Lothario's Lounge

"Oh time I can't remember
Some things that I still regret
But when I do I think of you
And wish I could forget

Then we danced to David Bowie
On the streets outside your door
Do you still feel that I'm in love with you
'cause I just don't feel it anymore."

- "2day 2morrow 4ever"
  Scruffy the Cat


A syrupy mist cloaked the rural road and I needed to pull over. We're talking a thick, pea-soup fog, the kind clinging like a shroud and obscuring everything in your view. Though the dense fog I saw a flickering light, so I drove toward it, hoping I didn't hit a cow or wandering hobo or something out in this godforsaken wilderness.

 The light blinked faintly, and as I drove closer, it turned out to be a neon sign. "Lothario's Lounge" is read, in a curvy, Art-Deco font, over the portico of a Spanish hacienda-style building with clay tiles and stucco walls. I parked the car and, mustering all of the trepidation I could, walked inside, heaving open a heavy oaken door.

 A foul, sweet-smelling air hit me as I entered, a mingling of perfume, cigarettes and stale alcohol. Every typical bar smell in the Western world.

 Adjusting my eyes to the dim light, I saw a long pebbled marble-topped bar which swept across one wall and a cluster of tables and chairs. Framed oil paintings of nudes hung on the walls, depicting women with alabaster skin and opal eyes lounging on red velvet pillows or seductively holding golden goblets. I don't know much about art, but I know what I like, even if the art in question resembles something one purchases in a flea market in Fresno.

 A Rock-Ola jukebox stood in one corner, playing smooth jazz. Charlie Parker? Thelonious Monk? Miles Davis? Yeah, maybe Miles Fucking Davis.

 Feeling unnaturally relaxed, I sat at the bar and made eye contact with the bartender, a dead ringer for my first high school girlfriend, Rachel, only two decades older. Her black hair has streaks of gray and she appears a tad heavier, with tired dark circles under her eyes.

 “What’ll ya have?” she asks, flipping a coaster in front of me and wiping down the bar with a shammy.

I must’ve done a double-take, but laughed immediately it off, which probably made me look like some raving idiot.

 “Sorry, but for a moment I thought you were… Never mind,” I said. “You look like somebody I know. Used to know.”

 “Really? Who?”

 “My high school girlfriend,” I said.

 A wry smile broke across her face. “It’s me,” she said. “It’s Rachel.”

 I had that kind of awkward, pleased look one gets when someone’s thrown them a surprise party but all of the wrong guests were invited.

 “Rachel? What are you doing here? I mean, you’re working, obviously. How long have you been delving into the mysteries of mixology?”

 “I own the bar. I haven’t been working here long. Let’s just say it’s a recent acquisition,” she said and poured a draft beer for me, the head tumbling slowly past the rim of an old-fashioned beer mug and spilling on the bar.

 I took a few sips of beer as she wiped the counter. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned to see another ex-high school girlfriend, Lisa. Slender and sleek, with long, chestnut hair and brown eyes. She wore jeans and a T-shirt with a number “2” on it.

 “If you think seeing Rachel was a surprise, remember me?” Lisa said, pursing her lips. She always had this expression that she was eating a bitter persimmon.

 “Lisa! What do you know? Two of my ex-girlfriends in one place. Is this a reunion or something?” I stammered, trying hard not to be weirded out by improbability. Rachel removed her apron and saw she wore a black T-shirt with a “1” on it.

 As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I saw the bar was filled with patrons, all women I dated at various times in my life. There was Carolyn and Karen from college, Veronica, who I met in a bar, Leslie and Christine who I shared two interesting summers with, Bridgette and Annie shared cigarettes and wine, while Leah and Sue were deep in conversation. Another Lisa hovered by the jukebox, eyeing the selections while Jennifer downed another beer. Each of the women wore T-shirts with various numbers on them, each number corresponding to the exact order I dated them.

 This must be the Penthouse Forum version of the Twilight Zone, where up is down, black is white and all of the women you fucked congregate at the same bar. I actually didn’t mind the casual atmosphere and watching women I knew in the Biblical sense share Mojitos, Appletinis and a few laughs, but for some on them, it seemed awkward. I hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms with some of them.

A real fear of residual female anger still lurked, bubbling beneath the surface, and led me to concoct all kinds of wild scenarios. These women might have formed a murder club, where they rub out each of their ex-boyfriends who wronged them. Did Rachel put strychnine in my beer? Didn’t one of the Lisas know Taekwondo, or was it kickboxing?

 What in Goddesses’ name was happening?

 “So glad you could drop by,” Rachel said. “We wanted a chat with you.”

