Josh Hilden's Blog, page 22
February 3, 2014
Josh, Flaws and All, Part 4: I’m a Stubborn Jackass
There will be very little preamble this time around. I feel pretty lousy having said all that I did about my eating problems. I know in the end I will be better off but right now I am miserable and I feel like a pathetic fat assed loser with no self control. But I need to keep writing. I f I don’t I will wallow in my depression whether I’m medicated or not.
Okay enough of that, there are more secrets and pain to expose.
Today we tackle my stubbornness and the key incidents in my past. This one will be a bit different because I tend to see my streak of intransigents as a safety mechanism and something of a virtue.
But as always there are a few I deeply regret.
I love my family. Well I love most of my family. There are a few people I couldn’t care less about if I tried, but for the most part I love my family. Like is an entirely different pig but we will deal with that later. My stubbornness right or wrong, and let’s be honest sometimes digging your heals in and fighting is the right thing to do, has damaged my relationship with my family.
I have always been the kid who would, as my father so eloquently put when he was pissed, “Cut off my nose to spite my face.” That incident will be related later on in this essay bit suffice it to say I have a long history of not backing down regardless of if it was in my best interests or not.
Remember tow essays ago when I told you how much of a coward I am?
Of course you do, I bet it was the highlight f your week.
I bet you are wondering how I could be such a stubborn jackass and scared stupid of confrontation at the same time. Well my friends and followers I can tell you that not only is it possible but it leads to a life of near nervous breakdowns on a daily basis. It leads to seething rages and bouts of gut churning terror at the same time.
It just sucks donkey balls.
The first time I can remember my stubborn nature biting me in the ass was when I was about six. We were at the store with my step uncles Bert and Ernie. Bert offered to buy me a toy. I recall the toy he offered to buy was a Spiderman disk shooter. I don’t remember what toy I wanted but it was considerably more expensive than the disk shooter. I recall throwing a mini fit in the middle of the store when Uncle Bert refused to but what I wanted. In the end stubborn bullheaded fat little Josh ended up with no toy and a pissed off uncle.
This actually fits the bill of stubborn and selfish. Selfish however will be dealt with in a future essay.
In 1990 I moved in with my dad and step monster. My mom was pissed and hurt when I decided to leave. For the next six months we barely talked, whenever my unnamed brother and I came to visit she was cold and distant. Eventually I allowed her to guilt me into feeling like the bad guy in that situation. While my mother may have felt better following this confrontation, I’m not actually sure she was coherent enough at the time to commit it to her long term memory center, I was left bitter and resentful. I hate being manipulated and my mother is one of the best around. My capitulation still chaps my ass.
Did I ever mention I hold a serious grudge?
Yeah that is another essay in the waiting.
The next major bit of stubbornness is the aforementioned nose incident. When I began saving for a car my father and step monster offered me a deal, they would match whatever I saved up to one thousand dollars. It sounded entirely too good to be a true … and it was.
I am convinced to this very day that my step monster never believed I would manage to save any money let alone a full grand. As I saved more money it seemed, no fuck that I know, the bitch started tightening the screws and busting my nuts over any little thing.
For the life of me I think it all started because I stayed home sick from school. When she got home from her job she immediately laid into me about being responsible and that they times I was allowed to stay home from school was if I had a fever or was vomiting. Seriously according to the step monster if we didn’t have those symptoms we weren’t really sick.
SIDEBAR: For years the step monster would make medical pronouncements and decide how we should be treated when ill based on what she learned in the handful of years she’d worked in a retirement home. It was when I was about 16 when I learned the extant of her medical experience was not being a nurse’s aid or doctor’s assistant, no all she did was clean bathrooms and change shitty diapers. What a fucking lying bitch.
Unlike many of the other times she decided to lecture me on my shortcomings, and friends there were more of those occasions than I can count, I got my dander up and fought back. There was no screaming or yelling but I did tell her she was wrong. And boy howdy she did not like that one little bit. She told me if I was going to act like this she was only going to match $500. I told her I didn’t want any of her money in response. She stormed away the financial victor but a loser in our pathetic battle of wills.
Dad was not impressed, hence the nose and face comment.
In the end and considering what was to come a year later I am very glad I didn’t take a dime from her. Of course financial stubbornness would nearly kill me in 2005.
NOTE: That would be them taking my car because a woman who was mad at me for flipping her off when she nearly ran into me reported me to the cops for “Hitting her car and leaving.” See my first series of essays “A Cautious Descent Into Respectability” for the whole stupid tale.
When we bought our home in 2000 we were royally fucked over. The lenders and the seller were shady as hell and when we went to the closing the 8.4% interest rate we’d been promised suddenly became 14.9% and nobody batted an eye. I heard it and I said nothing, I didn’t want to sound like the moron in the room I mean maybe it was mistaken. When Karen and I went to eat afterwards and sat in the restaurant like war survivors I knew we were screwed. This was mainly more of that awesome cowardice at work but there was a fair flavoring of stubbornness thrown in for fun.
For five years we did everything in our power to make payments on the Crap Shack as I dubbed the lemon of a house. We even borrowed money from my new … step mother … sigh. But that is an entirely different story I may not tell for a very long time in deference to my father. In the end I was reduced to a very Wall Street scheme of moving money between multiple accounts in order to cover our mortgage. I had no idea it was a felony crime called kiting.
When the jig was up we declared bankruptcy. But bankruptcy didn’t change the amount we had to pay on the house every month. We should have declared chapter 7 as opposed to chapter 13 and dumped the shithole, but I was stubborn and we didn’t. Finally in 2011 we abandoned the property, now worth less than 50% of what we owed on it.
We lost a lot that year.
And now for the coup de gras, the real reason I am writing this particular essay … I miss my Dad. When I wrote all those initial essays in 2012 I was condemned by a large chunk of my family. My mother pretty much called me a liar, we are talking now but it’s probably never going to be the same. My unnamed jacks of a brother made some insane threats to sue me for slander (again asshole when it’s in writing its liable and you still didn’t have a leg to stand on) and then cut all contact. No big loss. My dad on the other hand said nothing literally he just stopped talking to me. There have been phone calls, all from me, on holidays and that’s it aside from a couple of Facebook messages. I know he’s mad and I know he’s hurt but I refuse to be the one to say sorry.
I’m not sorry, everything I said was the truth whether they want to admit it or not. I would do it all over again even knowing the consequences. But in the end I miss my dad and I don’t see anything changing anytime soon.
So yeah I am a stubborn prideful jackass.
Wow, that was a hard one to write. But at least I feel better about being a fat ass coward. I am not sure what we will be discussing next time but I’m I am sure it will be an action packed thrill ride!
-Josh
Okay enough of that, there are more secrets and pain to expose.
Today we tackle my stubbornness and the key incidents in my past. This one will be a bit different because I tend to see my streak of intransigents as a safety mechanism and something of a virtue.
But as always there are a few I deeply regret.
I love my family. Well I love most of my family. There are a few people I couldn’t care less about if I tried, but for the most part I love my family. Like is an entirely different pig but we will deal with that later. My stubbornness right or wrong, and let’s be honest sometimes digging your heals in and fighting is the right thing to do, has damaged my relationship with my family.
I have always been the kid who would, as my father so eloquently put when he was pissed, “Cut off my nose to spite my face.” That incident will be related later on in this essay bit suffice it to say I have a long history of not backing down regardless of if it was in my best interests or not.
Remember tow essays ago when I told you how much of a coward I am?
