Storytelling: Pink Moon

All you could feel sometimes, when looking at the corridors of his house, was an acrid stench of wrongness and solitude. There was a pungent aroma in the air, which stephane always linked to days spent staring out of the windows, lost in thoughts waiting for someone to acknowledge his presence. Which hardly happened.

The house used to be alive, once. The pictures his mother kept staring at, the anecdotes she kept telling over and over with that horrifying, out of tune voice, that monotone singy-songy mumbling that she had since her breakdow, were proof that once, that house had been a home.

There wasnt anything special therte but there was an attempt at loving each other, at giving each other some laughs or tears, anything. Then his father started disappearing more and more. While Stephane kept morpohing into an adult, his father clearly felt less and less interested in him. He wasnt a baby, now. He was a person, with ideas and opinions and a mind of his own. And that clearly wasnt something his dad felt like dealing with. All he wanted was a son to be shaped into his own personal project, and that son was escaping that, even involuntarily. So the man just quit. He didnt really left, but he spent all the time he could with people that werent Stephane and his mother. And slowly dropped any sign of affection towards them, turning into an invisible presence in the house.

And his mother, who loved him, but also wanted a lover and a acompanion to face life and stgill be a woman, broke down. Stephane always wondered if she blamed him for what happened. If they would've been happier if he was never born. She said once, that people like her and her father werent supposed to have kids, but then it happened and they did their best with it. But the best wasnt enough to hold them together. And thats all she said about it.

Then she spiraled into depression and self abuse. The smart, sweet, loving woman that taught Stephane how to paint, to play chess and gave him his first adult book, "Of Men And Mice", when he was only ten, just disappeared. And what was left was a shgell fo a woman that wept and mumbled endlessly. Stephane felt his heart crumble everytime he watched her, on the bed, with always the same tear stained clothes, devastated by alcholo and pills and cigarettes and carelessness.

But what could he do? He tried and no one wanted his help. He was just fourteen and all he could do was to escape from there as soon as possible.

And thats why he spent so much at his schoolmate Eric's house. Him and Eric did not have a book like friendship. They were different, liked different things, had different lives. Stephane liked sports, liked animals, liked acting slightly more like a kid than he was supposed to. When he was at home, it was like his own free spirit was poisoned and forced to a slow death. So he let loose outside. Eric seemed in his own way, to like that: He was a kid with opportunities and talent. His family had built a world of ideas and dreams to make true aroudn him.

ERic knew how to play guitar, had tons of books, could paint, and fence. Many at school thought he was an overpriviliged spoiled brat, but Stephane knew that was not the case. Eric had a family that had seen his strength and wanted to make it grow into something better.

If there was one thing Stephane envied Eric though, even more than the rest, was his family. His mother was gentle, caring and full of heart and love. She always looked at her child with attentive eyes, drinking up all his words and often she did that with Stephane too. She made him feel interesting and accepted.

Also she was clearly in love with her husband. Eric's father was a charming man. Strong, funny, looking very young for his age and with a lust for life that was all over his actions. He seemed to have a passion for everything: writing, sculpture, sports. And he wasnt, as his father would've said, an "artsy slacker", he had a job and made good money, giving his family a good life, so they could still be themselves. He seemed to love his son anjd wife immensely.

He had a special friendship with Stephane. He encourage him to stay at the house, write things and develop his own creativity. He was sincerely interest in his ideas, wanted to see him create and be himself. Stephane couldnt help but feeling his heartbeat rush whenever he tried to accomplish something under the man's eyes. And whwnever he got complimented he felt like melting and aching, with a need for appreciation that had piled up for too long.

The days passed and Stephane realized thatr his real family didnt really care if he was home or not. As long as he was alive and did not bother them, they were too busy with theiur own despair to care about him. So he spent more and more time at Eric's house, even sleeping there. Him and Eric were like brothers.

One summer night, he couldnt sleep. The heat was intense, drecnhing him in sweat and making his head ache. He was spending the night at Eric's house as suual. His father was home and he was proabably delaing with mother and her anger. He did not want to be there.

He stood up and went in the garden. Eric's father was there too. He smiled st him.

"No Sleep?"

"Nope, too hot"

"Yeah, i feel that way too. Also, the night gets so beautiful at this time of the year"

They bothy enjoyed the silence. Stephane felt a rush of blood to the head, suddenly.

Robert, Eric's father, stared at him and smiled calmingly.

"I like to have you here, Steph. You're special. You're a good friend to Eric and he loves you, in his own way"

Stephane didnt really know what to say, so he just looked elsewhere, feeling weirdly.

"I know you have troubles, in your life and i wish i could help. But some things have to be fixed on your own, you know?"

"Yeah"

"So i'm telling you: talk to me whenever you need, ask me anything. and whenever you'll be ready, you can stay here. with us. with me"

Stephane felt a knot in his stomach clench.

"But... What about Eric.... And your wife.... Would they want me here?"

" i want you here. I love you, Steph".

Robert looked at him. And everything felt wrong or right.

He kissed him.

What happened next, wasnt right or wrong. It happened and it existed. Steph was chyanged. Some things were shaken out of their roots and ripped out forever. It was one of those moments that wouldve set his path in life in a certain direction. He wouldve done things differently, from now on. Be a different person. Better or worse, no one could know but him.

In the morning Stephane, with a face stained by tears and strange things in his head, entered his house. The smell of acrid was there, but different. Something had happened. The house was silent.

His head was dizzy, but he managed to get in the main room, slowly and silently.

His father's body was in a pool of blood on the gorund. Stabbed.

His mother came in the frame. Stephane couldnt move. He wanted to throw up and scream but couldnt.

His mother was standing, with glassy eyes, and the knife still in her hands. She was smiling, just like in the old days.

"Steph. It will be ok. Now things will be back to normal. I will be a good mother to you, Steph. I promise. I love you"

She moved to hug him. He wanted to run, but couldnt. Her face was just like time hadnt passed. Like nothing bad had happened. He lt himself loose in her embrace. It felt so warm, so calming, so sweet and made time go backwards. It was his mom, again. His mom. She was there for him.

He felt a shar pain in his guts. Let out a sound he couldnt really hear. Slipped slowly to the floor. She was crying.

"I'm sorry, baby... sorry... we're over.... its all over..."

Evrything went black. While fading, he heard her make a whimpering noise and slip. Thjen he thought of Robert. Of Eric. Of....

And then there was nothing.

Goodbye Old Friend (Why I Drank And Why I Had To Seriously Quit)

DISCLAIMER: This post wont be about the dangers of alcohol or addiction. While i know very well that being a hardcore drinker is a nasty thing to deal with, i also refuse to give health advice of any kind to people. Drinking is fun, doing drugs is fun, even smoking has its positive sides (if only social). Self destruction is fun, on any level or else no one would do it. I am saying this without irony. If i had a way to keep up my addicitons as i used to without having the drawbacks, i would do it with no hesistations. So, no, i'm not preaching or judging, thats just not how i am. I only judge myself.

There's a small unviersal truth, that unites idiots and smart people, credos, religons, sexual orientations and races: life is a chore. And i dont mean that in the self pitying, whiny way. It's just that living aint easy, for anyone. To different degrees, every day is a chore. Its either a fight with other human beings, which for the most part are their own natural enemies, or with the simple grind that is fighting constantly to simply survive without feeling like shit. You dont need to be depressed to feel that, its a natural thing. Plus, and that works evenb mopre for anyone, life,, for the most part, is dull and boring. Life is a series of great moments glued together by long ass times of waiting and grinding your teeth. Its a movie where nothing really great happens for most of the times, besides some really cool scenes that are worth the ticket: But getting to those scenes can be pretty shitty.

So, no matter who you are, you need a cure. Some people have drugs. Those help, but they also have a vicious way to get back at you, by muyltipilying the shit by a thousand times and forcing you to only worship them. Other people have people. Nothing wrong with that, but when you turn your love or affectoion for someone into codependency, you're just like a junkie. And if or when thos epeople diappear, youll suffer as much as an addict in withdrawal.

Other people have passions. Nothing wrong with that at all. Still, you're not always born with the ability to feel. And passions can be frustrating too. Then there's relgion. Which is frankly fucking stupid.

And almost everyone has booze.

