thank you

last saturday night was a very special night. seeing old friends and sharing a few drinks (well, for AA and I the "drinks" were shots of vodka and whiskey, respectively) made for a perfect evening. for most of the evening I was unaware that AA, D, or J Ro knew about my sister's latest developments. I wasn't sure if any of them had visited my blog recently so hearing them mention the "situation" was surprising but very touching. I have a lump in my throat...tears form in my eyes...it's hard for me to express my feelings...to know that my friends had been thinking about me meant so much. JKiss, AA, D, J Ro - I love you guys. I don't want to get all corny and shit but all of you made me feel something saturday night that I don't think I have ever felt. you guys are true comrades. sometimes it feels as if I'm in a battle...explosions surround...loved ones are in peril...I don't know what's going to come next...chaos is abound...but to know that my brothers are with me means everything. I'm so fortunate to have you guys as friends and, well, thank you.

Much Love & Respect,
mc

sister found alive

at 551am i should be in bed asleep but here i am at the keyboard. phone calls at 230 in the morning are never a good thing. the horrible sound of my telephone rings at 230. it's mom. it's about sister. it's not good. sister leaves a suicide note at dad's house. she's nowhere to be found and her car (which apparently was involved in a hit-and-run accident a couple hours earlier) is still parked in front of the house. mom spares me the details of the suicide note. you hear the words 'suicide note' and that's all you need to hear. i'm sure mom said more during the phone call but it was all a blur of noise. i don't know what to do. do i leave and make the 2 hour drive north to be with mom and dad? where is sister? is she dead? alive? the experience was surreal. i hang up and lay back down. tossing. turning. i'm hot and then i'm cold. what is happening?
phone rings at 530am. this is it. is she alive? has she been found? is she dead? has she been found? mom says sister has been found. police say an empty bottle of prescrip painkillers was on the floor of the car. sister is alive.
i have to go. i have to be at work in an hour.

mc
"how strange it is to be anything at all"

. . .

i've been feeling rather strange tonight. summer is dying and autumn is near. many things are on my mind and i plan to release them to this blog very soon...many things indeed.

mc

spam poetry

i found this interesting piece of spam "poetry" the other day......


SUBJECT TITLE: little tablet - happy family

giving Dysmas a drink, and with the same words: 'Praise the
hegemon!' -
-----
link below :))
www2.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.com
------
you. You did all you could, and no one in the world' - here the
procurator
put on your knee? What are your losses from my guests, whom you just
called
which yesterday had delighted the poet, this time did not delight
him a bit.

[IZ US] THE MEANING OF LIFE [IZ US]

my view-
humans create. humans procreate. we create. period.

we create products
we create wealth
we create families
we create art
we create god
we create joy
we create pain
we create hate
we create love
we create time
we create ourselves

we create meaning in our lives. all of the above exist because we exist. if humans, conscious humans, are not here then these things do not exist.
i've been dealing with my sister and her problems for a couple of years now. i've asked myself countless philosophical questions during this time but the one question that stimulates my mind the most is, "what does all of this mean?" her problems mean one thing to her, her problems mean something else to her friends, her problems mean something else to my parents, her problems, in true reality, mean nothing to me. her "problems" are simply events that happen. who am i, or anyone else for that matter, to color these events with a "meaning?" a common phrase i use is: IT IS WHAT IT IS. NO MORE AND NO LESS. when i say her problems mean nothing to mean i do not mean that i don't care about her or her problems. i have simply accepted that there is nothing i, or anyone else for that matter, can do about them. when you think about it, how much control do we have in our own lives? through control comes meaning...if these control switches are turned upside down and up is down, out is in, black is white, then what do you have? questions, questions, questions....what are we doing? we are creating layers that overlap other layers....we are creating our own optical illusion. if you stare at a white wall long enough the wall is no longer white, blank...you begin to "see" shapes shifting.....sitting in silence soon gives way to sounds, pitches...we are creating things that don't exist. life is strange to say the least. i find it strange that two normal human beings are not "two normal human beings" to me, they're my parents. these connections...these people...this life - "can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all" (quote from the song "in the aeroplane over the sea" by neutral milk hotel)

mc

*"IZ-US" is the title of an Aphex Twin song on his album "Come To Daddy"