Of course you do, I bet it was the highlight f your week.
I bet you are wondering how I could be such a stubborn jackass and scared stupid of confrontation at the same time. Well my friends and followers I can tell you that not only is it possible but it leads to a life of near nervous breakdowns on a daily basis. It leads to seething rages and bouts of gut churning terror at the same time.
It just sucks donkey balls.
The first time I can remember my stubborn nature biting me in the ass was when I was about six. We were at the store with my step uncles Bert and Ernie. Bert offered to buy me a toy. I recall the toy he offered to buy was a Spiderman disk shooter. I don’t remember what toy I wanted but it was considerably more expensive than the disk shooter. I recall throwing a mini fit in the middle of the store when Uncle Bert refused to but what I wanted. In the end stubborn bullheaded fat little Josh ended up with no toy and a pissed off uncle.
This actually fits the bill of stubborn and selfish. Selfish however will be dealt with in a future essay.
In 1990 I moved in with my dad and step monster. My mom was pissed and hurt when I decided to leave. For the next six months we barely talked, whenever my unnamed brother and I came to visit she was cold and distant. Eventually I allowed her to guilt me into feeling like the bad guy in that situation. While my mother may have felt better following this confrontation, I’m not actually sure she was coherent enough at the time to commit it to her long term memory center, I was left bitter and resentful. I hate being manipulated and my mother is one of the best around. My capitulation still chaps my ass.
Did I ever mention I hold a serious grudge?
Yeah that is another essay in the waiting.
The next major bit of stubbornness is the aforementioned nose incident. When I began saving for a car my father and step monster offered me a deal, they would match whatever I saved up to one thousand dollars. It sounded entirely too good to be a true … and it was.
I am convinced to this very day that my step monster never believed I would manage to save any money let alone a full grand. As I saved more money it seemed, no fuck that I know, the bitch started tightening the screws and busting my nuts over any little thing.
For the life of me I think it all started because I stayed home sick from school. When she got home from her job she immediately laid into me about being responsible and that they times I was allowed to stay home from school was if I had a fever or was vomiting. Seriously according to the step monster if we didn’t have those symptoms we weren’t really sick.
SIDEBAR: For years the step monster would make medical pronouncements and decide how we should be treated when ill based on what she learned in the handful of years she’d worked in a retirement home. It was when I was about 16 when I learned the extant of her medical experience was not being a nurse’s aid or doctor’s assistant, no all she did was clean bathrooms and change shitty diapers. What a fucking lying bitch.
Unlike many of the other times she decided to lecture me on my shortcomings, and friends there were more of those occasions than I can count, I got my dander up and fought back. There was no screaming or yelling but I did tell her she was wrong. And boy howdy she did not like that one little bit. She told me if I was going to act like this she was only going to match $500. I told her I didn’t want any of her money in response. She stormed away the financial victor but a loser in our pathetic battle of wills.
Dad was not impressed, hence the nose and face comment.
In the end and considering what was to come a year later I am very glad I didn’t take a dime from her. Of course financial stubbornness would nearly kill me in 2005.
NOTE: That would be them taking my car because a woman who was mad at me for flipping her off when she nearly ran into me reported me to the cops for “Hitting her car and leaving.” See my first series of essays “A Cautious Descent Into Respectability” for the whole stupid tale.
When we bought our home in 2000 we were royally fucked over. The lenders and the seller were shady as hell and when we went to the closing the 8.4% interest rate we’d been promised suddenly became 14.9% and nobody batted an eye. I heard it and I said nothing, I didn’t want to sound like the moron in the room I mean maybe it was mistaken. When Karen and I went to eat afterwards and sat in the restaurant like war survivors I knew we were screwed. This was mainly more of that awesome cowardice at work but there was a fair flavoring of stubbornness thrown in for fun.
For five years we did everything in our power to make payments on the Crap Shack as I dubbed the lemon of a house. We even borrowed money from my new … step mother … sigh. But that is an entirely different story I may not tell for a very long time in deference to my father. In the end I was reduced to a very Wall Street scheme of moving money between multiple accounts in order to cover our mortgage. I had no idea it was a felony crime called kiting.
When the jig was up we declared bankruptcy. But bankruptcy didn’t change the amount we had to pay on the house every month. We should have declared chapter 7 as opposed to chapter 13 and dumped the shithole, but I was stubborn and we didn’t. Finally in 2011 we abandoned the property, now worth less than 50% of what we owed on it.
We lost a lot that year.
And now for the coup de gras, the real reason I am writing this particular essay … I miss my Dad. When I wrote all those initial essays in 2012 I was condemned by a large chunk of my family. My mother pretty much called me a liar, we are talking now but it’s probably never going to be the same. My unnamed jacks of a brother made some insane threats to sue me for slander (again asshole when it’s in writing its liable and you still didn’t have a leg to stand on) and then cut all contact. No big loss. My dad on the other hand said nothing literally he just stopped talking to me. There have been phone calls, all from me, on holidays and that’s it aside from a couple of Facebook messages. I know he’s mad and I know he’s hurt but I refuse to be the one to say sorry.
I’m not sorry, everything I said was the truth whether they want to admit it or not. I would do it all over again even knowing the consequences. But in the end I miss my dad and I don’t see anything changing anytime soon.
So yeah I am a stubborn prideful jackass.
Wow, that was a hard one to write. But at least I feel better about being a fat ass coward. I am not sure what we will be discussing next time but I’m I am sure it will be an action packed thrill ride!
-Josh
February 2, 2014
Josh, Flaws and All, Part 3 – I Eat
I have received feedback from some very good people telling me I am being too hard on myself in these essays. I appreciate this but I feel I need to explain something to all of you.
Bringing these flaws out into the open is making me feel better.
I know some of this is making you guys uncomfortable and I apologize for that discomfort. However I am not apologizing for writing these and putting them out there. I need to keep pushing forward and airing out the basement, I have to keep opening the doors and letting light shine into the obsidian corners of my heart and mind. I was feeling myself regressing to a secretive and closed off stance. I felt paranoia and depression biting at the edges of my disposition and attitude.
I was NOT letting myself become that asshole again.
I have worked too fucking hard in the last 20 months to ever end up that person again. He was weak, scared, petty, miserable, and convinced he was one of the most mediocre pathetic people in the world.
THAT IS NOT ME!
Okay, I hope that helps put these essays in a context. If not email me, if you are truly concerned and I would be happy to discuss this with you. Everyone has issues and it’s up to them to choose whether they want to share them or not. I choose to share, I have to share, and if I don’t share I will hold everything in and eventually become an emotional black hole. My mother in particular has been worried I am over sharing and it will come back to bite me in the ass. I know she worries because she loves me, but this is what I need to do. I believe it I put it all out there it is much harder for it to bite me in the ass.
Alright enough of this, on to today’s topic.
Today I want to talk about my being fat. Yes I know I have written on the subject before, and I promise I will be writing about it in the future as well, but today we are going to speak of one facet of my weight, specifically my EATING problem.
So buckle up buttercup, it’s about to get sloppy up in here!
I want to paraphrase, as opposed to just flay ripping off, something Stephen King wrote in “On Writing” (Awesome book if you are a writer fucking read it already). When I am in a restaurant and I see somebody push away a plate of half eaten food I want to scream. I want to march over to them, smack them a few times, shake them until they pee themselves, and scream in their face “FUCKING FINISH THAT! EAT YOU STUPID FUCK!” then walk away.
