True Love is rare…herpes sucks

 

True love is rare. Life is short. And human beings have incredible powers of self-deception.

There’s a regular at my bar who has herpes simplex and is having difficulty finding love. I like the guy. He has an interesting story. (I believe everybody has 1 great novel inside of them…if they only took the time to put it down.) I’m often his shrink when the bartenders are busy.

Joe Smo wants to find true love again SO MUCH…he’s 31 and has been dating like a fiend. But it’s difficult when your pool is mostly limited to other people who have annual outbreaks on their private parts. Luckily, there’s a website where people with herpes can meet. It’s called OKputrid. (Joke.)

herpes forever

Joe has an ex-wife who has full custody of their two kids. In his early 20s he traveled the world with an Emo band (until they kicked him out for inadequate keyboard skills). When he met his future wife she was in college. They fell head over herpes in love (she was ok with him transferring the venereal disease). Joe was now about to join the military. During basic training his future wife wrote him everyday (41 times). They moved to Hawaii together and life was going to be perfect and wonderful amongst the cool, island breezes.

hawai

Then Mrs. Smo got bored. Perhaps she was a little too excited to begin with? After having two children…things changed.

Obviously, my perspective is biased through the storytelling-lens of (often drunk) heartbroken Joe, but I can read people and situations fairly well despite a lack of details, and it sounded like Mrs. Smo became a cruel, conniving, rapacious cunt.

She lied, cheated, and deceived. She brought men back home who were “just friends,” flirted with them in front of the kids, and stayed late at their apartments. Poor Joe was still desperately in love with Mrs. Smo and didn’t know what to do. He still wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And think of the children! Joe grew up in a broken home and didn’t want the same for his boy and his girl. But this rapacious cunt was treating him worse and worse. The walls were closing in…the fuse was getting shorter…

short fuse pic

Begin soap opera violent drama. Joe lost his shit. He took to the bottle. There were fights, yelling, the police were called. Joe was almost kicked out of the military, but due to a previous flawless record, he was demoted to a desk job at a gym.

Mr. and Mrs. Smo went to court. Joe lost the kids. Now he struggles to see them once every couple of months. This past Valentine’s Day, he was in the bar by himself muttering under his breath and in tears, texting his ex-wife nasty things.

We all know the justice system favors the mother in these instances. The judge doesn’t care about Joe catching his wife kissing another man at 1am on a street corner when she said she was just taking a dog for a walk. The judge cares about Joe screaming in the middle of the night, waking up the neighbors, and throwing plates against the wall. YOU RUINED OUR MARRIAGE YOU SELFISH WHORE!

Now Joe is trying to find love again. But it’s difficult to meet someone spontaneously and then have to drop the herpes bomb. How soon should he tell a girl? 2nd date? 3rd? As they kiss in the elevator?

Yesterday, he told me about a promising date in which he drove to Delaware (2 hours) to go on (they met on the herpes site). He thought the girl was pretty and nice, but the fire wasn’t there. Joe wondered if he would ever find the kind of love that he had with his first wife again, where they just KNEW it was right and jumped right in.

Hmm, but how they did know it was just right?

First, I told Joe that love is rare. He may have found it in the past, but he has to be prepare to never have it again. Perhaps the first love was a byproduct of the reckless hopefulness of his youth?

It’s a pity that our society says that everyone can/should find love. Marriages that work and deep, true love are the exceptions, not the rules. I think if we all thought this way much suffering would be alleviated and more love would be found.

Then I thought:
Yes, Human beings are masters of self-deception. How easily it is for many people to convince themselves that their significant other is the “one.” I think much of it is biological.

If you read my Death on Wednesday Morning philosophy post, you will remember that I discussed peoples’ mental susceptibility for religion and believing in God. There is also a susceptibility towards lock down love. The first person you consistently fuck and date IS THE ONE NO DOUBTS OR QUESTIONS ASKED. Life is nice and pleasant that way if both people are on the same, simple page.

“You got the blinders on?”
“Yes, you too?”
“Yes. To the grave!”

This lock down love susceptibility goes hand in hand with religion. People who marry their first loves have also fascinated and confused me because I wonder, “How do they know what they like if they haven’t dated other people? How are they not curious? How do they separate the good qualities of the person with the pleasurable, love-blinded show in general? Why do they throw away their life on the first person who comes around who is nice and makes them feel good?

Because not only are people afraid of the dark, most people are afraid to be alone.

