Man Suffers Heart Attack at Heart Attack Grill

Unbelievable. Very sad. I don't want to be mean...but...when you're eating a "Triple Bypass Burger" at a place called The Heart Attack Grill...are you not tempting fate just a wee little bit? No one "asks" for a heart attack...but...doesn't this come a wee bit close?
Click HERE to read about the dude who had a heart attack, at the Heart Attack Grill.

...Resolved.

And just like that...the supernatural takes over.
Maybe it's the poor man's champagne...
Maybe it's the blog about ...essentially...nothing, and everything.
I don't know.
Things happening for a reason?
The universe, reaching out?

How is this for ending on a weird note:
I walk downstairs, after hitting "post" on my last blog - minutes ago - and I decide to crack open a left over fortune cookie from this afternoon's New Year's Eve feast.

It made me smile. In a "but it is real, Dan" kind of way.

Cheers, to 2011. And to glasses being FOREVER half full, even if they're only filled with cheap white wine and ginger ale.

White Wine and Ginger Ale.

It's not champagne, but it works for me tonight.
Half a can of Canada Dry. Half a glass of cheap white wine. Mixed.
Poor man's champagne.
But like I said, it works for me. Tonight.

We're on the cusp of another year, and I've been spending this most lazy Saturday reading Facebook statuses and twitter updates about New Year Resolutions, failures and successes and how they are ultimately "pointless".
One post said: "Fuck resolutions. If you want to change your life, then change it. Don't set a date. Just do it."
Like Nike.
I agree. And I disagree.

There is a certain "clean slate" feel to a new year. Even if it's man-made, it is the end of a 12 month cycle.
It's a way to mark things...a check point, I guess, and it never hurts to take inventory, check for damages, see where we could have improved, see where we got the gold star. Put band-aids on if we need to, brag about the beautifully healed scars, remnants of our wounds.
I've had a hit and miss year. Lots of highs.
A great year, because every year is great.

It was a year jam packed full of opportunity to learn.
I just have to decide if I've learned...and what I've learned.
*sigh*
More on that in a bit.
While I was skimming through all the New Year's eve quotes and songs and all that end-of-the-year wrap-up stuff that one expects (and always get me a bit nostalgic) - I chanced upon an interesting thread.
Someone today - a friend - on Facebook was saying "people who wish and hope and pray, are wasting their time".
He argued that those who spend time "praying" and "putting it out into the universe" - he said those people need to get up off their asses, claim responsibility for themselves and for their own desires - and do right by their own accord, for their own advancement.
It's realistic.
He got some flack, people calling him negative, but in truth - I think it's actually very positive.
No more living in La La Land.

Does it hurt to pray? Of course not. I mean, think about what prayer is...really.
It's an examination of what you have - acknowledging the good in life and being thankful, not taking it for granted.
It's also a way of taking inventory, going over what you need, the things you require to better your situation. That's the logical take on prayer. The "practical" side. And it ends there.
And as it stands - There's nothing wrong with that.
If you want to have a conversation in your own head, a conversation with an invisible man, a conversation with "a god, any god" - well - what hurt is their in that?

It's when people start thinking "prayer" is some kind of genie in a magic lantern - whose sole purpose is to full fill your deepest, most wildest desires.

Wishin' and hopin' and prayin' does not mean it's going to happen. Ever.
In truth - you are physically doing nothing. Those are all invisible - wishing and hoping and praying - it's like "pretending" - and really, unless you employ the ever famous and hip "thoughts become things" - all of those mental somersaults have no REAL impact on the world around us.

It reminded me of a story my boss told me.
It was about a young couple - a Christian couple - they had a child who was not doing well. The baby was born with some kind of severe birth defect and the doctors said it was only a matter of days.
They were heart broken. And they prayed. Their whole church prayed.
The baby died.
And someone from that church said: "You must not have prayed hard enough."
Can you imagine?

