Bottom Line

You have to have something if you are going to be someone.

You cannot be an empty vessel. Hollow. Devoid of passion or purpose. You gotta bring something to the table, something unique, that opens eyelids and detonates stereotypes.

You got to be comfortable with that something - feel it deep down inside of you and know that this is your essence. Then you have to have the courage to put it out to the world. Uncompromised.

You got to be able to withstand the blowback. People do not like originality. They pay it lip service, then plot behnd the scenes to destroy it. You got to be bulletproof.

It's pretty simple really.

What Do You Think

 Does Dustin Pedroia load the dishwasher?

Then again................

I could just be happy for all the amazing matches I saw Rafael Nadal play in.

Shit, he gave me a whole hell of a lot of excitement. And pleasure. And happiness.

Yeah, that'll do it. That's the approach.

He is one of the reasons I am still alive, as pleasure battles despair in my twisted mind.

People like him give the edge to pleasure in my own personal war.

Thanks Raffa.

Rafael Nadal

On Monday, May 27, Rafael Nadal lost in the first round - the first round -  of the French Open in 3 straight sets to Alexander Zverev.

Do you understand how consequential that is?

Rafael Nadal has won the French Open 14 times - the most ever by any human being. Ever. He owns the fucking French Open.

His body is breaking down and it breaks my heart. He is 37 years old. He has won 22 Grand slam titles. He always plays like a madman - no effort is too much, no challenge cannot be overcome.

The human body is not built for that. The human body is built for boredom and compromise, built to submit.

Sit behind a desk for 45 years, retire, and lay down to die.

That is not Nadal. I hate it when my sports idols age beyond rebound - and I hate it when they don't know when to say goodbye.

Raffa withdrew from the semi-final at Wimbledon in 2022 because of an abdominal tear. He was the defending champion at the Australian Open in 2023, but lost in straight sets in the second round. He was dealing with a hip injury.

Rafael Nadal is a pirate. A unique, entertaining human being and a fierce competitor. I hate to see him breaking down.

He pushed himself hard to rehab and be able to compete in the French Open this year - but he lost in the first round. He tried so hard because the Open means so much to him.

All of the people who inspire me, who I look up to, are dying or flat out losing it. That's because I am 70 years old. Doesn't matter - it hurts.

Athletes, musicians, authors, actors - these are the people who make me who I am. And they are all fading away.

What makes it harder is that they are all in the public eye - I have to watch the deterioration. Paralleling my own.

There are younger tennis players that I dig - including Zverev - enough of them to keep my passion burning. But Raffa is in his own orbit - above and beyond, a joy to watch as a tennis player and as a human being.

His retirement from the game is imminent. And justifed.

Still, my heart aches for him.

Laugh (Please)

 "We are in the world to laugh. In purgatory or in hell we shall no longer be able to do so. And in heaven it would not be proper."

Jules Renard

Willem Dafoe Kicks Ass

Been on a movie watching binge up here in the Lakes Region.

I watch movies every night after Carol goes to bed. I'm usually up until 1:00 or 1:30. Get me a solid four or five hours sleep, then jump up ready to take on the world.

I select specific movies sometimes, but a lot of them are random movies that I just come across. Coincidentally I came across two Willem Dafoe movies this week. And I realized that I fucking love this guy.

There is a movie titled Affliction that I love. Watched it a whole bunch of times and I will continue to do so until I die. Then I will watch it in Hell, if TV is allowed.

I love it because it's a story about the complete disintegration of a human being. Psychological and physical. The character is played by Nick Nolte and he just nails the part. Willem Dafoe plays his brother.

I am fascinated by destroyed human beings. Another movie in that vein is The Assassination of Richard Nixon, starring Sean Penn. Amazing.

Dafoe plays an almost benign part in Affliction, but it is worth a look.

Ever see The Boondock Saints? Dafoe is unbelievable in that. Way over the top.

This week I watched Dead For A Dollar - a western, and The Lighthouse.

In Dead For A Dollar, Dafoe plays a bad dude just out of jail. He's intelligent, wise in the ways of the world, and has a sense of humor. Also fatalistic. Great movie.

The Lighthouse blew my fucking mind. Very different story, dark and twisted. Watch it at your peril.