 Just then, all of the women stopped their talking and stared at me, as if someone controlling the Stepford Wives pushed the right button. It gave me the chills to see a room filled with quiet women staring in unison. That’s usually trouble.

“Look, you broke my heart,” I said to Rachel. “I have the note you gave me telling me you just wanted to be friends.”

 “That was over 20 years ago,” she countered. “Plus, I did just want to be friends. I didn’t want to get serious.”

 “We just wanted to tell you that you disappointed us,” Karen said, brushing her raven bangs from her face.

 “Coming from you, that cuts to the fucking bone,” I said. “I could never be what you wanted me to be. We shared this intensely beautiful thing and it was never enough. You wanted me to change. Wanted me to move in with you.”

 “True, the fucking like crazed weasles part was fun, but you just needed to grow up,” she said.

 Leslie slinked toward me like a mischievous cat about to swallow a goldfish. She took a drag on her cigarette and blew smoke in my face. I coughed and sputtered for breath.

 “Remember how we left it?” she asked. “At a Halloween party. You broke up with me. I was the sexy pirate princess and you were Indiana Jones. Said I was too young for you. Said it wouldn’t work out.”

“I was 38, you were 24. Besides, breaking up with a girl when you’re dressed as Indy is just so damn cool. I had to do it then.”

 “Fuck off,” she hissed. Bad kitty.

 “Okay, I get what’s going on here. The public flogging. You want an apology. Fine. I’m sorry I’m such an awful, insensitive person when it comes to women,” I said. “Seriously, you ladies were great. All of you. Even you, Veronica, who I only knew from that blowjob in the parking lot that one time. Don’t exactly know why you’re here, but thanks for showing up. I enjoyed my time with all of you. At one point I loved all of you, some more intensely than others. But however brief it was, know this: each one of you touched my heart and made me happy. There were bouts of misery and depression that went with it, but for the most part, it was great knowing you all. Even you, Veronica.”

Bridgette began a slow clap, one of the most obnoxious things you could do after such a heartfelt speech. Redheads are temperamental and a bit psycho.

 “Bullshit. You’re just a little boy trapped in a man’s body. You haven’t learned anything about love,” Bridgette said.

 “I haven’t learned anything about love? The human vacuum cleaner over here is taking the high road? Honey, you were a locust when it came to relationships. You stripped anything good from it, feasted on everything I had to give and left me with nothing. Granted, the sex was hot, I’ll give you that,” I said.
“But you’re just a piranha in high heels.”

 “I gave my ass cherry to you!” one of the women shouted.

 “We’re not getting into that right now,” I countered.

 “You fucking stopped talking to me and I want to know why?” Christine said. “Why do you hate me?”

 “Believe me, I don’t hate you,” I said.

 “Then why did you not call me or talk to me anymore? You just dropped me from your life?” she asked, fuming.

 “I don’t have an answer for that,” I began, then relented. “It wasn’t working out and I didn’t want to try making it work. Sorry. Dropped the ball on that one.”

 “You could’ve told me you wanted out,” Christine said. “I would’ve understood.”

 “I wasn’t good enough for you! That’s why you dumped me!” Carolyn said through clenched teeth.

“Look, you already graduated college and we were both moving on in different directions,” I said. “I didn’t want to tie you down.”

 “But that was the best part of the relationship! When you tied me down!” she said.

 “He put handcuffs on me,” Bridgette said.

 “Yeah, I received the cuff treatment, too,” Annie said. “Predictable.”

 “The sex was very methodical, too. He lured you in with cunnilingus, but expected you to do everything else,” Sue said.

 “Yeah, he’s really good at eating pussy,” Leslie said.

“True, I do enjoy noshing on the whisker biscuit,” I replied.

 “When you remembers to,” Karen said. “For all the bullshit you gave me, you do have a magnificent cock.” The women nodded in agreement.

 “While flattered I am that all my former paramours are comparing notes, it’s kind of embarrassing, even for a decadent bastard like me,” I said.

 “Did he do anything with your feet?’ the second Lisa asked. “He has this thing for feet.”

 “Okay, that’s enough,” I said. “Don’t know how this bizarre nightmare started, but it ends now. If this is some kind of Ebenezer Scrooge-like eleventh hour conversion where I’m haunted by the misandrous carping of my girlfriends past, it worked. Sorry. I’m governed by my hormones and all of you charming ladies made my pee-pee feel funny. Satisfied?”

 “Not even close,” said Amy, a short brunette who folded her arms and pouted.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Karen said, her inflection spoke volumes of disappointment. “You could be so much better than you allow yourself to be. You hold yourself back.”

