Chewin' on Life Jerky

Gettin' back in the habit of writing my infamous blogs again hasn't been the easiest pattern to revive. I wish I could call it writer's block but it's far deeper than that. The past year I've been living on a circus train. At the age of 32, I decided to join The Greatest Show on Earth, Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus. I won't launch into that but can I just say for the record that I'm not surprised by my lack of determination to write about any of my circus adventures.

Back to basics now... Life Jerky is what I call it. You really have to commit to chewing on the hard salty parts of that jerky in order to fully understand why you are eating it in the first place.

Shall we begin chewing?

Recently I had dinner with a long time friend and we began discussing how we are regressing in age. I'm in my early 30's and I feel like I'm in the 4th grade. In no way am I protesting this regression. It's fabulous. I have life stuff I really need to handle but I'm totally unmotivated to handle to more grown up aspects of living. I've never cared for details that most normal people worry about. I figure I'll get after it sooner or later.

At this very moment I have a broken foot. To the naked eye it doesn't appear to be broken but according to X-Ray films, it is unmistakable. It's broken. I had to leave my circus life a bit earlier than I'd planned on because of this broken foot thing. As I sit in my house watching television and waiting for workman's compensation checks, I am forced to think about what it all means.

I've always believed that if life events seem to consistently go against the grain then maybe it's best to recalculate the compass and march ahead in the direction that isn't trying to kill you.

It is however, a delicate balance of knowing how much resistance you are supposed to have verses the lethal dose. Nothing about my situation now is making much sense in either direction. It is as though I've been in a vortex for a year and don't know which way is out.

This all became apparent to me when my best friend said something about Conan O'Brien's new show. I had NO idea what she was talking about. She said to me, "Dude, are you living under a rock?" Two thoughts entered my head at this moment.

1. No. I'm living on a circus train.

2. I used to say the same thing to people who I had deemed as being "out of the loop" about social events...and I thought they were really stupid for not knowing information that is plastered on all known media.

I realize this is a small example but sometimes processing something small can be a bread crumb trail out of the Ignorant Shire.

This same person has made me laugh really hard by something she said to me on the phone in the last month when I would vent my frustration over my life on a circus train... "Train people have no god."

I don't know, it makes me laugh.

I have so much stuff to get done that would increase my quality of life right now but when I think about doing those things, I feel like hiding in the shed in the backyard. Perhaps I'll do that very thing. I hear it's nice in there this time of year; quiet, dark, musky, full of spiders... not unlike my train room really!

My brother just walked in and looked at me and said the following in an excited way, "What's a' goin' on Melodious Funk?" I stared at him for 10 seconds and said, "nothing." He walked away and said, "I got corndogs?" I have to admit that I became restless by this thought and now will go into the kitchen and eat the dog of corn.

More later from the inside of my mind.

Cathedrals of Capitalism

I just went through a 10 minute debate on which font to pick for this blog.

I chose Georgia because it's just a new risky one offered on my 'options' bar. It's appropriate to bring up how I had a 10 minute thought process over font choice because it pertains to the subject of my blog. I'd like to think that I'm smart or even wise, but when I go into a large retail/grocery store I have a full boar melt down of my mental functions. I can't process anything. I had this experience publicly very recently. My friend wanted to get some Thanksgiving treats at the grocery store and asked if I needed anything. I offered to walk there with him and we'd kick ass inside that store and get an array of goodies for Thanksgiving. My goal was to get the following:

pie, Coke Zero, more pie, beer, and egg nog. Upon entering the store I feel the panic set in. Too many people, too many sounds, too much shit to choose from. My friend asked me to help him out and grab some Ritz crackers. Okay.... No problem. I have a task now and I will meet the challenge of this Ritz finding. I failed. I couldn't find anything. The Ritz cracker is an illusive thing. You'd think it would be on the chip aisle, then you shamefully figure out it's not as you saunter to the "party food aisle"- my rationale is "hey we are having a party, I'll go on the party aisle and I'll find all the Ritz I can man handle." I found none. I found Ding Dongs, Pringles, Triskets, and the like... no Ritz. Do they make Ritz anymore? Of course they do. It's the answer to your cracker needs when Saltines won't cut the mustard.

Finally I realize that my friend has been calling my phone repeatedly. "Where are you? What in the hell? Did you get lost?" I asked how much time had elapsed and his response was "30 minutes!".... I apologized profusely and explained relative time in time space as it relates to gravity or magnetic fields... I offered up a theory that maybe the grocery store has high electro-magnetic fields which just warped my sense of time. After my friend shot me in the head, he effortlessly found the Ritz crackers. They were on an aisle I had walked down about 7 times while cursing the very air I was breathing because I couldn't find them.