face value

she only fucked me because i was there. take it for face value then forget the face, you sentimental fuck. here you are - in bed, in the dark, alone, your head filled with transparent images of her ghosty face....she's somewhere in texas tonight...at a bar getting shit-faced, looking for the shoulder she leans on to take her home and fuck {[aaaaass loooonnng assssss youuuuu kkknnnnnooooooww thiiiss meeeeeeeeeans noooothiiing, ooookay?}], get high, whatever. me, i don't get high anymore. i get low - then drink some fire - then get lower - whiskey is in the wind tonight, my friend. off in the distance, under the dim stars and dead moon i can almost hear the parties, the shouting, almost smell the perfume, smell the beer, the bad music, the people - the things that i hate because it's all so foreign to me. maybe it's all a cruel joke - trying to understand what all of this is about when there is nothing to comprehend but the space we fill with words, love, anger, whatever. take if for face value then forget the face, you sentimental fuck. so have i crumbled to pieces????? or am i one of the few that "get it?" and i wonder why it is just me - here - in the dark - all of the time - only me. sometimes i wonder if this is what a prisoner, fresh to the streets after 40 years behind bars, feels like....an alien surrounded by beeping gizmos, robots dressed as humans...an alien that can't recall how to communicate, socialize, act, live. take it for face value........and try to forget the face...............


............................LS-even though you destroyed something inside i still long for your crushing blow........



mc

President George W Bush - Always the Easy Target

First let me state this: President Bush does not have the best PR people in his administration. The President's public face, or lack there of, has lived up to all of the stereotypes this week...an idiot, a moron, etc.
But before you criticize the federal government's response to Katrina consider this photograph, which is of a flooded school bus lot in New Orleans, LA, and paragraph 5, page 13 of the Louisiana Disaster Plan, dated 01/2000: "The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating." (Source: Drudge Report, 3 September 2005)
How many lives would have been saved if Mayor Ray Nagin (D) had followed through with the pre-Katrina mandatory evacuation and deployed the numerous buses in the city? I guess too many are busy playing the race card to consider this precious question...oh well......

mc

changing lanes

Gavin Banek: I came here for some meaning. I want you to give the world meaning to mean.
Priest: Why does the world need meaning?
Gavin Banek: Why does the...?! Because the world is a sewer, the world is a shithole and a garbage dump because my father-in-law got me to screw a good man, a decent man out of his money and my wife cheers me on...because I got into a fender-bender with this guy on the FDR...I had a little fight with him and I tried to do everything I could to settle with this guy and he just wouldn't let it go.
Priest: Why? Why wouldn't he let it go?
Gavin Banek: I DON'T KNOW WHY! I don't know why. Sometimes god just likes to put two guys in a paper bag and let 'em rip

Dialogue from the movie (and a damn good one, I might add) Changing Lanes (2002)

mc

before and after katarina

GlobalSecurity.org is a site that offers "reliable security information." check out their site for incredible before-and-after satellite images of new orleans.
for a first-hand account of katarina's wrath check out Dancing With Katarina...an eye-opening blog to say the least...

mc

a warrant for sister

i get home from work at 730pm to find a message from mom on my voicemail. she is crying. she says to call her. she ends the message saying, "i love you." i know what the phone call is about. it has to be about my sister. i call mom. as i dial the number i'm preparing myself for the news of my sister's death...suicide...something. mom admits she is drunk. her voice is shaky. to myself i say, "here we go again." i eventually find out that my sister has stolen jewelry from the roommate that kicked her out last week. she pawns the jewelry to a pawn shop. a warrant has been issued for my sister's arrest. my mom begins to break down, bawl, she says she doesn't know what to do...dad doesn't even know about all of this. i say that i'm not going to go through this shit again...mom asks what do i do? i tell her the truth. it doens't matter what you do...it doesn't matter what you say...nothing can help a junkie but the fix for their disease. i try to tell her that her actions are futile when dealing with my sister...once again i say, "it doesn't matter what you do!" mom hangs up. mom was drunk so i let it slide. i know how this will end. is it how i want it to end? of course not. but what some people, including mom, cannot understand is that the lives of other human beings are not tangible...our actions, while they might affect someone in the short term, ultimately have no affect on others. we can't even determine what happens in our own lives. monkeys will do what they do. humans will do what they do. a junkie is a robot that no one else can program. you will put yourself through hell trying to flash a signal, a sign, anything to get their attention but nothing will work. nothing. so why punish yourself while attempting to make contact? LET GO....RELEASE....UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE AT THE MERCY OF THE COSMOS....THE CAUSE...AND THE EFFECT.........THIS IS LIFE.

mc

Katrina's Force Could Be Felt Acro$$ the Nation

Hurricane Katrina is set to smash into Louisiana in about 12 hours but her effects are already being felt at the New York Mercantile Exchange. Trading resumed Sunday night as crude oil futures spiked $4.50 per barrel.
The housing bubble is about to burst...gasoline is nearly $3 a gallon...China and Russia are having joint military exercises...our politicians are silent (and doing nothing) on the Mexican border issue......what interesting times we live in, my friends...interesting times indeed.

mc
 

ANOTHER COSTANZA-ISM - "I'm a great quitter. It's one of the few things I do well. I come from a long line of quitters. My father was a quitter, my grandfather was a quitter... I was raised to give up." 

