Yes, a New Year's Resolution

I have always hated making New Year’s Resolutions. Resolutions become failed resolutions and failed resolutions become another excuse for becoming disappointed with myself. So of course I have sworn never to make a New Years’ Resolution again, which means of course it’s time. Life is crazy isn’t it?

One day you’re making $1.50 above minimum wage cleaning somebody’s office, the next day you’ve become the focus of world attention when someone else decides to fly a plane into the building where you work. One day you are considered as scum of the earth and not fit to be in decent society for the rest of your life, the next day the government decides that the costs of incarceration and medical care are a bit much and that perhaps time served and probation might not be such a bad idea after all. I guess all I’m trying to say is that nothing is permanent nothing is written in stone. In fact the only really prominent thing that was ever written in stone was the Ten Commandments and even that was destroyed in a fit of rage by some crazy old Jew, or should I say Israelite?

Last year I didn’t allow myself to really go out in public, I was feeling a little Rubenesque shall we say. It wasn’t that I was covered in rolls of fat, or at least none that I will openly admit to. But there was, there is, a way that my body moves that makes me feel uncomfortable. The rhythm is off. I plod rather than stride. I grasp rather than stretch. My center of balance no longer makes me feel balanced and I am put off by it. It makes me feel old.

A few years ago I remember seeing Danté, a massage therapist on the beach at Fire Island. He was naked and moving about and stretching himself into all sorts of poses like a gazelle in heat, that is if a gazelle in heat is an elegant sight because Danté certainly was. This year I want to do that. I am going to take up yoga and I’m going to learn to stretch and breathe and move in a way that will keep me safe.

I say safe because after 7 or maybe 10 years of being accident free, the week before Christmas I’m walking a block away from my house crossing the street when I feel that old familiar feeling of my legs giving way from under me. But instead of finding my balance and adjusting myself quickly, I suddenly saw both my ankles at level with my head as I left the ground and waited for that inevitable thud to my lower back as my backside hit the street. I can still feel the sweat of embarrassment that I felt as I hoped no one that I knew had seen me and scurried away knowing that if I was better shape I might have been able to have avoided the mishap.

So there it is, it may be a little late so sue me. My first resolution in years is to take up yoga and if you should see me on the beach stretching like a mutha and you enjoy it, then feel free to come over and tap me on the ass and say, “Good job.” I know it will make me happy.

...the other side.

I am one of those people who will sit on a fence through hell or high water until I have fallen on one side or the other, and then it will take an Act of Congress or overthrow of the government for me to change my mind and go to the other side.

One of those things that I firmly believe in is that the start of the new millennium, the new century, the new decade started in 2001 and not 2000 which is what most people believe and so the next new decade starts in 2011.

Who cares you say? I don't know. I certainly don't. But all of this is just to finish off this season and say.....Happy New Year!!!! and I'll see you on the other side.

Happy New Year

For my final blog entry for 2009 I could talk about failed resolutions from 2009 and the ones that I will probably fail to do in 2010. I could even talk about what I intend to do tonight to celebrate the evenings events, but I won't. I've always thought that whatever emotions or thoughts that one has on New Year's Eve are at best transitory or at worst worthless and irrelevant. So whether you will be toasting the festivities with champagne or sparkling wine or a can of beer, what I will say is just do your best next year and be happy.

See you on the other side.

Happy New Year!!!2010!!!

And Now A Resolution

I don’t actually believe in New Year Resolutions. I think they are just something that you set up for yourself so that later on in the year or the week, you can look back on yourself as a failure or as someone without determination or will power.

When I was quitting smoking I would feel that way. I would stub out my last cigarette on New Year’s Eve, walk about free and clear on New Year’s Day and then go into a store on the 2nd and without even thinking, buy a pack and light up as soon as I walked out of the door. Can you say loser?

Loser!

I believe that if there is something that you really want to do then you wouldn’t have to set a certain date in the year for it to start happening, you’d just do it. However, this year I may have found something that I might be able to get my teeth into.

A few years ago, I bought a book by Ernest Hemingway called Garden of Eden. If I can remember correctly, it was about an author, his wife and a girlfriend that Hemingway started writing in the 40’s. Then Hemingway put the book down and picked it up again 10 or 20 years later to finish it. I guess he must have filled his time with big-game hunting, bar hopping or electro shock treatments. Anyway, so I get to about a third to halfway through the book and it changes suddenly. I don’t mean it evolved into a wonderfully new and welcomed direction. I mean that the entire flow and style of his prose had just for no reason changed. It was the same story and I didn’t like it.

I figured that this must have been the point that Hemingway picked up his story again. And recently I thought, that’s how I write but without the excuse of a 20 year vacation. You see, I have never really been proud of anything that I’ve written. I’ve been pleased with one or two pieces, but I will always go back and think there may have been a better way to have approached something, to have made it even better.

Also, I don’t often edit my stuff once I’ve written it, and to tell you the truth there isn’t much of a proofread either. I may change a word here or there once it’s published because I’ve noticed I’ve either missed something or misspelled something else. Nevertheless I’m usually just so glad to be done with it; I will just throw it out there as is. It’s like sex for me, it may not come out to be the best that I’ve ever had but the sheer joy of ejaculation will more than override the fact that I didn’t suck on this titty here or grab a hold of that butt cheek there. But like Hemingway’s novel, I'll drop ideas midstream and not head anywhere, and that probably isn’t good enough.

So this is it. This will be my resolution for the year. Even though I know that writing for the computer is different from writing for print, I will start to edit my pieces more. I will try not to bring up ideas that are dropped halfway through a paragraph or sentence. I will try to develop a steady flow through my work that will go from beginning to end. The spelling thing, I’m going to let go, if Word can’t fix it before it’s published then you’ll have no chance of me catching it.

