inherently different

Around the time that my father finally decided to end his marriage with my mother, just about anyone could have told you that her grasp of reality was slipping. She was a pathological liar, she was sleeping with at least three different men, would accuse her children of various slights, and exhibited behavior that would make a whore blush.

Among the things that my mother did around this time, one in particular still baffles me. She visited us in the house my brothers and I shared with my father, collected all the pictures of us she could find and took them away. Everything, baby pictures, first communion pictures, class pictures, even random pictures at family gatherings, vanished in a frenzy of obsessive activity. If you were to search every nook and cranny in our house, you’d be hard pressed to find any photographic evidence that my brothers and I existed.

We had no idea what she wanted with them, preferring to imagine she wanted these still images of the lives of her children so she wouldn’t forget them. Of course, had we known what she intended to do, we might have troubled ourselves to stop her from taking them out of the house.

With possibly two trashbags filled with photographs, she absconded to her lair and burned them all. I’m not sure whether she fed them one at a time into a fire in her fireplace, or piled them high on her lawn, doused them with lighter fluid and sent them up in a towering bonfire, but whatever her method, in her madness to hurt my father, she destroyed the photographic history of her children from birth through that present day.

It is an odd sensation to go to a friend’s house and see their history displayed in frames on walls, or in albums on coffee tables — gap toothed smiles of youthful antics at birthday parties, family gatherings, or trips to the zoo — and know that no such record exists of your own path through the world.

In high school for health class, we were asked to bring in baby photos so that we might, as a class, guess which baby picture belonged to which classmate. Mine was the only one missing and to say that my teacher took it hard is an understatement. It took a month of letters and face-to-face meetings with my father to have her remove the "F" I was given for that assignment. She would change the failing grade to an incomplete, mostly because she refused to believe a mother could do such a thing.

My father did manage to scrounge up a few photos of us as children over the last 25 years. Some he gathered from relatives and friends, others he might have stored somewhere else, unknowingly saving them from certain destruction. One, maybe two photos of me as a baby exist, a few more of my older brother, and many more of my youngest brother who was only five when my mother recreated the sacking of Rome via Polaroid and Kodak.

I wonder what went through her head, if anything, as she systematically destroyed our childhood. I’m sure she can block out the physical abuse she hashed out to us, perhaps even soften the hard edges from the words she used to communicate with us, and even downplay the mindgames she played on us… but how do you ignore burning a family history?

A few years ago, the father of an ex-girlfriend asked me about my parents and I explained that my father lived in San Diego. He asked about my mother and when he couldn’t be deterred from that line of questioning, I told him I hadn’t spoken to my mother since around 1987. He responded with the usual song and dance about the importance of family and forgiveness. Anytime someone gives me this tired old chestnut, I most often see flames dancing on the periphery of my vision… It is easy to tell them that I understand the importance of family, but some things people are capable of are unforgivable.

The sweat trickles down in streams, squeezed from my pores by a relentless sun bearing down from above like a hammer of light. Leaving the house without water now seemed like folly of the worst sort. A mistake that could get you killed… if your arm wasn’t already being ground into hamburger by a 40 ton boulder.

On my arm the rock, enormous and jagged, pins me down as easily as I once pinned my younger brother, Joe, during our frequent childhood wrestling matches. The memory, elastic and groping, touches off a different memory, of the verbal wrestling match we’d had not two weeks before.

“How strong is your will to survive?” Joe asked.

At the time, safe in the cave cool darkness of the bar I owned, the answer eluded me, but on the baking sand of the valley floor, the answer seemed a lot easier to realize.

If I can live through this, I can live through anything.

True enough, in the last two days I’d lived through much worse. At least emotionally and mentally, I was as prepared by recent events as one could ever be. Fratricide has that effect on you.

The weight of that particular burden seemed even heavier, but less a present concern than the boulder on my arm. Memories run up and down my conciousness like a tide. Something relevant, a story I heard about an American mountaineer who sawed off his own arm in an effort to survive chief among them.

If I had any doubt before, I was about to find out how strong my will to survive was. Nothing promotes self-actualization like a do or die situation. I wasn’t yet ready to give up the ghost and the time had come to see about getting myself free.

When I had awoken, confusion was the first thing I felt. Shortly thereafter, the realization that I was going to die forced me to take stock of my predicament. I had tried to move my arm, but shock had kept me from doing much more than sweating profusely. Now, a full hour later, I tentatively forced whatever muscles controlled the fingers of my trapped hand to move. At first, nothing but a tingling sensation returned after I prompted the synapses into action. A second, two, then three and I could feel my fingers somewhere a mile or two away, perhaps on an errand they had forgotten to tell me about.

The nerves were still in tact, although numbed by the pressure being applied. With an effort I twisted my body until I was on my side, using my free hand to dig into the sandy soil.

I’ve spent quite some time between posts doing things I should be doing as opposed to things I’d rather be doing. I’ve redesigned and rebuilt my portfolio site from the ground up, started building a new client’s web space, and tried to keep up with my writing assignments from my publisher. I’ve also taught myself ASP, ActionScript and how to use FLASH MX to animate.

You might wonder why I would invest so much time on WebDev projects considering that I’m a writer… eventually, I’ll have to move back to the mainland and most likely to one of five major cities (LA, SF, SD, NY or BOS). I’ll need to be a "jack of all trades" if I expect to be marketable to a tech company and learning how to function within a variety of programming languages will better position me against competition for the few jobs available for writers.