Four different movies, four different characters - Dafoe nails them all. The characters he plays in Boondock Saints and Lighthouse are extreme. That's the test for me - if you can nail characters like that, you can fucking act.

Like Nicholson in The Shining, or Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.

Willem Dafoe, man - dig him.

Wow

 And he said: " It would be redundant to make a wax dummy of me. I already am a wax dummy."

Up Until Now

 Up until now I have lived a mild existence.

I am quite prepared to live a wild existence.

Brad Marchand, Among Other Considerations

Sam Bennett of the Florida Panthers knocked Marchand out of two fucking games in the playoffs with a cowardly, cheap fucking hit.

Marchand said "Nobody wants to say it, but trying to hurt other players is part of playoff hockey." He said an unspoken truth of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is "trying to hurt every player on the other team, and the more guys you take out, the more advantage your team has."

He also said "I think he got away with a shot. But I'm not gonna complain. Shit happens. I've been on the other side of plays. Part of the game, part of playoff hockey. Sucks to be on the other side of it, but it happens. He got away with one, but it happens." 

I like this. I like the meat of such blunt comments, and that he has the balls to say it. I also like the fact that he accepts the reality - if you're gonna play hockey you're gonna get the shit kicked out of you when the ref is not looking.

Everything in life has a dark side. Everything.

It would be nice to find some purity in the world, something safe that you can put your trust into. 

Don't be fooled. Just when you let your guard down, the horse will kick you in the head and splatter your brains all over the blanket of the innocent-looking family of four quietly picnicking on the grounds. Giving them nightmares for the rest of their lives that will lead to low-wage jobs, alcoholism, unemployment, and violent crime. 

Sports should be pure. We want them to be pure to balance out the detritus of our lives. Peel back the onion just one layer and horrifying truths are revealed. Player to player, coach to player, ownership to coach, ownership to fans - the purity we crave is contaminated by rancid truths.

Best to revel in your own evil. Wallow in it, celebrate it. Whatever you have in you that is evil and awful, bring it to the surface and live it. 

The world will take notice.

For Life

 "We're all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life."

From the play Orpheus Descending, by Tennessee Williams

Pick One - Or Both

 Psychiatrist speaking: "But patients will surprise you.........................I meant in a good way. They sometimes have rather sophisticated interests. Although I have to say that they're often inclined to give up what they treasure for what makes them miserable."

Patient speaking: "Its general vacuity aside there seems to be a ceiling to well-being. My guess is that you can only be so happy. While there seems to be no floor to sorrow. Each deeper misery being a state heretofore unimagined. Each suggestive of worst to come."

From Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

Why Not?

He wanted the title for his autobiography to be Contorted, Hopeless, and Meandering Thoughts of an Unhealthy Mind.

His publisher resisted.

This Feels Serious

I am here alone today. With Patsy and Emmy Lou.

Carol is taking care of precious Jackson. I chose to stay here to try to right the ship of my existence. 

A dangerous choice. If I died today I would never see my grandson again. When you're 70 you think that way, although I guess the case could be made that it makes sense to think that way about every moment of your life. Every decision. 

It is an absolutely beautiful day here in my new home. The sun is bright, carefree, and dispensing hope and happiness recklessly. It is 73 degrees, the sliders are open, the two windows either side of the recliner are open, the front door is open, the windows in the master bedroom are open. The cats are ecstatic, and everywhere I look I see beauty and promise.

The downside to happiness is that it becomes a reference point. Because it is not a tangible thing. It is ethereal. A feeling. If you get a huge and unexpected dose of it, it can kill your spirit, in a twisted way, kind of the way a syringe of pure heroin kills the body. When the intensity of a megadose of happiness subsides to predictable levels, the shock is severe.

Been here almost seven months. And what a long, strange trip it's been. For me.

I've only worked two months out of the seven. Two jobs. A study in opposites. Bank teller at TD Bank. Bad choice. That was a real job. I don't need a real job. I just need money. That lasted a month.

Currently working at Walmart. This was the kneejerk reaction to the bank job. Do something simple. Bad choice. I am very close to quitting or getting fired. I really don't care which it is.

