VIII

The normal sequence of events is as follows:  I sit down at my desk, rouse my laptop out of its stand-by slumber, hit play on iTunes; take a sip of my water, coffee, cocktail or what have you; then open up a word document.  Typically, what's opened is work in progress, a collection of words that I can’t bring myself to finalize for one reason or another… usually because I’m critical of everything I create, to the point of being neurotic.

Neurotic would actually be putting it lightly.  I’m extremely self-conscious about my writing.  It’s a wonder how it takes anything less than a horde of angels descending upon my front yard, singing praises of my vocabulary, to get me to show any of this to anyone.  Regardless of the celestial beings that may or may not be making a praise-filled pilgrimage to my poorly manicured patch of grass, I still only post approximately one of every eight essays I finish.  Open for criticism and judgment, they appear on any one of my handful of internet nooks, then lay dormant – waiting for attention from anyone.

Even after I "publish" something on here, the next hour and a half is spent going over everything another half-dozen times, finding problems, then quickly editing & updating.  In my creative writing classes during college, I was the one everyone dreaded getting as a "peer editor".

On a side note: I'm convinced the whole "peer editing" thing is a bullshit tactic used by lazy professors.  Hey Prof. WouldTotallyBlowShakespeare, I'm pretty sure I'm not paying hundreds of dollars to have my papers edited by someone who, in all probability, knows a lot less than I do.  My suspicions are confirmed by the lack of further proofreading marks after I handed it in.  You're getting paid here, not us.

Pictured: Proofreading.

Putting aside my hatred for writing professors and bringing you back to the topic at hand... I do not have any works in progress.  Well, none that I’m willing to add to, at least.  My “Writing” folder is lousy with files, ranging from three sentences to ninety pages, most of which will never get finished.  That’s the way it goes with me – I get in the mood to pound out words that pertain to a certain subject, and then lose the urge to carry it further.  Who knows, this string of sentences may end up with the very same fate, as I had no predetermined path when I clicked “New blank document”.

Water in hand, I leaned back into my squeaky office chair and gazed at the blinking cursor that was anxiously waiting in the corner for me to drag it left to right, top to bottom.   A great song came on, so I leaned forward, mouthing “fuck it” it to the inactive screen and began typing with no goal in mind. 

This is a piece without any clear point.  It’s about nothing, the Seinfeld-type Essay.  Many think of this as a free-write, but I say ‘nay’, as I have decided to make it complete and put it online, no matter where I travel with it.  This piece will essentially be a traveler itself, wandering from subject to subject, bothering people on the way.  It will be a rambler; in a literal and metaphorical sense of the word… utilizing its two definitions.  What are they?  Grab a dictionary.  I never claimed to be your teacher.

My lack of creative direction is probably a byproduct of the new habits I've been trying to form.   I've given up the whiskey & cigarettes and replaced them with restrained healthy eating & twice daily encounters with a treadmill.  This machine, I am beginning to hate – a hate that is best described as a dark, evil fury… reserved only for your most guarded nightmares.  I’m sure the other fatties out there can relate.

Yep, this should take care of that "Incline" function...

This internal struggle of mine is my past lifestyle colliding with my present… and the vast difference between the two is making it quite the collision indeed.  There’s an old quip of mine that I used to place here and there, “Sure, I’m a health nut… with the exception of my pack-a-day habit, piss poor diet and love affair with hard liquor”, and I used to think saying that was cute in a twisted kind of way… but something happened to me just before Valentine’s Day that made me slow down and reassess the priorities of my lifestyle.  I was happy that I never let it get to the point of addiction or being a danger to myself or anyone around me… but I knew I should grind it to a halt long before I reached that threshold.  It was time for me to do some growing up.

It was tough to define the scope of the changes I was making to my maturity.  To be on the safe side, I decided to take a break from Facebook also, by shutting my profile off.  On there, I started becoming dependent on what other people thought of me, and how I portrayed myself to them.  Shortly before my self-inflicted social media blackout, I did things like arranging my page in a way that I thought would bring about the most positive attention.  If I posted a status update and it got less than three likes; I viewed it as inadequate, began questioning why I posted it in the first place, and sometimes went as far as deleting it. I’m a modest person by nature, but that damn site was going against everything I felt comfortable with.  Then my comfort level began to change.

Ah, slippery is the slope we call Attention.

It didn’t start out this way.  As a matter of fact, I used to think of that whole site as some kind of colossal joke; evidence of this is displayed in my profile URL: “facebook.com/wiener.caught.in.zipper”.  But soon my attitude toward it evolved into a mild neglect.  Much like a young parent that chooses weekend VIP lists over their child’s literacy, I would merely give it the attention that I was willing to spare for it.  Sadly, as it tends to, the evolution continued.   I later became the overbearing parent to my profile, constantly scrutinizing its every aspect, worried how others would view it.  It was a pathetic time in my life, I was lumped in with all of the other people that needed a stranger’s attention to validate their existence. 

Hop onto YouTube and you can see the archetype top comments, “Thumbs up if you thought of something painfully obvious when you watched this video!!”  If that doesn’t make you nauseous enough, go back to Facebook and check out the pages of popular TV shows.  The walls are covered with people saying, “Like my status if you hate death, child molesting or something else that’s a given with 99.999% of the world’s population!!!”  The pandering for the positive attention of people they’ll never meet is enough to make you ponder the steps of becoming monk that lives with wild, non-internet-using animals.

Dude, that's my lunch! Not cool Tiger, not cool.

I do realize that I’m being hypocritical by turning my nose down at people like that, since I was on my way to joining them just a few weeks ago.  Not to mention, I have three blog sites… so even now, I’m buying into the whole “hey, look at me” culture. To further demonstrate my double-standard, if/when I do turn my profile back on, I’ll end up posting this on it – as a third of the traffic on my websites comes from Facebook.  In reality though, the original reason for my writing has nothing to do with you.  It’s therapeutic; it helps me stay sane, saving me money that I would instead spend on a shrink... or a high-powered rifle, I guess.  That aside, I also enjoy knowing that a good amount of people read what I write.  It gives me a sense of purpose that I rarely have otherwise.