 “Is this one of your tirades against me moving to New York and clawing my way through the abattoir of failed writers, slowly butchered in a masochistic parade of self-loathing and delusion?” I asked.

 “It ain’t about that,” said Joanne, a woman I met during a one-night romp at a house party during my beer-soaked college days. “We didn’t lure you here.”

“Then what is this place? Why are all of you here?” I asked.

 “You conjured us up,” Rachel said, polishing a beer glass with a rag. “You brought us here. If this is a nightmare, you designed it. You reunited us all in one place.”

 Why would I assemble my ex-girlfriends and lovers in one place and have them harangue me about the past? What was my psyche telling me about women, life and relationships? I slumped at the bar and Rachel slid a shot of amber liquid in my direction. Strong and medicinal, the Scotch slid down smooth and burned my esophagus.

“So the reveal is I’m tormenting myself,” I said. “I do need a shrink.”

 “According to you, we’re all damaged,” Darlene said, her Texas drawl a welcome change from the majority of northeastern accents.

 “Wow. Bitches be crazy,” I uttered, and looked around the bar, at all of the women I loved and hurt, and realized how fleeting out time was. We connected briefly, existing in a hazy cloud of sex and laughter, of mutual understanding and passion, randomly thrown together for an instant. Lingering bitterness, betrayal and hurt slowly fade with time, but time really doesn’t let go. Memories still linger, just under the surface, and we’re reminded of our relationships, of those special, priceless moments nobody can take away.

 “So?” Lisa Number One asked. “Why did you bring us here?”

 “I’m moving on,” I said. “Got to kick the dust from under my boots and skedaddle into the sunset. I have a girlfriend. It’s kinda serious. Love of my life stuff. Epic passion and romance. Just wanted to whet my whistle at this gynofest before heading out.”

 “Making peace with the past? Cathartic, New Agey bullshit,” Jennifer said.

 “Clear your conscience? Clean break with the skeletons in your closet?” Carolyn teased.

 “Believe me, if I did have any skeletons in my closet they wouldn’t look like you. They’d be more fuckable,” I said.

 Bridgette chuckled to herself with disdain. “You’re an asshole. A selfish, obsessed asshole. I’ve met chauvinists before, and you could be their king.”

“I am how God made me,” I said, and slid off the barstool. The room grew eerily silent as the music in the jukebox stopped. “I’m not saying that I’m a perfect loving machine. Though, sometimes in my younger days I fucked like Ron Jeremy and joked like George Carlin. I will give you that. High school and college squeezed all of the innocence from me and my 20s were complete crap, shuffling from one nightclub and bar to another. As for my 30s, the less I say about that, the better. Point is, you made me feel loved and special and I had fun. Thanks for the blowjobs. But now I’m in the healthiest relationship I’ve had since – ever – and I want to see how it pans out.”

 “Well, congratulations,” Leslie said dryly, taking another drag on her cigarette. “I survived a marriage, divorce, emotional pain and scarring,” I said. “I deserve some modicum of happiness before I push up daisies and shuffle off this mortal coil. Enough of the bitchcraft, ladies. I only wanted to tell you what you meant to be and how great the shtupping was.”

 “So you’re really happy? This girlfriend of yours, she’s the real deal?” Karen asked.

 “Yeah, poppet. She’s the one.” I said. “She’s my little pineapple Asian persuasion.”

 “I’m glad,” she said with a smile, which revealed forgiveness and sincerity.

 “You’re still an asshole,” Bridgette said, raising her glass, a gesture which all of the women imitated. 

“A toast,” I said, hoisting another whiskey above my head. “To us. Thanks for the laughs, the good times and the orgasms.”

 We all drank, and as I left Lothario’s Roost, it dawned on me with clarity how fortunate I am to have known such amazingly damaged and fragile women, who loved me during my equally damaged and fragile life. They were my past girlfriends, but more than that, they loved me when precious few did. They were my high school crushes, my college hook-ups, my one-night stand fuck puppets. They were my lovers, and girlfriends and confidants. Special people, all of them, regardless of how brief and fleeting our dalliances were. They taught me about women, dreams and life.

 They temporarily cured my loneliness. For that, I am grateful.

Bread and Circuses

I'm typing this entry on my new iPad my editor purchased for me, which is intended to be used for my job. The plan is to use it at meetings and events, where I'll type notes, take photos and upload said information to the Internet, which is where everybody apparently winds up. The Internet is like Vegas: all glitz, glamor and sex delivered at hyper-speeds but with no remorse and you end up poorer after visiting.