But hovering above self-deceptions and the rarity of true love is this: time is short and the clock is ticking. You can’t keep on saying “the grass is always greener on the other side,” and never get to the other side!  The phrase “nobody’s perfect” is often a justification for people to reconcile to themselves their shitty partners. But if you keep searching and discarding rather than compromising and accepting your entire life, pushing and pushing…what’s the point? Maybe Wilma with all her flaws would have made you happy…

I’m not a relationship guru by any means, but the last cliche thing I told Joe was this:

You can’t be desperately pining for love. You’re either gonna scare the great girls away or attract ones that are gonna be bat-shit crazy and hurt you again. You have to get yourself right first before anything will work.

“Yeah…you’re right, the problem is, after a date, I’m always worried if the girl had a good time or not.”
“Nay, Joe Smo, nay. A part of you can think this, but the bigger part has to ask yourself whether YOU had a good time. Whether the girl resonated with YOUR standards…which brings me to my final two points…

1.) Standards/values: Relationships are confusing and complicated. And timing plays a big part. But I think all you can do (or at least I’m gonna do) to navigate this fog is know deep down how you look at the world, what you value, and who you are. Those things take time and effort to understand, but the better you can grasp it, the better chance you have of recognizing someone who is similar/has reached similar conclusions about life. For example, I value curiosity and someone who never stops learning, hard work and striving towards something…kindness, intelligence, reflection, strength, endurance, exploring…these things are personal to me, are unspoken and felt, and don’t pass away with time.

2.) Patience: I may never find what I consider “true love,” but I’m willing to wait. There’s a chance I may die before I find this person…but I’d rather wait and search than settle for someone who doesn’t share the things that make me who I am.

Joe paid the check and left the bar. As he walked away I thought, “We pay for things we do in this life. If someone destroys you like Joe’s ex-wife and you survive it, I really believe you are stronger and better on the other side. When someone/something fucks you over…something inside broadens/opens up. I hope Joe figures out who he is, deep down, and finds someone who can set him on fire…

“But Jesus Christ,” I couldn’t help but mutter under my breath, “I’m glad I don’t have fucking herpes.”

doctor herpes

 

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The Verrazano Bridge…and ball sacks

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There she is…what a beaut…she spans from Staten Island to Brooklyn.

Named after the lesser known Italian explorer, Giovanni da Verrazzano,

Giovanni de V

He was commissioned by King Francis I of France to explore the New World and occasionally rape and pillage. His most known voyage was along the Atlantic Coast from Florida to New Brunswick, where he stopped in the New York Bay in 1524 to eat some overpriced pasta in Little Italy. In 1528 he was killed and eaten by Carib natives. According to long lost texts recently discovered in Guadalupe in 2012, Verrazzano’s ball sack was roasted over an open fire and sprinkled with cloves and nutmeg.

The Name Controversy:

In 1951, the Italian Historical Society took a break from doing each other big favors and murdering snitches and requested the new bridge be named after an Italian. After 9 years of picketing outside of government buildings and yelling, “Hooooo, C’mon, I says whaddu mean?! You fuck my wife?! Get outta here…” in 1960 a bill was passed for the name Verazzano and signed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller:

gov rockafeller
“Hyeh Hyeh Hyeh. Yeah I’ll sign that shit.”

 

But during the last year of construction (1964) JFK was assassinated and a petition to name the bridge after him received thousands of signatures. John N. Lacorte, the president of the Italian Historical society, was enraged and started violently throwing his brother-in-law into garbage cans. (He was also a wealthy man and in 1987 he announced a plan to give $1,000 to teenage girls who remained virgins until the age 19…that’s actually true.) Since his hit men just couldn’t get the job done, John contacted the U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Bobby didn’t want to sleep with the fishes beneath the bridge, so he promised to make sure the structure wasn’t named after his brother. The compromise was to change the name of NYC’s international airport from Idlewild to JFK. A small group of hippies began protesting against the loss of the name, Idlewild, but nobody paid any attention to them.

And get this…after all that….the explorer’s name on the bridge is misspelled.

IMG_3480

It cost $320 million to build in 1964, which in present dollars is $2.44 billion/annual GDP of Liberia.

At the time of construction it was the largest suspension bridge in the world, surpassing the Golden Gate Bridge by 60 feet (Fuck you west coast. East Coast build bridges fuck bitches till we die.)

About 12,000 men worked on it, 3 men died. After the deaths of the 3 men the workers protested, demanded safety nets, and walked off the job for 4 days. The safety nets were granted and 3 men who subsequently fell were saved. The workers were not invited to the opening. Instead they attended a mass for the 3 victims. Hooray.

cool v pic

It is 14 football fields long and weighs 2.8 billion footballs (inflated)…was the heaviest bridge in the world when it was built.

Today it still has the largest bridge span in the Americas, but it is #11 in the world. C’mon American Government. We’re bigger than that. Round up another 12,000 workers to exploit and let’s get to work!