Now I'm not against praying. I am not.
But here's the thing: If praying was the answer to everything and worked that way - there'd be no need for ...ANYTHING.
Cancer? Just pray.
AIDS? Pray.
Poverty? Pray.
A gigantic porn start cock that looks erect but is still the perfect combo of "rock hard and rubbery in a flexible way"? Prayer would be the answer.
But - it is not.
That's the reality of it.
When "wishing" and "praying" become "let downs" - it means we are simply doing it wrong.

It's liberating to take the power back. To know that YOU are in control. That the whole "everything happens for a reason" - is just about perspective.
It's about how YOU look at things.
Do you look at a disaster as doom and gloom?
Or do you look at is as a chance to grow? As something to embrace with open arms and become stronger?
An open door - an opportunity - it is not "luck", nor is it "fate".
You find yourself able to CLAIM an opportunity because you worked your way to get there.
When you accomplish something, when you succeed in something - it is because you put the time and effort and thought into it. It is because you have confidence in yourself.
Sure, there is always fluke. And it's fluke. That's gravy.
But when you work at something, when you make your goals clear, and map out a path on how to get there - and then start building that ladder and then start climing it (jesus CHRIST I sound like Susan Fucking Powter) - that's ALL you.
It's far more powerful than wishing. And hoping. And praying.

It just got me thinking.
That whole threat.
About me. About resolutions. Ones I've made. Ones I've failed at.
I have no excuses. The ones that have happened, happened because I really wanted them to happen and worked for them to happen.
The ones that haven't...?
It's not that I didn't hope hard enough. It isn't that I didn't pray long enough. It is most certainly not that I didn't wish on every single star in the sky for six pack abs and and ass you could bounce an entire locker room full of hot hockey players off of.
No.
Accountability.
Resolutions.
Consider me resolved.

Ultimately I am responsible for everything in my life.
The good and the bad. And there is more good right now.
There is some questionable behaviour as well, and I can spend all year beating myself up about it...or I can learn.

And that's what I'm trying to figure out right now.
New Year's Eve, 2011.
8:03pm.

I'm thinking of what I have learned this year as I sip my poor man's champagne and wait for the left side of Dick Clark's face to drop.

xx,
dan

BLOG ME! BLOG ME! HARDER! FASTER! MORE! MORE! BLOG ME! YES! YES! ...part 8.

Before I start - I want to quote something a friend of mine once said to me, about me.
Oprah calls this a "light bulb moment", and I am SOOOOO not the kind of guy to quote or reference Oprah, but - by Christ, it is what it is.
My friend said to me, in an email:
"I have never met someone who has so much of what he needs to succeed."
I froze. I re-read the sentence. Several times. And I sat in silence.
I guess that was the light bulb going off.

