wonder how long I can keep it up.

I'm not sure what's up with me, at least professionally. I'm still working, though not as much into certain aspects. I've decided I'm not into pitching or "sales," at least when it comes to selling anything but myself and my writing. I guess I knew that already, but I tried--for the sake of career and finances--to get into it. "Hey, you should talk to this person, he's an expert at blah blah blah. By the way, I can totally see you living in this house!"

I'm done trying. I'll still do it, but I won't attempt to enjoy it, if that makes any sense, and will endeavor to stop. I'm happiest helping people get what they need or want, or finding out what that is and helping them get it. But I don't want to tell them what it is they want, or assume it. I want to root out the fake. I'm embarrassed I haven't and that I've actually embraced some of the shit.

I'm trying hard to believe I have enough talent to get by on my own terms. It's hard when you have six people depending on you, though. Compromising almost seems inevitable. I just don't want to get swallowed by the beast.

Hostage

I'm sitting at the lobby of the Paradise Pier in Disneyland, watching Disney "XD" on a large flat screen TV. Mary and everyone is in the park with our friend who we flew down to help out with the kids. I drove halfway, taking over in San Luis Obispo last night. It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be, but there were a couple episodes.

Joey gets amped up whenever he's off his routine and does his best to annoy the shit out of the girls. When we found out we were an hour away from Disneyland, Tanner decided to count down the rest of the way in seconds. She got up to the hundreds when Joey knocked her off her game, and she flips out. I asked Tan if she'd like me to hold Joey down so she could kick him in the nuts. I was tired and not really thinking about my choice of words, but it cheered her up. I asked Joey what he thought of that idea. It was the funniest "no" I ever heard.

We spent last night in Goleta, just north of Santa Barbara. I thought Santa Barbara was a bit stuck up, ritzy kind of place. Goleta is worse. Everything was way too clean, everyone moves like they're on lithium, and the shops and streets take up way too much space. Cities that are too clean get on my nerves. People looked at us and our road-cranky kids like we were white trash and kept a healthy distance. Strange.
I looked at the local Homes & Land while at Dennys. Who can afford to live here? What do people do for money? No clue.

So I'm waiting for my room to be ready and trying really hard not to order a beer, because I know it will knock me right out. After working eight hours before leaving home, I put another four hours in after reaching Goleta, going to bed at 3:30 am. I hardly had the strength but I promised a friend I'd look over her resume and send it to the CEO group I work with. Hope I get a couple stars on my behavior chart for that one. But right now I'd rather have a beer.

Bad thoughts and premonitions

I've been thinking lately of all the times I could have died a violent death.

Falling on my head in the street. Riding on the hood of a car. Learning to surf in a storm and getting carried out to sea. Falling asleep at the wheel. Crashing while riding my scooter drunk. Riding double on a bike into oncoming traffic. Taking turns too fast on single lane farm roads and spinning out. Loading up in a car young people, of all of us drunk. Shooting weapons and throwing knives close to friends. Scaling buildings and trees while drunk. Getting hit by a garbage truck.

Altogether, it doesn't seem like an unusual amount of risk for a human male. Many boys grow up surrounded by war and violent crime. I personally know poeple who have lived more dangerously. But for each risky thing that happened to me, I've heard stories about someone who did something similar and bit the big one. There are people I grew up with who died violently, too, people who probably took no greater number of chances in life than I.

Of course, I truly hope to die in my sleep at a ripe old age, surrounded by loved ones. And of course, now that I have children, I like to think I make better choices. Yet my nightmares are chock full of head-on collisions, plane crashes and 10-story falls that seem way overdue.

Sappy post alert

I love that I get to spend the rest of my life attached to this guy. He teaches me so much -- frankly, more than my biological children. Thanks, Joe.

Going soft

As I get older I find myself more frequently in need of The Big Shakeup -- a major or sometimes minor change of lifestyle that lights the match under my ass. But this technique seems to lose its effectiveness over the years... either that, or I'm just getting less and less eager for change.

I've always had a list of stuff I want to do. Lately, that list is being ignored for simpler pleasures: Watching the kids play soccer. Failblog videos on YouTube. Fantasy football. Lovemaking. Beer.

On one hand, these are truly enjoyable activities, and I feel -- for the first time in a while, actually -- that I deserve them. I have not had a real vacation in over a year, so it's probably natural that my body and mind are retracting a little.

On the other, I feel quite strongly that I'm losing my edge. This scares me.

I have a new job and the work is not adding up like I thought it would. But instead of taking the extra time to find extra income, or at least plug away at the novel, I'm gravitating toward my base instincts.

And the guilt builds...

Shifting gears

So it's been a productive week. I've outlined the rest of the story through to the "big finale" and some ideas for ending scenes, then I went back to where I left off and just started crankin'.

The old plan was to write something to move the story forward and to get feedback from Homework Club. The new plan is to keep doing that, but to stay three chapters ahead in terms of outine.

Changing tactics a bit, too...