It helped me. I have been constantly bored or simply sickened by the complete pointlessness of a lot of my efforts in life for years. So pretty much, the moment in which i could let loose with a serious drunken night was something to look for. Yeah, my mother is an alcoholic but i totlaly see why she does that. It helps you let loose, whether its for good or for worse. It gives you a potent excuse for unleashing the bad stuff or the embarassing one. You can tell people to fuck off when they deserve. I know a bunch of weirdos love to say that "they are just the same when they drink cause they are REAL". Which is bullshit. People dont get transformed by alcohol, it loosens inhibitions. All you do is act like your brain would secretly love to do normally, only you dont give a fuck about conseuqences. And afterwards, most people forgive you, and generally the ones who dont and use terms like "enabling" are even more toxiuc than booze itself. And a big reason for desperate drinking.

Also booze is good. I like beer. It's tasty and awesome. Being drunk is fun. Beiung anything but lucid is fun. This world isnt mean to be faced lucid.

Still, i had to quit. To quit on my own will, not because the law forced me to (that happened and did not last. thats why i find the idea of AA a bit silly. if you're an addict inside, theres no legal way, speech or club that will solve it).

First, my body is feeling it. I realize that my body used to be better once and that now i aged more than a lot of people who are in their early thrties. I took it out on myself and seemed to keep looking amazing but it paid out in the end. I have abad heart, bad blood numbers, i'm fucked up, also cause of the meds, but i realize i am probably gonna have a horter life than most. Its ok, but i wanna try to fix it as much as possible.

Also, i cant stand the aftermath anymore. I dont care if thats a sign of being a pussy. I just cant stand beign sick and wanting to die for a whole day. I already do not get shit done as a nrom, so i dont eneed to be mopre crippled because i wanted to feel less bored the night before.

Third, theres' an aura of embarassing despair around hardcore drinkers that are past their prime. I aint talkign about people who drink at a party, thats ok. I mean the ones who talk about how theyre gonna get shitfaced soon during the week already. The ones that need a drink during the day. I see why they do it, but man when the veil is lifted, they look fucking sad. I had friends that have gone that way and cant hold a conversation without being drunk. Who are clearly twitchy and depressed when they're sober. Ive been there and ive had enough.

I've had enough of feeling shitty. of not remembering what happened the last night. Of getting compassionate looks from people. of being labeled as a drunken animal. Of being told "try to behave tonight". Of throwing up. Of drinking anything just to drink it.

Ive gotten to a point where i know that if i did iot in a small measure i could possibly relapse hard anbd i have to deal with that first. I have to understand if i can be normal and drink sensibly or i have to be sober or feel shitty for the rest of my life. And i need to clean up from other things too. That will need a change of my own very personality, but i hope it can be done.

Stuck

At this point in my life, i'm used with dealing with my own mood swings. One day can go high or low, generally and i can usually start it in a bad mood, only to spiral down into total sadness or anger. Usually it takes a person or a simple bad moment to push me down.

It irritates me how weak i can get at some spot, how in a good moment, when all my brain gears are in their place, i pay no mind to anny negativity but it only takes one asshole with a hurtful purpose to create a chain reaction worthy of a Rube Goldberg machine that basically nails me into the ground.

And what's even worse, for me but i think for many others too, is when i find myself (which is happening with an increasing frequency) at an emotional stop. I'll clarify, so any of you can eventually sympathize: when the down wave hits, you feel like crying or drowning in despair, and that sort of gives you strength, when the stop comes you just think nothing really affects you. It's like finding yourself in a pool of tar, you're not hurt because you expected things to go bad, you dont feel anything but annoyance or a strong contempt towards everyone and everything.

You might have people who are seriously on your side and care about you but you shuth them off, because at that point to you love is hypocritical, good feelings are temporary and anyone who is nice or gentle is just lying. It's not like thinking that everyone hates you, being a victim makes you stroneger somehow, its more like a complete unflinching feeling that no one really cares about anyone, good things only come when people are in need, love and affection are ways to get good things and use people.

When you're in that spot, everything you like suddenly looses its appeal. You still do things because you're moving like a robot, going by habit and autopilot, but you really dont care. The head is empty, the heart is still. You got no happiness, no sadness, nothing at all. It's a giant freeze frame of the emotional spectre. Bad fellings are equal to the good ones, in the aspect that they're meaningless. People have no role or meaning. Nothing moves you. You're still.

As Dan Savage mentioned on his brash but smart Lovecast, some people are bound to be alone. Still even if they are at that point, they can still live full and joyous lives, as long as they dont get bitter, cause bitterness repulses people. And i agree, only i thinkj of bitterness in a different way than most. Bitterness is suaually crankiness and complaining, hateful sourness towards the world, knowing that no matter what you do, everything will suck anyway. And that is repulsive. Then there's the ewven more repulsive level of a person who is comnpletely frozen emotionally, so clammed up and unaffacted, shut down and refusign to react or open up, that they eventually become invisible to other people's eyes.

A person that is silent, and detached is worse than an abusers, cause it occupies a space withotu serving any purpose.

So i wonder what the soultion to get out of that is. Some of thta came with meds. The emotional leveling caused that too. And it had to be self imposed in order to avoid hurting constantly. But at times, id rather be slitting my own wrists rather than not feeling my wrists at all.

Hmmm.

Modern Age Superheroes

Since i'm out of ideas today, but in no way i will be one of those guys who let their creativity go dry cause "they have more important thigs to do" (which i would technically have, but i wont do since i get paid way too little to not waste time doin silly shit), i will have to use the horrible hacky shortcut that is the "pop culture inspired list". I'm sorry cracked.com, i will never be as cool as you guys are.

Anyhoo, if any of you has been a kid at least once, you probably wasted your time making up superheroes in your head, maybe even drawing them (with titties and dicks, if you are a boy).

So why stop? The current age has a lot of cool possiblities to make up interesting superdudes. And it's also an extremely overused comedy routine, possibly worse than airplane food jokes, so lets rock.

Supermeh

He comes from an overpowered alien planet, he has incredible amazing powers that would allow him to change or rule the worldm and end crime. Only he doesnt really give a shit. After getting a secret identity as an accountant, he realized that he makes more money that way, its less risky, and his jewish momma is more ok with that. Plus who doesnt commit crimes? Its a dog eat dog world out there, full of them corrupt politicans. Its not like if he stops one crime, anything will change. So he just puts on his costumes to show off at parties. Lately his wife forgot to clean it, silly woman. Oh well. Jersey Shore is on.

Captain Pawn

He rides the thin line between a hero and a villain. He is a telepathic entity, that has incredibly deciving mindpowers. He can deceive his oppoinents into thinking that they will have sex with an incredibly beautiful woman, enlarge their genitals, see movies for free, become millionaires or, if they're genrous, help Nigerian people. Then when they're trapped, he fills their minds with visions of men with blown up anuses and Rick Astley songs.

For unsepcified reasons he took the shape of a cute kitten. Apparenbtly it makes his power even stronger, especially when he speaks in misspelled english

The Twister

This terrifying hero has the incredible ability of crating chaos into people's minds. When surrounded by enemies he twists their thoughts around, says incredibly conbvoluted things, contradicts himself and then accuses them of being homophobic, nazi, stalking, gay, communist, racist jews. While they're trying to figure out what the hell he is talking about, he kills them, usually with a big hammer.

A fierce threat, but its not really clear which side he's on.

Storytelling: Empty Pages

Shane used to be proud of his great mind. Since he was a kid, he always felt it would be his greater strength, the one thing that would've set him apart from the rest of the world. And with time, it had become his very own source of spiritual energy.

There was an addiction, a positive one, loying within the lines of creativity. It felt the soul with juices that couldnt be provided by pretty much anything else. You could climb mountains and be a legendary lover and that would be an impressive achievement but non of those things would give Shane the strange, alluring hit of adrenaline, the sense of completion, the delirious quenching of an eternal thirst that creating a story and lettiung it live gave him.

It was like mak,ing something that grew and had a life of its own. As close as he, as a man and a loner, could get to having children. And yet different. Gtting down a moment of complete utter beauty, something that is perfect because you just know it is and theres no way to explain it, but you just know it is. Nailing the right sentences, weave them together, until they become something that walks and moves and pulsates. And most of everything has emotions and gives emtions. There was nothing in the whole universe like that. His heart was a hole that onlly a flow of words could fill.