Today marks the 8th Anniversary of this little bloggity blog.
Eight years.
So I was...let's see...how old was I...?
Thirty-four minus eight...So, I was 26 years old.
You wanna know something sad? I actually had to pull up my "accessories" under my "all programs" on the computer and use the calculator to figure that out.
Not because I couldn't figure it out in my own head. Because I just didn't want to, because I hate math so much.
I always told my dad - as we'd sweat and cry over my math homework: "Trust me, when I grow up, I will never, EVER need math."
I stuck to my word.
When I sat down in front of my computer to start this blog, December 28th 2004, I was 26 and a server at a shitty restaurant, writing part-time for a shitty magazine that paid "not so bad" (why did I use quotes for that?) for a fresh-out-of-college-writer and...well, I thought I was the shit.
Kind of.
I guess this was a bit of a defense mechanism: Me thinking I was super cool and "indie".
In truth, I was hopelessly lost in what I wanted to do. With what I wanted to be when I grew up.
Being a server is a great job for someone in their twenties who is looking to pursue other things. You never take your work home with you. The hours aren't too bad - especially at the dive I was working in (I worked at "that sports bar inside the mall")- and the cash was bloody fantastic.
I was rolling in tips.
I could write and be artsy and fabulous and live like I didn't work at all.
And buy rounds of shots.
If I was hung over, there was always a "responsible server" - usually older - who would gladly take a shift.
Afterall, she wasn't there to make friends. The bitch was there to make money.
And that's why all the irresponsible "not-so-serious" (geesh! again with the quotes) servers loved her.
Anyway, that morning, 11am December 28th, 2004 - I was listening to an album by the band Luna. Rendezvous. I was hung over. I was contemplating everything.
I had a weekly show on CJAM (then it was 91.5fm) as well. It was volunteer.
But I wanted an "office job"...because I thought it would make me "professional". Yet knew it would never, could never be me.
I wouldn't be able to do the work because I wouldn't be able to figure out how to re-load the stapler. And that would be the end of me.
I wanted to do theatre, but had no training.
I wanted to be a little bit famous.
I wanted...to do...something. Just...something more.
But I wanted substance too. I did. I wanted to be creative somehow and be recognized for it. And I could not put my finger on what kind of job that would be.
I didn't realize I was already doing it. Writing for a magazine. Volunteering on the radio. Socializing like a mad mother fucker every night at my serving job.
Eight years later - Here I am.
I sit typing from my office desk, working at a radio station in the creative department.
I sit behind a microphone at a DJ booth on a much bigger radio station than the one I volunteered at 8 years ago.
I'm recognized as a "radio personality" in the Windsor - Detroit area.
A little bit famous.
I got everything I wanted.
But this blog isn't about that.
In fact, I don't know what this blog is about.
I promised myself in the very first post that this blog would have no rules.
It was about...just being, I guess. And that is my lesson I learned this year, after reading the first post and re-evaluating who I was and where I am.
Just be.
I don't read it often, but occaisionally I find myself flipping through the pages, and I am brought back to "that day". Immediately.
It's kind of like meditating. At times I don't recognize the person I am reading about. It might be me. It might be a friend. It might be something I completely forgot about.
Othertimes, I think nothing has changed at all.
I can't help but see evolution, in myself, in others.
I have old friends. Lost friends. Best friends. Dead friends.
And they are all in this blog.
I'm being a touch dramatic at the moment, but humour me.
It's my 8th fucking anniversary.
Like I said, I had no idea what I wanted to be.
And I still don't.
Somehow, and I do mean that - I stumbled into a job doing voice work for 4 of the biggest stations in the Windsor Detroit area, for a VERY major company that is known all over the world.
They are the big wigs of radio, and I say that without ego. It's just how it is.
And I got in.
And here I am.
I found a way to start doing theatre. Which I love.
It's quirky. It's "indie". It's very gay. It's "the cool theatre".
I have a home and a cat that I love.
I share it with someone I love more than anything...who, well...gives me everything I need to do what I want or need to do.
Yet, still that searching feeling in my stomach.
Still that lost feeling I had when I was 26.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
At all. It's not.
It's not comfortable.
Uncertainty is not supposed to be comfortable.
It keeps me hungry. It keeps me doing it. It could stem from low self-confidence.
The need for validation through attention, but I think it would be lazy to say that.
I've always had something I want to say inside of me. Something I want to express.
It's probably something lame, like a missed calling into the priesthood or some shit, and now I'm left with this empty, unfillable hole in the pit of my nearly non-existent, sold out soul.
But it's not like that because life is good.
Like my friend said - I have so much of what I need to succeed - so much opportunity and connection.
And I "do it", for the most part.
The radio. The stage. The poetry readings. The book. The articles. The copywriting.
I get to interview all the musicians I listened to back in the day.
I get to announce fantastic bands to a crowd of screaming fans and soak up the energy.
I get to curl up every night in a stable house with a good book and a cat and a Life Partner who loves me despite my very shakey glitches.
I have ...everything.
And I want more.
Not in a greedy way.
More in a..."I just don't know"...way.
I feel like I have this steam, this churning, this building momentum in my stomach...and it's just...going, going, going...but I lost control of the steering wheel.
I know I'll gain control again.
I'm not off track.
I'm just...in a very fast cruise control. I need to stop and smell the flowers and I need to PLANT more of them as well.
Look at me, with the garden analogies and shit.
I'm rambling right now. But I'm allowed to. It's my blog. And it's been 8 years.