With that being said, I can’t completely cut myself off from online social networking.  Both you and I know, doing that would be heading in the opposite direction of the rest of the world.  I guess the way to approach it is with extreme moderation… eventually.  I don't plan on flipping the Facebook Switch on just yet - it's very relaxing not being plugged into a constant stream of everyone’s thoughts and actions.

I suggest you try it yourself.

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Now that you know more about me, learn about the things around me:
Rusty Bolt
Voice of Others

VII

I would like to share with you, a certain moment from my life. 

The way I would describe this moment isn’t very simple, though.  It was momentous, yet not.  It was an awakening to me, but it did not illuminate, as I was already aware.  It gave me the ability to see things as they were, but I learned nothing.  For a man that prides himself on being able to describe the things in life that many cannot, I find myself struggling to define it beyond two words: Absolute Perspective.

It was July of 1999.  The summer itself was quite a special one in my life.  Besides being the last one of the “19’s”, I was also preparing to become a high schooler, starting back up what would be a very short-lived amateur baseball career, and the addition of a new family member to our home.  Our new dog and MY furry little brother… Rocky.  However, all of this happened after I got back from my trip.

That July, I was fortunate enough the be a part of a “student ambassador program” where a group of 20-30 kids in their low to mid-teens would travel to another country (in my case, the east coast of Australia), and learn about their culture, while the locals would learn a bit about ours… in theory.  The reality of it was, we were a tour group of rowdy, hormone-crazed & decently funded teenagers, spending every night in a different utopian beach-front resort, with a laughable TWO chaperones to keep us in line… for three weeks solid. 

Needless to say, the only real learning that took place was acquiring the ability to spot a good place to make out, and where to put your hands once the lip locking had commenced.  I myself also learned that making out in a hammock is more trouble that it’s worth.  The Post-Tonsil Hockey Dismount was always very tricky to execute… someone either got a bit of face-to-elbow contact, or fell out of the hammock and had some face-to-sand contact.  Neither of which the opposite sex found attractive, once the bruising began to set in.

Amidst all of the kissing, snorkeling and virgin daiquiris, there was an overnight stay at a cattle ranch located about two hours inland, at the edge of the Australian Outback. Our first moments there were quite the change of pace.  Instead of beaches and blue oceans, we had deserts and orange rock formations.  Instead of a bartender making virgin cocktails, we had ranchers branding and castrating cattle.  Instead of going back to a plush room with silk drapes, we were told to “rough it” and sleep on the ground in sleeping bags that smelled like a homeless Frodo had been squatting in them for days. After a day full of physical activities, we were all so tired, we fell asleep before the sun had a chance to set.  Unfortunately, my REM cycles were cut short at around midnight, by the call of nature. In need of some non-smelly air, and more sleep, I decided to get up and find some place to satisfy my bladder’s very bothersome nagging.

I stood up and began walking around what was a surprisingly well lit field.  Figuring there was a full moon out, I looked up… and froze with amazement.  The amount of stars I saw in the sky was incredible.  It was like looking at a photo taken by the Hubble Telescope, only it was bright enough to illuminate everything and it filled the whole sky.  Looking down only to find a good secluded spot to relieve myself, I was transfixed by the cosmos that hung above me, displayed in the kind of detail I never knew was possible without Photoshop or CGI.  Despite how tired I was, I stood there in the middle of a field… a young kid, seeing the true universe with his own eyes for the very first time.  It was a real-life Van Gogh “Starry Night” and I got to see it by myself, in the dead quiet of the Australian Outback.  At that moment, the realization that I wasn't by myself nearly made me shit my pants.

“It’s because of the light pollution,” the rancher said from behind me, “since there’s no city lights to drown the stars out, you end up seeing every single one.”

It turns out that in every tour group, there are always a few people that get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and end up freezing under the awesome sight that’s above them.  So one of the ranchers thought it would be good P.R. if he made a point to learn all about astronomy, and then stay up late when a group rolled in, to answer some of the questions that might be asked of him.  Me? I had no questions.  I was speechless. 

The rancher took it as an opportunity to point out the best part of the sky.  He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed behind me and to the left, at a thick cluster of stars that grew out of the horizon and stretched halfway across the sky.  It was a brilliant sight.

Oh yeah.  It looked like that.

“See that, kid?  That’s the Milky Way.”
“Like, our galaxy?  THE Milky Way?”
“Yep.  See kid, we’re near the edge of it, and the stars close to us are far apart.  So it looks like we’re outside of it.”
“Holy shit.”
“Damn right.  See that bright center there?  From there, light takes about 40,000 years to get to us.”

That was his final statement of the night, meant to make me silently ponder while he could slip away and go to bed.  It worked.

Standing in the desolate wasteland of a strange country with home on the other side of the planet doesn't sound like such a vast distance when you're looking up at a cluster of 200-400 billion stars.  It made me feel that I wasn’t so far from home after all.  At that moment, it felt like a brisk walk would carry me to my doorstep where I could sleep in my own bed, rather than a sleeping bag made out of what seemed to be a wet yak, sporting a spastic colon.  I felt pretty insignificant, but still strangely at peace about it.

My feeling of insignificance and a peaceful reaction was quite odd once I thought about it.  Now that I look back, I think I know why.  The calm wasn't because of the sight, and believe me, it was probably the most majestic thing I’ve ever seen.  I think the reason behind my peaceful feeling was because of the awesome magnitude of everything that I was struggling to comprehend.  I was close to my Absolute Perspective, and this was my pathway there:

Being kind of a geek at the time, I had heard somewhere that in the known universe, there were an estimated 120 billion galaxies… one of which, was mine.   In my galaxy, there was an estimated 200-400 billion stars… one of which, was mine.  That star had nine planets in its orbit… one of which, was mine.   On that planet there were about 5 billion people… one of which, was me.  Try and crunch those numbers real quick.