But I don’t do that.
Because prison rape.
I eat when I am happy. I eat when I am sad. I eat when I am angry. I eat when I am bored. What can I say I like to eat, sue me it’s not like I am the only one or even in the minority. Us fatties, we are legion.
I was born a pudgy baby with a shock of nearly black hair. I was also yellow skinned due to jaundice which lead to my paternal grandmother asking my mom who the father was at the hospital. I miss that woman. I am still convinced I received a large percentage of my sense of humor from her.
I may have been born fat, I can blame god for that one, but I made sure I stayed fat. Well to be fair my mom fed me and she let me eat what I wanted add that with the rest of family equating food with love and the deck was stacked against me.
IN THE BEGININNG!
All of the weight I’ve gained and kept on my frame since the age of 12 is 100% my fault. You will never hear me, unless it’s in jest, blame anyone else for my weight and voluptuous physique.
My shame is binge eating.
I know that it’s not uncommon for people with eating disorders to binge eat but to a person doing it you feel like the lowest of the low. You feel like a subhuman piece of shit and the attitudes of a great man people I this world toward the fat people only makes it worse.
At least I’m not female. Women have it a thousand times harder (in general) when it comes to their weight than men ever do.
For a long time my favorite thing to do was go down to the kitchen at about two in the morning and gorge. I ate everything and anything. Left over’s, snacks, sandwiches, and as many bowls of super sugary cereal were all fuel for the furnace. Each bit brought me an intense rush of joy followed a self loathing I can’t describe to someone who hasn’t been there.
For a very long time it was drive thru fast food. Anytime I was alone in the car I would swing through a burger joint and load up on salty, fatty, greasy, unhealthy, and delicious food. I would eat so much if it that I would have massive diarrhea for the rest of the day, my stomach would cramp, and the gas released by my body would have killed house plants.
Add to all of that the times I take food I know is not mine, at home and work, and I think you can see where my humiliation lies. If I am hungry it doesn’t matter who the food belongs too I’ll eat it anyway … that makes me a thief on top of everything else.
You have to eat to live, there is no choice in the matter.
Most times I fell I live to eat.
I don’t know what to do. I have managed to cut back on the amounts I eat and I have dramatically reduced the incidents of bingeing. I’ve also managed to avoid taking food that doesn’t belong to me lately. But I know all of it will happen again and I know I will hate myself after.
I am weak and I am ashamed.
I feel alone.
Okay enough, these are really taking it out of me. They are helping me a lot but I feel hollowed out after I am finished. When I post these I feel naked and exposed, I feel vulnerable in a way I haven’t since I was 7. It’s not a bad thing but it is terrifying.
Alright next time we talk about my relationship with my family … yeah not looking forward to this one, and when they hear about it they won’t be either I’m sure.
Hope nobody threatens me with a lawsuit this time.
-Josh
Bringing these flaws out into the open is making me feel better.
I know some of this is making you guys uncomfortable and I apologize for that discomfort. However I am not apologizing for writing these and putting them out there. I need to keep pushing forward and airing out the basement, I have to keep opening the doors and letting light shine into the obsidian corners of my heart and mind. I was feeling myself regressing to a secretive and closed off stance. I felt paranoia and depression biting at the edges of my disposition and attitude.
I was NOT letting myself become that asshole again.
I have worked too fucking hard in the last 20 months to ever end up that person again. He was weak, scared, petty, miserable, and convinced he was one of the most mediocre pathetic people in the world.
THAT IS NOT ME!
Okay, I hope that helps put these essays in a context. If not email me, if you are truly concerned and I would be happy to discuss this with you. Everyone has issues and it’s up to them to choose whether they want to share them or not. I choose to share, I have to share, and if I don’t share I will hold everything in and eventually become an emotional black hole. My mother in particular has been worried I am over sharing and it will come back to bite me in the ass. I know she worries because she loves me, but this is what I need to do. I believe it I put it all out there it is much harder for it to bite me in the ass.
Alright enough of this, on to today’s topic.
Today I want to talk about my being fat. Yes I know I have written on the subject before, and I promise I will be writing about it in the future as well, but today we are going to speak of one facet of my weight, specifically my EATING problem.
So buckle up buttercup, it’s about to get sloppy up in here!
I want to paraphrase, as opposed to just flay ripping off, something Stephen King wrote in “On Writing” (Awesome book if you are a writer fucking read it already). When I am in a restaurant and I see somebody push away a plate of half eaten food I want to scream. I want to march over to them, smack them a few times, shake them until they pee themselves, and scream in their face “FUCKING FINISH THAT! EAT YOU STUPID FUCK!” then walk away.
But I don’t do that.
Because prison rape.
I eat when I am happy. I eat when I am sad. I eat when I am angry. I eat when I am bored. What can I say I like to eat, sue me it’s not like I am the only one or even in the minority. Us fatties, we are legion.
I was born a pudgy baby with a shock of nearly black hair. I was also yellow skinned due to jaundice which lead to my paternal grandmother asking my mom who the father was at the hospital. I miss that woman. I am still convinced I received a large percentage of my sense of humor from her.
I may have been born fat, I can blame god for that one, but I made sure I stayed fat. Well to be fair my mom fed me and she let me eat what I wanted add that with the rest of family equating food with love and the deck was stacked against me.
IN THE BEGININNG!
All of the weight I’ve gained and kept on my frame since the age of 12 is 100% my fault. You will never hear me, unless it’s in jest, blame anyone else for my weight and voluptuous physique.
My shame is binge eating.
I know that it’s not uncommon for people with eating disorders to binge eat but to a person doing it you feel like the lowest of the low. You feel like a subhuman piece of shit and the attitudes of a great man people I this world toward the fat people only makes it worse.
At least I’m not female. Women have it a thousand times harder (in general) when it comes to their weight than men ever do.
For a long time my favorite thing to do was go down to the kitchen at about two in the morning and gorge. I ate everything and anything. Left over’s, snacks, sandwiches, and as many bowls of super sugary cereal were all fuel for the furnace. Each bit brought me an intense rush of joy followed a self loathing I can’t describe to someone who hasn’t been there.
For a very long time it was drive thru fast food. Anytime I was alone in the car I would swing through a burger joint and load up on salty, fatty, greasy, unhealthy, and delicious food. I would eat so much if it that I would have massive diarrhea for the rest of the day, my stomach would cramp, and the gas released by my body would have killed house plants.
Add to all of that the times I take food I know is not mine, at home and work, and I think you can see where my humiliation lies. If I am hungry it doesn’t matter who the food belongs too I’ll eat it anyway … that makes me a thief on top of everything else.
You have to eat to live, there is no choice in the matter.
Most times I fell I live to eat.
I don’t know what to do. I have managed to cut back on the amounts I eat and I have dramatically reduced the incidents of bingeing. I’ve also managed to avoid taking food that doesn’t belong to me lately. But I know all of it will happen again and I know I will hate myself after.
I am weak and I am ashamed.
I feel alone.
Okay enough, these are really taking it out of me. They are helping me a lot but I feel hollowed out after I am finished. When I post these I feel naked and exposed, I feel vulnerable in a way I haven’t since I was 7. It’s not a bad thing but it is terrifying.
Alright next time we talk about my relationship with my family … yeah not looking forward to this one, and when they hear about it they won’t be either I’m sure.
Hope nobody threatens me with a lawsuit this time.