Long story short: I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up or how to use all the wonderful things I've been gifted with to help me "get there".

And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing.
Like that Oprah Winfrey light bulb moment...I guess it simply is...what it is.
At least for today.

I'm going to JUST BE.
Me.
And I'll see what happens.

hearts and farts,
dan

A Punch in the Heart.

I've never been one for doctors.
I mean, one never really "needs" one...until they...well...need one.
And by then, usually - it's not all that pretty. Or - it's just fine and all is well. Who am I to be so negative?
I guess a little bit scared, that's all.
For about 1 year or so I've felt these strange chest/arm pains, sporadically.
I know, not a good sign.
Center and left chest down to my left arm. Sharp, shooting pain accompanied by a delightful drumming sensation right around where my heart is.
And a shortness of breath. Nice, eh?
Incredibly - I just shrugged this off.
"It's nothing."
I am, after all, Superman.
In my own head anyway.
Hell - as a child, I used to prance around in a pair of boxer briefs and a cape - with my mother's pumps on while my father looked on in horror, probably thinking to himself: "What in God's name have I Created."
See? I am Superman.
Sorry. I need to get back on topic.
My heart.
Yes. The drumming. The shooting "pins and needles" arm pain. The shortness of breath.
I brushed it off because it only happens here and there and I am in decent shape. I am a vegetarian. I don't eat a lot of bad fat. I exercise on a regular basis. I'm not over-weight, save for an inch I'd like to shave off my waist.
Heart attack people look like John Candy. Red faced - like a big round tomato ready to explode. That's not me, nor would it be a very flattering look for me.
Anyway, this pain and sensation in my chest and arm - it started happening last week - but quite a bit. About 5 times in one week. Before it was once every 2 or 3 months.
So, I decided it was time to go to the E.R. - since I don't have a family doctor.
Six hours, 2 EKG's and 1 blood test later, I sat in front of the doctor as he scratched his head and said: "I really don't know what to tell you. You seem fine. But you should get a family doctor."
Yes. I should.
See - these little "spells" (I like calling them spells, because it reminds me of happiness, fairy tales and magic) come on at weird times.
I could by vegging on the couch - watching a documentary - say - The Eyes of Tammy Faye, for example, and I'll feel it. All of a sudden and out of nowhere.
One day I was leisurely window shopping at the mall when it came on.
Another time I was simply sitting at my desk doing exactly what I am doing right now.
The tests said I did not and was not having a heart attack.
But the doctor left it at that. Emergency was averted, no need to bust out the defibrillator. He sent me on my merry way.
Seeing as it was just days before Christmas - it really was merry.
However, nothing is solved.
I have had this sensation several times. My heart rate IS accelerated. Not overly so...but it's fast - it's on the cusp of "too high" - 97 beats per minute, and that's just sitting there. If it's over 100 - they consider that "no longer normal".
I don't get it.
I am in the process of getting a family doctor. I was referred by a friend, but most likely will not get in until sometime in the new year.
It does make me think of a few things...a quote from Warren Zevon (yes, "Werewolves of London guy") - who passed away and found out his time was up and it was too late to treat his condition.
He said on David Letterman: "I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years."
That scared me. Because I know deep down it's important for regular check ups.
I'll be 35 in May. Not old. But I have not been to a family doctor for a check up since I was 16.
And in that time I had a few kidney stones. Broke my pelvis. Became a vegetarian. Gained 30 pounds. Lost 30 pounds and dropped an organ: My gall bladder.
Not horrible.
But - not fantastic either. Not squeaky clean.
So here I am - part of me saying "it's nothing" - the other part wondering about all those years of bad diet, no vitamins, no check ups.
No doctor to ever stick his finger up my ass or cup my balls or listen to my heart or breathing.
I think about every Red Bull and "5 hour energy" drink I sucked back.
I remember once, before going on stage in a show at Kordazone theatre - it was a performance of Drag Too - my good buddy (who worked the lights) saw me chugging back a 5 Hour Energy drink and said: "Those get you going don't they?" and I replied: "Yup. Makes me wanna prance around the stage."
He looked at me and said simply: "Kind of like getting a punch in the heart."
That made me think. Because that was exactly what it felt like.
A jolt. A little shake and tremor in my chest. Not a wonderful sensation.
I think about my boot camps and coffees and double shots of espresso.
Then...that pain.
My arm going numb.
I think of scary things like blood clots and embolisms and strokes and brain damage.
I can't help but think these things. But mostly, I'm calm. It's true.
I just wonder...did I make a "tactical error"?
Sure it might not have been a heart attack..but it's something.
So...what?
Like the doctor in E.R., I scratch my head and say: "I don't know."
But I guess I have to find out. And I will.
I'm not a fan of Warren Zevon...I'm really not. Not his music.
I mean, I "get" his music. But I don't like it.
Yet, I'm reminded of another quote from him, one I think I'll end this little note on, fellow blog-a-teers.
When asked by David Letterman if he knew something more about life and death now that he had been diagnosed as terminal, Warren Zevon offered up a small and very healthy little serving of insight.
It's simple really, what he said...and it's probably the easiest thing to do and so few of us do it.
Why?
Again - I don't know.
But I'm gonna give it a lot more thought as we wind down this wonderful year of 2011.
He said, simply: "Enjoy every sandwich."

