A Flame Among Coals

The overwhelming consensus is that Attention is the first Friday’s Child song people hear and love.
I love its infectious groove and hilarious message. Its author has known his good share of bad women and reimagines the emotional game of dodgeball in this piece. This song was written for every man who has ever lied beneath a female predator. It mocks every self-centered, cold-hearted, demanding, unreasonable, manipulative, sadistic bitch by singing her actual thoughts as if voiced from the very mouths of (hot) babes.
And don’t worry, ladies - I offer you my seat and perspective. This song is also for every woman who failed to spontaneously generate the affection to which a man decided he was entitled. You know the type - Rebecca’s famous rant makes sport of them.
If you can get through “You will suffer as I suffer and you’ll smile!” without breaking into dance, then you’re a stronger person than I am.

When I cease to entertain god and he finally gets around to shuffling me loose this mortal coil, one of my angry ex-boyfriends is going to don a Top Secret Ninja Bunny Spy Mask (”control-top black pantyhose”) and serenade me with this song while he chases me with my own big yellow axe. You watch.

I’ve been driving my friends and readers a little crazy, lately. I apologize for writing so much and saying so little these past few weeks. Going forward, I will restrict my posts to the standard of prose you know and love.

The experience of life is driven by love, lust, loss, and laughter. We love so deeply that the experience is greater than the vermillion doves caged within our ribs can withstand and they flutter as they suffocate under the crushing weight of emotion. The Icarian flight of lust takes man to a place reserved for ghosts and gods, before inevitable loss breaks his wings and he plummets into the flames of devastation and death of the soul. In all the moments between those experiences, in all the little things that compromise the great majority of our lives, there is laughter. Comedy is healing, a coping mechanism, a crutch, and the thing that makes us - scarred, beaten, angry, cynical bastards that we are, palatable to our fellow men.
Personally, three of my more memorable posts detail the following events: 1) a mountain fell on my house, 2) my marriage collapsed, and 3) my webhost obliterated nine years of data. You remember them as the following: 1) It Puts The Lotion On Its Skin Or Else It Gets The Flood Again, 2) Facehugging in the Crackhouse Swamp, and 3) Rhinoceros Cunts. Take away the comedy and all you have is tragedy. Not that I’m complaining - life is pain, but I’ve learned to love it and turn it into something beautiful. Man needs beauty in his life and blooms in its light like a flower in the sun.

I admire performing artists because they possess the unique artistic tool of projection. Utilizing it, they can flood an entire room with one emotion. Their power over a crowd is on par with a religious experience as the effect on the audience is one of spiritual elation. Performing artists convey the full range of emotion in a multifaceted sensual experience; their social impact is something I can only hope to match on the very best of my days.

I’m hanging up my whip for a while. I’m retiring from professional domination because I believe I’ve found a cause through which I can make a more profound contribution to the world. On every lonely, lovely stretching highway, in every dark, smoky, crowded bar, through every late-night private moment where we contemplate the secrets we kept and the promises we made, I take one thing with me. It binds my closest friends and I with songs of love, laughter, triumph, struggle, and loss. If I could only listen to one band for the rest of my life, I would choose Friday’s Child.

They’re local, they’re acoustic rock, they’re amazing, and I only learned of their existence when a friend dragged me to a show with the fervor usually reserved for zealots intent on saving the soul. Now, I know every word to every song. They are New Jersey’s best kept secret, which isn’t to say that they aren’t recognized in the music community, but the unrealized potential is as weighted as a thundercloud. The band is comprised of three successful musicians who have performed all over the world, but their fan base is like a cult following. I can only credit that to the notion that others discovered them as I did, by word of mouth from a friend. If that is the case, so help me god, I will be that voice.

They also founded Digital Cafe Tour (DCT), which is a by-independent-artists, for-independent-artists venue for performers to capture and distribute high-quality live concert videos. It’s the realization of the dream I’ve heard voiced by every artist - even you - you all wish and pray for an island, a sanctuary from the broken system where what is rare and beautiful is stomped out in favor of the same old soulless (but marketable) trash. All my life, online and offline, I have heard the same cry echoing into the silent night. Here it is, in full color and life, a digital Elysium at the end of the long, hard war for survival and remembrance.