Yet, like all addictions, Shane knew that there could be a moment of withdrawal. And he was hitting one.

At times, life gest the best of a creative soul. Despair, anger, fuckups and disappointments hit that heart and mind hard. Shane took everything until he just dried up. And the pills who were supposed to calm down the screaming dogs that barked inside his head, just silenced everything and made his soul an empty room. no ideas. No genius. Nothing at all. Sanity and peace had a baggage called eternal sleep of the gods of creativity.

And that hurt. In a weird way. he knew he was supposed to be better and live a more normal life. But somehow he wanted the insanity back. He needed the relelntless drive that writing gave him. He eneded to tell stories. He needed to lack sleep or hunger, because all that fed him was his own violently absuive muse. And yet he knew that woudlve been his own death. Too many times he had to face rejection for his creations, the lull of realizing that out of a million people like him, one or two actually make something of their creations. And the rest just fades away.

He had to survive. But he wanted the creativity back. To fill up empty pages. To see them go on and live. Yet every time he tried, nothing acame up. He forced the ideas out but thery just werent there. His mind was dead. The pages stayed empty and stared back at him with vacant eyes.

As time went by, he tried to get over it, like he did with everything else. He tried to fill the hole by having a cause. He had seen his mother die after fighting for years with Alzheimer. He saw her deteriorate and become a beast of incoherence and madness. Back then hius own demons had eaten up all his ability to care or help. Now it was time to atone. Never again he would've let someone loose his past like that. Not without doing something.

He volunteered at an institute for Alzheimer patients. The illness erased those people's minds like a cancer of the soul. It ate their memories and personalities away, leaving them like empty babbling shells that could only be taken care of. It was horrifying.

One day, a blue eyed lady named Loretta, just like his mother, was staring at Shane while he was bathing her. She was far gone at that point. She used to be a painter. A creative, like him. Had no family.

She asked him questions. About him. ABout herslef. About the world. ANd like a strange marvelous coincidence, it just happened. Shane, without even thinking about it, started making up a new life for her. He told her stories about who she was. Made her a character. Made a different life for her, a different world. Made her something new and beautiful. And that soemhow gave her happiness.

And started something in him.

From that day, Shane became a storyteller again. He made the patients his new living characters. Hye gave them love stories, tragedies, funny tales, heroic ones. He helped them by giving them new lives. And watched them as they made thos stories grow by making them their own. How the characters interacted with each others, changed the stories, created new ones.

At first the other nurses, and the few relatives who really cared about those people were puzzled. But that weird serendipity of creation and compassion had actually made the patients happy. They wanted one thing, to have memories. And where their heads or medicine could not help, Shane came in and created them.

And for a few, there was a world thata ctually wo0rked. If only in their hearts, for a little while. And the stories kept growing, and living and changing. And for some time they would be remembered.

The Curse Of The Fake Liberal

My friend Kataish, used the phrase "fucking fake hippies", to sum up a stomach churning phenomenon that is plaguing society these days.

As i might have mentioned before, i consider the internet as a good reflection of the interior of the deep subconscious of modern society. I dont buy the idea that people act on it as some sort of fake, made up personas. That is a myth. What you see on discussion boards, social networks or virtual interactions is what is in people's heads, unfiltered by decency, rationalizing or the layers that we have to put up in face to face discussions (i wont use the term "real" life either, cause there's nothing more real to daily living, compared to the rest. life is not real., everything is some sort of act).

So you will meet people who unleash their aggression, their lack of human sympathy, their need to toinbe down their instinctive reatcions. The ugly stuff.

But also, you will face a weird, unsetlling wave of plastic looking good feelings, enhanced correctness, idealism pushed towards cartoonish overtones. In the middle of excessive sensitivity, over exposed emotions and an idea of sentiments so powered up it has almost lost any sense, youll find the army of the new bleeding hearts.

I used to be a liberal, not in the political sense. I was a humanitarian, an activist and an idealist and i still have those traits. I waxs one of those perpetually fired up people who belived in their causes and shoved them under everyone's nose at any chance. Then my views and perspectives changed and i developed different thoughts on the world, and how it might need less niceness and idealism and more steely handed order. I still am fired up about what i believe in.

Once, the liberal activist used to be a powerful being. A real activist got his hands dirty, marched, screamed, did things. Maybe he was delusional, a pain in the ass or simply wrong but his actions meant something. Some are sytill that way and they're a powerful antidote against apathetic cyncicism and the condescendiung snarkiness of the shrugging majority.

I am all for those. But when i see the new army, i get disgusted. You've met those. They're the ones you'll never see marching, that feel they're taking a stand one tweet at a time, that post commentaries on blogs and social networks with little information, even less grasp of the facts or objectivity but a tone of abuse for the words "love" or "hate". The ones that misquote Rev Martin Luter King Jr. or the lyrics to John Lennon's "Imagine". The ones who seems to be crying for any cause, because they really dont follow any. They make ribbons though, and post pictures. They never donate money but they change their avatars.

If you make a rational statement on an issue, those people will jump on you and cry (virtually), about the heartless world, about how they can "make a change" (to quote the world's greatest pedophile after the pope).

To sum it up, thes epeople are more of a poison for the truth and the good causes than the opposers. they're what conspiracy theorists are for truth and ivestigations: grotesque cartoons that destroy the credibility of the movement and push people into rejection. Empty people with empty lives that live vicariously through slogans and sanctimonious sentences. They like to feel better than the rest, because they dont realy do any effort to fight the rest.

I hate them.

The Other Side

A lot of you, after seeing Davis face here and knowing how harsh i usually am about social issues, are probably thinking that i am gonna launch into a pro-capital punishment tirade. You're right. But my point might be different from the one most people are making.

Davis has become a case for many reasons. The main, gaping one, is that his guilt is 100% certain. And, lets face it, because of his skin colour. He has been accused of killing a white police officer when he was 19 years old. The rial, as it often happens, has been drawn out and in the meantime a lot of doubts have popped out.

Honestly, i see why people are trying to hold on to this specific case. It is a good poster case. And, as usuala, the race card makes it palatable and easier to sell. And i guess the idea is to eventually remove death penalty from the equation. Cause the major argument lies there. The state supposedly doesnt have the right to execute a man, in any case. And the idea of a man that might be executed with no absolute ceratnty of his guilt, is, eventually, hard to swallow.

Still, i disagree. If we want to have a justice sysytem that also includes an idea of punsihment and eventually consider death penalty as a possibility, we shall not let doubt cloud our actions. Theres a point in civilization where, to establish order, a higher force must make desicion for the majority. And eventually sacrifice some of the citizens in roder to obtain results.

We do not live in a pretty world. Our society is flawed and a regular justice system is destined to fail. The legal loops allow more criminals to get away than to be actually punished. reform is almost impossible in a large number of cases, since the ones that are corrupted on such a level that they commit murder might be insitituionalized but will often turn back to their criminal paths. Its human. And for humans the highest deterrent si fear.

Also the idea of execution is a rightful one, for me. Its the only aspect of biblical justice that i accept: an eye for an eye is fair and just. And even if a victim forgives, its not in their right to decide so. Theres a higher standard of justice to ataain and the ones who commit a crime shall be punsihed, with no exception.

And here's where this case fits: a strict jsutice system should rather punsih an innocent in order to be assured that all criminals will also be punished. The obsession with being 100% sure of an accusation, with reshaping witnesses a million times, involving lawyers, the press and racial, social or psychological issues in the idea of justice has made it irrreversibly flawed. A criminal now can often get away using the fear that the system has to eventually frame an innocent or to be acting under some warped racial standard.

And thats what corrupted justice.Executing a man who has, with high probability, killed a cop, shall be done with no doubt or second thoughts. If we allow ourselves to think it over, its when we would not want to execute anybody.

So if the man is innocent, it will be a tragedy. But it's the price to pay in order to have justice.

Heart Of Stone

Recently, i came to a realization. I've become selfish. Really selfish. And i might be over having good feelings for others besides a slight affection. That is all i can give.

It's not because of depression or heartbreak. people tend to read statemnts like the one i just made as some sort of cry for help, or plea for attention, that silently means "please tell me something nice or gentle, i need to be reassured that i'm a good person". I dont like generic sympathy. Anyone who really knows me is also aware that reching out when i'm in serious trouble, is unproductive. If we're connected, ill come and look for your support, and i'll let you know how much i appreciate it.