Insignificant couldn't even begin to define how I felt, the math spoke for itself.  Other thoughts popped in my head.

“If I were to collect every explosive on the planet, from 9mm bullets to nuclear warheads, and detonate them somewhere out in the Milky Way, nothing would be different, NOTHING!”
“Even if the whole planet exploded, it wouldn’t have any effect on the galaxy!!”

I finally realized that no matter what I did, there was no possible way I could ever have any effect on the universe I was looking up at.  Thus was my moment of Absolute Perspective.  This sight I was witnessing was a small glimpse of a place with infinite size, power and mystery, and there was no possible way for me to comprehend it, let alone influence it.  All I could ever do was look at it, enjoy it, and respect it.

That hour or two I spent staring upward took me on a staggering thought process that led to absolutely nowhere.  I didn’t grow as a person, and frankly, I didn’t learn anything new either.  At best, I finally took the time to understand the information I already had, but I enjoyed the Zen-like feeling it evoked.  All I could do then was yawn and make my way back to the sleeping bag to get some more rest.

Shuffling back to the area filled with my fellow “student ambassadors”, my thoughts fell back down to Earth.  When they did, a smile grew on my face.  I knew that in a few hours, the sun would be up.

Bringing a new day, and another few make out sessions.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now that you know more about me, learn about the things around me:
Rusty Bolt
Voice of Others

VI

It’s Sunday morning.  6am. 

If it were any other person making this simple observation, one could assume they've just woken up.  Maybe a fresh pot of coffee is quietly brewing in the kitchen while someone is reading the newspaper in the living room.  Maybe someone is in their bedroom tying their shoes, shoes they had just buffed and polished the night before, in preparation for their morning mass.  Or even maybe… someone is sneaking out of a strange house belonging to a person  they met earlier at a bar, whom is still asleep.

I on the other hand, have not fallen asleep. 

Around three in the morning, just as my eyes were beginning to get sore from exhaustion, I got a hunch when I was scrolling through the channel guide on TV.  This hunch of mine occurs when I see a movie that I have never heard of, but still seems like it might be interesting, regardless of the name or the one-sentence synopsis.   It happened a couple of weeks ago with a curious drama called, “The Door in the Floor”.  Tonight, it was another drama, “The Sunset Limited”.  I set the remote on the shelf next to my bed and began watching.

“The Sunset Limited” is essentially a two-man stage play on film.  Samuel L. Jackson plays a working-class, evangelical christian, who saves Tommy Lee Jones’ character from committing suicide… who happens to be an atheist college professor.  What follows is a 90 minute-long philosophical discussion about religion, life, suicide, and death.   Normally, if religion is the basis of a movie that I happen to come across, I’ll continue to move across it and find something else.  I cannot stand when religion is discussed, because usually the discussion is in reality, a heated fight… something that does not do any good for anyone.   

This movie, on the other hand, was fascinating to me.  Sure the acting was great, it was Sam Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones for fuck’s sake.  It was the discussion itself that got my attention.  It was unlike any religion based back-and-forth I had ever seen.  It was calm, respectful, concise and extremely intelligent.  No side was acting superior, belittling the other, or giving childish dead-end retorts like, “just because”.  Rarely have I experienced any scenario like the one being portrayed for me on HBO, which is why I avoid religion discussions.  However there is one other subject that, when brought up, I avoid it like Kim Jong Il should have avoided his current barber.

Politics.

Through time, trial and consistent failure, I have learned to eliminate religion and politics from my socializing spectrum.  In almost every one of my experiences when either of those topics came up, the discussion evolved into a debate… which erupted into a confrontation that made everyone around us vaguely uncomfortable.  I can already tell that some of you are nodding right now, as this is not a rare occurrence for anyone in that same situation. 

I’ve found that the reason this happens with these two subjects is because they're the two that people tend to hold close to their heart, more consistently than any other.  This isn’t a simple instance of Stanley Whatshisface believing that “The Godfather” was better than “Citizen Kane”, or that he believes German automakers are better than Japanese.   Generally, those beliefs would have very little bearing on Stanley’s life.  Religion and politics however, they may very well define Stanley’s life.  So if someone else were to question either of Stanley’s beliefs, he could take that as a bit of a personal insult, a dig on his way of life.  One might even think that good ol’ Stanley might be timid toward the idea of being convinced to change his beliefs, as he might view that as a way of betraying himself.

After numerous observations and encounters of people reacting in this way, I’ve come to loathe the idea of having such a conversation.  More often than not, I even cringe at the sound of others these discussions around me.  It became an association of past experiences… much like someone who might have a fear of dogs because of being bit by one as a child, or someone hating the taste of Jack Daniels because they drank too much of it one night… like myself.

This distaste that I have isn’t limited to having social conversations either.  I’ve come to enjoy writing as a rewarding outlet for me on many subjects, some of which are quite personal.  However, my beliefs in regards to religion or politics have never been included, and there are reasons why.  First, if I had written about it, someone who has opposing views to mine might read it and feel compelled to give their opinion, and as I have mentioned before, I’d rather not hear it… so get away from me.  Secondly, I like the fact that, for the most part, the people around me don’t exactly know what my beliefs on either are.  That way, they might feel less inclined to ask questions or make statements. 

They're mostly friends of mine, and I’d rather not offend them by saying, “I really do not give a crap about whom or what you worship, or who you voted for.  So please, either: change the subject, walk away… or introduce me to that friend of yours over there, the brunette holding the beer.  She’s really cute.”  I don’t think they’d introduce me if I talked to them like that, would you?  I didn’t think so.