Of course, I could throw a wrench into any and all of these plans if I actually sell a script (selling spec scripts is virtually impossible, so I’m not kidding myself). My novel is proceeding nicely, but I have no illusions about whether I’m cut out to be a novelist (I’m not). I enjoy writing and it may turn out that I never accomplish anything other than a lifelong love affair with the written word. Is that so bad? To enjoy doing something and more often than not, getting paid to do it, is what just about everyone aspires to do on a professional level.

So, if you are among the three or four people who have been disappointed  by my lack of posting on the blog lately, I apologize for leaving you hanging. If you’re among the hundreds who visit and couldn’t give two shits, thanks for visiting and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

And if you’re cookie lurking, don’t you have anything better to do?

I love me some blues. As illustrated by this post. When I write, I gather up music that puts me in the mind of the character I’m writing for. In most instances, I use blues to find the moral center of a character. What do I mean? Let’s say my character is looking at a woman in a carnal way, I might choose John Lee Hooker’s Shake It Baby

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Maybe my character is desperate, alone, broke and consistently makes decisions that lead him down the wrong path… I might choose Poor Boy by Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters.

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Let’s say that I’m writing a female character. A vicious, low down dirty skirt with an agenda that might bring, ultimately, harm to another male character… I’d choose How Could One Woman Be So Mean? by Buddy Guy and Junior Wells

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Blues are a musical history of human emotion. Love, hate, scorn, happiness, sadness, desperation, and perserverence can all be found in the complex tapestry of a blues song. In case you’re at all interested, Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey is one of the best collections of blues music for beginners. It brings together the most notable styles, eras, and names in the world of blues and ties it all together in a neat little bow.

From: XXXXXXXXXXXX@XXXXXXXX.comTo: monkeydiarist@gmail.com Date: Oct 10, 2005 7:51 PM (REVISED DATE)Subject: You Fucking Scum

This is in response to your misguided attack on PETA from your most recent post. I’m one of the good people who believe the work that PETA does is not only important, but among the most humanitarian pursuits possible.

Your ignorance is apparent if you think there is anything wrong with supporting PETA. It is "Dumb Fuckers" like you who should be wiped from the planet.

I get lots of email from people who disagree with the things I write. Often times the biggest collection of anti-monkey hate mail comes after I post something about PETA, vegans, war, or dumbfuckers in general… you’d think with all the animals that need saving, PETA amd vegans would be too busy to exert the necessary energy required to change my view. Of course, most of these people are absolute crackpots who wear tinfoil hats to keep the government from listening to their thoughts. I digress.

What do I have against PETA (and by extension, vegans?), let me count the ways…

1. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals targets six years olds for conversion to their cult with violent and graphic propaganda. In a world in which parenting coalitions sue record companies, motion picture companies, and book publishers for the graphic content of their products, the fact that no one has yet sued the tofu underwear off of these fucking tree hugging hippies defies logic.

2. PETA promotes a vegan lifestyle as yet another way of protecting the animals who so frequently find themselves on our menus. The vegetarians of Southern India eat a low-calorie diet very high in carbohydrates and low in protein and fat. They have the shortest life span of any society on Earth, and their bodies have an extremely low muscle mass. They are weak and frail and the children clearly exhibit a failure to thrive. Besides, I’ve kicked the living shit out of a number of vegans and have yet to suffer even a torn hangnail as a result; proving that a vegetarian lifestyle is dangerous to your health.

3. PETA is a business. It makes much more money than it spends, which is counter to the idea of how a non-profit operates… It made $29 million through donations from idiots like the one who emailed me. The ads they create, the celebrity endorsements they receive, the magazine space they take out, the air time for their commercials is also donated… where does all that money go? Either the only thing they pay for is the hookers, heroin, and midget wrestlers for their wild parties, or someone is drawing a rather hefty salary.

4. But lets say that the money is used to further the cause, does that include protecting arsonists, eco terrorists, and common thugs from prosecution? PETA pays for the legal defense of the jackasses who get caught firebombing laboratories, releasing domesticated animals into the wild, and throwing paint on unsuspecting fur wearers.

To be clear, I think anyone who abuses animals for gratification is a fucking nutter. But I think anyone who eats animals is just doing what mother nature intended. As far as the poor living conditions of animals as they wend their way through the rending factories, it is one of the drawbacks of living in a world in which food must be "manufactured" on a large scale to support the society. So, theoretically, if you want to save a cow from becoming a happy meal, stop fucking. The only way to rid our planet of factory farms is by preventing population growth. Who wants to shag a skinny fucker anyway?

It goes against the very design of the human body to avoid eating meat. PETA uses celebrity spokesmorons and propaganda to force others into following their chosen lifestyle. I see nothing different between muslim extremists and PETA… they both use violence to force adherence to their ideals. I don’t mind if you choose to live by an irrational collection of rules so long as you don’t try to force me to believe the same fairytales you base your existence on.

And as a public service to anyone who wishes to disagree with me, make sure you don’t send me an email from your work account. I can make your momentary lapse of muscular coordination incredibly painful for you and your IT people.

NOTE: Date edited. As pea pointed out, the date’s didn’t jibe, but that is my fault. The original message was sent to my AOL email addy (calsnoboarder) and I just faked the header by copying and pasting from another email. Oooh, that pea… always one step ahead of me.