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing at the Gym.

When people go to the gym, what do they do?
I know I go to the gym. But I have people tell me what to do.
It's boot camp.
So it's a class.
A rigorous, hard, strenuous class, but I know when I walk in the gym doors, I have someone to meet and tell me EXACTLY what I must do before I can walk out.
And when I do walk out the door - I know I have been worked out "properly".
After boot camp, when I leave, lower lip quivering, legs like two pieces of chewed up licorice and basted in my own juices like a big fat thanksgiving sow (minus the apple stuffed in my mouth) - I am confident that I have been pushed much further than I would ever push myself if left to my own devices in the big, grown-up playground we call 'the gym'.
I have no problem going to the gym and being told what to do.
But left to my own devices? With no one to meet? No one to boss me around? No appointment to keep?
I feel...well - I feel the way I always felt every single time I stepped out into the recess yard back in grade school.
It was as if I somehow missed the first class on recess etiquette.
All the other kids knew what to do - almost automatically.
Kids running about, this way and that way - games of tag and hide and seek were well in progress.
Girls swung from monkey bars with gymnast precision. They jumped rope. They "hopped scotch". Something I had only ever seen in movies.
I didn't think real kids actually did this.
I remember standing on the pavement at my grade school watching the guys play soccer. Organized onto teams, each player - my classmates - had their own important role in the game.
Even the nerdy dandelion weavers somehow found each other and were doing their own thing out in the field amongst the weeds and dog shit.
And there I was: Alone. Standing and staring in awe at all the kids at play.
Did I just join in with the soccer players?
Did I hop up on the monkey bars and try to hang upside down from my knees?
I had no idea.
I had no idea what to do.
How the FUCK did everyone know where to go and how to play?
Did I have to wait for an invite?
And if I did...why was I the only one not invited?
I eventually found out how to play with others.
It was with the weeds and dog shit, weaving dandelion bracelets with the fat girls and soon-to-be-homosexual-boys.
By grade 3 - recess was no problem.
The gym, however - I am still utterly clueless.
I'm the kind of gym member who will buy a 1 year membership - paid in full, I will go once and never go again.
When my membership expires, I repeat the process.
Without a class to attend - I walk into the gym as if lost.
I'm always afraid to ask the front desk hottie for a towel, or I forget to ask for a towel until I need one.
By then - I'm already on the treadmill, sweating like a fatso at a bake-off, red-faced and knowing I simply "missed the boat" as far as my chances of getting a towel, and I have to just suck it up and sweat it out.
But I watch all the other...big kids - doing their thing at the gym.
I call them the "big kids" simply because they intimidate me.
I'm probably older than half of these hot little 20-something bastards, all muscled and lean and fit with proper posture and impossibly fitted athletic wear.
But to me - they are the big kids.
The ones who know what to do.
The ones who do squats without shame, without being self-conscious about their posture - because it goes without saying it is perfect.
The ones who have no fear of the free-weights section, usually inhabited by the permanent residents who are pumped up on roids, ready to snap any outsider's neck the second they take a step within their inner circle.
I glare from my spot on the awkward elliptical machine as the big kids work in astonishing synchronicity with each other, all doing reps on machines, never having to wait in line.