The diameter of each of the 4 suspension cables is only 36 inches, yet EACH cable is composed of 26,108 wires…which amounts in length to 143,000 miles…5.7 times around the globe.

Due to the height of the towers and their distance apart, the curvature of the earth’s surface had to be taken into account when designing the bridge. The tops of the towers are 1 and 5/8 inches farther apart than at their bases. They are not parallel to each other.

Due to thermal expansion of the steel cables the bridge roadway is 12 feet lower in the summer than in the winter.

170,000 people cross it per day. 5,000 of those people are middle-aged women listening to Adele and tearing up in their car. The toll was 50 cents when it opened ($3.84 today adjusted inflation) now it is $16 per car. When Uncle Sam grabs your balls, he doesn’t let go.

uncle sam money
hair ballsack

When I first wrote this essay, a couple of sources stated that researchers were taking part in a collaborative project on the conception and construction of the bridge.  Supposedly, in-depth interviews were taking place of surviving participants to compile an oral history of the architectural landmark. On November 29, 2016 a commemorative plague, in tribute to all the people associated with the construction of the bridge, was supposed to have been revealed…

But now it’s 2018, and I’ve yet to read, see, or hear of such a plague. WHERE IS IT STATE OF NY?! WHERE IS IT?!

tanuki-pulling-boat

Like the magical Tanuki Yoaki and his expanding scrotum, we cringe and move on.

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A Brief History of Braces…ending with some family notes

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If I lived a hundred years ago, without all of the benefits I’ve received from technology and modern medicine, I’d be an ugly-ass man.

I’d have thick glasses, asthma, allergies, scoliosis, recurrent ear infections, a speech impediment, acne vulgaris, consistent rashes…and yes, mangled buck teeth.

Growing up, I had an overbite and my two, front teeth pointed in towards one another…sort of like a bunny rabbit.

bunny braces

I wore braces for a couple of years. When and where did this technology begin?

Some ancient Egyptian mummies were found with crude metal bands around their teeth:

egyptian braces

Looks like humans have been going to great lengths to satisfy their vanities for thousands of years.

The Greek and the Roman thinkers wrote about tooth irregularities (Hippocrates) and altering tooth position by regularly pushing them with your fingers (Celsus). This latter technique still exists today in the hood. Instead of going to the orthodontist they go to the “or-just-push-it.”

The father of dentistry, Pierre Fauchard, in 1728 invented a device called the bandeau.

early-orthodontic-braces Wheresgz the damselssgz at?

Some braces contain nickel titanium…which was developed by NASA.

-8 million people are wearing braces right now.
-75% are under 18.
-100% have to lie to their orthodontist about their salt water taffy consumption

It takes 17 muscles to smile, 43 to frown, 71 to make an “O” face.

25% of people who wear braces have to wear them again because they didn’t use their retainer.

dos equis retainer

Wearing braces in American culture has a nerdy, ugly stereotype…as captured by this 6 second vine:

 

But in the last decade wearing braces has become a fashion trend in China and Thailand.

asian braces smile

Hot.

100% of orthodontists are dentists.

About 6% of dentists are orthodontists.

About 99% of dentists continually refer to themselves as doctors despite everyone else saying, “You mean, you’re a dentist?”

(Note: my grandfather is a dentist. We haven’t talked in years. He lives in Arizona and he likes to gamble and golf. I remember his two favorite quotes:

Analysis is paralysis.

Don’t laugh when you win, don’t cry when you lose. 

I’ve tended not to analyze our relationship. And I tend to laugh when I lose and cry when I win.)

My sister (who’s a real doctor) got her braces off on the morning of 9/11. When she returned to school that day, nobody knew.

 

Thoughts of Death on a Wednesday Morning

skull and hourglass

I’m obsessed with death.

I’ve been that way since I was a little kid.

death guess who

Perhaps it is one of many reasons I’ve chosen the path of the pen…a book is a life that doesn’t die…no serious author doesn’t at least play with the idea of immortality.

When I was 6 years old my grandmother’s sister died. My mother tells a story of talking to me about her death:

“Great-Aunt Mami passed away today, Jack.”
“She’s gone?”
“Yes.”
“Where did she go?”
“To…to heaven.” I paused. “Mommy?”
“Yes Jack?”
“What if nothing happens to us after we die?” My mother was taken aback and surprised.
“We..we just don’t know Jack. We just hope that the people we love go to a better place.”

Since I can remember I’ve had the unwavering conviction that death is a dreamless sleep, game over, total blackness. Which is part of the reason why I’ve often been confused and fascinated by religious people…in the beginning I thought it was plain silly that people actually believed in life after death. Now, after years of reading, studying, living, and questioning I’ve come to some conclusions concerning why people can have this belief.