Neary every word so far has been written in ink, then transcribed into Word. Still think that's ideal, if a bit of a time-waster. I type too fast, and by writing it out, I'm forced to think about each word a little bit longer. (Plus I get really, really excited writing with a pen, I don't know why.) Transcribing it is a bit wasteful although opportune for initial edits, after which I go through the section again and again until I feel it's ready or I just give up.

Now that I've got the fire, I'm anxious now to, er, expel the entire load of crap out of my system. So I'm writing directly into Word from an outline. Cause basically, I go through the shit again and again anyway.

Right now, though, I'm polishing up another recycling mailer so I can watch The Day the Earth Stood Still for the first time (yes, the original) and still get enough sleep.

I have seen the light!

Maybe all it took was starving myself.

I'd been in a funk for a while. Kind of a long slow descent. Not even a descent, really. Just ... BLAH.

I've been pushing myself in all sorts of ways, but the progress was slow and unsatisfying. Worse, I'd become something of an emotional liability to the family. Even in my best moods, I let a lot of the frustration seep through.

So, I basically starved myself. Why? To shake things up, I suppose. I don't know, felt like the thing to do.

Now all the crap's out of my system. I'm eating healthier, drinking less, and learning to let go of stuff. Toying with the idea of giving up one or more of my many jobs (when you're the main breadwinner in a house of seven, a damn terrifying thought) and pouring my energies into writing. Seriously, how much time do I really have?

As soon as I thought about that, I mean really considered where my focus might belong, it hit me. POW.

I saw the end of my story.

It's a long way off, and it'll be hell. But I know where things are going. At least I think I do. Anyway, it feels good. Like I can do it.

ah jesus effin christ...

I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I really don't.

I feel I'm on a crossroads at so many points... and I don't even know where to begin.

How about the fight I almost got into, walking out of the sushi bar, when some tool commented on my wife's tits? Thankfully I was so drunk, all I could think to do was drop a bunch of f-bombs at his stunned ass... yet right in the middle of downtown Concord. Way to go, family guy.

...and since then, it's been one weird freakout after another. At Joey, for his lack of discrepancy (I mean, geez, the kids' f-in seven years old), and at Marysa, for ordering dish after dish that she can't finish and yet slathers with ketchup so no one else can eat it, either... but so what?

And numerous verbal assaults at Mary, for one thing after another. Seriously, I need a gajillion Hail Marys for this crap...

The origins of horror

Yesterday my two-year-old son, Sonny (man that sounds weird but I love his name) brought home two balloons from Round Table Pizza. It's one of the few places we'll take him. He's the sweetest boy you'll ever meet, but he can't sit still for shit, and at a place like Round Table, it just don't matter.

First he grabs these other balloons, picks a sweet-looking female toddler across the room, and proceeds to give them to her. And this is how big of a sap I am -- I start to cry. Yes, kind gestures from my children turn my eyes into faucets, I don't know why.

Anyway, he takes a couple balloons home for himself. And immediately upon exiting the car in our driveway, he lets them go.

Oops.

I need to tell you that, as a child, a similar event was one of my earliest memories. I was at some zoo with a red balloon, and I let it go -- with absolutely no idea what would happen. My father jumped for it and came up empty.

Now I'm watching Sonny's face, and I'm sure it mirrors what mine looked like almost 40 years ago.

The first look is amazement. Wow, there they go!

The second look is open-mouthed shock. Um, wait, how am I going to get them back?

The third look is, of course, pure unfiltered horror. I can't get them back.

"I want it, I want it," he cries, as the balloons become mere red and blue dots in the horizon, then reach the limits of our vision and disappear forever.

The true horror, of course, is that Dad can only do so much. Dad can't get them back. He looks at me and starts to melt.

All I can do is hug him and say, "I know."

Magical Scorsese

I know heaping praise on the movie Taxi Driver isn't very original of me, but I'm amazed how it just gets better and better every time I see it.

I own a tape of it with an abridged "Making of Taxi Driver" featurette at the end, which I saw for the first tim tonight. I don't usually watch the "making of" stuff. I like not knowing and simply being left entertained. But tonight curiosity got the best of me, and I'm shocked how much planning and tweaking went into the making of this movie.

This is dumb, I know. I live under the illusion that artistic masterpieces -- and Taxi Driver comes about as close to this term as I know in cinema -- are borne out of happy accidents. Maybe I envision this as being the more romantic view ... that art cannot be fully controlled or contained, but merely captured, when inspiration and energy collide in a certain way.

Anyway, there's a part in the "Making of" where director Martin Scorsese talks about feeling the emotions of the characters in the movie after reading the script...

"If I could verbalize it, I wouldn't have had to make the picture ... I felt all those feelings in that story, at that time.... and so this was something I thought that was special to express."

...which reminds me that that's what I always thought made a great film, book, work of art, song, etc. truly great. Expressing the unexpressable. It's like making the impossible happen. It's like magic.

A couple other fun things...

Roger Ebert's original review of the film.

The Making of Taxi Driver, via YouTube.