I'm saying this, because i have realized that i like friendships, but i've gotten selective about them. I have hundreds of acquaintanc es, many of them think they're my best friends, and i've grown increasingly sick of it. It's not a sickness towards the sincere meaning of it, it's just that i cant force myslef into caring about most of them. I dont care for their troubles, i find their lives boring and uninteresting, and i dont have the time or the strength to fake sympathy as i used to. So i just stopped doing that, showing up to their gatherings, calling them or trying to force myself into being present in their lives. I dont really give a fuck. I care for very few people at the moment, they havent disappointed me yet. Might happen, might not. If it will, i wont suffer too much. I got over tearing up for people.

And that brings me to my other point. I dont feel capable of loving someone at this moment and i dont feel bad about this. I will probably work out some peacefeul caring coexistence with someoene sooner or later, but i dont have love in me, anymore. I have this feeling that most people feel love once in their life, than the spell breaks down and they realize that after that one time, all the others are basically large disappointments. And its natural too. There is no sincerity in people who give. Givers do it because they want something in return, whether it's material or just emotional. A tiny, almost invisible number will give to you uncodnitionally. And in that case YOU will be their leech. You will be the one that will suck out what they have to give until you find something better.

And as soon as the game is over, everyone will move on. People accept this as, to quote The Wire, "part of the game". Which it is, but right now, i just dont feel like pretending that i need anyone or have the strength to give to anyone. I realized that i get disappointed and disgusted quickly and i want out. It's not a sad feeling, its self -awareness. I cant think of a relationship ive been in the last years where, in the end, things didnt turn into some sort of codependent abuse. And where after the inevitable breakup (because, lets face it, breakups ARE inevitable) , there wasnt just a sea of resntment, maybe hidden behind fake courtesy or fucked up attempts at being "mature", by not burning bridges.

To me, all bridges need to be burnt. When it's time, it's time. No one deserves saving, when things are done. At this moment, if i try to think back to the past, and to the ones i left behind, i have a small moment of ache, followed by a egneral disgust towards myself for allowing myself to be dragged into humiliation, stupidity and wasted time.

I know it will happen again. Bu, like a drug, before i relapse, i wanna try to quit. I will fail, but at least i tried.

Bad Things That You Shouldnt Be Really Ashamed Of

Mankind is an imperfect creation, a bunch of flaws and mismatches, sewn together by assholeness and delusion. So, in order to deal with that, once in a while, we all have the right to have horrible thoughts, do morally dubious stuff and feel actually ok about it. And the major point is not needing to justify those thoughts or actions to yourself with excuses. Just do them and remember, you're always right as long as you're right for yourself.

So allow me to give a few examples. I am totally serious:

- "I Was Actually Googling A Recipe For Macaroni..."

No You Werent. You were bored, no one was watching, you were curious, you were a bit horny or were just dicking around and suddenly, after a few clicks, you ended on a repulsive porn website that you would never admit in public that you watched. And enjoyed. And, maybe, you discovered that's kinda your thing and you went there again. Or just thought about while having sex or taking care of yourself. And yeah, that goes for ladies too. I know that a lot of you, clit carrying beings, think that your brain is shaped on a superior level than men and you dont ever ever revel in filth, cause you "dont need to". Or that because you had a baby, you have suddenly become a pure being that never feels the attraction for immoral, perverted stuff. Get off your pedestal. You're as sick as guys can be, but society allows you to act condescending about it.

In any case, not even the filthiest, most repulsive perversion is wrong, as long as no one is hurt. Fap away, minions, fap away.

- "Jeeez, that baby is ugly..."

Yeah, well, dear. I know you're happy about your child and on a conceptual level i understand that you think that the little mutant is the most beautiful, perfect, intelligent, amazing being in the universe. But it's ugly. It smells. And it doesnt look too bright. And i dont mean that on a simple baby level. It just looks like it will probably work at McDonald, i can feel it. I mean, it couldnt even hold my finger, it just drooled. But hey, who knows, maybe he can flip the hell out of a burger. Still, i will smile and tell you how amazing it looks and giggle lovingly at the 150th identical pic, video, story youy shove in my throat but in the depth of my heart i dont really wanna touch that thing

- "Goddamn it, Grams. Just Die Already..."

Everyone loves their grandparents. Or their Parents. or whatever. I know that grief takes you over when they eventually fall ill or die.

That doesnt mean that all olod people are cool, because they're old and that you cant hate their guts. I mean, wishing harm to assholes is supposedly wrong, but perfectly natural. Some people just deserve to be hated and deserve the worst coming to them. They do. A piece of shit is a piece of shit, no matter their age or relation to you. So, in the case of an old person, if they act like bastards for their whole life, it's natural to wish for them the most probable thing for them, which is death. And if they fall ill, you dont necessarily have tyo feel bad, if they werent good to you. Forgiveness is cute but very unpractical, so if an old bastard made you miserable, even for five minutes, you can wish him/her death. Dont feel bad, they wouldnt feel bad for you.

- "Yes, Pets Are Better Than People..."

Yes, i do feel more emotionally involved towards the video of a kitten than any news footage. Yes i do think that a dog's death is worse than a hundred human ones. And that can be simply put ion a few words: animals are cuter, smarter, more loving and definitely more rewarding than most people. Of course being in love with the right person is different but you have to find that one. An average cat or a dog will probably love you unconditionally, feel your mood and act accordingly and improve your life exponentially. So yeah, pet loving people are generally weird disconnected nutjobs, but i can see why. People disappoint 100% of the times. Pets dont.

There's more... That will do for now.

Music For Your Pockets: The Hellfire Sermon Podcast

I already spent some time talking abou the amazing Soggy Bog Of Doom Show, here. Still, i can understand how the music that is played there might not be your cup of tea (in that case, you are a bad person, but thats another story). Still, with The Hellfire Sermon, the new podcast created by the fertile music loving mind of Bob (the host and creator of The Soggy Bog), i think ANYONE should listen. And love it.

Simply put, Bob has decided to make a new show, where he explores the world of Dark Americana, Death Country, Gothic Folk and the likings.

If you dont know the genre, you're missing out. Its everything that music that speaks from the heart should be. Has the grit and soul of folk and classic americana but also the evocative power, imaginations and visuals of the darker zones of music, and humanity. Its hymns to the nature of mankinf, their vices, their love for sin, their desperation and lust. Hymns to the devil and death but sung inb that transcendental way that makes them speak to a whole different level of your heart.

And even more simply, its music tha6t makes you feel all sorts of emotions. Makes you cry, makes you happy, haunts you, makes the heart rush, makes you wanna sing in joy. It can definitely change your life.

Bob, in his humble manner, plays an hour of those tunes, picked up with the love and knowledge that only he has. Listening to this beauty might as well make you discover sounds and bands that you will become a part of your life. Dont hesitate, go for it.

"What you gonna do come Sunday morning
When everything you see is turned to dust
Well, I just don't believe the shit you're preaching
Forgive me Holy Father, if you must " - Those Poor Bastards

http://www.hellfiresermon.podomatic.com

Storytelling: Where The Twain Shall Meet

A choice is a choice. When you take a path, you shall not stray away from it. That would be too easy and that would be a sign of wekness. And weakness brings to self destruction and failure. One shall be stern and merciless, with himself more than anyone else. The way to survive is being made of stone and steel and to point the sharpest blade towards your own heart, to push it in and go forward, ignoring the pain and the fear, until your whole body goes numb and your arm is steady enough to go all the way.

It sounded so pretentious and so similar to the type of rubbish all the fake nihilist hipster would love to ramble about but it had a seed of truth in it, like anything else. He knew that. He hated to use clichées or dogmatic phrases to describe the choices he made. He thought that anyone who described his own actions using a set of universal rules or making them a "way", was delusional and despiucable. Which meant most people were. Still this was true. He ahated "Codes" and "principles". But he knew that everything he had done up to that point in his life after his accident was driven by the idea of lacking sympathy, especially towards himself.

He was scum. He did wrong things. he hurt people. He abused himself and others. So he punished himself, by cutting off everything that gave him the possibility to keep on being that way. He did not only get sober, he started a cleansing of his own soul. It wasnt about renouncing dope, drugs and self gratification, it was about realizing that all his life had been lived with the purpose of serving a lie, and that lie was that he was a worthy person.