So the idea is to link the weekly newspaper, already a dying dinosaur, to the Internet and bring our readers the latest information all lightening fast and beamed into their computers, smart phones and tablets.

Because we're living in the 21st Century where waiting is not an option, patience is outmoded and the Protestant work ethic can go suck it.

Not that I'm ungrateful or anything. I dig the shit out of the groovy iPad. Been playing a lot of Fruit Ninja. Downloading plenty of apps. Kicking butt with the super crystal clear touchscreen.

So I appreciate the iPad. I just hate the terms it was given to me. I loathe change, primarily because I've been a resident of a culturally and socially retarded county where change and progressive thinking are anathema. I dislike what this place has done to me. It's turned me into an intellectually-lazy dolt burdened by negative reactionary thinking. While it's great going to the county Republican convention and having nearly everybody shake my hand and greet me because I know practically everyone in the room, it leaves me dead inside. I really don't have any feelings about any one of those cardigan-wearing puppets.

They like me because I haven't told the truth about them. Because I'm fair and balanced and all the other jargony bullshit you're supposed to be as a reporter.

You're supposed to be an objective robot spewing words and facts sans opinion. I've worn this disguise like a master for the last two decades.

Yet when I go home, I want to punch a wall or join a fight club and beat someone up or scream at the top of my lungs like a primal warlord about to charge into battle, halberd raised, loins girded and chain mail stained with blood.

Let slip the dogs of war!

The life I chose for myself has been war, and it's kicking my ass. Here's how I'm going to turn the tide of the battle and win the war. Here's how I'm going to climb through the mound of severed limbs and shattered skulls and raped torsos to claim my sanity and triumph like the warrior prince I am.

I'm going to be totally and completely honest.

Not just on this silly little blog, which is like masturbation with words. Blogs are diddling behind the woodshed, except everyone can see you.

No, I plan to be honest with everything. Bitterly honest. The kind of honesty that ruins friendships and causes strangers to come swinging like drunken ninjas. Honesty will be my savior, my Jesus in a Porsche blazing a trail of righteous chaos.

So it's time for me to be honest about a few things on this little bloggy-woggy.

Here goes:

1. I'd like to do more investigative reporting. Deeply-researched, well-written reporting which moves mountains, causes the angels to weep and forces mass defenestration of corrupt government officials. The readers need this kind of reporting. They need to hear something than a fluff piece on how great the real estate market is doing.

2. I hate how the advertising department is treated better than editorial. We're the parasites and the sales representatives are revered and idolized. I'm told editorial doesn't contribute any revenue for the paper. We only drain costs. Great working at a job where one is regarded as human sponges, taking up space and costing the company without contributing anything. Sorry, but without reporters you have no articles, the main reason people buy the newspaper. I get how advertising is part of the circle, bringing in revenue for the paper. But tolerating the inner-office pissing contests is frustrating beyond measure.

3. The city is run by idiots. Seriously. It's like a high school clique of jocks and cheerleaders with major insecurities not wanting to relinquish control for even a nanosecond. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but they bring this on themselves. Maybe they don't realize they're so reactionary. Flashing their Cheshire cat grins, they welcome tourists to their community, touting its virtues as a Christian retreat, while sniping in the background at each other. This pisses me off most of all. The pettiness and phoniness. The fear each one of them has for innovation and taking risks, of letting go and undertaking the untried. Again, the feeling that if something has always been done a certain way, change is unnecessary. Maybe the reason nothing ever changes is because the same control freaks are in power, an inner circle of dunderheads and sunshine Christians who revere God on Sunday and blaspheme the rest of the week.

4. My coworkers treat me like shit. I'm tired of twenty-something hipster snark and being referred to pejoratively as an "old man". You're 26. Wonderful. Now act like it, not like a spiteful teen riddled with rootless anger. I have something to be angry about, not you.

5. If the city wants to build a shitty modular home with bathrooms, let the people know about it. The welcome center/bathroom project is a mega-clusterfuck. People should communicate with each other, not dwell in their own little cliques (see point 3 above). Egos should be set aside for the greater good. Since selfishness and petty squabbling win out, everybody save a few privileged power players loses. Communicate, people. Be honest. Abandon your backwards thinking and embrace the future. Or alternatively, you could construct a shitty modular bathrooms and appease the business community who are tired of opening their restrooms to incontinent tourists.

If you've read this far, you're probably screaming at your monitor, "Hey, asshole! If you hate your job, the competition and people you work with, then just quit!"

Would if I could, little monkey.

I've got bills to pay. A lavish lifestyle to lead. Maybe a precocious offspring in the future. This might be a rusty locomotive, spewing soot and smoke and chugging along, but for now, it's my gravy train and I'm riding the motherfucker all the way down the line.