My mind started reeling about this. My friend is a gay guy... I am a chick... I should be able to find things at stores right? Wrong. I don't think like a woman at all. I don't have compartments like that in my brain for spices, breads, various cheeses, recipes, decor, shopping, babies... none of that is within my reasoning. My friend is way more of a woman than I am.

So moving swiftly along.... The next day after Thanksgiving we all decide to walk around downtown and just look in stores, etc... I knew I needed a few things. I needed gloves, new socks, and I needed a sweater that didn't look like I had been living under a bus for the last 10 years. The options were intense. Too many. If I found a sweater that I thought would work for me, I would find another one that had a pocket that was a smidge different but yet it was 10 dollars more... this got me a' thinkin', "is that pocket structurally more sound than the pocket on the cheaper edition of the EXACT SAME SWEATER?" I may never know. I didn't buy either of them. All in all, I tried on about 8 sweaters of the same color and style and none of them seemed to me to be the excalibur of their lot.

The endless options we have in our cathedrals of capitalism are ridiculous. However, how it started in the first place is why we live in the USA and why people envy us... Creativity. If there were one gray sweater and that was all you had to choose from, someone, maybe even me, would say "I can make a gray sweater just like that one only with pockets or red buttons cause that is what I would want so there must be someone else who is wanting a gray sweater with red buttons?" This is the whole reason people make dreams come true here in the United States when they had no options or less options in their homeland. If you were born here, you take for granted the options you have. It's all you've ever known. Even if you were poor and living in the slums of Detroit, you were still surrounded by plenty within a few blocks. Americans(myself included) shouldn't complain about the Ethiopian owned corner store or the Korean nail salon's popping up all over the place....We should check ourselves and think about how they came to another country and didn't know jack shit about jack shit about jack shit regarding our culture, the language, ET AL... and still had the balls to say "I know there is a nail salon over there but my nail salon (or car repair, corner store) will be different somehow, and I will make money here."

And they do.

Maybe it is because they believe in the fairy tale of the United States of America , i.e. "As a man thinketh, so is he." If I think of something for long enough as being "the answer to all my problems" or "my dream situation"... you will make it work even if you realize it's not all that easy or rose tinted.

As for my meltdowns in grocery stores or retail outlets or font choosing.... I think I'd rather lose track of time in a grocery store looking for Ritz crackers than I would losing the option to create a better grocery store layout or better yet- write freely a blog about not finding the Ritz crackers.

Big Ideas in the Basement

My first blog on this site. I can hardly wait for nobody to read it. I'm hiding my identity for the sake of hiding my ass off. I have a successful blog on another site but I've often felt restricted by it because people know who I am, etc... Now you don't, so it's a free for all.

I don't have a whole lot to write about currently other than the rants I currently have held inside the captivity of my own mind.

Do you guys have the problem of parasitic people sucking the very essence of your goodness from the marrow of your grand spirit? I do.

Currently there is this fuckhead that comes into my world of work on Mondays. He found me via a newspaper article written about me and has latched on. I fear it could be a tapeworm situation. I might have to let it latch on, suck my soul, and then explode it violently in the nearest toilet. He's an older man, early 60's, and has unrequited dreams of being a composer/play write. He's decided to share his ideas with me against my will. I'm a sitting duck on Mondays. I am in entertainment, but on Monday's I'm helping some friends out with their business because they are currently out of the country. I have a handful of Monday's left to "help out with" so I'm going to throw a block party when it's all said n' done.

This old fucker rapes my ear. He is one of those people that is stuck in time. Sort of like Einstein's theory of relative time, being relative to motion... this guy has no motion so time has really crept by aging him ever so much and he's finding himself in 2009- complete with typewriter or as he brags "a word processor,"... and he plans on "making me a cassette of the show music." Fuckin' A.

In my life I've often felt that these outrageous characters were placed in my pathway so that I can have creative comedy fodder for my act. I think that is the best rational way of thinking about it anyway. If I thought the opposite, I'd shoot myself quickly in the face with a paintball gun. I'd definitely die from that, but it would sting really fucking bad until I died... just to get the whole death thing nailed into my soul so that I wouldn't choose to ever come back to Planet Chaos ever, ever, ever, ever again.