-Josh
February 1, 2014
Josh, Flaws and All, Part 2 – “Cowardice”
Before we get to the meat of this one I have a question for you.
Did all of you like the last installment of this soul shredding, and hopefully healing, series of essays? That was a very hard piece for me to write because it exposed a very base and shamefully facet of my personality. I have not heard back from Alan as of the writing of this essay, but to be fair it’s only been about 24 hours so he still has plenty of time.
I feel better after writing that.
I know it sounds strange but that subject had been eating me alive. I felt a tremendous amount of shame due to my repressed feelings. There was a tremendous sense of relief when I realized my problem was not so much jealousy as self loathing. It’s still an awful thing to feel but at least I don’t have it directed like a laser at my best friend in the entire world anymore.
My self hatred/loathing will be the subject of an essay of its own in this series. But Boils and Ghouls it will not be the thrust of today’s little tidbit. Not to say it doesn’t bother me a lot but something else has been occupying my mind and distracting me from my goals in recent months.
Ladies
Gentleman
Transsexuals
Attractive Aliens …
I am a coward.
Now I am going to relate two my most shameful moments of childhood cowardice that have not been touched on before. Or if I have touched on them I will try to bring something new to the conversation. These are the incidents that keep me up at night sometimes and leave me feeling queasy and ashamed.
These moments will stand for all of the others.
In 1987/1988 I was in the fifth grade and attending Lincoln Consolidated Elementary School in Willis Michigan. My mom worked as a secretary at a moving company and not some rinky dink company but one which at one time was one of the biggest in the country. She hated that job with the passion of a fiery sun. Her boss was a bastard who never missed a chance to hold it over my mom’s head that she was a single woman in 1987 with two young children and he could get rid of her in a second. More than one night I listened to her crying as I went to sleep.
There was nothing I could do and I felt helpless.
That job meant mom needed to have sitter for us. My cousin, let’s call her Natalie, and her family lived a few miles from us and my mom hired her to watch us in the morning and afternoon. Mom dropped us off at Natalie’s house in the morning, we caught the bus at her house, and came back to her home on the bus after school. Mom would pick us up in the afternoon. This arrangement sucked.
I had been close to Natalie when she and I were younger but that had been years ago. Now she was the sitter and her home was less than fun. Between the fights she had with her husband and her refusal to allow us to eat any of her food, my mom had to bring over every drop and scrap of food we consumed there, I hated it. The worst was when she and her husband took us and their children to the mall to Christmas shop. After we were done shopping they stopped at McDonalds, bought food for everyone but my unnamed brother and me, and ate it in the car in front of us.
I did have a school friend who lived in her neighborhood.
I would get out of Natalie’s house as much as possible and walk to his house. I’m not sure when the incident happened but it was cold and snowy but Christmas hadn’t happened yet so I assume it was in early December 1987. I was walking back from my friend’s house when one of the older kids in the neighbor hood stepped in front of me. He was a good head taller than me and he had the beginnings of real facial hair.
“Give me your glasses or I’m gonna kick your ass!” He roared at me.
I would like to say I was a little lion and I attacked this shit head. But like my great grandma, and maybe everyone’s great grandma, used to say.
“Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
I stumbled backwards into a snow drift, fell on my ass, wet my pants, and started crying. I braced myself for a kick to the face.
The fucker started laughing.
I was shocked and I was enraged. But I was also terrified. I think he saw all or most of that in my face and it made him laugh harder. He kicked some snow on me, called me a “Fucking Pussy”, and then he walked away. I sat there in the snow with piss freezing on my jeans and my ass going numb until I was sure he was really gone.
I did nothing.
When the snow was starting to melt a few months later my tenure at Natalie’s house ended. One morning when mom dropped us off I banged and pounded on Natalie’s door but there was no answer. Eventually one of her neighbors noticed two kids standing in the slush outside the house and let us come into her house while her husband banged on all of Natalie’s windows. After we were in Natalie’s house she laid into me about getting her neighbors involved and that I should have pounded on her bedroom window.
Her tone pissed me off.
I told her it was her fault we were outside.
She was pissed and I spent the rest of the time waiting outside for the bus.
At some point in the next few days she told my mother I’d told her she had to do whatever I told her to do because my mother pays her and that I was in charge in her house when I was there.
Mom knocked the crap out of me.
I was too shocked by the statement and terrified of my five foot one hundred pound mother that I said nothing. I didn’t argue with her. I didn’t contradict her. I don’t believe I said a damn thing because of my fear, because of my base cowardice.
To be fair this was before my mom decided to detox ON HER OWN so she was in a bad place when it came to her mental and physical health. So while I am still to this day kinda pissed she didn’t ask me if it was true before meeting out rough justice I do forgive her.
Natalie is another story.
The next day I asked her point blank why she did it and she told me she never said that. I asked her if she was calling my mom a liar and she said no she was just saying she never said that.
Still not sure who the fuck she thought she was fooling.
I think it was less than a week later that my mother asked me if I wanted to be a “Latch Key Kid” and I was out of there.
Never did have to face the kid who wanted my glasses again.
I wasn’t the first time I didn’t fight back and it wouldn’t be the last. The next time it happened I’d run to my mommy to defend me and destroy any chance of a quiet life in Ohio.
I hated living in Ohio as a kid. I do believe I’ve said this on more than one occasion. The first two years were bad, sixth and seventh grade are filled with very few good memories. But eighth grade was hell. I was picked on, I was miserable, and I was paranoid.
I blame hormones and too much caffeine.
The bane of my existence in 1989/1990 was a tall, bespectacled, pimply, goat smelling, and halitosis ridden ninth grader named Shane. For reasons I never learned the son of a bitch decided my continued existence offended him. I have a theory that being the new kid, he’d been sent to live with relatives for a few years, he’d decided to cull a sheep from the herd and torment it. That sheep was me and torment he did.
For several weeks I was the butt of his every joke. I was called names, tripped, punched, and made terrified of getting on the bus. Then one dreary Friday afternoon he grabbed me as we were getting off of the bus and told me he was going to beat the shit out of me at the bus stop Monday morning.
I nearly crapped my pants.
Sidebar: The fucking bus driver witnessed me being tortured for weeks. The stupid slack jawed twat was privy to my humiliation and fear first hand. When Shane told me I was doomed on Monday she was sitting right there on her fat ass and pretending not to know what was going on. When you are a child the authority figures are supposed to protect you, I’m not saying she should have done something directly but fuck the bitch could have at least reported it to the school! This is why I should always be allowed to carry a knife and stab a mother fucker if I feel threatened … end of sidebar.
I spent the entire weekend dreading Monday. It got so bad that my normally indifferent (at that period in time) mother realized something was wrong and asked me about it. I broke down in tears and told her the entire thing. She listened, she comforted me, and she told me everything was going to be alright. It is still one of the best memories of my mom I have from when I was a kid. Monday morning my mother went out to the bus stop and threatened unholy retribution if any of the little shits gathered to see the fat boy get his ass beat ever touched me.
It worked
I was saved
My mom was my hero
I was humiliated by my own cowardice
I was never touched again. They left me alone physically but for the rest of the school year, I returned to Michigan at the end of the year, I was reminded that I needed my mommy to save me and that I was a “Fucking Pussy Faggot Boy”. That is a direct quote I remember quite well. So my body was spared but my soul was scared. Just because I was unwilling to man up and do what I needed to do.