1) Some minds are just set up for it. Just as some people are tall, short, inherently strong, or weak…some minds are susceptible to certain ideas, thought patterns, and illusions. And believing in a higher power and life after death is an excellent survival tool. “God loves me and is watching over me…there is a better place than this hazardous, tragic world,” these ideas give people strength and hope. What is better for finding a mate and having children than unreasonable, unaccountable, unquestionable strength and hope?

I’ve slowly and meticulously read almost all of Victor Hugo and Dostoevsky’s books. They were both extremely religious, but extremely different men. They gave their lives to their writing and opened themselves up in ways few humans have. I learned many things from their novels.

Hugo woman quote doy saraBut concerning their faith…despite being intelligent, expressive, well-read men…it came down to this:
Believe me…trust me…God exists!!! Faith was just a part of who they were. They couldn’t defend their faith beyond: this is how I feel. Nonetheless, I remember thinking while reading their books that if a belief in God could produce/contribute to such powerful, intense, soul-shaking works…are the authors right? Was Jesus actually the son of a higher power because Jean Valjean got up from his deathbed, took down a copper crucifix, and said, ‘He is the great martyr.’ (A surprising, out-of-left-field moment amidst a life-changing scene which had me crying in a diner: “A lower murmur escaped his lips. ‘To die is nothing, but it is terrible not to live.'”)

But then I realized that I was merely worshiping their creative skill. Being able to write a great book has nothing to do with the ultimate, unknowable truths of the universe…it’s a single person mastering a limited perspective and communicating it powerfully and clearly.

2.) Life is suffering. La luche de vida. Because of this fact….reality and our minds are constantly in flux. When we experience conflict in reality…something in our mind has to give/has to cope/has to figure this shit out. I think a belief in God can begin when a susceptible mind interacts or clashes with uncertainty and conflict in the outside world.

This idea was summed up for me in an interview I watched of Stephen Hawking. He was asked about why people believe so strongly in religion. He replied, “People…are…afraid…of…the…dark.” Some people can live in the darkness, some people can’t. In a different interview Stephen Hawking was asked if he ever became angry at his body/ his life because of his Motor Neuron disease and being stuck in a wheelchair. His response: “Who…could…ask…for…more?”

stephen hawking

But regardless of your susceptibility, sometimes I think the level of suffering and uncertainty becomes so much that something has to save you…no matter how irrational that something is.

I’ve also been interested in people who either convert to Christ or convert away from Christ. One of my friends, Sean Ewart (writer), was raised by two pastors in the boonies of northern NY. Yet he somehow became an atheist. While I can’t fathom all of the experiences he had growing up which pushed him in this direction…I do know that he is a questioning, exploring, curious type of individual. Perhaps his inner susceptibility for faith was minimal. Which brings me to my last point…

3.) Community. Humans are highly social animals. The people who orbit our susceptibilities and experiences (suffering) influence how we look at life and death. If you don’t have an independent, questioning tendency inside of you, there’s very little chance for you to rebel against your family and friends.

Growing up, my parents were open, inquisitive, and challenging. They read books and explored. I remember a game my father used to play frequently with my sister and I…he’d point at something like a dog and say, “Look at that cat over there!” My sister and I were laugh and say, “No, dad, that’s not a cat, that’s a dog!” This may seem like an innocuous, childish game, but this kind of environment fosters and develops a person who doesn’t take beliefs for granted. Compare this to Christian families who tell their children that Jesus died for their sins and that this is the only truth.

So what does this all have to do with death?

In reverse fashion, here were my motivations for this post:

On Monday night I had an interesting conversation with a regular (Bill) at the bar. He told me a story of someone dying in his restaurant (Battery Gardens) a few years ago when he was working a catering event for a wedding party. The man who died was 55 and had stomach problems. Bill was going to tell the party (they were upstairs) that there was a bathroom on this floor, but he was too busy. The man with stomach problems began walking towards the staircase. “Excuse me, sir, there’s a bathroom on this-” The man clutched his stomach, leaned forward, and THUMP THUMP THUMP. The man fell down the stairs. Bill ran after him and saw that the man was foaming from the mouth and bleeding from the eyes. Dead. He was the uncle of the bride. Screams. Wailing. The family sued the restaurant. They didn’t win.

I told Bill about an experience I had in India. My father and I were in taxi and the taxi swerved around a form in the middle of the road. I turned around and looked out the window. The form was a dead man, still bleeding. Death in India means much less than death in NYC. Not only was nobody suing anybody else, but nobody was even moving the body out of the road.

India train

The bartender in my restaurant on Monday night interns in an ambulance during the day. For the first time that day he had “pronounced” somebody dead. He arrived at a beautiful apartment in Brooklyn overlooking the river and found a 98 year old woman with one foot out of bed. Her jaw was stiff. She had passed.