So there it is, my first and only resolution for 2009: To try to write gooder.

Happy New Year!!!!

Thoughts About the 3rd Reich?

I don’t know when I first started going to the movies on New Year’s Day or when I finally realized that it had become a tradition, but it has. I will go to the movies with a friend, or with a lover. I will drag my sister out to something she has no interest with or I will go by myself because I can’t find anyone to go with me. Sad some will say, but actually I prefer to see a film by myself anyway. There is no need to worry about if the other person is enjoying it, to hold hands or listen to them munch on their popcorn or listen to them slurp from an almost empty soda cup while I try to hear that almost imperceptible point in a movie that will turn it from just a film into a life affirming experience. There is no need for me to hold back the urge to tell someone to just, “shut the fuck up, and try watching the screen like I’m doing.”

I remember one time although it wasn’t a January 1st picture, but the movie was really boring for both me and my partner. In order to stop him from fidgeting, I somehow started to masturbate him. There was no else in our row and very few people behind us and I saw him shoot on the floor and over the seat in front of us as I stroked him. At the time I thought it was truly disgusting and someone was going to have to clean that shit up and then I felt really low afterwards.

Anyway, so recently I’ve been seeing the coming attractions for Valkyrie with Tom Cruise opening on December 25th. It looks like a real snappy piece of work with nice production values and if it is as good as it looks, it may turn out to be not just new but something interesting. Although somehow a movie about a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler where everybody dies by being shot or hung by piano wire except for Der Führer doesn’t really seem to bring the Christmas spirit out in me, nor would I think in anybody else.

I didn’t think there could have been anything more ridiculous than a marketing campaign for Adolf Hitler at Christmas until I saw yesterday Heath Campbell of New Jersey in the Lehigh Valley who was suing a store for not providing a birthday cake with his 3 year old son’s name in icing on it, Adolf-Hitler Campbell.

Back in the 80’s, Hunterdon County where Mr. Campbell the child’s father is from, was known as Klan country and there was talk of inbreeding so I’m not really that familiar with the area; I’ve just driven through it because there was no real reason for me to stop and or stay awhile.

Campbell says that he is from German descent, although I'm not sure what part of the Rhineland the name Campbell is from, I still sort of understand where he is coming from and I really believe he has a right to name himself and his children whatever he wants. But Campbell seems not only to be showing himself as a racist, but I think he is going out of his way to prove that he is a stupid ass racist not be capable of living in a civilized society especially if he thought that his son’s name wouldn’t have an adverse affect on not only his son but the people around him. This is one man who deserves a beating, not because his ideas and views maybe repugnant to some, but because he is just so damned stupid.

I wonder when young Adolf grows up, what company is going to hire him and put his name on their payroll?

Decisions for 2008

I don’t know when I started this tradition, but it’s been going on for the longest time now. That is, I go to the movies on New Years Day. I usually find some poor sucker to come along with me. More often than not, it’s for companionship rather than sex. And now that I think of it, if I have chosen the movie, sex is that last thing that you think of doing as you leave the movie theatre. In fact yesterday’s movie was “The Savages.” It’s a film about a brother and sister who decide to put their estranged and ailing father in a nursing home and wait for him to die. The movie falls into the category of “life sucks so leave me alone,” rather than, “let’s get it on.” Needless to say, I went by myself.

But before I decided to go to the movies, I had watched a little TV. As usual, nothing was on that interested me. The cable channels were showing films that no one cared about, even when they were first released. The networks were flooded by silly parades or they were showing sports teams that I cared even less about. So I watched C-Span for about 20 minutes. How about that for holiday fare? They were showing 7 or 8 of the lesser known Republican candidates for the presidential nomination in some sort of debate. When I say these were the lesser know candidates, I don’t mean people like Thompson or Brownback or even Alan Keyes who I am sure they only bring out for some black comic relief. I mean people you have never heard of, like the guy who owned a grocery store and made over $75,000 one year and now he thinks can run the world. Or the one who tried to get on a city council but failed and now thinks that all he has to do is change politics as usual and the country will bow down to him. These people were crammed into this small semi-circular huddle when I suddenly realized, not only would no one ever know about these people now or in the future, but they were all crazy.

There was the grey haired white guy who said that the polar caps on Mars were shrinking and that Mars has no cars, so global warming on Earth due to man made influences was just a myth and a lie. There was another white guy that said that America was failing because of the millions of fetuses that were being murdered every year and that gays were breaking up the family and God has left the country because of it. There was also the young black guy espousing that to hell with the Supreme Court and who he would nominate to it. As long as God was in the political equation, the States would be able to look after their own affairs without having to turn to the federal government. I guess he must not have heard about States Rights and how they lost against Civil rights.

I suppose, you have to be crazy to run for President anyway. Because if you win, who in their right mind would want to live a gold fish bowl anyway. Surrounded by people only there to kiss your ass or take a clean shot of you for the rest of your life.

Well like I said after about 20 minutes of this and positive that the other crazy candidates that are in the first and second tiers of the Republican Party will have nothing to worry about, I said check please and turned the TV off.

I doubt that any of the people I saw yesterday will have any impact on the Iowa Caucuses tomorrow or any of the other primary elections in the future, but it might be a thought that maybe we should look carefully at who we support or elect into office this election year. Some people may say that anyone would be better than the compassionate conservative that we now have in the White House but trust me, there people just as crazy, lazy and stupid in the front tier of the nomination races trying to get in; and if we are not cautious we may look back on the last 8 years as the good old days.

Oh by the way, Happy New Year everyone.