I want you to know they exist. I want everyone to know they exist. All my flames, all that I am, possess, and perform, I give to this. They walk this earth, the summary dream of thousands of artists, realized in flesh, string, and the primal sound of drums. I give you Friday’s Child.

Rasputin’s disembodied penis, on display in the erotica museum in St. Petersburg, is eleven inches, flaccid. Whether it’s really Rasputin’s cock is the subject of inexhaustible debate. Rasputin or not, the base of that cock is wider than the arm of the girl ogling it. Wow.

It’s in a class all its own, but for the rest of us, there is the below chart:

For your continued amusement…
Jezebel’s 20 Famous Big Dicks. The article ends with a reference to Hung, a new (June) HBO special starring Thomas Jane as a male escort with a huge talent. I can’t wait.

Christian is moving here tomorrow.
If you asked “who?” then let us swear eternal friendship, for I was thinking the exact same thing.
I could never remember his name and called him Robert the English Teacher instead of Christian the Porn Czar. After all, Porn Czars never shop at Old Navy. He’s vanilla-trendy Justin Timberlake on steroids. Or was, until he got interesting.

Christian’s Shastastic Wager
A submissive approached me to be his mistress. He professed that he would do “anything” to please me. We all say “anything,” when “anything” includes a light spanking and some cybersex.
Amused, I mentioned this to Christian, who suggested that “anything” should include a 1-liter bottle of Diet Shasta, shaken, not stirred, and thrust someplace very uncomfortable.

* edit - Bluntly; I want a picture of you with a 1-liter bottle of Diet Shasta in your ass. Just the head is fine, you don’t have to swallow the bottle. If you ever wanted your own wind-up Sami, now’s the time. Boys only. Thank you.

Of course, there was a winner. Appropriately, it was the then-husband of Ms. I-Have-An-Orifice-For-That.

Anyway, he is moving here tomorrow. I want to feel excited but I find that emotional response is relative to context. It’s exciting when your old friend calls. It’s less exciting when you’re in the middle of having a baby. Know what I mean?

Three years from now, I’m going to be looking for this journal entry. I can’t believe I can’t find the entry about the time we broke into prison together and I have to write about the bottle in the asshole again. So this is my journal marker -
June 1, 2009.

I recently found myself tasked with sending faxes from my home computer - I needed a quick, easy, reliable, and inexpensive solution.

See FaxZero (http://faxzero.com)

FaxZero will send faxes from your computer for free.
They limit you to 2 faxes per day (3 pages each), sent with this cover page:

Optionally, you can send one fax (up to 15 pages) for $1.99 (payable via Paypal), which eliminates the ad and logo on the cover page. If you’re like me (rarely need to send faxes - but when you do, desperately need the fax to go through without being mistaken for spam), I would recommend shelling out the $1.99.

I used it this morning with success.
You type in your name and your email address, your recipient and their fax number. Then, it will ask you for a file (*.DOC, *.XLS, *.PDF, whatever). You upload the file and click send. It’ll send you an email when it goes through. Or you can be a psycho like me and continually click the “refresh” button on the confirmation page until it displays a “fax completed” confirmation.

Happy Bookmarking.

History: The local power company used my stored bank information to steal thousands from me and refused to give it back. I was advised to wait for the credit to dwindle down to zero. But if I moved, then I would surrender the credit. Since I will move in the near future, I’ve been fighting the power company for the balance.
Update: Today, as I wrote this entry, they promised me a full refund. I’m not counting my blessings until they are converted into dollars, but it looks like the sun may come out sometime early next week.

Thank you for the comments - they contained excellent advice for which I am very grateful. I hadn’t contacted anyone (e.g. Governor’s office, news) because I was providing PSE&G adequate time to refund me. Their failure would have substantiated my case.