On Wednesday morning I woke up with a bloody nose. As I stepped out of bed to find a tissue to shove up my nostril I remembered the 98 year old woman. My mind became flooded with thoughts of my mortality.

I’m not sure how to end this post. I sort of jumped all over the place and I’m not very satisfied with how it turned out. I’ll do a better one tomorrow…

Because I’m still here…alive…

Not dead.

The Rise of Sriracha

54f94f6948da1_-_srirachabf sri

First birth: The original sauce was invented in 1949 by a nameless, old woman in Si Racha Thailand. The name “Sriracha” is not trademarked (because it’s a place). That’s why there are so many knock-offs (subway, pizza hut, burger king, etc.)

Second birth of the sauce YOU know (“spicy and flavorful in a respectful way”) by Huy Fong Foods (1980): Also known as “Rooster Sauce” or “Cock Sauce.” Created by this dude:

2cGpDE2JS7Wk3Xd2FmJL_David.Tran_.Sriracha.Hot_.Sauce_

David Tran. At the age of 30 he saw the fall of Saigon. “When Vietnam changed to Communism they stopped any business.” He was considered ethnic chinese, the unwanted minority, was part of the 30,000 refugees shipped to Hong Kong (A.K.A frozen ducks who were left on boats for months).

Moved to America (Cali) with nothing. Noodle soup was bland. “Everyone like me, we need our hot sauce. So I try to make it.” Personally delivered orders all over China town in his blue Chevy van. People say, ‘You make mild, you sell more.” David thinks, fuck you, but says “No hot sauce must be hot. We need fresh chile.”

He would manually dump chile into a grinder, causing the hot, stinging juice to run down his arms. When he would come home he couldn’t hold his daughter.

There’s a rooster on the bottle because David was born in the year of the Rooster.

The numbers:
In 2012 20 million bottles were sold. David’s factory makes 3,000 bottles an hour, 24 hours a day, 6 days a week (70,000 bottles a day). They just built a new factory that will make 18,000 bottles an hour.
David: “Economics up and down. For me I feel nothing.”
David again: “I make price very, very low.”

Every year Sriracha sales increase 20%
They use 48,000 tons of Chiles a year from ONE supplier. That’s 100 million pounds of peppers. The one supplier has the chiles at David’s doorstep 2 hours after harvest.

Ingredients: chile, garlic, sugar puree

Sriracha DOES NOT ADVERTISE AND DOES ZERO MARKETING. David: “We don’t have time, we can’t make enough.”

The phenomenon: Simply put: “People use it on everything…from eggs…soups…fried rice etc.” There are Sriracha ice cream sandwiches, lollipops, jams….people have sriracha tattoos (one guy spelled out on his knuckles), clothing, stiletto heels, rap songs…”I sneak it into wedding receptions,” said one poor bastard…Harold Dieterle, the first guy who won top chef, is a big fan….EVERY asian kitchen carries it. etc etc etc

Poem by David Tran:
I try to work hard to
make good product.
Until they don’t like
I stop to make

Below: A disturbing, but sadistically entertaining video of a buffoon chugging three bottles of Sriracha. I guess it’s a sign that a product has become a phenomenon when the outliers take it to the extreme. Don’t watch the last minute: vomit alert:

The Gorilla Suit

 

In the fall of my senior year in college I purchased a gorilla suit and it was a steady source of entertainment. But first…here’s a horrifying 7 second video of a real gorilla jumping towards a window:

 

The reason behind dropping a hundred dollars on a high quality primate costume was Halloween. My friend named Mufasa and I were originally going to split the cost, since he was the one who really wanted to wear it, but as the end of October approached Mufasa was short on cash. I decided to take one for the team and purchase the suit myself. Mufasa said I didn’t need to do that, but I told him that a gorilla suit was just a good thing to have, that would maintain most of it’s value long after it’s first use. Like a car or a house.

Here’s one of my top 5 favorite vines (13 seconds) of a Halloween prank gone horribly wrong:

 

The first plan for using the gorilla suit was to set up a chase on the night of Halloween. Two of our friends would be in banana costumes (Sean and Pusedad, both soulless gingers). They would be chased by Mufasa in the gorilla costume, followed by me in a safari hunter outfit, followed by Sylvester in a Captain America outfit. We had checked off all links of the food chain.

Nothing really happened that night as we ran through all the major buildings on campus. We made loud noises, fought each other as drunk lads do, huddled around people hollering like hooligans, etc. Students laughed, pointed, posted “Can’t believe I just saw ___” Facebook statues, security came, we hid. But that night was only the beginning…

Mufasa wore the suit to class once. Nobody knew it was him as he nonchalantly sat down, took out his supplies, and fumbled with a pen. He said the teacher’s little kid, who was visiting that day, was scared,
cried, and huddled in a corner for the entire period. Mufasha took an absence for this prank. Worth it? He said yes.