There is enough money in the bank for me to keep quitting jobs. That's dangerous because I am not a rational man. And eventually I will earn a reputation as the Lakes Region's most unemployable fool. Forced to seek day labor despite hands devoid of callouses.

There is no identifiable course for me to follow because my worklife was patched together randomly. So my experience is all over the map, and much of it has aged considerably. Much like myself.

I don't want to fuck up again. I am bone-tired of fucking up. Indefensible decisions made out of smoke and mirrors, ending badly.

Here I sit. On this beautiful day. Committed to creating an approach. One that I can live with. Literally trying to chart a course through uncharted waters. For my own fragile, yet highly desirable, peace of mind. 

Of which I have had precious little in my life.

I'm talking next step sort of stuff. Not ultimate solution sort of stuff. I am fighting my natural urge to think apocalyptically.

There is some hope of cogent thought. I have not done anything self-destructive yet, and I have been up since 6:30. 

This feels serious.

Ghost Light

A light left on overnight in theatres around the world.

They are said to ward away mischievous spirits. And to serve as a guide for the ghosts that are believed to haunt every theatre.

The Worst Addiction

In a book I recently read, a man was looking for a lost friend in a flophouse.

The kind of place where broken people live in single rooms with bare lightbulbs, hot plates, and no toilet, while clinging desperately to life for no discernible reason.

His theory was that you can look into each room and find a single clue to that person's downfall. The addiction that robbed each of his dignity. A crackpipe. An empty bottle of rotgut whiskey.

He opened a door to see a pile of books. And said "Ah, the worst addiction of all. Reading."

More Quotes

 "Sheddan once said that evil has no alternate plan. It is simply incapable of assuming failure."

And this is why the world we live in today will be destroyed. Inevitably.

"His father. Who had created out of the absolute dust of the earth an evil sun by whose light men saw like some hideous adumbration of their own ends through cloth and flesh the bones in one another's bodies."

A great and ominous sentence.

"A frail candle tottering in the darkness. All of history a rehearsal for its own extinction."

Mankind does NOT learn from its mistakes.

"And I've come to suspect that the ground we walk is less of our choosing than we imagine. And all the while a past we hardly even knew is rolled over into our lives like a dubious investment....................But if there is a common keel to our understanding it is that we are flawed. At our core that is what we know."

I feel that more than ever about my own life.

"The world's truth constitutes a vision so terrifying as to beggar the prophecies of the bleakest seer who ever walked it."

The truths of the world, the truths of life, are dark and barely visible. But crushing nonetheless.

Quotes from The Passenger, written by Cormac McCarthy.

Opinions by me.

Formidable Obstacles

Guilt and regret obstruct the route that leads to who I am.

The ultimate road not taken.

Some Thoughts on Why Babies Cry

Two people talking:

"We don't know do we? We just know that's it's unanimous.

No happy babies?

No, and they try so hard bless their hearts.

Maybe they know what's coming.

It's very puzzling. That people seem to find it natural. Don't you think that's sad? That no one is concerned? Maybe you're right. That they know what's coming. They seem to be of one mind. It's a troubling thing, isn't it? You can't help but think that they bring their despair into the world with them. Still I can't imagine that they cry in the womb. Even though they might want to........................

It's not that I think so much that babies have opinions. I think it's mostly that they just don't like it here.............as soon as they get here they start wailing. I don't think it has to be the here that's wrong. It could be us. For instance. What if we've become something repugnant to ourselves. That's not a happy thought, is it? Babies early on come to believe that all the things that are happening to them are the work of others otherwise what are the others there for? Isn't that worth crying about?

Why can't they just be wet or hungry?

They can. But these are normally just things that you complain about and not things over which you scream in agony."

These are excerpts from a longer conversation between two characters in The Passenger, a novel written by Cormac McCarthy. I separated them out because this is the heavy stuff that inflamed my emotions.

It's just a different take on things. It's a way of looking at things from a perspective fueled by thought versus acceptance.

Ultimately, the fact that Jackson smiles at Craig and Amanda, after two months on this planet, proves to me that parents hold more power and carry more responsibility than other humans. By far.

This makes me happy.

Please note: This is one of the many reasons you read Cormac McCarthy.

Until.................