Every day, I would call them. Every day, the story would change.
Representatives won’t provide you a full name or extension, so your contacts are “Bob” or “Smith” at the general “800″ number.
First, we spoke with “McGinn,” who offered to refund us the full sum, plus any bank fees incurred while they spammed my account. He provided a claim number and requested we mail our bank records to support the claim.
When I called for a status, I was told there was no “McGinn” with the company and that customer service doesn’t issue claim numbers (”so (they) have no idea what (I’m) talking about”).
I demanded to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor called me at 7:00pm and rudely threatened me, suggesting I made the whole thing up in an attempt to defraud public service. He refused to bring up my account and hung up on me.
The next day, I started anew with “Renee.” When she checked the status of my account, she said they were cutting a check for a partial sum, a settlement I “had agreed to accept.”
I told her I’d made no such agreement and started the whole complaint-submission process over again.
This time, I faxed my bank records. She never received the fax (which went through), so when I re-faxed them (to the same number), I made her stay on the phone with me while she retrieved them from the machine.
I didn’t want to treat her like a child; I appreciate that they’re busy and the public service company apparently only has one fax machine, but those are my personal bank records and I’d rather they don’t get lost. Plus, if I have to submit them in order to be reimbursed, I’d really like someone to pick them up so we can move ahead with the process.
Of course, if they’d splurge for email accounts like every other corporation, the fax issue would cease to exist and the company would greatly diminish the likelihood of compromising consumer privacy, which is apparently a real problem for them.
Renee told me that Customer Service had no authority to reimburse anyone, but she would submit the request to the Accounting department. She was very sympathetic and suggested I call back for a status in seven days.
I called back in five days and was told there is no Accounting department.
As you might expect by now, I was also told that there was no “Renee.”
So I started the process over again, with James. Fax. Call. Fax again.
When I called back, I was told, by Yolanda and Figerosa, that my problem was so common and widespread that customer service representatives had been given specific instructions not to discuss this particular issue with customers. Figerosa advised that I speak with a supervisor because they (and no one else) can authorize reimbursements.
“But Figerosa,” I complained, “I’ve spoken to three supervisors in two weeks, and all three said they couldn’t authorize anything.”
“Then ask to speak to their supervisor,” he advised.
“They have a supervisor?” I asked.
“Yes, and that supervisor has a supervisor. They’re all right here in this building.” he said.
Interestingly, according to the site I found this morning, they don’t. It goes:
“representative - supervisor - corporate.”
But I’m sure they were saving that for the next call.

I’m exhausted. This brief description only scratches the surface of the experience. I’ve called them twice daily for a month. Every day they give me some new runaround. If I wasn’t able to multi-task or remain at a desk for the 30 minutes of hold time per conversation, I would be truly inconvenienced.
Oh wait - I incurred additional charges moving money around just so I could pay the rest of my bills on time. I am truly inconvenienced.

This morning, I googled “PSE&G stole money,” which directed me here, which redirected me here, to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.

To cut just a snippet from their FAQ:

Q. What is regulated by the BPU?
A. The BPU regulates over electric, gas, water, telecommunication, and cable in the state of New Jersey. The BPU gas a statutory mandate to ensure safe, adequate and proper utility services at reasonable rates for customers in New Jersey.

While completing their complaint form, I called PSE&G one last time. I get free nights and weekends and had nothing better to do than listen to hold music while I described PSE&G’s process of stealing from consumers. Also, an “I just called them again and here is the status” would be a nice conclusion to my complaint. I didn’t talk to them once three weeks ago - I am calling them every day, even right now, and they still won’t work with me.
I’m not an unreasonable firestarter - I’m a victimized consumer looking for justice.

I call PSE&G.
The girl gives me an attitude, reprimanding me for neglecting to pick up the phone either time they called yesterday. No, no, I correct her, I called them twice yesterday. They never call me. I’m not being catty - if they had called me, it would have been an attempt to service my account. Yesterday, when I called, Yolanda and Figerosa told me they weren’t authorized to discuss my account and promptly hung up on me.
We confirm my phone number, she says they called, I offer to pull my phone records, she asks if she can put me on hold while she finds the supervisor “who called me.” “Sure,” I answer. She’s still insulting me, but if I can get a chat with a supervisor out of this deal, she can address me as Courtney Love if she wants.

Astonishingly, a supervisor takes the call. I summarize the problem. He tells me they’ll cut a check tomorrow and I should have it by Tuesday. Also, they’ll credit my account any fees incurred in this nonsense. He apologizes on behalf of the company for any inconvenience caused by their ineptitude.