We would bring the suit out whenever we hosted parties. Girls are always down to grind with a gorilla.

“Umm…who are you?”
“OOO OOO AHHHH AHHHH.”

Sean and I took the suit on a road trip to Wisconsin to watch D3 cross country nationals. We would put the mask (with added sunglasses) on at every toll booth. The people in the toll booth never even flinched. No wonder so many of them commit suicide. They can’t even laugh at a gorilla with sunglasses driving a car!

We also put on the mask to harass other vehicles. That gave us some more reactions…the most common one being thumbs up. “Keep up the good work!”

At the cross country race, Sean wore the suit. There was another gorilla there from NYU. Sean stared at him without moving for five minutes. I proposed Sean beat the shit out of him to show which one was alpha. Sean said that he was already alpha and that was all.

Here’s me wearing the suit at Comic-Con:

G CC

Walking through the streets of NYC in the gorilla suit on my way to Comic Con, I saw that 95% of people barely batted an eyelash. “Oh, someone in a gorilla suit? I just saw a bald, homeless woman doing the Cotton-Eyed Joe in front of a python. And you think you’re special?”

There’s more that happened with the gorilla suit, such as a drinking event in grad school involving a funnel, vomit, and passing out in bushes, and an occurrence a few days before my college graduation ceremony involving water balloons and violence…but this is only my blog…so I’ll just have to leave you hanging…

gorilla hanging

(Garbage pun intended)

gorilla funny

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Marijuana

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Marijuana is fun. Like candy or masturbating. Warning: if you’re part of the rapidly dwindling camp that still believes cannabis should remain illegal, please leave my blog and never come back…loser.

You may be thinking this post is about to promote the glory and joys of the halfling’s leaf. Nay. In the last couple of years I’ve come to a gradual conclusion concerning the chronic and my life: it’s just not my thing. Or at least I use it very, very sparingly, on rare and special occasions, either by myself or with select individuals.

Before I explain my loss of interest let me emphasize: I hold zero judgements concerning people who use weed habitually. I’ve enjoyed it thoroughly in the past, have close friends who use it everyday, have had girlfriends who have used it, family members, etc. But I’ve dropped it from my life for the following reasons:

1.) As a writer, my mind is my workshop and my future means of income. Just as a serious, endurance athlete can’t be crushing candy and fast food consistently and perform at their best, I can’t be submerging my mind in a pleasurable THC bog on a frequent basis. Dope isn’t like it was in the 1970s…today’s strands are 50x to 70x more powerful. When you blaze you go a little insane. Then, after the insanity subsides, my head is in a daze for a week. I can hardly put my thoughts in order. My writing suffers. The vibrancy of my perceptions and emotions are dulled.

2.) Memory loss: everybody knows the space-cadet-forgetful stereotype of the stoner. For me, this is terrifying. I like my memories, the good and the bad. I use them to create art. And perhaps this is a character flaw, but I enjoy (even if it’s an illusion) mental control.

If you feel pain or have a past that haunts you, herb can be a brief release (until it all comes rushing back when you’re sober). If you’re trying to be aware of what’s around you and soak in life to the last, bitter drop…then drifting in a cloud will not be valuable or amusing.

3.) Energy decrease. Again, people know about the stereotypical stoner-couch-lock and loss of motivation. Of course there are exceptions: I’ve met productive, professional, active stoners. But would they be more active without ganja? Who knows? But I’ve observed a subtle, insinuating part of reefer inside of myself…if I’m smoking it more than occasionally, I don’t try. I don’t care. My life blurs. My will sags. I don’t like that.

Let me reiterate: I am not condemning the use of Sticky icky, I’m only, to understand myself, elaborating on my own decision to refrain.

Being a human being is fucking difficult. Someone commits suicide every 20 minutes. We all have to figure out ways to get through the day/our lives. If burning tree fits into your formula for well-being, enjoy it.

People have discussed with me Bobo bush’s positive affect on creativity…sure, it does jostle your mind, but so does reading a book or traveling someplace new. If you want to create music like Willie Nelson or Kid Cudi, smoke away. But if you’re trying to create something in a different vein or learn particular things about yourself and life…I’d suggest you treat bud as an irregular getaway rather than a key to inspiration.

Three, final points:

1.) The clock is ticking. Mercilessly. Perhaps in the future when I’m an established scribbler I’ll let myself indulge more with grass. But right now, while I pay the bills through restaurant labor, sleep 5 hours a night, and am fighting to publish stories, I can’t afford to numb myself with blueberry yum yum.