This old fucker has a muse. NO, I'm not it. In fact, he sort of tries to insult me in his complements. He resents me because deep down he knows I hate his old ass. I really have no genuine feelings of compassion for him at all.. or his ideas. Anyhow, his muse... yeah that's where I was... About a month ago he showed up ON A MONDAY with a picture of his "production partner" who looked a lot like a 22 year old Nicole Kidman. Not bad. But I realized via psychic ability and context clues(more the ladder) that this chick wasn't his production partner in real life. She was probably pacifying him with "acting" interested in his ideas and he's taken that shit to the Bank du ASSumption. I had the feeling that he was in love with her in a sick muse sort of way... like Selene Dion and her manager that she eventually married so that he wouldn't go Section 8 on her ass. This old fucker I'm having to contend with has a sort of "kill" thing in his eyes. I saw the KILL in him when he came in last week for my regular ear-raping appointment and told me that his "production partner" wasn't really on board anymore in his opinion. When I acted inquisitive about the reasons why he thought this, he said, "Welp, she's gone back to her old boyfriend so I'm (sigh) pretty much sure she's not fully invested in this project anymore... (sigh, grunt, sigh and psycho look)." I checked his ass with logic and said, "why would that make a difference if she had a boyfriend or not or whatever? Is the boyfriend controlling or something?" The he spoke the truth, "well... (grunt sigh) I was sort of (sigh, grunt sigh, grunt) in love with her I guess... but she didn't know that really but well, it's time for me to let her go... I gotta let her go... yep, gotta let her go..." Uh... You better let her the fuck go then! Shit!

It was like she was chained in the basement and he needed to just have some decency and unlatch the bolts that bound her? The fuck?

Anyhow... I shook that tater off and I forgot about his old ass for another week. Then here it is, Monday, and BAM! I was hiding my ass off in a low sitting chair trying to email some stuff out, etc... I had that sense that there was someone sharkin' me from the other side of the counter. All dorsal, all the time. So I looked up(my first mistake) and saw his old motherfuckin' ass and thought, "Oh, right, it's Monday... how I ignorantly forgot about my weekly ear rapist."

Out of his mouth came the following:

"Remember that script? The new one? She's a beauty and I've got it right here. Finished it at 3:30am and I'll make you a copy of it if you are interested. Just read the first page and see if you aren't hooked." (the first page is the title page... so no, I'm not hooked, he's a liar)

He goes on..."No, look at the scene breakdowns and the music list. Right there, no, right there.... (he's pointing and spitting on me as he's insistently pursuing my ear for his rapin')

"The Cole Porter girls I'm calling the Collettes, get it? Cole Porter, Collettes?! (yeah I fucking get it) The character Maurice is after Maurice Chevallier and I thought it was clever that he was named Maurice. But yeah... so my partner and I (basement girl?) are really excited about this. Do you know any producers in town? Do you think Broadway will be interested? Do you have any connections with producers? You know, you could play a part in this thing if it takes off. Tell you what, I'll give you a CASSETTE TAPE of the music from the show. I think you'll like it."

Where do I start with the rant part of this?

1. Of course I know producers, but who is Mr. Broadway?

2. Don't give me a cassette, time child.

3. I wouldn't play a part in this idea fart of yours because by the time you get funding, I'll be deaf from all the ear rapin' that has occurred over the last few months.

I think people are hesitant to really tell this guy to fuck off because he's got a hardened look to him. Sort of an ex-Marine or Drill Sergeant in VietNAM-ish sort of thing about him. Something ain't right about him, that's all I'm sayin'.

What blows my ear raped mind about people like him is that they think people like me would actually give them what they need. I mean, bones for the effort but pills for the mentality of that level of persistence. Honestly- Can't he see that I don't like him? Or is this one of those situations where I'm going to be forced into HULK MODE? I hate being forced into that mode because I'll destroy his sense of reality with a couple of sentences. I don't want to go full Simon Hulk-Cowell on him but I think I might have to.

The lethal part of his mentality or any like him is this: He USED to BE somebody. He was in radio for many years... God knows what happened there but he ain't in Radio no'mo'.

He works retail in a camping store. That goes along with my whole theory of him being an AWOL ex-Marine or having that chick in his basement all rigged up to electrical cords and forcing her to watch 42nd Street all goddamned night. But no worries, he's going to "let her go."

Anyhow... that's my news for today. Stay tuned for more posts of equal or greater value.

-Wendell Binks