I know what people have told me in the past. They tell me I was a scared child. They tell me it is a parent’s job to defend their children. They tell me if I would have fought Shane he could have killed me. I know all of these statements are true and yet I still feel like less of a man because I ran.
Interesting post script to that story, I think Shane had a thing for dominant women. For years after that, even after I’d moved away, he was always trying to chat up my mom. I really believe her threatening his physical well being turned him on.
I just vomited a little in my mouth writing that.
Alright I am done for today. I am a coward. I admit it. I like to think I have gotten better when it comes to dealing with confrontation. Or at the very least I believe it appears to outsiders that I don’t give a shit and am willing to cut a bitch if I need too. But the truth always has been and always will be that in my heart I am afraid, when there is tension I feel like I will vomit and all I want to do is run to my room and hide under the blankets until it’s over. I try hard to do the things that scare me, but sometimes it’s so very hard … and not in a sexy way.
-Josh
Did all of you like the last installment of this soul shredding, and hopefully healing, series of essays? That was a very hard piece for me to write because it exposed a very base and shamefully facet of my personality. I have not heard back from Alan as of the writing of this essay, but to be fair it’s only been about 24 hours so he still has plenty of time.
I feel better after writing that.
I know it sounds strange but that subject had been eating me alive. I felt a tremendous amount of shame due to my repressed feelings. There was a tremendous sense of relief when I realized my problem was not so much jealousy as self loathing. It’s still an awful thing to feel but at least I don’t have it directed like a laser at my best friend in the entire world anymore.
My self hatred/loathing will be the subject of an essay of its own in this series. But Boils and Ghouls it will not be the thrust of today’s little tidbit. Not to say it doesn’t bother me a lot but something else has been occupying my mind and distracting me from my goals in recent months.
Ladies
Gentleman
Transsexuals
Attractive Aliens …
I am a coward.
Now I am going to relate two my most shameful moments of childhood cowardice that have not been touched on before. Or if I have touched on them I will try to bring something new to the conversation. These are the incidents that keep me up at night sometimes and leave me feeling queasy and ashamed.
These moments will stand for all of the others.
In 1987/1988 I was in the fifth grade and attending Lincoln Consolidated Elementary School in Willis Michigan. My mom worked as a secretary at a moving company and not some rinky dink company but one which at one time was one of the biggest in the country. She hated that job with the passion of a fiery sun. Her boss was a bastard who never missed a chance to hold it over my mom’s head that she was a single woman in 1987 with two young children and he could get rid of her in a second. More than one night I listened to her crying as I went to sleep.
There was nothing I could do and I felt helpless.
That job meant mom needed to have sitter for us. My cousin, let’s call her Natalie, and her family lived a few miles from us and my mom hired her to watch us in the morning and afternoon. Mom dropped us off at Natalie’s house in the morning, we caught the bus at her house, and came back to her home on the bus after school. Mom would pick us up in the afternoon. This arrangement sucked.
I had been close to Natalie when she and I were younger but that had been years ago. Now she was the sitter and her home was less than fun. Between the fights she had with her husband and her refusal to allow us to eat any of her food, my mom had to bring over every drop and scrap of food we consumed there, I hated it. The worst was when she and her husband took us and their children to the mall to Christmas shop. After we were done shopping they stopped at McDonalds, bought food for everyone but my unnamed brother and me, and ate it in the car in front of us.
I did have a school friend who lived in her neighborhood.
I would get out of Natalie’s house as much as possible and walk to his house. I’m not sure when the incident happened but it was cold and snowy but Christmas hadn’t happened yet so I assume it was in early December 1987. I was walking back from my friend’s house when one of the older kids in the neighbor hood stepped in front of me. He was a good head taller than me and he had the beginnings of real facial hair.
“Give me your glasses or I’m gonna kick your ass!” He roared at me.
I would like to say I was a little lion and I attacked this shit head. But like my great grandma, and maybe everyone’s great grandma, used to say.
“Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
I stumbled backwards into a snow drift, fell on my ass, wet my pants, and started crying. I braced myself for a kick to the face.
The fucker started laughing.
I was shocked and I was enraged. But I was also terrified. I think he saw all or most of that in my face and it made him laugh harder. He kicked some snow on me, called me a “Fucking Pussy”, and then he walked away. I sat there in the snow with piss freezing on my jeans and my ass going numb until I was sure he was really gone.
I did nothing.
When the snow was starting to melt a few months later my tenure at Natalie’s house ended. One morning when mom dropped us off I banged and pounded on Natalie’s door but there was no answer. Eventually one of her neighbors noticed two kids standing in the slush outside the house and let us come into her house while her husband banged on all of Natalie’s windows. After we were in Natalie’s house she laid into me about getting her neighbors involved and that I should have pounded on her bedroom window.
Her tone pissed me off.
I told her it was her fault we were outside.
She was pissed and I spent the rest of the time waiting outside for the bus.
At some point in the next few days she told my mother I’d told her she had to do whatever I told her to do because my mother pays her and that I was in charge in her house when I was there.
Mom knocked the crap out of me.
I was too shocked by the statement and terrified of my five foot one hundred pound mother that I said nothing. I didn’t argue with her. I didn’t contradict her. I don’t believe I said a damn thing because of my fear, because of my base cowardice.
To be fair this was before my mom decided to detox ON HER OWN so she was in a bad place when it came to her mental and physical health. So while I am still to this day kinda pissed she didn’t ask me if it was true before meeting out rough justice I do forgive her.
Natalie is another story.
The next day I asked her point blank why she did it and she told me she never said that. I asked her if she was calling my mom a liar and she said no she was just saying she never said that.
Still not sure who the fuck she thought she was fooling.
I think it was less than a week later that my mother asked me if I wanted to be a “Latch Key Kid” and I was out of there.
Never did have to face the kid who wanted my glasses again.
I wasn’t the first time I didn’t fight back and it wouldn’t be the last. The next time it happened I’d run to my mommy to defend me and destroy any chance of a quiet life in Ohio.
I hated living in Ohio as a kid. I do believe I’ve said this on more than one occasion. The first two years were bad, sixth and seventh grade are filled with very few good memories. But eighth grade was hell. I was picked on, I was miserable, and I was paranoid.
I blame hormones and too much caffeine.
The bane of my existence in 1989/1990 was a tall, bespectacled, pimply, goat smelling, and halitosis ridden ninth grader named Shane. For reasons I never learned the son of a bitch decided my continued existence offended him. I have a theory that being the new kid, he’d been sent to live with relatives for a few years, he’d decided to cull a sheep from the herd and torment it. That sheep was me and torment he did.
For several weeks I was the butt of his every joke. I was called names, tripped, punched, and made terrified of getting on the bus. Then one dreary Friday afternoon he grabbed me as we were getting off of the bus and told me he was going to beat the shit out of me at the bus stop Monday morning.
I nearly crapped my pants.
Sidebar: The fucking bus driver witnessed me being tortured for weeks. The stupid slack jawed twat was privy to my humiliation and fear first hand. When Shane told me I was doomed on Monday she was sitting right there on her fat ass and pretending not to know what was going on. When you are a child the authority figures are supposed to protect you, I’m not saying she should have done something directly but fuck the bitch could have at least reported it to the school! This is why I should always be allowed to carry a knife and stab a mother fucker if I feel threatened … end of sidebar.
I spent the entire weekend dreading Monday. It got so bad that my normally indifferent (at that period in time) mother realized something was wrong and asked me about it. I broke down in tears and told her the entire thing. She listened, she comforted me, and she told me everything was going to be alright. It is still one of the best memories of my mom I have from when I was a kid. Monday morning my mother went out to the bus stop and threatened unholy retribution if any of the little shits gathered to see the fat boy get his ass beat ever touched me.