There’s one downside to having very little known about your views on these subjects though.  The assumptions.

Having assumptions made about my stance on things like that bothers me in an entirely different way.  It’s the idea that someone takes the liberty of deciding my ideals for me, without any input on my behalf.  It’s almost insulting, by veering into that “I know you better than you know yourself” territory.  Or maybe, they just made an assumption about me because they believe in their ideals so much, that they couldn't fathom anyone thinking differently.  Now that’s just arrogant to assume that the people around you have the same beliefs you do.  Many people believe many different things.  It’s a fact of life that a surprising amount of people have yet to learn, because I see people demonstrate their ignorance of it all the time.  Perhaps it’s too optimistic of me to think that the people at large should respect one’s beliefs, whether they know them or not.

But that optimism I have is exactly why I enjoyed “The Sunset Limited” to begin with.  It showed all of us how a philosophical debate or discussion should be conducted.  It showed us that it really isn’t a debate at all, but a two-way street of learning someone else’s thoughts, beliefs and passions. 

Do you know what I believe?  I believe that in the future, if things take a turn in that direction, I might be less inclined to walk away if someone tries to discuss religion or politics with me.

But until then, don’t bother trying.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now that you know more about me, learn about the things around me:
Rusted Bolt
Voice of Others

V

Last night ended oddly.

I was on my way home from a concert at The Rave.  I turned onto a rural street and eventually noticed I was going fifteen over the speed limit.  As I slowed down, I saw someone coming up behind me going extremely fast, so fast that I didn’t have time to react.  All I could to was brace myself for what seemed to be an inevitable totaling of my car.  Luckily, he slammed on the brakes and avoided the awful sound of crunching metal.  What happened next was the last thing I would’ve expected.  He passed me on the left, cut in front, and slowed me down to a halt, in the middle of a three lane road.  Both doors opened.

I would imagine that at this point, most people would put the shifter all the way over, all the way back, hit the gas and quickly reverse out of the altercation.  I on the other hand, flashed back to the scene in The Godfather where Sonny was boxed in at the turnpike and was assassinated by seven men sporting fedoras and Tommy Guns.   A thought popped in my head.

Dammit, now I’ll never be the head of the Corleone Family.

A middle aged man wearing a suit worth more than his mode of transportation exited the car, stage left.  Stage right… his drunk girlfriend.  The sauced spouse ran up to my window and a civil conversation started:

“You want me to fucking kill you???” she inquired.

“You're the one who’s gonna get killed, you're standing in the middle of the road,” I replied in a ‘matter of fact’ tone.

Enter the over-dressed man.

“You know who the fuck I am???” the apparently famous man asked me.

“Nope.  I do not,” I said to the celebrity.

The next thirty to sixty seconds became a verbal pissing contest.  I calmly tried to explain that they weren’t on the Milwaukee Mile racetrack, but in fact they were on Greenfield Avenue at midnight.   They opted to act like an episode of the Jerry Springer show, taking out all of their rage beside my car.  Once knowing I couldn't reason with these blithering idiots, I decided to apologize over and over until they left.  Mr. Youknowwhothefuckiam became satisfied and walked back to his car, beckoning his lush of a counterpart to follow.  She didn’t.  She had to make one final point.

“You know something?? I'm a nurse and I see people die in shit like th…”

“You're a nurse that threatens to kill people?”

“FUCK YOU!!!”  She said as she stumbled back to their car.  She got in, and they sped off before she closed the door.

I lit a cigarette and went on my merry way.  When I was back up to the speed limit, I realized two things.  One, you can’t reason with someone when they're pissed/drunk/stupid.  Secondly, I felt a sigh of relief, finally knowing that I’m one of those people that can remain calm and collected in a potentially explosive situation.

I don’t think I was always that type of person though.  When I was a teenager, I’m pretty sure I would’ve fled the scene, going as fast as possible, hoping they didn’t get my license plate number.  The difference between then and now is the fact that I've been through so many situations that span the entire realm of the term ‘unorthodox’, the Greenfield Avenue Incident not as out of the ordinary for me.  I knew where his breaking point was, and I knew how to avoid reaching it while still getting him to move the fuck out of my way.   Once he was ready to leave, I knew that he was going to tell his drunk girlfriend to come with, just as long as I didn’t call her something like ‘bitch’ or ‘cunt’.  She was drunk, he was sober and had his fill of everything because I apologized, even if I did nothing wrong.

Being able to read people like an open book is another talent I've learned through the trial and error of my vast array of unorthodox experiences that the average person doesn’t encounter. 

Here are a few examples to entertain you, which are all completely true:

-Getting into a stare-down contest with a person that everyone around me thought was armed.

-Coming back from Vegas, $1500 light and one stripper-stalker heavy.

-Engaging in a four month long ‘Man vs. Machine’ battle with an automatic toilet.

-Knocking a man over in a gas station because he called a soldier ‘someone who kills people for oil’.

-Unintentionally playing chicken with a cop.

-Having a middle-aged female boss who constantly tried to sleep with me.

-Catching a man who I thought was full-throttle gay making out with his female coworker.

-Getting over a fear of heights via bungee jumping.

-Showing 30 people, via Power Point presentation, that one of my employees shit his pants.

Now, I started this essay with a question in mind, “Why does all of this goofy shit keep happening to me?”  However, after I wrote out the list above, I realized that question doesn’t really hold water.  With the exception of a few of those examples, I played a large role in making the result take place.  I'm not a victim of circumstance, but in fact a facilitator of strange scenes.  The others I had no part in, I attribute to my tendency to be hyper-aware of my surroundings.