See, I've had an epiphany. A revelation, if you will. Life is a wonderful adventure, compacted into a relatively short span of time. You don't get a shiny reset button. You live the thing once and all goes black. Game over. I want my life to matter. I don't want to be one of these sorry gin-soaked, bloated losers who sit at a bar for decades lamenting on their glory days and what they would've been. I'm a kick ass journalist. I have the plaques and accolades to prove it. Yet, according to my girlfriend, I'm "in a rut" professionally.

The rut is borne by fear and uncertainty, which has led to stress and resentment. Fear because I realize I've wasted my time and talents in a crappy resort town where mediocrity holds sway. Uncertainty because I don't know if my best days as a writer are ahead of me, or I'm glimpsing them through a rear view mirror.

Either way, this has been a cathartic post.

Why I Write

Why do I write this blog? What makes me type my thoughts and publish them on a server, where potentially millions could read them? I guess it's the only way I can share my inner thoughts with people in this crazy 21st Century. Everything is lightening fast, instantaneous gratification, and simplistic. Technology is outpacing our feeble little monkey brains at an alarming rate.
Yet we struggle to keep up with the latest trends because not to would make us dinosaurs sending emails.

Remember emails? They're ancient history.

I grew up with a Commodore 64. I loved that little breadbox powerhouse. Programmed my first text-based adventure game on it in 1985. Then came the IBM clones, Windows 95, Mosaic, CompuServe, Explorer, Safari, iMac, iPod and now cloud computing.

Cloud computing sounds like something angels do. I bet they have wicked fast high speed connections in Heaven. Like, it'll take a nanosecond to download the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy director's cut.

Thing is, I've been feeling down lately. Bad news travels fast, and often it brings company. Two people, an acquaintance's wife and a former co-worker died, and a friend and fraternity brother from college suffered a stroke.

Adding to this chaos, I had blood work done this morning and I haven't been feeling right lately. I chalk this up to the stress at work and hearing all of this bad news at once.

So now the waiting game begins, when I anticipate the doctor to call with the lab results.

Life is complicated as you grow older. It's a mental and physical juggling act, where you're trying to stay alive, trying to swat the Grim Reaper with a stick.

You wake up every morning and think your life is limitless, think you're going to take that long-awaited vacation to Shanghai, or climb Mount Kilimanjaro or publish your novel collecting dust on your desk. Then you get hit by a bus on the way to the travel agent's.

So I'm ruminating on my life, deeply pondering my course of action over the last few decades and what life has bestowed upon me and what it's taken away. I surmise my writing is never going to bring me any long standing wealth or accolades. I'm never going to be that award-winning, best-selling novelist I've wanted to be since my youth. Truth be told, I'm just not any good. I'm a mediocre hack scribbling down nonsense while making a Herculean effort to stay relevant and fresh. I lack the pop and zing novelists today have.

I thought journalism would make me a better writer, would give me perspective and allow me to finely hone my craft. Turns out journalism made me a jaded dullard, a sycophant to the System, and the System is the unshakable status quo. Journalism seems to be a pessimistic conformity factory where the truth and objectivity are drowned out by the public's perception that you care not a whit for truth or objectivity. One need only examine the message boards of any Yahoo News story to see the bile and froth and discouraging rants from the hoi polloi, who, in addition to poor grammar and syntax, have absolutely no idea what journalists do. I can only conclude the average Yahoo News reader is a racist, homophobic redneck anticipating Armageddon, or a hippie, seated on a beanbag chair, sucking on a bong shaped like Che Guevara's head.

As a reporter in a strongly Republican county, I felt I had to persuade others I wasn't a New York liberal with a sinister anti-American agenda. I retained the valuable lessons learned in college journalism classes. I remained objective. I gave everyone I talked to a fair shake. I captured all views and all angles of the story and, using my trusty tape recorder, reproduced their quotes accurately.

I've worked as a professional reporter for close to 20 years in Cape May County, covering everything from political meetings, to elections to a story about a lost pet pig. Serious or silly, I've written about it. Some days, it's fun. Other days, it's a grind. Yet if you remain professional and try to give people a fair shake, you get a good reputation. A few times people in high ranking positions complemented me on my work, yet I was too modest to put any credence in it. After all, blowing smoke up the asses of the lowly is a well-honed skill. There is, however, something to be said for objectivity. When you report objectively, when you just report the facts, people notice you don't have a sinister agenda. I've had both rock solid Republicans and dyed-in-the-wool Democrats commend me on my reporting. When your reporting is commended by a police chief and a former 1960s activist, you appeal to everyone.