2.) What if you miss it? My experience in life is severely limited, but already I’ve had the entire course of my life veer in a different direction because of a small and simple (seemingly innocuous at the time) movement, thought, or emotion. Ever been with a group of people when someone decides to go back to their apartment to smoke kush? Or have you ever invited someone to hang out when they decide to stay in and get torched instead? What if THAT night would have changed their lives for the better if they decided to leave the bong? Of course I’m amplifying the significance of everyday experience, but as a writer who realizes that a passing perception can ignite creativity…when the way something sounds or looks might be used 3 years later when you’re sitting at a desk…when a phrase or a glance is fodder for the pen…you can’t let yourself be blindly, blissfully hovering in a haze.

3.) That all being said, I can still roll a mean, fat blunt (see above).

 

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Politics in Sport and Passion in Literature

 

-Beautiful-Oil-painting-nude-young-girl-reading-book-on-sofa-with-spring-flowers

During my junior year in high school I switched from team sports (soccer, basketball, lacrosse) to running. There were many reasons for this change, but one of the main ones was to escape “athletic politics.” I was a prankster who could never sit still with  a natural dislike for unmitigated authority. I also had an adolescent disdain of ingratiation.

I have a fond memory of my first soccer practice freshmen year. We were done for the day and putting the equipment back in he shed. I had the bright idea that I wanted to kick a soccer ball as high up in the air as I could. But my drop-kicks were rarely predictable. When I kicked the ball it when flying back behind my head, into the field, and smacked our coach in the face. His glasses and baseball cap both fell off.

“Who the fuck just did that!?” he shouted.
“Me. I-”
“Ten laps around the field.” Kicking a soccer ball into the face of your new coach isn’t starting off on the right foot.

With team sports it is often difficult to predict “all-around-skill.” Yes there are the seen factors of points/goals scored. But what about hustle? Getting back on defense? Closing the gaps? Staying on your man? Boxing out? Preventing a pass? Getting a ground ball when everyone else was tired?  I was never good at scoring points. I didn’t care that much and usually didn’t have the confidence to take the shot. But I was fast and worked hard.
So I was never a “star player” and didn’t get as much playing time as the guys who scored points. There were a handful of coaches who saw my “hustle merit” and put me in as much as the scorers, but most coaches didn’t care and I often sat on the bench. Of course my teenage mind exaggerated the injustice, but my subsequent success in running and realizations concerning the fallibility and favoritism of high school coaches makes me understand that I often didn’t get as much playing time as I might have “deserved.”

I switched to running because I was tired of sitting on the bench. Here, the game was simple. Run fast: get playing time. Hard work paid off. With basketball, I could practice all summer on my jump shot and have a coach who didn’t like my attitude and never put me in. With running, I could practice all summer and if I was the first one to the finish line, the coach had no choice. I was in.

Now, my competitive running career is (temporarily) over. If I earn enough money from the pen before my youth has withered away, I’d like to take another stab at running sub 1:50 in the 800 meters and sub 4:20 in the mile, but this is unlikely. Literature has taken precedent. Great literature takes years.

Of all occupations, writing is one of the more “just.” You put your work out there and if people like it, they pay for it. It takes a long time to establish a voice and a perspective, but once you have it, nobody can take that away from you. Art keeps many people (including myself) alive. If you can establish a connection with a like-minded audience, then all the circus bullshit of office politics becomes irrelevant.

But again I’m confronted with a similar feeling I had in high school. I’ve written a book and many stories yet I’m still “sitting on the bench.” Perhaps I’m actually a shit writer? Perhaps I should kowtow to the scorers?

Yet, when I go into a Barnes and Noble and read the fiction that’s been recently published, or peruse the NYTimes fiction bestsellers, I think, “Is this really what people are buying and praising? This stuff is boring. This stuff is crap.”

Whether I’m weird, insane, or strange for criticizing these recently lauded books (I think I’m the only person in the world who’s read all of Tolstoy and thoroughly enjoys dub-step music…perhaps my view of the world is too strange/odd to garner empathy) there’s a beautiful consolation for the aspiring writer: the words are out there to judge. Hand me a book that’s sold millions of copies or hand me a book that’s written by a Nobel Prize winner…I’ll know whether the author did something great…whether they closed the gaps, got back on defense, and hustled.

The impetus for this post were two pieces I’ve read in the last 24 hours. The first was as essay published in the New Yorker by George Saunders called: “Who are all these Trump Supporters?” It’s one of the most poorly written essays I’ve read in a long time. The subject matter was interesting, but the writing was boring, stuffy, and incompetently erratic. Yet George Saunders is considered one of America’s leading writers and will likely be praised and published in the New Yorker many more times before he dies.