Sadness is a natural and healthy part of life.

Until it becomes a choice.

Two Ways I Do Not Want To Die

1) Riding the exercise bike

2) With the CPAP mask on my face

The bike because it would mock the folly of pursuing health.

The mask because an unfashionable corpse leaves nothing to the imagination.

Random Quotes

 "Still at heart I know there's more wisdom in sorrow than in joy."

1) "I mean, do you think if you died drunk you'd sober up before you met Jesus? 2) "Good question. I don't know." 1) I thought about that. Standin' in front of him drunk. What would he say. Hell, what would you say?" 2) "I guess I don't think your soul gets drunk."

"It's just that sometimes I think I would have found my life pretty funny if I hadn't had to live it."

From The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

Painful Truths

 "Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget."

"Again, I've encountered no greater mystery in life than myself."

From The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

Don't Die Just Yet

You cannot afford to die when you are reading a Cormac McCarthy novel.

It's just too fucking important.

You Need to Know This

I am a 70 year old man working a part time job to make ends meet.

However, I am not without substance.

I aspire to become an aesthete.

Making New Friends

Just met Richard Kuklinski and Gary Tison.

Gary Tison was a dedicated criminal. At one point in his career he was convicted of passing bad checks and sentenced to 7 months in jail. As he was leaving the courthouse he asked to be allowed to kiss his wife. A guard refused.

Tison overwhelmed the guard on the way to prison, killed him, and escaped. He was arrested the next day. 7 months became life in prison. Smart guy. This was in 1968.

Tison's focus became escaping from prison. He tried three times. He successfully (sort of) escaped in 1978 with the help of his three sons. Fred MacMurray would be jealous.

As they were fleeing, Tison, along with Randy Greenawalt - who escaped with him, killed a family, including a baby, in Arizona, and a honeymooning couple in Colorado. They needed transportation.

Johnny Law eventually caught up with them after a couple of weeks. One of Tison's sons was killed, Tison managed to get away but eventually died of dehydration and exposure in the desert. He was 43.

Check out Last Rampage, the movie made about Tison in 2017.

Richard Kuklinski was a hired killer known as The Iceman. He claimed to have killed 100 men. This is what initially attracted me to the movie - The Iceman. Turns out law enforcement believes he killed no more than 15 men. So a guy I considered to be a raging success turns out to be an underachiever.

Still a good movie, though.

After serving 18 years in prison, Kuklinski died of a heart attack at the age of 70. I am 70. I am not dead and I am not in prison. Small blessings.

Anyway, it's a bit horrifying that people like this exist in the world.

Then again, it's kind of interesting.

It's Pretty Fucking Simple

 If someone would just give me $4 million, I would quit fucking whining.

Because I Am Pissed Off!

A crazy wild child entices a man to let her into his car to give him a blowjob.

She tells him to drive into an alley for privacy. Tells him to pull his pants down because it's easier that way. So he does.

Then she pulls a gun on him and commands "Give me your fucking wallet!" He is petrified, begging and shaking. He yells "Why are you doing this to me?"

The wild child says "Because I am pissed off! And the whole world owes me."

I think that is an excellent approach to life.

The scene comes from a movie titled Freeway, starring Kiefer Sutherland and Reese Witherspoon, from 1996. A deliciously bizarre movie that I watched last night.

The Final Cause

 "The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence. When we examine the moments, acts and statements of all kinds of people--not only the grief and ecstasy of the greatest poets, but also the huge unhappiness of the average soul...we find, I think, that they are all suffering from the same thing. The final cause of their complaint is loneliness."

Thomas Wolfe, from God's Lonely Man 

No Doubt

I've spent my entire life doing what was expected of me.

It is time for me to do something no one expects.

Budweiser

Should I go back to drinking Budweiser?

There's something about a Bud in a man's hand that is iconic and powerful.

Paul Newman drank Bud (lots of it), Steve McQueen drank Bud. Need I say more?

I drank Bud for a long time until I woke up one day hating Bud. So began an odyssey of beer relationships. Tuborg Gold, Newcastle Brown Ale, Miller Genuine Draft, Rolling Rock, Miller High Life, PBR, Coors, Coors Light, Corona and and and.............I had affairs with all of these beers. Some were passionate and long lasting, some were merely flings.