Psychiatrists, with their drug peddling ways would call that "self deprecation" but it was the truth. He had made up excuses for his own failure. Family abuse that wasnt real abuse. It was all a gigantic series of well constructed stories that hid behind layers of flashy folklore, the fact that he was a lazy pointless person who loved to win over people with his raconteur skills but ended up being afraid of them eventually hurting them so he never developed a serious, real relationship. Who never committed to anything because failure was frightenign and pain would make him crumble.

So one day, after hearing that sound that a lot of people his age heard before dying, the sound of steel screaming and an engine disappearing, as he was being surrounded by sirens and while the taste of blood, vomit and alcohol mixed in his mouth, he decided he would go out and save himself. And the world around him.

He cut people away. All of them. Some noticed , most didnt , a lot more just forgot.

It was impressive how changing a phone number and disappearing in isolation, could just make people feel like you did not really exist anymore. Of course, memories lasted, up to some point. But everyone is forgotten because everyone is dispensable. No matter how good you are, someone out there is better than you and they will fix the holes your flaws left, so that your absence feels like a blessing.

He just secluded himself in a small house. Food he got from a small shop, mostly junk. A laptop. No phone. No tv. Nothing. He would stay there until he would feel like going back to living, maybe in a different place, with a clean slate. With no one really remembering or knowing his fuck ups. That way he would be free, away from all that baggage he put on himself. Away.

The food seemed to never change for a while, he could eat very little, and he almost didnt leave the house. He found people that kept him talking through his laptop. A web of people who had problems like his own. That fucked up as he did. He kept talking them and they never seemed to lack time. They were all victims or perpetrators of some trauma. It was an ocean of wounds where they just fixed each other's pain with words of comfort. It was peaceful and they sucked him in their world, healing him.

At times, darkness would wrap the house and he wouyld feel fear and loneliness. His pèaranoia would seep in and he would feel like he was being watched. Judged. Or like someone was trying to reach him and snap him back to his old world. It scared him. But it went away.

And, with time, he just felt like going back. He felt reconciled with the world. he felt like he had paid his dues. He could go on. All his far away friends were sad to see him go. He promised he would keep in touch, but they seemded to all know it was a lie. No one ever keeps in touch. you move on with your life and whats lost is lost forever. Like sand in an hourglass., it doesnt go backwards. They all would move on at some point. It was how it was supposed to be.

So he took a deep breathe and walked away.

***

The night her son crashed his car, the woman woke up panicking and couldnt fall asleep. until she received the call from the police, she felt something was wrong. It sounded like a cliché and a myth, but from the first moment they took him out of her when he was born, she knew exactly what he felt. She knew. But as the years went by and as her grasp on him loosened, she just wasnt able to do anything for him. She knew he was broken. But she couldnt fix him and yet loved him so much it felt like having her heart ripped away from her over and over gain and never being able to get it back.

When she saw him, comatose in a hospital bed, it just broke her. He had taken pills and alcohol and just started driving, until he passed out and crashed. Buiit he waqs alive when the car's parts broke him. He suffered. The doctors didnt say it but she knew. She felt it on every scar on that young body of his. Her baby, so sweet and so old and hardened. So lonely even when he was surrounded by people. If only. If only. She couldnt stop hearing that in her head, liek a ring piuercing her brain. She was out of tears or fear. She just wanted him to either come back or go.

They said he was locked in some place, somewhere inside his brain. He didnt feel the pain. But he wouldnt necessarily wake. It was a coin toss.

She looked at him, and caressed his cheek, like she used to do when he was small and he teared up until he was out of breath. It seemed to calm him back then. Please baby, come back. Or let go. Please.

And suddenly the monitor started beeping. One long beep. A flatline. He was gone. She felt her soul shatter. Why did it have to hurt so bad?

All in her head was silent. And nothing could be said anymore.

Why I Like Games

First things first, i'm a geek. I have no qualms about it. I have no pride about it either. Anyone chooses their interests and, honestly, i think the whismsical hyper-enthusiasm that some geeks have is as creepy as the social awkwardness of nerds or the apathetic indifference of anyone else.

It's great to have passions, of any kind but it doesnt necessarily makes you better, smarter or more interesting than others. The effect is, maybve, reversed: you are a person with a brain, life is NEVER interesting, so you make it more amazing by keeping yourself fascinated about everything and by keeping enthusiasm and thirst for new things. Yet if you're a soulless douche, there's nothing in this world that will make you a good person. You might be a party animal and spend all your money in that, be a sex machine that invests all his time into getting new lovers, a hardcore reader or a sports fan. You will still be a mediocre person and all your passions will always leave you incomplete and empty. But if you're smart and interesting, you'll find the beauty in anything in the world.

This is why i find so much magic in aspects of fictional things. I have an overactive immaginations and i think that reality is generally grey and dire. Bill Burr said once that "sports are something you can connect with, cause they're real". Maybe. But i find anything that involves creativity and works on the immagination, much more charming. Besides music, which is a drug of its wown that i think everyone must have in their lives, unless they're walking corpses, all forms of fiction are where the wizardy is at.

Think of "Deus Ex - Human Revolution". I know, i know, its a videogame and the last videogame you played was Pong. Shut the fuck up.

The game, following the footsteps of its genre bending predecessor, is basically set in a cyberpunk world, but what makes it special is that it allows you to face any obstacle or situation in literally any way you choose to and adapts to that. And to obtain that, it creates tiny magnificient moments of natural, unscripted comedy.

Example (again, dont be close minded douches and try to follow):

My character is trying to steal some fundamental information in a hevaily guarded room. So far i made him act like a silent, sneaky spy with powerful hacking abilities. No bullets, no violence, i made him suave, silent and ghost like.

While hacking the computer, i get distracted and a guard enters and sees me. I panic and punch him out. I should hide his body, that might get me in trouble but i need to get what i came in for and quick. I do but, obviously, another guard sees the body from distance. I hide. The guy comes closer, sees his buddy there, freaks out and, cursing, starts looking for me. At some point i realize, ill never get out of there without a fight, so i shoot him. Seems i'm free to go now. AT that point a giant security robot, armed with machine guns enters the room.

Fuck.

I hide again. If the thing sees me.....

The bot sees the corpses. He doesnt seem shocked. He looks around. Peers like a military Wall-E around the corners. Then shrugs and goes away.

After a while i'll pass him and he will ignore me. That happens in the game. Guards will be nervous and panicky, irritable and trigger happy. Bots will shoot you if they see you but most of the time they will enter a room full of human corpses and mostly give you a look that says "Well. If you clean up and dont make noise, ill just go my way. I dont really care about those silly humans".

I know, i am proibably overthinking this, but it happens so frequently its just hilarious. Hey stop staring. Fuck off.

The Wonderful World Of Self Diagnosing

While siiting in the middle of the night in front of a screen, trying to muster the strength to face a road trip with my ill father, in order to help him through getting a probe through his rectum (yeah, i know, i'm a bad person, but you try and deal with a foul mouthed, neurotic, mean old man who's about to do that), ive been looking up the internet to find material for my writings. And ive been noticing what seems to be the ultimate sign of the modern age.

With the spreading of cheap psychology books and the narcissistic appeal of exposing your own life on the web, seems that everyone has now some sort of psychological disorder and they love to talk about it. Not that speaking about what perturbs you is wrong (it's kinda what i do here too, although i consider myself a rambler, who uses his life to build long winded writinbg exercises), but i'm always impressed at how lately EVERYTHING, thanks to psychiatry especially, has been turned into an illness, worthy of endless discussion.

I honestly think that modern internet isnt really about the "anonymity" (which i will never say enough, its a myth and a cliché), but about being self absorbed, narcissistic and in desperate need for attention. Which can go in the direction of trying to be a celebrity or, at least, a "character" or when any hint of somethign interesting to say or write is absent, in the direction of scouring for sympathy or "awareness".

When you're talking abouta actual illness, "awareness" means a lot. There's always the need for more discussionbs and attention on some subjects that costs people their lives or ability to live them with dignity. Still, when the illness is one of the million and a dozen that each year are spoonfed into the feeble brain of a generation of socially and emotionally broken people by psychiatric corporation in order to sell meds, the whole thing becomes mostly a tool to be seen, and paid attention to.