I know the second I tried my shot at a machine, someone would approach and ask: "How much longer are you going to be?"
I would give a bullshit answer like: "I have 5 more reps".
Then I'd do my reps and head directly to the locker room, pack up my shit and leave.
Yes, I'm that guy.
Hopelessly afraid of the big kids. Eternally awkward without any idea how to play.
And that's weird.
I'm not a hard-to-talk-to person. At all. I'm really not.
I get along great with other people.
If we're drinking. Listening to music. Or going out to lunch.
Social settings: I'm your man.
Add the daunting ambiance of a testosterone filled gym and I am reduced to a gelatinous lump of uselessness, incapable of speaking proper English, never mind motivating myself to actually get any benefit from my time spent in that god awful hell hole known as 'the gym'.
The locker room is even worse.
By nature, it is a sexual play ground.
Especially for a gay man.
My gym is not a "gay gym" - but - I'm there.
And there are others like me.
You hear rumours. Stories, some legendary - about the things that go on in the locker room.
An entire franchise of porno is created specifically about locker room shenanigans.
Straight up - there are naked, athletic men - sauntering and swaggering about with their dicks swinging in front of them - the way one might non-nonchalantly swing a key-chain or a towel.
It's like a bath house episode of Queer as Folk. The North American version.
One man was blow drying his hair - bare ass naked.
Yes, I granted myself a very generous peek at his wang - but good god - who the FUCK stands there blow drying their hair with their cock flying in the wind, without a care in the world?
Put some fucking underwear on, for Christ's sake - you're turning me on and making me FURIOUS that I don't have a body like yours, I wanted to scream in his perfectly chiseled face.
But I didn't.
Instead I simply grabbed my coat and put it on over my own sweat drenched t-shirt and left.
And that is basically it. My trip to the gym without an agenda.
I spent 25 minutes on some stupid machine that barely did anything.
I get to see one hot body and a penis - and that's it.
That's it.
Why?
Because I was afraid of the other big kids? Because no one was there to tell me what to do?
What DOES one do at the gym? How do all these people know the routines? The proper blend of excercises?
Do I simply re-enact my boot camp classes?
I'd look awfully stupid doing 15 burpees in a row without anyone else around me.
I know, I know - it's all ego, it's all self-centered ego.
I am the center of my own asshole-like universe and all eyes are on me, right?
But listen - I stare at people. I eye people up. I watch them. I won't say I judge them, but if someone misses a step or farts when they are doing a jumping jack - I notice and I snicker to myself, like an asshole.
I know. I'm horrible.
But I know I'm not the only one doing this.
I could be the kid who joins the other kids on the monkey bars, couldn't I?
But they might laugh.
Because they'll probably see right through me.
They'll see that I really have no idea what I'm doing at all.
Absolutely zero clue of what to do in a gym. Ignorant as to what kind of etiquette I am to adopt when interacting with people in this big, scary, grown-up recess yard.
But all the other kids, as if by magic - know.
So until I learn how to play properly with the others, I'm doomed to re-newing unused memberships - and I'm resigned to spending less than half an hour on my solitary elliptical machine - watching and observing the other kids at play, seething with envy, jealousy and an almost unbearable hope that one of them will ask me to come play too.

Quick! Be Creative! Say Something Funny! Now! (No pressure).