You never heard of Tuborg Gold but I loved it. I loved the taste of Miller Genuine Draft, and I also loved its association with Rusty Wallace.

I dabbled in IPA's because society demands it, but ultimately their IPA-ness overwhelms the flavor and satisfaction my taste buds require. I officially reject IPA's.

Right now I love Blue Moon. Love it. But I notice when I hold a Blue Moon in my hand, peoples' heads do not turn to gaze at me in respect and awe.

I might turn back to Bud. I am 70 years old. Manliness is draining out of me at an alarming rate.

A Bud in hand could very well compensate.

Stark Choices

 "The world is an evil place. Some people make money off of it and others are destroyed by it."

A character in the movie Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

All you gotta do is look in the mirror to figure out which category you fit into.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Watched a movie last night called Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

It's a "best-laid plans" story that critics described as dark, fatalistic, and hard bitten. The screen writer's script is described as one that "drips with the kind of bitter world weariness that only comes with a lifetime of disappointment, family dysfunction and regret."

The movie is all of that.

I've been reading a ton of crime novels, thrillers, and espionage novels lately. Usually I mix it up, but right now it seems my brain needs a break. Pure entertainment.

In all of these stories, when the lives of ordinary people are discussed, they are described as empty, repetitive, close to pointless. Desperate.

Time and time again.

Poets do it, songwriters do it, authors of "literature" do it. Philosophers, drinkers, dreamers and criminals do it too.

Must be a kernel of truth in there somewhere.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead captures every form of the suffering of the soul. There is violence, there is crime, but what did me in was the soul-deep unhappiness of almost every single character. Self-delusions, broken dreams, unrealistic plans for redemption, lying, cheating. An inability to recognize and cherish the beauty and salvation of family.

It captures life so honestly and so painfully. No glossing over.

It pulls back the curtain and hypocrisy of mantras like  "living your best life" to reveal the harsh truth of what life does to the best of intentions.

I May Be Allergic To Jobs

Let's review.

Moved up here on 10/31. Quit my job on 11/13. Enjoyed 2 and 1/2 months of serenity - no job. Snagged more employment in early February. Quit that job in early March. Enjoyed almost two more full months of serenity. Snagged another job late April. And here I sit.

When we first moved I was a fucking madman. Exercising my ass off, eating better, drinking less - I lost so much weight (I doubt my brother believes that) Carol continuously commented on it. And I enjoyed looking in the mirror. Previously, mirrors were anathema to me.

I felt good about myself.

Lost all control when I started Job 1. Holy shit - barely exercised, drank a whole lot of whiskey, gained fucking weight, slept like shit, ate crap. I instantaneously went from Superman to Derelict Boy.

Started Job 2. In the lead-up to it I regained some control. Not much, though. I have spent four days in indentured servitude and I am completely out of control. Again. Of course, the schedule is kind of a second shift kind of thing, so timetables are off and equilibrium is disturbed, but still.....................

I instantaneously went from Deadpool to Supreme Derelict Boy.

I hear David Spade, like in Tommy Boy, whispering in my ear...................."I can actually hear you getting fatter."

Only one conclusion is unassailable........................I am allergic to jobs. So I need to stop working.

Think about it. When I am unemployed I could sit around the house eating Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies by the dozens, and drinking Ten High Bourbon and PBR's, but I don't. I exercise like a fucking madman. I eat cauliflower with Catalina salad dressing on it for afternoon snacks. I drink two or three less quarts of whiskey a day.

BUT when I am working I exercise inconsistently and with much less heart. I pig out on whatever the hell I want to pig out on, and in massive fuck you quantities. I drink much less water, I stay up later and get a lot less sleep. If I was more determined, I would smoke crack, snort coke, and inject heroin.

I have always rebelled against employment; seems like a horrific waste of my time. But since I have recently tasted periods of freedom leveraged aginst a less crushing financial burden, things have really gotten out of control.

Not working: Cauliflower, exercise, pride, commitment and follow-through.

Working: Whiskey, junk food, sloth, and broken promises.

I have a debilitating disease. The only solution is perpetual unemployment. 

This is a cure I can wholeheartedly embrace.