Paying close attention to my environment has always been both a help and a hinder for me.  It’s a benefit because I usually notice important and hilarious things that others fail to.  On the flip side of that coin, it’s hard for me to have a conversation when someone twenty feet away has mismatched socks.  Unfortunately this is something I cannot turn off, I'm just wired that way.   I'm forever doomed to know when something is amiss.

I don’t know if the word ‘doomed’ is how I would correctly describe it, though.  Over time, I've come to enjoy seeing the world for its beautifully-strange self.   I'm a bit of a weird guy, and I love when interesting shit happens.  I tried to join the ‘normal’ bandwagon a while back.  I talked about normal subjects, acted in a normal manner and avoided stepping away from normal situations.  I hated every second of it.   I found it to be painfully boring and in a way, I felt like I was selling out.

The person writing this now enjoys being weird and being in weird situations.  He enjoys vocalizing his weird thoughts.  He has no problem shaking the world of the normal people around him.   If the opportunity arises to be involved in something interesting, he’ll take it.  To this man, living a normal life is pointless, he may as well be a ghost.  A translucent wraith floating on the sidelines of life, that doesn’t want to live in a way that he feels he should.

He has been normal, and he’s never going back.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now that you know more about me, learn about the things around me:
Rusted Bolt
Voice of Others

IV

Last night, I came home after a fun filled Sunday and suddenly had the need to relax a little bit.  I briefly pondered selecting a new book from my bookshelf and reading well into the early morning hours.  However, I was a little drunk at the time, so I decided it would be best to forgo the four to five hours of concentration and instead, let the more narcissistic side of my personality take control.  I checked out the two blogs I have going online.  I reread my essays, marvled in my overuse of the all-powerful comma, made notes to myself on how I could improve, and called it a night. 

This morning, I was well into my routine when I decided to flip open my laptop and check the weather.  Immediately I noticed the window with my site was still up… and being a very analytical person, I searched through the traffic I was receiving, and noticed there wasnt any.  At that moment, I reflected on my decision for embracing the grotesque cliché of starting a blog… two for that matter.  To be perfectly honest, I don't know if I'm subscribing to this whole thing.  See, I started these two sites because I wanted to reach a wider audience, so I might gain some real notoriety for my work.

In other words, my essays went from Facebook, where almost no one cared… to BlogSpot, where absolutely no one cares.

Smart move Mr. Wright, this sounds like another notch in the “God Dammit Assface, Way to Go!” column.

Even the big JC was disappointed.

Keep in mind; I'm not trying to be cynical, ironic, or “edgy”.   I can’t stand people that portray themselves as such, especially when they’re nothing more than spoiled suburbanites with the keys to a hand-me-down Saab in their pocket and unsubstantiated daddy issues in their head.  What I'm being is honest.  Honest by saying that what I choose to write is nothing more than what I say on a daily basis.  The off change of it being (even remotely) interesting is coincidental.  To me, a worthwhile subject is something from which I can enjoy squeezing out at least a thousand words, and still know that I'm not padding the content.  Whether or not you find it engaging has very little relevance.

But is a blog really the correct outlet for me?  First off, the term “blog” makes me cringe every time I hear or say it.  Whenever that word comes to mind, I automatically associate it with the lowest form of writing… online celebrity gossip websites.  Just the idea of me falling under the same category as someone like Perez Hilton makes me want to hit myself on the nose with a rolled-up news paper.  I feel like an untrained terrier.

“Bad Sparky!  You shat in the living room in front of the Christmas presents! Bad dog!” 

“Bad J.S. Wright!  You're a blogger!  You’ve joined the same club as the biggest effeminate douche bag ever!  Bad writer!”

To be perfectly honest, I’d much rather go to the Henderson’s house and leave a big pile of smelly shame in front of Billy’s unwrapped Tonka truck.  It involves less self-hate and I might even be able to cop out and pass it off as art for fuck’s sake.

Secondly, who the hell actually wants to read the unsolicited ramblings of some prick they’ve never met?  Sure, there are many people out the in the writing world who pride themselves on being “Indie Followers”, but come on now.   It’s one thing to say that you're doing something, but actually doing it is a completely different animal.  Sitting down and taking the time to sift through the endless sea of websites about family trips and ignorant political speculations takes a lot of damn time.

But!  What happens when they actually find a writer they fancy?  They click the “follow” button.  That’s it. The result is a small news feed at the bottom of their screen that occasionally features the writer they found.  This system, set up by the powers that be, throws people of varying talents onto a level playing field.  It’s the ultimate fuck you to talented writers that are just starting out in this area. 

Now that the blogger has a follower, what they get in return?  They get a chronological line graph of their page views, which in many cases is zero.  This looming zero, when it translates to the graph, devastatingly resembles a flat-line on an EKG machine.  It’s a cruel joke to play on a struggling amateur writer.  Nothing discourages someone more than making the importance of their labor remind them of someone that just died.  It seems that the only way to get that heart beating is by pumping it full of meaningless gossip and celebrity up-skirt pictures.

Sweeeeeeet.

That’s the sad times we live in people.  Flash and pizzazz are regularly chosen over quality of content.  Case in point:  A book was recently published by Snooki of The Jersey Shore fame.  A book… a fucking book, with the face of society’s most recent embarrassment plastered all over the cover.  Go figure.  Intelligent and hard-working writers are all over the country.  Right now, they're struggling to create interesting and provocative character developments that fall in line with their carefully crafted storylines, and will ultimately fail.  Meanwhile, this waste of skin vomits a fifth of tequila and a Denny’s Grand Slam onto two-hundred pages, and it’ll be a bestseller next month.  This horrifying fact makes talented people everywhere collectively throw up their arms in disgust.  The next day, some of them may begin to wonder what the cost of living is in other countries.  FYI, if you tell your new neighbors that you're from Canada rather than the U.S., you’ll get a much better response.