Another piece I read is by Herman Melville called: “The Piazza.” The writing is also erratic, but with purpose, intelligence, and intensity. Melville was considered by the “literary elite” and the reading public at large as a hack writer for most of his life.

So amongst the glowing or scathing reviews, the prizes or lost obscurity, the publications in revered magazines or little blog posts, the six figure books deals or friendly pats on the back, the hemming and hawing, the noise…the words on the page will always be there…they will always reveal an artist’s soul.

You can run, my friend, but you can’t hide.

Mr. Crumpacker, Chipotle, Cocaine…and an investment banker who committed suicide

crum 1chipotle funny picso much cocaine

In a July 2016 issue of, “AM New York,” I read an article on Chipotle’s Chief Creative and Development Officer, Mark Crumpacker, turning himself in to Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to face seven counts of buying cocaine.

The executive allegedly purchased about $3000 worth of nose candy on at least 7 occasions from January 29 to May 14.

This amounts to an average of $428 worth of cocaine for each purchase. That’s about 2 eight balls or 7 grams worth of cocaine (I’m sure he received some sort of discount…then again…he was compensated $4.28 million the previous year…he didn’t need a discount).

In 3.5 months Mr. Crumpacker likely consumed almost 50 grams of cocaine. That’s averaging 1/2 a gram a day. The dude was nasally packing a lot of white crumbs.

According to Bloomberg.com, Mr. Crumpacker’s buying habits often corresponded with Chipotle’s difficulties:

1st purchase: January 29: Just days before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the results of a probe into two E.coli outbreaks that sickened dozens of Chipotle customers.

3nd purchase: March 8th: On this day Chipotle temporarily shut down a restaurant in Massachusetts after four employees got sick.

5rd purchase: April 27: The day after Chipotle posted its first quarterly loss as a public company.

7th purchase: May 11: The day of the company’s annual meeting, where shareholders voted to approve a proxy-access proposal backed by activists in a rebuke to the board.

Reminder: Adversity is often the breeding ground for nascent, consuming-addictions.

The investigation which led to Crumpacker turning himself in began with Thomas Hughes, a 29 year old investment banker, who committed suicide in May 2015. Thomas jumped from his 24th story Ocean Luxury rental apartment. Witnesses at the scene said his body landed on a fence and it cut him in half like a sandwich.

In Hughes apartment there were numerous baggies of cocaine and no suicide note. He had spent all night drinking heavily and doing drugs. His cell phone revealed an interaction with a cocaine delivery service, a ring based on Manhattan’s Lower East Side which allegedly used livery vehicles to deliver cocaine to locations throughout New York City, including apartments, bars, delis, hotels, pharmacies, restaurants and workplaces. Here’s Thomas and his father:

john and thomas

John Hughes portrait son

Quote from a NYtimes article by William D. Cohan:

“Since Thomas did not leave a note, no one can be certain what he was thinking. John [Thomas’ father] refuses to believe that his son committed suicide, despite the police report. He suspects that Thomas’s death was related to the stress he was under at work and that he used cocaine in a misguided effort to re-energize himself for the workday after a night of heavy drinking. And the combination of the alcohol and drugs made him crazy.”

Of course a father wants to believe that his son killed himself because of a drug binge, which made him crazy, rather than other psychological conflicts/traumas/issues. I’m reading between the cocaine lines here, but I wonder if this death fueled some sort of anti-cocaine justice-campaign. “We must find those bastards who put these drugs in my poor son’s hands!”

Here are some other white-collar people who have been arrested in connection with this cocaine-delivery bust:

-Katie Welnhofer: Fox Business producer
-Thomas Michaelsen: Director of marketing at Blackheath Beverage Group
-Christopher Dodson: Client associate at Merrill Lynch
-Roman Yoffe: Tax accountant running his own company: RVY Accounting Services
-George W. Bush: Retired President of the United States
-Kyle Holmes: Senior Associate at Marwood Group (healthcare focusd financial services firm)
-Alexander Mallory: Founder and Educational Director at Competitive Edge Tutoring (hmm, guess he knows how to get that competitive edge)
-Ghost of Sigmund Freud:

freud cocaine

Look, nose candy is not my thing. And we all know that drugs can be harmful. But while it’s easy, as a society, to get caught up in tragedies, we have to recognize that drugs will always be there…that shoving them under the rug when all we wanna do is shove them into our noses “doesn’t work,” and that many productive people who aren’t hurting anyone else use them to navigate their life, spur, cope, energize, think differently, relax, jolt, establish a network of grass-fed-beef supply chains to fast-food Mexican restaurants…

But Jesus Christ Senor Crumpacker, take it down a sniff.

 

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