I have a weird job.
I write for a living. I guess I could technically say - "I'm a writer."
I'm a writer.
There, I said it.
Or, I wrote it.
But much like, well - everything.... being and becoming something one dreams of being or becoming...it just never happens the way it happens in your dreams.
I have always wanted to be a writer. Dreamed of it.
And here I am.
I write. Every day. And it is published. Every day.
And I am paid for this.
I write - but not necessarily stuff I *want* to write.
I write...
Sell-out-ish stuff.
Commercial stuff.
Corporate stuff.
Trickery. Illusion. La La Land.
Advertisements.
There is a place for it, I guess - commercial writing...
There is money in it. Well, some.
But soul?
Not a whole abundance of that.
Has it sucked my creative juices from me, robbing me of my blogging mojo and rendering me a bore in blogville?
No.
To suggest that would be lazy.
And I am. I am lazy.
Which is why I may have been boring as of late.
While writing about "25 percent off storewide sales" and how it's "never been a better time than now" to buy "said product" isn't exactly me diving into my vast pool of infinite imagination - nor is it dipping both hands into the cool and steady stream of creativity - it DOES keep me thinking.
Thinking...about things I might not normally think of.
I'm getting off topic. Kind of.
I meant to be bitchy and negative, so - on with it!
Business people, for the most part, don't have much imagination when it comes to marketing their product.
This is sad.
This is where I SHOULD be stepping in, to add a unique and quirky flare - something that will stand out. Something that will say "Hey! Look at me everyone! Want some of this? You want a taste? Five dollah sucky sucky!"
Of course - the consumers are supposed to come in droves, flocking to buy Said Product all because of little old me.
But - the people who approve the copy are not that brave. Not that creative. Not that imaginative.
They want the basic who/what/where/when/why.
And THAT can be mind-numbing.
It can be stiffling.
It can make my job...kind of boring. And it can make Said Product sound...well - much the same.
Don't get me wrong - I love what I do.
I love the people I work with.
Essentially, I make a living off of stuff inside my head.
I type it out on paper - tweak it and cap it and shape it into something that vaguely resembles the client's vision...even more vaguely resembles my own...and I release it to the unsuspecting public.
It's a weird job.
Writing for the number one station in my city...and the number one station in another city...and then writing for two other fairly known stations in both cities...well, it's not something the average Joe gets to do.
But never have I been the average Joe, have I?
Thousands and thousands of people hear my work every single day.
That's kind of cool.
What isn't cool - is that it's commercials that no one really listens to.
And that's okay with me.
This blog...is going on 7 years old.
And I never know who I am speaking to. Possibly no one at all.
At one time, when I started - I had a few dedicated readers.
Whether they have faded away into the blurry fog of facebook and twitter and google + - or they just thought: "This fucker is boring as shit," I have no idea.
But I can't see them any more.
Yet here I am.
Talking...well, writing.... at ...you.You.
This collective "you".
I have written with specific people in mind.
People I don't know.
I have written for gays. For girls. For straights.
I have written to myself and I have written for others.
I have written in hopes of impressing and making friends, I have written so people will think I am cool and I have written to infuriate or I have written in the hopes of igniting action.
I still have no clue what this blog is supposed to be, save for a semi-linear autobiography - which is as honest as I let it be, but not really all that revealing at all.
I write. And I speak.
For a living.
I write in containers of 10, 30 and 60 second "spots".
I speak in containers of 20 seconds to a minute and a half.
With a timer on.
And in that time I am told to engage. To inspire. To be creative and funny.
It's so weird when you fuse the technical, the logical, the limited - with what is supposed to be infinite and expressive.
But it can be done.
Or can it?
Is it real?
Is anything I write real?

Is anything anyone writes...real?

Seasons Greetings...

That's me. And my good friend. Dolly. She sings. And acts. And has a wonderful set of honkers. Together - we make a SMASHING Xmas greeting. Notice we don't say Merry Christmas. Or Happy Chanukah. Or Happy Quanza. Or "Have a Magical Diwali". Nope. This festive message transcends all those invisible lines which are supposed to trick us into thinking we are divided and is simply about celebrating good times with a good pair of tits. Nothing more. Nothing less. Simply universal.