An example: autism is a tangible thing. It's a serious issue that families have to deal with and can be really ugly at times. Thats why, socially crippled people that label themselves as "mildly autistic" or "aspies" are offensive to me. Being awkward or focused on non-social things, or a bit anal about details can be simply a personality trait. "Social Anxiety Disorder" is made up nine times out of ten. Your inability to deal with others or to "make friends" might just mean that you are made that way and not necessarily something that needs therapy, a support group or a dozen books on the argument. Stop making those scumbags in suits rich.

Having been abused is a bad thing and can scar someone forever and its perfectly ok to deal with it in any way you choose. But turning it in a long winded daily letter on "post traumatic disorder" or "dealing with sociopathy" or making it a syndrome, filling your tales with medical terms youve read somehwere and turning into a cartoon that no one can empathize or connect with, damages your cause. You're one of the reasons for which people dismiss real issues as bogus and ignore them. for each person that ovetalks those problems theres many that get ignored or laughed at, told to "get their shit together".

Ignorance hurts and kills. But it comes also because of excessive misinformation.

Real mental illness is devastating. Being manic is a serious issue. Being depressed is a serious issue. Obsessive compulsion, paranoia, schizophrenia, suicidal tendencies are REAL and big. Your moodswings, momenttary sadness or morbid unrealistic plans about killing yourself do not make you ill. You're looking for attention but what you're doing is enforcing the idea that being depressed means lack of character.

Being manic means not being able to eat for days then suddenly go on a balst of unpredictable fury that makes you crash your car on a pole cause you think you're invulnerable. Obsessiveness can bring you to believe that unless you have turned off all lights in your hous three times each, you cannot breathe. Paranoia is a seed in your head that pushes you to listen to people on the streets at night because something in your head tells you that they might be there to hurt you, so better safe than sorry. Those things arev real and are powerful and hard to beat.

If you pick up your own weakness and make it into a disease thats not there, youre indirectly killing people that are in real trouble. And indifference spreads from you too.

So shut the fuck up.

Kill The Bat

The other night, while i was reflecting on some issues in my life, real ones that need to be eventually solved, a bat entered my bedroom.

The tiny, agitated thing flew from the window and started doing circles around the main light. I have no issues with the flying rodents. I think they're creepy but cute, somehow. And they're fundamentally inoffensive and a bit unfortunate. I mean, this poor little fella, blind, confused, small, with only his sonar to save him, found himself trapped in a place overfilled with stuff that fucked up his direction. Under an overheating light and with a nervous overthinking human inside.

It was late, i was stressed and i was tired. I really didnt want to deal with that, but what could i do. I grabbed a broom and started, unsuccessfully to push him out of the window, Still, bats are made to keep their own circle-shaped trajectories, no matter what, so my half-arsed swings really had no effect whatsoever on his stubborn tiny head and he kept circling. Resilient.

So i grabbed a towel, following the advice on my now dead cunt grandmother (should've known better), and started lashing towards him, hoping to stun him, land him and then push him outside. The bat decided to hide under the glass dome of my light. And got trapped in there.

When i was younger i remembered my father, and my mother, loving to trap pests, insects or rodent, and then just leave them there to die. They did not kill them. They left them to agonize and die and dispose of them afterwards. I dont know if that was laziness or cruelty. I know i cannot do that. The idea of an agonizing bat trapped in my house gave me the goosebumps. So i tried to get him out of there. Wasnt easy. The little fuckhead kept flapping his wings wildly and trying to get away. I dont know why, but i started thinking of rabies. Silly, since that hardly happens, besides Stephen King's "Cujo".

In the end, while trying to pull him out, i crushed his little neck. And had to flush him out of the toilet. Feeling like a horrible human being. Unable to forgive myself for killing some little harmless thing only because i was too much of a spaz to solve the thing in a better way.

With those thoughts in mind, the next day, i met my father about his new series of exams, regarding the eventual possiblities of his tumor returning. The man, as usual, was obnoxious and cranky. Plus, an argument regarding my mother came up. See, my father and my mother are bearely a couple. They never actually divorced but havent really been together in ages. They have no love, just a lot of co-dependency and finacial problem. My mother, also, has been dealing with weird health issues lately, possibly due to her alcoholism. She breathes badly, her body is breaking down and her heart is giving up. And she is the type of person who refuses any form of treatment and wont do it ESPECIALLY because someone is trying to convince her.

Since my father is unable to deal with things like that with anything besides cursing, ranting and whining, he started blaming me for not doing anything, then went on an endless tirade on how he will not do any exam or get checked, in order to spite my mother, "So we will both fucking die".

In most occasions, discussion like that have little to no conseuqence. He enjoys spewing rage at me, since i am the only person who is somehow morally obligated to listen to him (at least in my own moral order, since in my own set of rules, i owe him this since he brought me up). My mother might die, one day, and i know i wont be able to do anything cause she'd rather pay a lawyer to be free to die of a heart attack rather than actually give in to others and take care of herself. And that used to hurt. But i get over it usually.

At this point, you're probably thinking how part A connects with part B. Thats my point: somehow killing the bat was an unpleasant option, but the bat got stuck in a spot where i couldnt do anything else. And even if i could, tahts how it went down, feeling bad about it wont change a thing,

That goes the same way with my family and maybe it will go the same way with other situations in the future. They acted following their own nature, so did i. Things happened and now some situations are going nowhere quick. I can fight in order to get better results, i can live suffering because those fights fail or regrettinbg that i wasnt able to do more or act better. Or i can just kill the bat and flush the toilet.

I need to survive.

The Necessity Of Violence

Anyone who knows sociology and the incredible power that it has as a science, might see the main point of dissertation. If you have no idea, know that everything i will write is based on thoughts, reflections and ideas that have already been approached in the past by scientist of human behaviour, on the large scale and on the smaller one. That doesnt mean they're right, i honestly think there is NO right answer to any debate or question, everything is subjective or deconstructable. All i'm saying is that it's not a bunch of button pushing statements that i'm puytting out to create controversy and reactions.

A sociuety with no violence or war isnt possible. Also a society with no war or violence would be, probably, a broken one and a catastrophe.

Think of the disaster that happened ten yeatrs ago, on the 11th of this month, in New York. Besides the natural gut reaction of people at the time, there were many unfortunate sould that talked about how the tragedy could'vbe been avoided or solved "pacifically". How basically the death of so many civilians was the end result of a series of wrong doings by the US, especially their actions in term of military intervention.

I dont wanna solve mistery or make statements on that. I am against conspiracy theories, i found them a form of fanatical silliness that people with no lives use to feel on top of their own private chaos. It's like religion but even more pointless.

What i'm reaching for there is how violence, war and sadly reaction from enemies cannot be avoided pacifically. And it isnt so because the modern times are rotten. It has always been that way since the dawn of civilization. Abd it has to be.

A society is formed by men. Men as a species interact through words, social constructs (like economies, religion or politics) and, mostly, with violence. Individual pursue their own good and build social and spiriotual ways in order to survive, dominate the others and obtain it. If you watch any conflict and mute the sound, all wars end up to people facing other people, trying to obtain something, and eventually taking it with brute strength. Then defending themselves. The incresed complexity of the social treickery we built has made the violence look like its about religion (which is just a tool used in order to ensure control and self confidence of a population), economy (which is a slightly more complicate d verison of the basic exchange of foood, tools and sexual favours) but all those things are just shields where the primal need to suppress the others to obtain domain is hidden.

The natural evolution of humans isnt democracy (an idealistic trick that is ok on paper but was never really meant to work), its war to extinction.

And i'm not saying this as a pessimistic view. I think its just the natural way for things to end. Since we're reaching the bottom of thge pit in terms of resources, economy, civilized life, all we can do is destroy the onbes who are in our way and fright for survival until we're extinguished.

It's our turn and the only way to go. We wont explore space, we wont evolve or find a superior level of civilization. Its not in our DNA and not posssible for us. All our science is able to produce now is toys to distract and weapon s to destroy.

Its what we are and we shall embrace it.

Storytelling : Slow Burn

Whenever her therapy session ended, Sheila felt like something had been taken out of her soul and turned into a thinck, invisible coat of slime and smeared all over her body.

That feeling just stuck with her and basically ruined her day and was the kiss of death for all of her family too.