This is what I'm up against in many cases.  Yes, I have found a handful of websites that are based on the foundation of great writing, some of which I have submitted essays and articles to.  Hackwriters.com is a good example.  However, the problem is that they don’t get the exposure they deserve.  They’re stuck in the shadows, hidden from the mainstream that is mostly reserved for entities like TMZ.

By the way, have you ever seen TMZ's TV show?  They have a surfer-type kid on there… Steven Hawking’s computer-generated voice has more personality than him. Christ.

Anyways, I guess the only option I have at this moment is to keep doing what I have been doing: writing essays that I believe are somewhat worthwhile to read and have more substance than posting grainy pictures of the latest celebrity to drunkenly stumble onto Hollywood Blvd at 2am.

Not sweet.

That, and keeping a rolled up newspaper nearby so I can discipline myself whenever I use the term “blog”.

*WHAP!*

Baaad writer. 

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Now that you know more about me, learn about the things around me:
Rusted Bolt
Voice of Others

III

Almost everything I write, from quick notes in my notebooks to the novel I'm working on, are the result of the same process. 

Some small forgettable occurrence happens, and instead of living up to its description, it stays with me.  Throughout the day, I refresh my memory of it, keeping its head above water.  There’s no telling what will become of it and I am not about to let it succumb to my unforgiving, bitch of a short-term memory.  The next step in the process is what has now become a blessing in disguise: my unforgiving, bitch of an hour long drive home.  The sixty minutes of farms, slight freeway curves and cow-shit-smell really helps the idea snowball into something that’s only barely related to its origin. Somehow.

This time, the occurrence happened during the ride home.  Two-fer?

Aaaaayyyy, two-fer.

Doing 70mph, passing the Delafield area yesterday, I was listening to what I think is Madison’s only good selling point, 94.1 JJO.  The song on at that time was “Hell of a Time” by I don’t Know Who and just before I got beyond the listening area, the song ended and I could hear a sound clip of someone opening a beer can.  I've never heard that before!  It was a fun little extra that got the gears in my head turning, yet again.  When was the last time I  had a Hell of a Time?

It was a Friday night.  A couple friends and I were meeting a few others at a place on the east side, called the Twisted Fork.  I parked in my regular go-to parking space, crossed North Ave, walked in the door and took a look around.  With the exception of my friends and me, the place was damn near empty.  This put a smile on my face. Knowing the great atmosphere that place has, and the fact that I can easily walk around without shimmying my way through a group of spray tanned Affliction fanatics means this is great place to sip my glass of Jameson.  A couple of my friends were shooting pool while the rest of us were leaning against the table tops, discussing whatever came to mind.  Later on, we went outside to lounge on the patio.  While enjoying the low-key moment, the cook there came out with a plate of nachos.  While I was hungry at the time, I decided not to partake… watching my girlish figure of course.  Now when I say “girlish”, I really mean “equivalent to a Glad Bag filled with oatmeal-figure”, but I digress.

Dig in, ladies.

Sitting there together, nibbling on food and sipping on cocktails, we seemed to be having a great time, but we decided to have a change of scenery anyway.  Where did we go?  We were all mobile and had the ability to easily travel to any spot in the Milwaukee area.  Knowing that, we went to BBC.  Across the street.  I know you're thinking right now, “Well whooptee-fucking-doo”.  All I have to say to that is, “Fuck off, you come up with something next time then”.  Without saying a word to each other, we all do the same thing.  We walk in the door, head straight to the bar, order our drink of choice, have them pour it into a plastic cup, pay the mixologist, walk out to the patio, and sit down at the biggest table available. 

Some psychologists may attribute this to the theory that when the male gender in any species travels in packs, they tend to have an unspoken bond that makes them act the same way.  Others may attribute it to other silent forms of communication, such as telepathy or subconscious body signals.  But the fact was, it was nice out and we we’re all smokers. Moving on.

When we sat down, it was a different movie, but the same plot.  Drinking, relaxing, talking, laughing.  Now in situations like this, any one of my friends will tell you that, normally, I'm contributing to the conversation just as much as everyone else, probably more.  But that night was different, I was enjoying myself even more by sitting back and taking it all in.  It was at that moment that I realized something.  I tend to have the most fun in situations like that.  Being with a group of good friends, sitting around and talking, for hours. 

Don’t get me wrong, I've had some damn good times in much more exciting situations. Situations where the only thing I can do the next day is marvel in the memory of what happened the night before.  Take for instance, the night where a few of us challenged a friend to a 96 oz. beer race, not telling him that I slipped seven shots of rail gin into his glass, or the night I was involved in an epic snowball fight that traveled into the middle of a crowded bar, getting us kicked out,  or even the night that ended with a friend wandering to a neighbors door, banging on it and calling them a “smelly pussy”, resulting in the cops cuffing him in his living room… only to dump him in a hotel for me to pick up the next morning.  That was all one night by the way.



I am.

I could go on, but you can already see the magnitude of how some of my nights have gone.  The problem is, those nights you can’t plan for.  They happen out of nowhere, and sadly, they don’t happen enough.  You could try and recreate the formula and attempt “round two”, but somehow, you’ll always come up short.  I just seems to me that the nights consisting of friends sitting around and simply enjoying each other’s tried-and-true company are much more consistently fun for me.  Unlike many others, for a great time, I don’t need loud dance music, dimmed mood lighting, or bottles of vodka on ice served by vixens in fishnet stockings.

Before you draw any conclusions, I have to say that I’m all for being surrounded by beautiful women in fishnets.  If it were on a ballot somewhere to have that become more common, I’d take a red sharpie and pen a big “Hell Yes!” then I’d sketch a thumbs up next to it.  The rest of the aspects of bottle service I've never really been much of an advocate for.  Giving three portraits of Benjamin Franklin to someone for a single bottle that barely lasts twenty minutes?  No thanks.  I do understand that one gets to have other amenities like a secluded & comfortable area and a slight air of feeling cool and important by sitting in the VIP Section, but I have never thought it’s worth it.  I have done this a handful of times, for friends’ birthdays and special events and such, so I know what its like, but I’ve never been that type of person to really want to do it.  This is why I celebrated my birthday at my home away from home, Brass Monkey.  It feels like Cheers to me.  Well, almost.  Ted Dansen doesn’t work there, and the owners, Frank & John, don’t look anything like him.  Don’t blame them, its not their fault.  Blame genetics.