I stop typing my complaint to the Board.
I have so many questions, but progress feels as fragile as a stack of cards, so I politely thank him and hang up the phone.
Common sense - if you have a problem for more than 30 days and someone offers to fix it in less than 30 seconds, they are almost always lying or ignorant.
Or maybe there are people like us in every institution. I don’t know.

In these situations, I think back to my first job, when I worked in Universal Studios. Within my first few days, I was approached by an irate tourist…and I felt really bad for the guy. I know what it’s like to be lost and alone in an unfamiliar place. I spent about twenty minutes with him, to be certain he was okay. The “tourist” turned out to be my new boss in disguise. He was testing the “real” personalities of his employees. The moral of the story is that you should never trust your boss, but the point of the story is that as we exist, so are there people out there like us. Maybe this guy is the one beacon in this particular industry. I’m sure some of you hold that position, wherever you are.

World may be full of bad ideas, but it’s still got a lot of good people.

So, I keep my fingers crossed and look forward to the challenges of tomorrow.

I like you because you’re eccentric, witty, and hilarious. I keep the picture of you making out with the gay mannequin in a silver frame on my desk.
I love you for the sunrises and the rubber ducks. I love you for the way you hold on to all my secret little pieces.
Thank you, for the pleasure of your friendship and for the joy in feeling loved.
And for the duck. All these years and you remember that I collect little rubber ducks.

Sometimes you just want to feel the warm light of inspiration.
Sometimes all the mechanics are in place and the damn thing just doesn’t spark (most frequently due to the distraction of an even more brilliant light). I am losing what would be a great story to bad timing. Years of longing for unreachable grapes, only to receive them now…but I feel nothing.

Rosaline, Rosaline, wherefore art thou Rosaline?
I need a muse, not for ever, but for tonight.

Some people, you want every day of your life. It’s a mockery of real passion to equate that experience to the popular fleeting impersonation of love. Maybe I just live my life with the sensual volume turned up but, in my opinion, if it’s not bordering on obsession, it’s just not worth bleaching your asshole. I recognize that most straight-edge people don’t share that sentiment and that I’m removing myself as a potential friend in those circles…and I’m okay with that. Sadly, it seems they’re not okay with it, and they talk to me like I’m supposed to be impressed by their tiny, limp, shriveled little monkey hearts.
That’s like someone approaching you in a bar and asking if they can buy you a non-alcoholic drink, because they don’t have the stomach for anything stronger than that.
You’d say “no,” right? Followed by some expletive-riddled sentence about the absurdity of the proposal?
Yeah, of course you would. Anybody would. Maybe when we become the majority (and we will), there will finally be an end to this ridiculous social phenomenon.
Sheep hunting the wolves. What has the world come to?

I’ve carried a grudge against Denis Leary since he was accused of stealing material from Bill Hicks (Exhibit A, B, and C). To all Bill Hicks fans, Denis was blacklisted for life.

I feel silly in treating plagiarism as a grievous crime. Despite my protests, people constantly borrow liberally from me. I accept it as a consequence of fame, however slight that fame may be. It sucks, but it happens. If no one has ever stolen one of your brainchildren and left you in the desert to die, then you’ve never created anything of value. People are horrible creatures.
I wasn’t going to mention this, except that it’s topical - it’s possible that a particular someone palmed my engagement ring and wedding band. What I really need on my plate right now is a lawsuit and the unlawful realization of justice. Just another day dealing with the scum of the world.
If you are (or appear) poor, no one will sp’ange you (an abbreviation of “spare change” meaning “panhandle”). But if you have something worth stealing…well, you’re fair game. Then, you have to constantly defend and protect yourself, like we’re all little countries killing each other over a few square miles. So fucking stupid.
Same applies to artists. It’s unfortunate, but people are generally self-serving fucks.
And if everybody steals, then it seems silly to hate one comedian for something that happened fifteen years ago. Fuck, I can spend that energy hating my power company for stealing eight grand from me this just this past month. There are only so many hours in the day, after all. Got to budget that animosity.

But I digress. Michael started watching Rescue Me earlier this week - god knows why. I’d never choose to watch that show…but once I overheard it, I felt compelled to watch it.