I'm surprised at the reception I get, and who reads my stories. There are many others who are critics, who catch your mistakes and lament over what you missed. When I first started this reporting racket (and yeah, it's a racket), I beat myself up over the shoddy proofreading and written blunders preserved forever in black and white, which only make me look like an idiot.

Want to talk about stress? I'd like to change jobs with an air traffic controller because I'd like to relax. The competition is fast and fierce and marry that with the Internet, with its instant updates, news-on-the-second and 24/7 coverage which drives sane people to slit their throats with straight razors rather than endure another five minutes listening to Anderson Cooper, Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow.

What used to be an intellectual, leisurely pursuit of getting the facts, gathering information, and crafting your story has become an immense vat of diarrhea soup sloshing around where information is immediately put down and thrown out the door faster than a masturbating hobo who wandered into the lobby of the Four Seasons.

But despite this clusterfuck we call the Digital Age, I don't weep for the future. Our primitive monkey brains will be conditioned to process this information faster. Maybe high-speed journalism is the rubric of 'the evolution of mass communication'. One thing we mustn't do is dumb it down. We must present the harsh, cruel facts for the jaded, easily-distracted monkey creatures we call our fellow humans. We must cut through the bullshit and not fear retribution from politicians, businesses or any nut with a gun and a Bible.

For the facts must be allowed to surface, no matter how embarrassing.

We are supposed to be journalists, the gatherers and presenters of facts. We're not spin doctors, propagandists, or pundits. Our stake in this republic is a well-educated and well-informed populace. The forces of greed, gorehounds, and partisans want to turn us into something grotesque and unsettling. They want the world to view us as if through a fun house mirror of hideous distortion and disfigurement. Yet we're better than that, I think.

We should strive to be better than that, even if it kills us. We should have passion in words, in the written form of communication, which has touched the human spirit for millennia. Videos can be manipulated, edited and used to brainwash viewers with subtle cues, music and vocal inflection. Writing is different. Writing is pure and true. To be a writer means to walk in the company of Shakespeare, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. It's putting complex thought and emotion into words and sending them through the ether, on the flapping wings of poetry, sailing through the ages to readers not yet born.

Love And Other Shit

Let me talk briefly of love.

I know, you're probably sighing to yourself, "Oh, God. Here we go again. Another bitter diatribe and self-loathing rant about how counterproductive love is and how yucky women are."

You couldn't be more wrong if you were Rick Santorum's campaign manager.

No, this is not one of my vitriolic screeds against the wondrous majesty that is love. Quite the opposite, actually.

See, I've been smitten, as the common parlance goes.

Head over freakin' heels in love.

Well, I found somebody I mutually tolerate, at least.

She's an old friend from college and we've been dating for well over a year.

For me, seeing someone for more than a fortnight is a record. This time, it's working out. I don't know how. By some miraculous stroke of luck, things with this woman haven't reached the "It's not you, but I'd like to see other people" stage.

For those playing at home, my track record with women is abysmal. In the battle of the sexes, I'm collateral damage. Rejection for me is an art form. More women have said no to me than they have the Fairmount Park Rapist. I get less action in bed than the Pope.

And yet, one ordinary day in July 2010, I check my Facebook page and see this woman has contacted me. We went out for coffee, had dinner and a little light cunilingus and - wham! - we're in a relationship.

Since then, we're gone on vacation, spent holidays together and fell into the daily routine of dating. For me, a habitual hermit, spending time with another human with no ulterior motives is refreshing. I've had my share of fairweather friends and shitty relationships and this one is different. It's based on kindness and love, instead of petty carping and spite.

This time, I got lucky. I found someone who loves me. Love is best when reciprocated, when you find that special woman who complements you and shares your interests and hobbies.

She also has a sense of humor, which to me is vitally important. The criteria for any possible female companion is intelligence, sense of humor, kindness, and almost acrobatic-like sexual skills. However, my girlfriend changes the paradigm and kindness goes before intelligence and sense of humor on the list. She might not be a Rhodes Scholar, but if I wanted to fuck someone super intelligent, I would date Stephen Hawking.

She has a wonderful sense of humor and is self-depreciating, like me. She's short, she's from the Philippines and she has tits that would make Dolly Patron envious. She's one of these romantics who believes in true love and destiny. She calls me her soul mate and expresses her interest in unicorns and super hero movies. She also plays video games and card games with me.

I know, she sounds like she's 12, but she's not. I checked.

Unlike the parade of psychopaths I'm used to dating, this chick isn't trying to change me or is overtly critical of everything I do or say and doesn't want to recreate me into something I'm not.