They are similar to Ted Dansen’s character in one way though.  If you happen to show up at their establishment, still dressed up after being at a wedding reception, there’s a good chance they’ll compare you to John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”, and they have just cause for doing so.  A neighborhood bar like that isn’t usually the proper venue for a three-piece suit, but I still enjoy dressing up from time to time, just not in a VIP area.  I have done that before, but I felt like I was dressing up to please people who couldn’t care less about what I wore, just as long as I was shelling out enough cash to pretend I was in some kind of music video that’s shoved down teenager’s throats.  However, there is one time that I can guarantee I will dress up in a bar.  There is a moment in a man’s life that has and will always be discussed by men as soon as they hit puberty, the bachelor party. 

Though, there is one difference between myself and the countless other future husbands.  I will never have a Singleness Send-Off party at a strip club (or what I call a “Boobie Bar” / “Naked Nipple Club” if you’ve been around me long enough).  Some of you ask why, some of you already know.  For the ones that are in the dark, the rest of us can already tell you have never actually been to a strip club.  The lucky (or in this case, unlucky) man is dragged on stage and strapped to a chair, anchored to the stripper pole, in the center of the whole establishment.  First off, there's no way in hell I would ever want to be anywhere near that damn pole. Secondly, the things all of the dancers do to this poor man have to be some kind of violation against the Geneva Conventions.  The way they beat and humiliate him go way beyond the realm of the “sexy” and “fun” atmosphere they have otherwise  tried to portray that night.  The only way I can see this sort of act having any real value is scaring the man into staying faithful to his future wife, keeping him away from other women… well from strippers at least.

Those evil, evil strippers.

What will I do for my bachelor party?  Allow me to ask you another question.  Have you ever seen the recent Ketel One commercials?  Allow me to then refresh your memory.  Picture a group of men, dressed very well, standing at a higher-class bar, talking and laughing.  Think: James Bond and all of his secret agent buddies, after they’ve punched out for the day.  The advertisement is supposed to depict true gentlemen in their natural environment, and I have to say, they’ve done a great job.

In actuality, the “007” / “Ketel One Gentlemen” reference more accurate than you may think.  Decades ago in Great Britain, their government was very broke, but they still needed to keep up with the other countries, espionage-wise.  So what did they do?  They recruited and trained young & rich socialites, because they could finance it themselves.  These men were actually the basis for the James Bond character.  What were they nicknamed?  Gentlemen Spies.  Just a little fun fact for you all.

True, I’ll most likely never become 007, not even 006½.  Though what I can do instead is mimic the commercial.  To me, it’s the perfect combination.  I get to wear one of my nicer outfits, and I also get to spend yet another great night with eight to ten of my closest friends, talking and reminiscing about all the fun times we’ve had, and probably talk about all the fun times we will soon have… right before I get to stand in front of however many people and watch my bride walk down the isle, on the arm of her father… who would have most likely chased me down the street with a baseball bat at one point.   That is, if I could find an amazing woman who would at the same time be able to put up with my odd/charismatic/twisted personality without also chasing me down the street with a baseball bat.

OK, I'm fine with the bat thing.

If not, I will always be able to look forward to the future sessions of Guy’s Night.

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Now that you know more about me, learn about the things around me:
Rusty Bolt
Voice of Others

II

As you probably know, I have a ridiculous amount of free time at work.

For my next trick, a paperclip Burning Man.

For every nine hours I’m within these concrete walls, I spend a mere two on work related activities. Chained to my desk with sheer boredom and with very little around me to break it (they turned off my internet after one too many Facebook sessions), I started bringing books with me in the morning. My bookmark, an old Nolan Ryan baseball card with no value, is steadily moving. Moving from the inside cover in the morning, to the half way point by the time the day is over and it’s time for me to hop in my car and hit the eastbound freeway.

Having recently counted over thirty books that I have whipped through in this year alone, I decided to keep track of how many I actually read in a work week. As of now, I average at least three completed from Monday morning to Saturday, end of day. As little as five months ago, I wouldn’t have believed I’d be going at this rate. The thought of it makes me chuckle to myself sometimes. Before I started making good use of my down time at work, I would normally lie down on my pillow-top mattress, reach above my head to the wall mounted bookshelf, grab my current literary endeavor, and knock out a few chapters before my eyelids would turn to lead and give way to gravity.

I am baffled by the increments of page numbers I periodically glance down at. 3, 18, 31, 58, 74, 113… the stack of pages in my right hand becoming more and more light and flimsy with each passing hour. Because of that, I've decided to up the ante, as they say. Right now I am working on two books simultaneously, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and Women by Charles Bukowski. Women is a new book to me, written by an author I’ve come to be a big fan of, but Burgess’ Orange is another story (No pun intended.  ...You know what? Fuck that. Pun intended).

Back in my early high school days, I picked this book up at the public library located next door to my school and decided to give it a try. I saw the movie version by Stanley Kubrick not long before and it was so messed up, I needed to experience its origin for myself. For those of you that have not done the same, you're in for a curveball. With an original copyright of 1961 and an author from Great Britain, the language used in it is probably not what you are used to, I sure as hell wasn’t. It was a far cry from the S.E. Hinton books I had grown up reading.