There are lots of New York and New Jersey shows, from CSI to House, but those pretentious hour-long commercials reek of Hollywood asscandy.
I’m not suggesting that you’re a bad person for being entertained by these shows. I’m saying they’re no more “New York Metro” than Grey’s Anatomy or Heroes. Competitive shows, like Scrubs, have no determined location. Adding any story detail, be it a location (New York, Chicago, Atlantis, or the fucking moon) or a theme (”medical” show), means you have to illustrate that information accurately - you can’t bullshit audiences anymore.

And why is every television show about The Man these days? The guy always has apparently limitless cash/budget, enough pussy to drown a fish, and a wardrobe sustainable only with two personal shoppers. When was the last time you saw anyone tackle a remotely realistic issue? Has anyone in any plot arc been laid off, you know, like the massive economic clusterfuck that’s been impacting us for the past few years? Television makes me sick.

In defense of televised pretentious and saccharine bullshit, the supply satisfies a demand. I’m not suggesting that obnoxious rich bitches don’t need television. It’s refreshing to know that the people who are pretending to raise our children have something to watch other than soap operas. But if I have to see one more show about a coffee-house waitress runaway living alone in a 2,000 sq. foot apartment in Manhattan and walking thirty blocks in a crippling pair of $400 heels, I might have to get on the evening news just to remind the world that the East Coast is not the West Coast’s ugly (apparently retarded and full of shit) older sister. We spit on your hemp capris and your trans-dimensional crystals, your trite imitation of affection and your fucking obnoxious view of your fellow countrymen.
We are not wintry cousins in your castrated, soulless, capitalist empire, sipping ice tea on the verandas of our fucking W.A.S.P. hives out on Martha’s Vineyard.

These are my cities. These L.A. writer fucks have no business reimagining fuck-all. You think what Denis Leary did to Bill Hicks was bad? That was flattery; this is sin. This is like a non-smoking vegan masquerading as Bill Hicks. Them and their fucking lattes and shit wardrobes (“khaki,” Hindi: feces) and cute problems and relationship issues.
Fuck Ross and Rachel. I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t kill to have “whether they want to date their ex” as the biggest fucking problem in their life.
My people are out there fighting to get by, treading water and hoping things improve. I don’t sit in coffee houses and talk about my soft feelings for the guy down the hall. I belly-laugh like I’m going to die tomorrow, because if we don’t all laugh, we’ll be crushed to death underneath the titanic weight of a depressed economy, a corrupt government, and a country full of people so afraid of being slightly dysfunctional that they’d rather not function at all. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not at the top and experiencing a slow decline. We are fighting tooth and nail for everything we have, and if we don’t enjoy what we have, then there is no reason left to get out of bed in the morning. Enjoy it as thoroughly as you can stand to feel it, for it is all too short-lived.

I sit in buildings many times my age and watch them crumble, brick by brick, into the Hudson river. I see old men tenaciously clinging to tiny businesses handed down by their immigrant grandparents. I see an overpopulated corpse of your now-reincarnated Hollywood, clinging to its cherished history, the old Hoboken docks sticking out of the river like bones even while fresh construction is piled atop it. We walk on streets mortared with the blood of our forefathers. Do not insult me with your lattes and your television marketing. Do not paint us as if we have no soul because it is easier to write us that way. If you don’t know what it means to have a soul, then write about some ambiguous imaginary place and stay the fucking hell out of my backyard. Jerkoffs.

In all the television I’ve ever seen, I don’t think I’ve ever seen another show where our local color was depicted with any measure of accuracy. And for giving that to me, for freeing us of the lie perpetuated by Hollywood marketing, I throw down the sword I’ve held against Denis Leary.

Also, like (I imagine) everyone who watches this show, I relate to his character, Tommy. I think you’re meant to relate to him, but Michael disagrees. In any case, Tommy is described as “ill-tempered, self destructive, hypocritical, manipulative, and a relapsed alcoholic,” so I wouldn’t take my above assault on the west too personally.

Yes, guys, you really do sound like the show. The above butterfly-effect clip reminded me, specifically, of the donkey-punch conversation I’ve posted altogether too many times.
The kidneys. You people are cruel.
I love you guys. Thanks for being both clowns and heroes to me.
Denis included.