It worked
I was saved
My mom was my hero
I was humiliated by my own cowardice
I was never touched again. They left me alone physically but for the rest of the school year, I returned to Michigan at the end of the year, I was reminded that I needed my mommy to save me and that I was a “Fucking Pussy Faggot Boy”. That is a direct quote I remember quite well. So my body was spared but my soul was scared. Just because I was unwilling to man up and do what I needed to do.
I know what people have told me in the past. They tell me I was a scared child. They tell me it is a parent’s job to defend their children. They tell me if I would have fought Shane he could have killed me. I know all of these statements are true and yet I still feel like less of a man because I ran.
Interesting post script to that story, I think Shane had a thing for dominant women. For years after that, even after I’d moved away, he was always trying to chat up my mom. I really believe her threatening his physical well being turned him on.
I just vomited a little in my mouth writing that.
Alright I am done for today. I am a coward. I admit it. I like to think I have gotten better when it comes to dealing with confrontation. Or at the very least I believe it appears to outsiders that I don’t give a shit and am willing to cut a bitch if I need too. But the truth always has been and always will be that in my heart I am afraid, when there is tension I feel like I will vomit and all I want to do is run to my room and hide under the blankets until it’s over. I try hard to do the things that scare me, but sometimes it’s so very hard … and not in a sexy way.
-Josh
January 31, 2014
Josh, Flaws and All, Part 1: Jealousy
A preface before we start.
The next few essays (I’m not sure how many) will deal with my personal flaws. I am going to take a single flaw in each essay, break it down, delve into its history, expose all the dark truths surrounding it, and then decide the best way to tackle it. I am hoping, much like the Cautious Descent series, this smaller series of essays helps me deal with and move through the problems.
So here we go … be brave.
I have been trying very hard to deal with my flaws lately. When I began medicating for my Bi-Polar disorder I gained clarity. With that clarity came the painful realization that I am a fundamentally fucked up person. I am not saying I am an evil bastard who deserves to be strung up but man do I have issues. I don’t need anyone’s pity or commiseration. I deserve to feel bad about these things, if I didn’t feel bad I might not be trying to fix them.
So without further hesitation, because if I continue to hesitate I’m going to pussy out and stick my head back in the sand. Much like my first series of essays in 2012 I am terrified of doing this. I just don’t think there is a better way for me to deal with the shit renting space in my brain.
Well I could pay a therapist to listen to me … yeah that sounds like a bad idea no matter how I try and word it. Therapy, which I have tried in my life and really did my best to make work, has never resulted in satisfying results. The only thing which has seemed to be effective is venting in these Journal Essays.
Okay, still hesitating. But cut me a fucking break I tend to be extremely candid and open about my life. But these are going to be exposing some shit I am very ashamed of.
Alright
Deep breath
Let’s do this thing …
I am very jealous of the one person in this world who I’m related to by blood or marriage that I love the most. Let me leave no doubt in anyone reading this. I am jealous of my best friend, the most important man in my life, and the person I wish was my brother Alan (Not his real name).
I feel sick to my stomach just writing that.
Let me say this right here up front.
Alan has never in the 23 years I’ve known him done a single thing to harm me. He is one of the kindest, gentlest, smartest, most loyal people I’ve ever known. This is all on me, it’s my damage (as we used to say in the long long ago) and I am writing this because I have finally started exorcising it and this seems to be the best way to finish the process.
I am jealous of Alan because he’s always been happy. Not stupid happy like in a fucking Disney movie this is reality after all. He’s had his rough spots and painful moments. I will NOT be mentioning any of these or giving any personal information. I love him and wouldn’t fuck him over like that. But suffice it to say his life isn’t perfect, yet I’ve coveted it.
When I first met him I was settling into life with my father and the Step Monster. It was a rough period where I was realizing the happiness I’d been expecting when I escaped Dayton turned out to be an illusion. Through a mutual friend, a great guy I’ve lost contact with over the years, I met Alan. At first we had an antagonistic relationship which morphed into the deepest most enduring relationship, outside of my marriage, I’ve ever had.
I wanted Alan’s life.
I admit it.
He lived with his mother and sister. In a very short period of time we were working together, we both had our first job at the corner grocery store counting returns and stocking the cooler, and spending almost all of our off time together. By sophomore year of high school I was spending nearly every weekend practically living with his family.
They practically adopted me and I still love them.
Alan had freedom whereas my every move was questioned and examined. His freedom wasn’t just given to him he’d earned it by being honest and trustworthy. No matter what I did I was never trusted. Even with the perspective of years I still can’t see what I ever did to earn the derision and scorn from my family.
Alan had a say in what he did and how he did it. I’m sure his mom did the normal amount of nudging to set him in a direction she favored but in the end it always seemed like his opinion was listened to and taken into consideration and in the end if he made a decision his mom respected it.
Do I even need to say how my decisions were greeted at home?
I know I sound like a whiny little bitch right now. I am not going to apologize for that. This was my life and this is how I see it as a man who’s knocking on 40’s door with 6 kids. I know what I see in my hindsight is not entirely accurate and colored through emotion and years, but in the end I think my feelings and recollections are valid if nothing else.
Alan was and is generous. Sometimes people took advantage of that, myself included I am ashamed to say. But even though he was aware of being used sometimes it never seemed to affect his basic nature. If you needed a ride, if you needed twenty bucks, if you needed a place to crash, or if you just needed the ear of a real friend he was there no questions asked.
It all seemed to come easy to him, being a good person.
I wanted that so bad.
Alan got into the University of Michigan when we graduated High School. I was so fucking proud of him when he was accepted, this pride in my brother was only matched in 2010 when he opened his store. I was accepted to Eastern Michigan University, which was the school I wanted. But while Alan had scholarship money from his hard work, it helped him but I know he had /has massive loans, I had none. That was my own fault, I could never seem to focus on school work, always with my head in clouds.
Alan had a family support system. He had a welcoming home where he could live for free, he had people he could rely on. I had a hostile environment and zero help. Instead of being a man and toughing it out I ran away back to my grandparent’s house in Ohio.
I was a coward and I was bitter.
Alan made 90% of the effort to keep out friendship alive for a good 12 years. It’s not that I didn’t want to see him, I missed him so bad it hurt, but I was sure I was not good enough to be his friend, he seemed to have it all together and I was a crappy friend, father, and husband.
Why the fuck would he want to be my friend?
But he was, he always has been.
He’s been close to my kids, great to my wife, treated me like family, and he built me a fucking computer when mine died and this was when computers were still expensive as a mother fucker. He spent years driving from Detroit to Dayton to pick me up, bring me north, and then take me home. He would give me the shirt off his back if I needed it.
As I said before in 2010 Alan realized a lifelong dream of opening a comic book and games store. He did it with two friends he’s made after meeting his wife. I was happy for him, I knew with his smarts and determination he’d make it a success (which he has) but I was jealous.
I just kept thinking that it should be me up there working too many hours and making no money side by side with my brother. I thought I’d blown it all. I thought I’d lost my friend.
In 2000 my wife and I bought a home and on 2011 we lost it after a long battle to save it after the financial collapse. All I’ve felt about it is shame. Sometimes I drive by it, sitting there empty and remember all the good times … then yes I cry.