Page after confusing page, the only thing that helped me understand what I was reading was remembering the scenes from its movie counterpart. My eyes would scan across something sounding familiar, make the connection from that specific moment in the movie, and I would then find my way back to the story. It felt like getting up at 2a.m. and navigating through the dark abyss of my hallway, feeling my way to the bathroom by remembering the route I would take when the sun was up. Being only 16 and having a very novice understanding of The Written Word, I threw in the towel and returned the book to the library.

This time around, the experience is very different. Knowing what I was in for, I approached it a different way. To me, the first chapter or two were the primer for the rest of the book. I paid attention to the odd British slang terms and the context in which they were used. Through reasoning and having now been tempered with much more complex authors, I was able to translate them and memorize them. “Eyes” became “Glazzies”, “Good, Well or Top Notch” became “Horrorshow”, “Clothing” became “Platties” and so on. Now that I am versed in the ways of what I now know as the slang of "Nadsat", I’m halfway through the book and I can confidently say that it is a brilliant piece of work and I cannot wait to feel the satisfaction of finishing that last page and tossing the book face down onto my desk.

VICTORY!!

Back when I was chipping away at novels, two chapters every other night, I saw reading as a relaxing hobby to have. A way for me to wind down from a long day and a way to put me asleep. Now, the pleasure of reading a book has become exactly that: a pleasure. At the great risk of sounding cliché, I love how I lose myself in the story I'm reading, after I gain momentum. Whatever is happening around me, good or bad, falls away. Then soon I find myself becoming a silent observer, standing in a world that is eloquently being laid out for me by a person that I have never met.

Going beyond that, there's an aspect of some fiction novels that have given an edge to the bliss I experience. It’s the act of creating a world much like ours, only slightly askew. One of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, Choke, Rant) has perfected doing just that. He creates a parallel universe where cars don’t exist or no one has jobs, or maybe there's a nameless vagrant walking around the country with the ability to resurrect road kill that’s been splattered across the freeway. I'm not completely sure why that makes the story more enjoyable to me. I think it’s because it makes the story more interesting to follow and become a part of, as opposed to sitting at my desk, but still real enough to not have the constant reminder that I’m simply…. sitting at my desk. This is probably why I never got into science fiction or fantasy novels; it’s too unbelievable of a story for me to be able to immerse myself in. Except for those god damned Harry Potter books, those are just plain annoying.

If the Amazon.com book department opened a night club, I’d be given a VIP pass tomorrow. But now that I think about it… since it would be a nightclub ran by a book department… I don’t think I’d want to go. Regardless, every single week I have new arrivals being delivered to me from all over the country. Online, I scroll through the recommendations and bestseller lists, hammering that “Add to Cart” button like a meth-head at Chuck E. Cheese’s playing Whack-A-Mole. Every book that looks vaguely intriguing to me, I buy. Fiction, nonfiction, biographies, it doesn’t matter. I find it all interesting now. Once I finish the order, I instantly get excited, knowing that very soon, they’ll be in my hands.

Come to think of it, I have some arriving this Tuesday. Hell yes.

Hell fucking yes.

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Now that you know more about me, learn about the things around me:
Rusted Bolt
Voice of Others

I

It’s strange how a mere hour’s drive to work can make you feel detached from the rest of the world.

Reading the Facebook statuses and posts of people I used to regularly spend time with makes me feel like an abandoned child standing outside his former home. Looking through the window at the people I used to call family, watching them laugh and enjoy each other’s company, I can’t help but shed a tear. The warm orange hue the lamps give off, compared to the dark night I'm standing in, make it all that more tempting to walk through the front door. But I can’t. That door stays shut with the deadbolt of a large paycheck and no option otherwise.

That is the trade-off I am faced to endure. I gave up nightly adventures of spending time with my good friends for the ability to afford my life. To make sense of everything, I want to blame someone or something for the bitterness I feel. Bitterness caused by watching all of my friends make plans and have fun without me, only I have no scapegoat to give me that satisfaction.

Nevermind, I found one.

It isn’t their fault. Why should they bother to try and invite me if I'm only available one night out of every seven? They're simply following common sense. I can’t blame myself. I had no choice, I need the money. The location of my work… another no. The distance of my job cannot be helped, it is one small rotating gear of a machine that is way too large for me to control, the company I work for. While I do come home every night, I am still forced to be responsible and stay there, for the fact that I work long hours. The length of my work days are another small moving part in that grand machine which will keep going whether or not I want it to.

I sit here at my desk, doing nothing but reading and turning the occasional thought into a Word document. Yet I'm powerless to take this glorious amount of wasted time and transfer it to my once thriving social life. It almost feels like some strange nightmare of dissatisfaction that would immediately depress me once I woke up. The problem is, I'm already awake.

The single ray of hope I have is the possibility that it won’t last forever. After this quick pit stop, my life will gain momentum again. Having made certain steps and exhausting every option thus far, the only thing I can do now is be right in the same spot I have been, converting oxygen into carbon dioxide and wait for my plans to pan out.

I have to stay focused. Optimistic. Resilient. If I don’t, then I'm afraid I'll succumb to the depression that would be trailing right behind the idea of having a secluded, boring existence. Others may not have the same feeling, but to me, that’s the ultimate sin: Doing nothing great with this life I've been given. I've never been able to tolerate leading a dull, mediocre life. I do realize that’s exactly what I'm doing right now, but you should understand that I don't plan on it being like this for much longer.

So I can promise you this: Something will happen. If life is stubborn and doesn’t hand me the chance in the name of karma, I will twist life’s arm behind its back and force it to. I may not advertise it, but I've always had the ability to manipulate many of the things around me as I see fit, and I will keep doing so until I'm content with the result.

What I ask of you is simple: Don't forget about me. I may not be sitting next to you, but I’m still here, waiting patiently. For now.

Like a goddamn lion, ready to pounce your face off.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now that you know more about me, learn about the things around me:
Rusted Bolt
Voice of Others