Oh, don't get me wrong. She's as batshit crazy as every other female on the planet. Yet it's a kind of crazy I find familiar, one I can slip on like a comfortable jacket.

So I'm in love.

Tra-la-la-la-la.

Just don't expect me to serenade her with any original love poetry.

It's not that I've lost my Muse or poetic spirit. It's that I'm pretty sure she's illiterate.

No matter.

I'm fucking in love!

My Comedy Fu is Strong

The power of laughter is like an aphrodisiac, a mighty rush of adrenaline coursing through your veins, titillating you t orgasmic heights beyond comprehension.

At least that's what I think it should be.

Idealized comedy, making you laugh till you wet yourself.

Back in 2006, I attended a comedy class taught by professional standup comedians who taught us the necessities of performing comedy. The secret tricks of the trade involved preparation, practice and executing material. Timing. Writing jokes.

Punching things up so they're funny.

Good comedians aren't born, they're made with rigorous trial and error.

Face your demons by getting up on that stage and belting out an airtight set of pure comic bliss for five minutes and you're golden.

I stumbled, fell, got back up, dragged myself reluctantly back, driven by a need to do this. I secretly crave to craft a funny set, to bathe in laughter and applause.

Some nights I die.

Some nights I kill.

However stellar or shitty my set is for a particular gig, I haul my fat ass back into the spotlight.

My personal life three years ago was an utter trainwreck. I'd been slogging through a hellish divorce, had a stressful job which demanded attention and entered a series of unhealthy relationships.

I was a sad, battered monkey.

After a historic meltdown on stage, I regrouped, soldiered through life and things got better. My outlook improved. I began studying the greats by watching comedy specials and listening to comedy albums.

I began thinking like a comic; recording the bizarre shit that comes to me on my digital recorder or just tweeting it on Twitter. I go to live comedy shows and see how the professionals work the crowds.

My goal is to perform on a semi-regular basis, to keep my material fresh and funny and to make strangers forget their problems by laughing at mine.

Not in an evil, schadenfreude way, but one where the audience is thinking, "I'm glad I'm not that guy! Boy, I dodged a bullet there, didn't I, honey! At least I'm not him!"

I never would have persisted with comedy is it wasn't for my friend, Big Rick, a comedian whose persistence, heart and loyalty should be noted. One of my first gigs was at a bowling alley (yeah, go on and smirk). I couldn't connect with the audience or articulate anything because I was as nervous as an 11-year old boy in a shower room with Jerry Sandusky. After I got off stage, i went to sulk somewhere private, and Big Rick found me. He told me I was funny, and the audience were douchebags.

From that moment on, we've performed together on radio, on stage and online.

I'm not failing because he's got my back and I'd like to think I have his.

Comedians, no matter their level - expert or amateur - have to help each other.

We've got to see each other through this bizarre journey of laughter and pathos, joy and tears.

So many comics are battling their own private demons in silence, far away from the approbation of the audience.

They die alone in hotel rooms, alone in dark places, tormented by their own private hells.

I hate reading about comedians submitting to drugs and alcohol and burning out suddenly. We've got to support each other. We've got to muddle through somehow.

Comedy is pressure. It's stress. It's scribbling jokes like a madman and laughing hysterically to yourself in public. It's taking a tragedy and putting a sick twist on it, not to shock, but to make the tragedy more bearable. On stage, you're vulnerable, naked and alone, in front of the slavering wolves who want to devour your flesh.

The only way to stop this is to make those hungry wolves laugh their asses off.

Maybe those drawn to standup comedy are deranged misfits searching for their perfect set, thirsting for public approval.

We want to grab the part of your brains where humor is processed and stimulate the shit out of it.

We want - no - we need you to laugh.

We're botched and damaged and this is how we deal.

Are You There, God? It's Me, Eric

Are you there, God? It's me, Eric.

I know we haven't spoken in a long time, partly because I know you're very busy with governing the universe and I realize the only people who get to talk to you are prophets, televangelists and Republican presidential candidates.

First, thanks for the opposable thumbs. I know evolution was your idea to piss off the South. You truly do work in mysterious ways.

My reason for talking to you is simple.

I'm having a crisis of faith.

I'm finding it very difficult to reconcile mankind is good anymore, that our motives are pure and benevolent. Many horrid people with money and influence run the planet and are convincing the meek and humble that absolute power reigns supreme over kindness.

Personally, I don't agree. I think humanity needs to be kind.

Only by recognizing our own pettiness and prejudice can we fully embrace our destinies and forge a world for all, not just a few with their own private jets.