what matters most is how well you walk through the fire

something has been on my mind lately. it starts with a family reunion that i did not attend on the weekend of july 4th, 2005. sometime in early may my mom called me with some peculiar news. my grandad and grandmom were going to remarry. i've never been close to my grandparents but this news was a little odd considering they had been divorced for many, many years. my mom, as well as myself, thought this was laughable, strange, bizarre. there is so much back-story to my mom and her parents that reciting it all would be quite a chore...and something that i don't feel like going into but i will relate this. my mom was raised in a fire-and-brimstone pentecostal household. mom wasn't allowed to wear make-up, listen to popular music, watch tv...she wore long skirts that had to cover everything, including the ankles...she, and her brothers and sister, went to bed everynight in fear of the rapture...they might awake to find mom and dad gone...gone to heaven and the sinners left on earth to suffer (or something like this)...she vowed to raise her children with something she did not have...the freedom to, or not, worship a god, go to church, etc. the affect all of this had on her is nothing short of child-abuse, in my opinion.....the fear.....the fear....the fire and brimstone.....to raise children in this atmosphere in hard to comprehend. anyway, the remarriage of her mom and dad seemed to be some last ditch effort to "make right with god"....cross your fingers...knock on wood...hope the pearly gates will open. the remarriage also seemed to frame the forthcoming family reunion. frame the gathering with more denial. a denial of the past, a denial of the present, a hope for the afterlife, whatever. most of her siblings (only 2 of the 6 are active in "the church," one is an atheist) thought the remarriage was a joke as well. a month after hearing the remarriage news, and a month before the reunion in reno, my mom calls me again to inform me that we would not be attending the gathering. this was a difficult phone call....she told me that "something happened" when she was a child and after all of these years she was going to take a stand, of sorts. she told me she wanted to tell me what happened...she wanted to tell me in person, not over the phone.......i've visited her a couple times since then but the topic never comes up and i dont want to bring it up....she was, i dont know if she still is, seeing a psychiatrist about the incident(s)....i remember her saying she had "buried the incident" so deep that she had nearly forgotten anything happened.....the D word again - denial. i try not to dwell on whatever happened to mom decades ago....i'm not sure if i want to know...there are so many things that i don't know.........you know, i grew up in an upper class neighborhood in the suburbs and i really thought everything was perfect....i remember (at least i think i do) mom and dad saying they would never divorce (WRONG)....i remember dad accidentally running over the family cat....i remember glancing out of the back window and seeing the neighbor shoot the cat to "put it out of it's misery"...all i remember is seeing a blurry figure raising a rifle...once my mind comprehended what was about to happen i buried my head and heard a POP.....i remember sitting in the moving truck on our final day in that neighborhood (the divorce was finalized) and hearing a horrible cry from inside the empty house...my mom crying, wondering if this, the divorce, the moving, the proof of existence, was indeed the right thing to do...the denial coming home to roost.....i remember moving into a new house, a much smaller house, and mom remarrying too soon....a stranger in the house telling me what to do, expecting respect (everything is cool now, i would like to add).....and i remember, he still does from time to time, dad, his voice cracking from emotion, telling me he never wanted the divorce....tears blur my eyes typing this because in my mind i hear him and his voice, breaking, cracking, he did all he could, he did his best, but sometimes a man's best isnt enough........i remember my mom calling me telling me my sister was in jail...prescription drugs, minus the prescription, passed out in her car at some vacant gas station....i remember my mom calling me the next day, after she bailed her out, "your sister is missing...no one knows where she is, god, is this happening????" months later mom calls again....sister is in jail again........sister is a junkie....."chris (that's me, by the way), i hid a camera and caught your sister stealing pills from my purse...." she's stealing prescription pads from doctors writing bogus prescriptions...[sister is doing much, much better now] i remember being the anchor for my mom during this sister-junkie period....everytime the phone would ring my heart would begin beating a terrible race-car beat, 500 mph, the world would stop, the sound of the television would turn into the color white-invisible-silence...."HELLO?" "oh, i'm sorry, i have the wrong number." "TH-THAT'S O-OKAY." c l i c k.............................. what the fuck happened? me, 9, 10 years old thinking that i was blessed with this perfect life.....nice house, suburbs, teacher's pet, A-B honor roll every grading period, "perfect" family.....chip, chip, chip away at the facade and years later i'm a 27 year-old man feeling like some estranged survivor.....the wreckage no longer smolders. it's still there. like a crucifix on a highway shoulder. it's a reminder.

...and i wouldnt change a thing

mc

YOU BETTER RECOGNIZE - this is Richard Pryor. if you've never seen/heard this legendary comedic genius do yourself a favor and check out his official site. before you exit the planet earth make sure you see "Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin'."

"my whole life is a lie," george costanza

.....FUNNY BUT TRUE