It started from the right moment when she stepped in the threapist room and had to bear that cold, clinical yet condescneding stare she gave her. That knowing look that told her that anything could be solved as long as she filled the hour with chatter, paid her fee and took enough meds to numb her own anger and fear enough to give the illusion of not being ill anymore. And then it stuck inside her, like a sore spot. She knew she was being judged. It seemed like judhement was all over her life these days. Especially since she had to admit that her own ways to solve problems werent enough anymore.

She used to deal with the bite pretty well by drinking it into a pool of piss. And, with that she seemed to tone down the edges strongly enough, that suddenly that blind, white pain that filled her head like a piercing tooth ache and made her want to wrap her hands around her daughter's tiny, soft neck, became a vague feeling of diappointment.

Her husband seemed to not get it. The bitter drunkenness, the insults, the rants were a small price they all had to bear, compared to what could have happened if she didnt deal with what she had inside. That nagging grumble was almost delightful, in some sort of black humoured way. But if she let it turn into a loud yell, and she knew it would, cause she had it in her blood and it reared its ugly head before, the conseuences wouldve been worse.

She lived with abuse for years. Actually she only knew abuse. And knew how real, day to day abusers know very well how to avoid being caught or stopped. Its not about havbing moments caused by substances for them. Its something that they have in them, placed geneticllay. Something that is taught from generation to generation. It doesnt have to be extreme or over the top. it can be a bunch of small scars inflicted on the people who surround you, wrapped with enough decency and tricks that those people dont have the strength to run away. And love is a powerful weapon too. You trick them with love and they will be enslaved to you. Bear the slow burn of your cruelty. Let you corrode their self esteem, until they think what you do to them is how its meant to be. How probably there's people who have it worse, like cigarette burns, or broken limbs.

In society's head, when her father die3d, it was an accident. He crashed his car while a muddy, smelly rain covered the streets. Police siad he was drunk. He was always veruy drunk, on those days. So they tought it could be an accident. Or some sort of tragic disembodied su8icide. the type that men run to when they loose their job and dignity and are trapped into something that is becomning too unbearable. When they realize that the years they have ahead arent even remotely enough to fix the mistakes of their lives but are way more than they can bear to live with. It's the quiet that really kills them. T&hey dont have friends anymore, or a way to get that stuff out. they werent brought up like that. A man doesnt complain, he takes his own demons and deals with them or takes himself out. No one really knew.

And when people started to talk,m some of them even thought he fel guilty about hurting her. She had bruisesand people saw those. And like people tend to do, they did not act but they talked and chatted about it. And as society dictates they pointed the finger at him. Even more affter he died. But no one really knew.

Those bruises were self inflicted. Most of them. And the monster was in he rhouse but knew how to hide.

Her mother was a worker but at the same time, shje knew how to be invisible. She was meek quiet and subservient. Small, fragile and gentle. She knitted and cooked. She used to work regularly at a store, wher ecustomers always remembered her face but at the same time seemed to loose grasp of her name. Then she decided to be a housewife and a great one. When she became a widow her attention to her daughter became all of her life.

Sheila knew she owed her mother everything. Education, being brought up well, with money and a roof over her head., She was in her debt no matter what.

No matter the pinching that was done well enough to not leave any bruises. The punches, always in places that left no signs. The touching and choking, never violated her enough to be noticed but enough to wake her up iin the4 middle of the night to this very day. The insults, the belittling, the nager. The way she bropke her stuff or simply ignored her for days and refused to acknowledge her. The obsessiveness and the way she always made her feel watched, wven when she was naked alone, in the bathtub after all those years.

And that woman had survived inside her. When she had become old and ill, Shgeila took her revenge, letting her stew in her own excrements, scaring her, hurting her. She was old, fragile, weak and she could take anything. No nurses, just her and he4r mother. She enjoyed every second of it and yet, after her death, nothing was fixed. She felt like all those small scars had simply made her crumble.

Her mother wasd verywhere. In her bed, when she was having sex. In her dreams. In her.

When she got pregnant her first thing was to abort the baby. But maybe things would be different. And they were. She always struggled with the desire of hurting her daughter. Daily. But took it down piece by piece. Channeled it into words and shouts that really werent hurtful.

But in the end, that was enough. And they wanted her to get therapy. To quit drinking. To medicate. And that made her more miserable.

And no one knew, not even her. what was going on in her daughter's head. how every word would be a slap when she had kids of her own. Slow Burn. Never stops.

Always Loook At The Bright Side of Your Moneky....

Of course, just by looking at that pic, you might be guessing i'0m gonna launch in one of those funny tirade about how being a drunk or an addict has funny sides and how beer is better than anything else. Nah. I accept people being constantly shitfaced. I do drink occasionally, although im mostly sober, latelly. I noticed that, very differently form how i approached the matter up to this day, i drink because i LIKE what i drink and i enjoy the sensations it gives me. I like good wines, and beer. So i drink them enough to enjoy them but avoid binging because i have no more pleasure in altering my mind, unless it's a particular occasion.

See, after doing it for years at a level that risked me to get almost killed in various oocasions and getting into lòegal troubles, i still know exactly why most people doi it in order to get shitfaced. I cant deal with that anymore, because if i ever did that even once, i would become addicted to the feeling right away. The borerdeom and ewmptiness that life has, the way booze (or drugs) take the unbearable edges off of a moment is there, so i perfectly understand why someone would want to do it.

And again, im not talking about people who drink out of a taste for beer. I'm talking about how a lot of people turned to heavy drinking cause it helps you deal with despair. It works. As do drugs. When you get shitfaced enough, you get some sort of powerful drive to do what your social inhibition block from you. You get laid easier (although, often with bad results), you tell what you really think to people's face, you attack people who deserve a slap. And you have this excuse for taking stuff off of your chest that is somehow socially accepted.

Lets admiti it. Most pof the good times you had in your life, werent really good. You made them good cause you were drunk. And you drank a lot cause sobriety wouldve been unbearable. Cause if you were sober, you wouldve been unable to stand the people who surrounded you and you wouldve been a majopr pain in the ass to everyone.

And drugs are the same. They are ok, they make things easier. Until they become all you have to survive the total dreck that the majortity of lives become.

Thats why i had to quit or cut downb. I needed to get shitfaced, cause like it happened to my mother, even waking up was becoming a terrible moment where i realized i wasnt dreaming anymore, i was still alive and it wasnt over. So being shitfaced since early morning helped. Then id get less wortk or worse a work place where no one really cared if i was lucid or not. So id just drink more. Hangovers would be horrible but would also be part of the deal.

And the people who surrounded me. Well when you are a drunk, you end up hanging with drunks. And drunks want you to be drinking all the time. They dont like sober people. They tell you that hangovers can be cured by drinking more. They hget nervous at anythying if they have to stay sober. And they drive.

I have seen people getting into almost deadly accidents, gaining wheelchairs and scars and still do it again. I tried to be a sober driver but it was impossible to pull that off because a regular drunk driover is not going to let you drive. It humiliates them, it hurts their ego which is one of the flaws that has made them the way they are. I know that. i had my keys taken away from me and all i did at some point wasnt simply accepting that i couldnt drive but instead attack whoever took the key and hit them until i got the keys back.

And honestly, no one really gives a fuck about what you do when you're with drunks. You wanna drive shit faced? Please do. Your problem.

And its the same with drugs. It's fun but at the end, the fun always end up erasing life and becoming all you have. I miss it a lot. Life isnt good, it will never be. Sometimes i need a crutch but i also know that if i ever relapsewd into that, i would be done.

And if you are reading this and saying: "Oh, i dont have a problem, i can do it without dramna" or "i need that to feel better. I know its wrong but i'm in so much PAIN"... Well you're full of shit.

Myths, Opinions and FACTS

I'm in favour of debating points, and i'm open for all sorts of ideas and different points of view about reality. I am not a bully. But theres an increasing list of facts that i simply have no more time to debate about. When it comes to discussing taste or religious/political/sexual differences, everything is good. Soime stuff i dont like, some i dont agreer with, and viceversa. Most of the time i'll disagree because i find debate and discussion way more interesting than passive agreement and niceness, but in the end, its really hardly about making points, mostly about excercising debating abilities.

And yet, a few things are FACTS. Whether you agree or not, those are truths. Not debatable.