I know this sounds preachy, but you're probably used to hearing sermons all the time. You're probably used to hearing prayers and your words mangled from the mouths of the self-righteous and selfish.

Speaking of which, is this Tim Tebow guy serious?

What a showboating assclown! If he gets any more holier-than-thou, the church might canonize him.

I mean, he just threw a touchdown pass, not heal lepers or walk on water.

Sorry. I didn't mean to trash talk your kid. You know I admire your son's work. Loaves and fishes. The Beatitudes. Driving the money changers from the temple. Excellent stuff!

I guess the reason I'm writing you this is because my faith is shattered in the genuine goodness of humanity.

Take American politics. It's not about presenting an uplifting or workable vision for the betterment of Americans. From the speeches, the caustic barbs and the vicious mudslinging, American politics devolved into a gladiatorial bloodsport or nasty schoolyard fight.

Mankind has taken leave of the free will and common sense you gave them to produce a rabble of judgmental, superstitious, bickering obstructionists who care not a wit for compromise, but exist solely to trash the opposing party. They view the opposition not as individuals but as concepts, as vague stereotypes. It's easier to hate stereotypes instead of view them through a more realistic lens.

Our national dialog is clouded by dangerous rhetoric and idiotic rants best suited for drunken hobos wandering the bus station than political commentators.

"Obama is a socialist commie."

"Corporations are evil incarnate."

It's class warfare. Rich versus poor, haves versus have-nots.

The hypocrites are out in full force these days. Newt Gingrich lectures Bill Clinton on family values, yet asks for an open marriage so he could bang his mistress.

It isn't exactly honest when a politician wants to set a series of standards for themselves while holding everyone else (the peons) to a wholly different standard.

And Rick Santorum! Don't get me started on him!

I guess what I'm saying, God, is there's too much us versus them and not enough brotherly love. There's more greed instead of more generosity. There's more assholery instead of kindness.

I guess it's impossible for me to watch the cable news networks and not see a vapid parade of mental midgets blather on about Obama being the antichrist, or Mitt Romney being a Mormon with offshore bank accounts, or some heroin-addled celebrity in rehab.

We're better than this, I know we are.

I'm weary of rolling the Sisyphean boulder only to have it tumble backwards ad infinitum. We're in a real slump, here, God. A dearth of creativity or imagination. A cultural and social morass where ideas are mired by avarice and selfishness. We've become a distopian world where communications occur at the push of a button, where our cool dispassion and distance are detrimental to apathy. We live in a world where prejudice, bigotry and intolerance have conquered man's heart.

Yet despite these ridiculous and destructive things, we live in a wondrous age of technological and scientific progress. Yet coupled with the devolving social mores and etiquette, all of our e-mails and instant messages are hastily scribbled bits of ephemera and mental masturbation designed to validate our own political, cultural or religious differences.

Look, God, I know you're probably rushed. You've probably got a galaxy to create or a school bus filled with Ecuadoran children to topple into a river.

But I'd like to have some sign that things can get better for our country and world.

And if we're genuinely screwed and that Mayan apocalypse is going to happen in December anyway, I'd still like to know.

I want to buy my girlfriend something nice for the occasion.

The Day the Net Stood Still

Wikipedia goes dark.


Google censors its logo.


Reddit is down..


Wired redacts its content.

SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect IP Act, are two pieces of legislation designed to handle Internet piracy by making it easier for federal authorities to remove suspected pirated content from the Internet. The bills would make it difficult for sites operating outside of the United States to distribute copyrighted materials such as movies and music. Critics charge these bills go over and above what they were designed to do and impose a de facto censorship on copyrighted materials.

The bills would extend not only to torrent sites like The Pirate Bay, but to personal blogs (like this one). See, I use images cobbled from the Internet. These copyrighted photos were shot by someone else and intended for use elsewhere. Yet the amorphous, free-flowing structure of the Internet allows users (such as yours truly) to scoop up and use these images at my own folly, and thus post an image of President Obama blowing a wolverine or Christine O'Donnell sacrificing a goat.

Now I'm all for people, especially artistic hipster douchebag types, getting paid. One less hipster douchebag out on the street in a Guy Fawkes mask is a good thing.

Yet I can't abide by the way SOPA and PIPA were written, in such a heavy-handed fashion.

Under SOPA and PIPA, this blog would be censored. The federal nannies would swoop in, cut out the images that were copyrighted...without due process.

In protest, sites like Wikipedia, Google and Reddit have gone dark to raise awareness of SOPA and PIPA and the effect it would have on daily Internet use.

As long as the blackout doesn't effect BarelyLegalCumGuzzlers.com, my afternoon should be golden.