The final straw in this stupid one sided drama was a couple of weeks ago when Alan and his wife announced they were buying a house. I was awash in jealousy, I was happy for them I mean damnit they work tier asses off and I love them, but I was really jealous and really depressed.
Then I finally got it, the thing you probably realized a hundred words into this.
NO! Not that I’m a whiny baby who needs a cookie.
I realized I’m not jealous of Alan.
I am unhappy with myself.
All of the years with Alan have actually kept me from feeling worse. I saw in him that I didn’t need to be miserable and that I could be happy. I knew unconditional love and friendship from him. I think one of the only reasons I made it to adulthood is because he has been in my life.
I know he’ll read this eventually and I want to say something.
“I’m sorry Brother, sorry I was so stupid in my mind, and I love you mang.”
-Josh
The next few essays (I’m not sure how many) will deal with my personal flaws. I am going to take a single flaw in each essay, break it down, delve into its history, expose all the dark truths surrounding it, and then decide the best way to tackle it. I am hoping, much like the Cautious Descent series, this smaller series of essays helps me deal with and move through the problems.
So here we go … be brave.
I have been trying very hard to deal with my flaws lately. When I began medicating for my Bi-Polar disorder I gained clarity. With that clarity came the painful realization that I am a fundamentally fucked up person. I am not saying I am an evil bastard who deserves to be strung up but man do I have issues. I don’t need anyone’s pity or commiseration. I deserve to feel bad about these things, if I didn’t feel bad I might not be trying to fix them.
So without further hesitation, because if I continue to hesitate I’m going to pussy out and stick my head back in the sand. Much like my first series of essays in 2012 I am terrified of doing this. I just don’t think there is a better way for me to deal with the shit renting space in my brain.
Well I could pay a therapist to listen to me … yeah that sounds like a bad idea no matter how I try and word it. Therapy, which I have tried in my life and really did my best to make work, has never resulted in satisfying results. The only thing which has seemed to be effective is venting in these Journal Essays.
Okay, still hesitating. But cut me a fucking break I tend to be extremely candid and open about my life. But these are going to be exposing some shit I am very ashamed of.
Alright
Deep breath
Let’s do this thing …
I am very jealous of the one person in this world who I’m related to by blood or marriage that I love the most. Let me leave no doubt in anyone reading this. I am jealous of my best friend, the most important man in my life, and the person I wish was my brother Alan (Not his real name).
I feel sick to my stomach just writing that.
Let me say this right here up front.
Alan has never in the 23 years I’ve known him done a single thing to harm me. He is one of the kindest, gentlest, smartest, most loyal people I’ve ever known. This is all on me, it’s my damage (as we used to say in the long long ago) and I am writing this because I have finally started exorcising it and this seems to be the best way to finish the process.
I am jealous of Alan because he’s always been happy. Not stupid happy like in a fucking Disney movie this is reality after all. He’s had his rough spots and painful moments. I will NOT be mentioning any of these or giving any personal information. I love him and wouldn’t fuck him over like that. But suffice it to say his life isn’t perfect, yet I’ve coveted it.
When I first met him I was settling into life with my father and the Step Monster. It was a rough period where I was realizing the happiness I’d been expecting when I escaped Dayton turned out to be an illusion. Through a mutual friend, a great guy I’ve lost contact with over the years, I met Alan. At first we had an antagonistic relationship which morphed into the deepest most enduring relationship, outside of my marriage, I’ve ever had.
I wanted Alan’s life.
I admit it.
He lived with his mother and sister. In a very short period of time we were working together, we both had our first job at the corner grocery store counting returns and stocking the cooler, and spending almost all of our off time together. By sophomore year of high school I was spending nearly every weekend practically living with his family.
They practically adopted me and I still love them.
Alan had freedom whereas my every move was questioned and examined. His freedom wasn’t just given to him he’d earned it by being honest and trustworthy. No matter what I did I was never trusted. Even with the perspective of years I still can’t see what I ever did to earn the derision and scorn from my family.
Alan had a say in what he did and how he did it. I’m sure his mom did the normal amount of nudging to set him in a direction she favored but in the end it always seemed like his opinion was listened to and taken into consideration and in the end if he made a decision his mom respected it.
Do I even need to say how my decisions were greeted at home?
I know I sound like a whiny little bitch right now. I am not going to apologize for that. This was my life and this is how I see it as a man who’s knocking on 40’s door with 6 kids. I know what I see in my hindsight is not entirely accurate and colored through emotion and years, but in the end I think my feelings and recollections are valid if nothing else.
Alan was and is generous. Sometimes people took advantage of that, myself included I am ashamed to say. But even though he was aware of being used sometimes it never seemed to affect his basic nature. If you needed a ride, if you needed twenty bucks, if you needed a place to crash, or if you just needed the ear of a real friend he was there no questions asked.
It all seemed to come easy to him, being a good person.
I wanted that so bad.
Alan got into the University of Michigan when we graduated High School. I was so fucking proud of him when he was accepted, this pride in my brother was only matched in 2010 when he opened his store. I was accepted to Eastern Michigan University, which was the school I wanted. But while Alan had scholarship money from his hard work, it helped him but I know he had /has massive loans, I had none. That was my own fault, I could never seem to focus on school work, always with my head in clouds.
Alan had a family support system. He had a welcoming home where he could live for free, he had people he could rely on. I had a hostile environment and zero help. Instead of being a man and toughing it out I ran away back to my grandparent’s house in Ohio.
I was a coward and I was bitter.
Alan made 90% of the effort to keep out friendship alive for a good 12 years. It’s not that I didn’t want to see him, I missed him so bad it hurt, but I was sure I was not good enough to be his friend, he seemed to have it all together and I was a crappy friend, father, and husband.
Why the fuck would he want to be my friend?
But he was, he always has been.
He’s been close to my kids, great to my wife, treated me like family, and he built me a fucking computer when mine died and this was when computers were still expensive as a mother fucker. He spent years driving from Detroit to Dayton to pick me up, bring me north, and then take me home. He would give me the shirt off his back if I needed it.
As I said before in 2010 Alan realized a lifelong dream of opening a comic book and games store. He did it with two friends he’s made after meeting his wife. I was happy for him, I knew with his smarts and determination he’d make it a success (which he has) but I was jealous.
I just kept thinking that it should be me up there working too many hours and making no money side by side with my brother. I thought I’d blown it all. I thought I’d lost my friend.
In 2000 my wife and I bought a home and on 2011 we lost it after a long battle to save it after the financial collapse. All I’ve felt about it is shame. Sometimes I drive by it, sitting there empty and remember all the good times … then yes I cry.
The final straw in this stupid one sided drama was a couple of weeks ago when Alan and his wife announced they were buying a house. I was awash in jealousy, I was happy for them I mean damnit they work tier asses off and I love them, but I was really jealous and really depressed.
Then I finally got it, the thing you probably realized a hundred words into this.
NO! Not that I’m a whiny baby who needs a cookie.
I realized I’m not jealous of Alan.
I am unhappy with myself.
All of the years with Alan have actually kept me from feeling worse. I saw in him that I didn’t need to be miserable and that I could be happy. I knew unconditional love and friendship from him. I think one of the only reasons I made it to adulthood is because he has been in my life.
I know he’ll read this eventually and I want to say something.
“I’m sorry Brother, sorry I was so stupid in my mind, and I love you mang.”