1) Men And Women Are Not Equal And Shall Not Be Treated The Same

I am deadly serious about this. To be clear, i am not saying that sexism is ok or that machismo is a good thing. What i am talking about is that the two genders (and i am not talking about sexual orientation, im strictly talking about gender, whether its physical or psychological. Yes transgendered people count as waht they feel within, not how they feel physically) ARE different in all aspects of their psychology and some, if not most of the widely recognized traits attributed to them are actually true.

Women are mercurial, more difficult, more sensitive (in both the good and bad way) and more able to deal with emotions. Men are more limited in those aspect, morte aggressive, more prone to a defnsive approach . When guys play the "i'm sensitive, i have feelings like women, i understand them", they're, in large part, either delusional or manipulative. A "sensitive" man is hardly REALLY sensitive, but he is potentially usign his idea of how "sensitivity" should be to manipulate people. That is not worth of trust. Men can have emotions, but they have to be different, more under control, less manipulative and more basic and non mind-fucking. Exceptions exist but they are suspect and generally bad.

To sum it up: the roles exist and shall be taken into consideration. Again, i'm not talking about sexuality. Sexuality is a natural instinct of living beings that can be approached in every way conceivable. fuck the fuck-able. What i'm talking about is behavioural patterns and the way generally, brains are shaped. Think about it.

2)Life Is Not Precious

Yeah. Babies arent special, abortion is not a bad thing, since the right of a mother to choose if she wants to be a mother or not, whatever background she has, comes before any conglomerate of cells. And even when the creatures are born they are not granted special rights, besides the main ones. They will be special when they prove themselves to be.

Life is a process. People die. Unless there are particularly strong reasons to pribilege a person's life (like love, which is already a very debatable thing), they deserve attention and care and decency but they're not granted special rights. Animals are as important as people, no more no less. An death and sickness happen. It is what it is. We shall fight about it but also we have no right to think that we have special rights because we are humans.

Also, and possibly more importantly: a lot of people deserve to die. A lot. People who have no conscience or remorse that hurt others out of their broken nature. There's no superior idea of the sanctity of life that protects me. they should be killed, fact.

Suicide is not wrong. Its cowardly and whenever you do that you lkeave your loved ones behind. No matter how big the pain is, when you kill yourself you betray your loved ones. But besides that, if you dont have anyone and your life is meaningless, do it. Life is not precious or has any sanctity.

3)There Is No God

You're spiritual. Fine. You do not want to think that when you die there will be nothing afterwards. Ok. Youw anna think that the possiblity of a a superior being makes your life better. Knock yourself out.

Do not talk to me in a condescending or convincing or preachy manner, trying to use poetically sensitive arguments or verbal aggression in order to pull me into your hazy supersititions. The absence of any prooof about the existence of any fgorm of deity or any life after death is the final point. It's not about being into organized religion or not. Its not about spirituality or whatever. Humans are bundles of flesh with nothing more special than bananas, besides their hyperactive and strongly delusional brains. When they cease functioning they cease existing and rot. End of story. Its the ONLY logical explanation and the only possible truth. All the rest is a silly superstiution, which you're allowed to believe but stays a superstition. It doesnt mean that life is less worth living, actually it means you have to live it MORE, because you have no second chances.

4)Things Wont Be Fine

Its ok to have ideals and not be apathetic. Actually, jaded and apathetic people are a disease that should be taken away from this world. But bear in mind that having ideals and fighting for causes is something you do for yourself, to be a person thats able to look in a mirror without spitting. The improve3mednts will be momentary and there wil always be a majority that wiull. crush the good. Things wont be fine, its not how things work, even in the small parts of life. Nothing lasts, everything is worth a try.

Apathy is the real enemy, but excessive optimism is apathy in disguise.

5)America Is Not The Greatest Country In The world

Big? Yes. Powerful? Yes. Culturally varied? Sure.

The Best? No. Not even vaguely.

The US are a strong conglomerate with a lot of good thin gs and a whole shitton of flaws. Yes, they are bettger than war torn third world places but that doesnt mean much. Those places are NOT part of civilization (another fact that i wont list but it's true), so being better isnt really an achievemnent.

There are country that are living peacefully in Europe without adapting the patriotism of the States and the Gung-Ho arrogance that seems to be key to their way to live.

That said, The States are a country that shall be proud of themselves. But they're not superior or better and maybe its time they realized this.

Music For Your Pockets: Giles Robson& The Dirty Aces

If i had to sum up why this guy deserves attention and praise in one polished sentence, it would be this: he plays pure Blues Rock and plays a Harp.

You may not get why that is so awesome, if you're not a fan of that specific gritty music or you only heard it in its modern revisionist way, where the focus is on guitar histrionics, pretty polished vocals or top chart hooks.

But see, the people that love the blues in its blood and guts, undiluted version, know what i'm talking about. A harp is a magical instrument for that genre, it gives the sound something special. Just check out the always underrated Red Devils, a band that survived on live performances and whose discography is mostly made of primal bootlegs recorded with people like Mick Jagger, John Lee Hooker or Johnny Cash. They had a full band assault, made of guitars, howling vocals and all. But the harp was like a symbol of a soulful attitude, a sincerity and a love for the roots of the music. A mouth harp brings the magic of blues to a whole different level. Its an instrument that screams for live performances, improvisation, jamming and sweaty pubs. Street Musicianship. Soul and balls.

Giles Robson plays it, does it well and also has all the rest. Him and his Dirty Aces deliver some absolutely bare boned and magical Blues Rock that comes right out from the golden vault of the golden age and get right into your heart. Its energized, sad, soulful, warm, badass songs about life, love and despair. Sung and played like they're in a small smokey club in a gutter alley but polished and smart enough to guarantee constant replay. Sell your soul to this scruffy devil.

Take A Bite

http://www.myspace.com/gilesrobsonthedirtyaces

Being An Ass Is An STD

Talk to any neo-nihilist geek and there's a high chance that they'll quote the movie "idiocracy" as a dystopian cinematic manifesto for a possible outcome of our society. Theres a very spread belief, especially in the embittered post youth of today, that idiotic people willò outbreed the smart ones. According to the theory, morons are resilient, have a lot of children, dont use birth control, and are unaffected by the small, soul crushing aspects of living. So in the end they breed more and in largher quantities, where intelligent people extinguish themselves by not having kids, commitinbg suicide eand marching to oblivion.

I agree with soime aspects of this, mostly with the idea that theres a scary lack of limitation towards the breeding of human trash. Still, ive seen a renewal in the interest of having kids in the armies of intelligent beings. I see less people reasoning with the idea of being parents and more just doin it because "it has to happen". Seems like people want to procreate, whether its a good choice or not, and that is kinda positive. I don t feel like being a father but thats a lacking aspect in me, i realize that being a parent is a fundamental aspect in being a leveled human being. I realized that i potentially lack some emotional aspect that would make me sacrifice myself for another person, consider them on a different level than any other person and allow them to eventually walk over me and putting them before myslef. I dopnt think i could do that and i dont wanna risk the change of not doing it.

Also,l and thats my main point, i think the reale scary disease that transmits from parents to children is "flaws". Or on a harsher and more realistic level: bad people will unavoidably breed worse people and the cycle will almost eternally stay unbroken.

That possibly sounds extremely pessimistic, but i have very few examples to mind where i can really be proven wrong on this. Take me, to say one. I got a lot of strength from my mother, as i learned from her how you can survive odds and fear but at the same time i learned from her the idea that substance can be a crutch and give youy enough oblivion to go through stuff, until that becomes THE stuff. A baby is born as a blanket, he reproduces what it sees and as much as friends and society affect, the main input of data comes from what is your first habitata in your earliest days.

I saw my7 family being litigious, cowardly, aggressive, mean and i reproduced inevitably all of it in my own world. I learned that you can abuse and get away with it, if you're careless enough and i did the same to other people close to me. I am a product of them and as much as im self aware of that and i try to be different, some things are engrained in my soul and push me towards being that way. Its almost unstoppable and change CAN happen but its one of the biggest struggles a brain has to deal with.

I have the CERTAINTY that in the end, id do a lot of those same mistakes towards a child that my own family has done with me. Or, maybe even worse, i would mutate into overcompensation and turn into a tyrant because i wanna make my son or daughter strong so they can face the filth. Or be so spineless and soft that i make them people that could be hurt by a breeze.

It's a dungeon. And my dragon is HUGE. Ha ha. Just kidding.