-Josh
January 30, 2014
How I Used To Create
When I was a little kid all I wanted for my birthday was a tape recorder. This was not a slick micro tape recorder or a Walkman with a record function. There were no Walkmans when I was this age. What I wanted was this black and silver brick of a machine with one big speaker, a spring loaded door where you loaded audio cassettes, and a microphone for recording. There was an addition port on the side where an external microphone could be attached but I never had one of those.
My parents bought it for me for my sixth birthday.
It was everything I could have imagined. I recorded everything. People, television, radio shows, and myself. I am sad those tapes have been lost but I am also relieved, I remember some of the things I said on those tapes and shiver at how it would sound to other people.
What kind of stuff did I record myself saying?
I sang songs, both ones I’d heard on the radio and ones I made up. What I learned from that was that I am not a lyricist. I made grand speeches that usually ended up with me blaming Magnum PI and his buddies Rick, TC, and Higgins for everything bad in the world.
Hey, I loved that fucking show.
But more important than anything else I told stories. I made up some weird shit when I was 6, stranger and more far out things than what I write these days. I think six year old Josh was channeling Lovecraft directly and I am a little jealous, imagination is wasted o the young.
That tape recorder stayed with me for a long time. I’m not sure what happened to it but I know I had it when we were living with my Pseudo Step Father but by the time a year later when we moved in with my grandparents in Dayton it was gone.
I see recorders like my old one on sale from time to time and I think maybe I should get one. But the truth is that was a tool of my past and my future is more important … still I do wonder what happened to all of those old tapes.
Telling stories into a tape recorder was fun and for me it went hand in hand with my first childlike handwritten stories. But eventually writing with a pen or pencil was too like staring at the ladies in the Sears catalog lingerie section. Eventually it got old and boring, what I wanted was porn.
And for a new writer in 1989 porn was a word processor.
I made my first effort to write a real tale in Eighth grade. I’ve told this story before so I will only hit the highlights. In my English class we were told to write a short story. I used my Grandparents Tandy Computer, how many of you know that name? This ancient machine was top of the line at that time and used a program called “Desk Top” which was a knock off of Windows. Compared to these days the computer and its word processing program, Enable, was a sad affair but back then it was like living in the future. There was only one tiny problem.
I had no idea how to type.
I spent two weeks hunched over a keyboard, which weighed more than my laptop does these days, pecking out a story. The story I produced was 20 pages double spaced and derivative of Star Trek and The Abyss. I was proud of it and when I turned it in I was sure I would be singled out as the star writer in the class. I was envisioning accolades, calls home from the principal, certificates of accomplishment, publication in the newspaper, and just maybe my first post puberty blow job.
Yeah none of that happened.
What did happen was I was accused of plagiarizing the work of others, the first several times that would happen, and made to feel like a fraud. It would be two years before I wrote any fiction on a computer again.
But damn the rush of feeling those keys clack under my finger tips is still a rush. When I am in the zone and my fingers, index and thumbs I am still a hunt and peck typist although I can do 50 words a minute so suck it typing teacher whose name I do not remember, are flying its like sex.
Yeah I know everything is a sex metaphor, grow up.
During the time I was experiencing the rush of typing my stories I also discovered something else. I discovered brushes and paints, I discovered chalk and paper, and I realized that some paper a pencil and a stapler was all needed to make my own comics. I discovered the graphic arts.
Let me say this before I go on. I love drawing and painting but I really suck at it. This isn’t me being self deprecating or trying, as the Brits say, to take the piss out of it. I am a descent writer and I think I get better with each piece I write, but no matter how much I drew, painted, and created in the visual medium I never got any better.
Now with that said on to the gushing.
I created a metric fuck ton of art between the ages of 11 and 13. Some where there are stacks and stacks of my work moldering, while there are a few I’d like to see again the vast majority are better left for the survivors of the apocalypse to find and revere as the work of a mad child god because some of that stuff was dark!
The comic books are another story.
The first friend I made after we moved to Dayton was a guy named Casey. Eventually he ended up turning on me after his other friends decided I was a piece of shit and made him choose. But I don’t blame them they were following their asshole nature. I blame him for being a pussy about it.
Anyway Casey told me how he made comics. He would take regular typing paper, fold several sheets in half, draw on them, add the dialogue, staple them at the spine, and then add the cover art.
I was blown away, as a lifelong comic book fanatic and wanna be writer I’d never considered this. I plunged head long into the project and created my own publishing universe for me and the few people I trusted to look at my work, mostly my grandfather John. The art was horrible but the stories … well some of them were bad but some were actually kinda competent. I aped the Marvel and DC style of using a one universe umbrella and having my books take place within it. I had multiple titles, miniseries, crossovers, and one shot specials.
Yeah I’m a geek.
Eventually I stopped doing this, I believe it was after my former step brother, the one I finally stood up to at Easter when I was 17, started giving me shit. He was actually a really talented artist when he wasn’t being a junkie asshole and he decided my art offended him. He spent the entire summer between 7th and 8th grades badgering me until I decided to never draw comics again.
More than anything else I created as a child I wish I had those little comics. I have no idea what happened to them and neither does my grandparents.
Great now I’m sad.
Alright I’ve rambled enough go do something productive. Write a story, take a photo, or make some love. I don’t care what you do as long as it’s not something harmful or destructive.
-Josh
My parents bought it for me for my sixth birthday.
It was everything I could have imagined. I recorded everything. People, television, radio shows, and myself. I am sad those tapes have been lost but I am also relieved, I remember some of the things I said on those tapes and shiver at how it would sound to other people.
What kind of stuff did I record myself saying?
I sang songs, both ones I’d heard on the radio and ones I made up. What I learned from that was that I am not a lyricist. I made grand speeches that usually ended up with me blaming Magnum PI and his buddies Rick, TC, and Higgins for everything bad in the world.
Hey, I loved that fucking show.
But more important than anything else I told stories. I made up some weird shit when I was 6, stranger and more far out things than what I write these days. I think six year old Josh was channeling Lovecraft directly and I am a little jealous, imagination is wasted o the young.
That tape recorder stayed with me for a long time. I’m not sure what happened to it but I know I had it when we were living with my Pseudo Step Father but by the time a year later when we moved in with my grandparents in Dayton it was gone.
I see recorders like my old one on sale from time to time and I think maybe I should get one. But the truth is that was a tool of my past and my future is more important … still I do wonder what happened to all of those old tapes.
Telling stories into a tape recorder was fun and for me it went hand in hand with my first childlike handwritten stories. But eventually writing with a pen or pencil was too like staring at the ladies in the Sears catalog lingerie section. Eventually it got old and boring, what I wanted was porn.
And for a new writer in 1989 porn was a word processor.
I made my first effort to write a real tale in Eighth grade. I’ve told this story before so I will only hit the highlights. In my English class we were told to write a short story. I used my Grandparents Tandy Computer, how many of you know that name? This ancient machine was top of the line at that time and used a program called “Desk Top” which was a knock off of Windows. Compared to these days the computer and its word processing program, Enable, was a sad affair but back then it was like living in the future. There was only one tiny problem.
I had no idea how to type.
I spent two weeks hunched over a keyboard, which weighed more than my laptop does these days, pecking out a story. The story I produced was 20 pages double spaced and derivative of Star Trek and The Abyss. I was proud of it and when I turned it in I was sure I would be singled out as the star writer in the class. I was envisioning accolades, calls home from the principal, certificates of accomplishment, publication in the newspaper, and just maybe my first post puberty blow job.
Yeah none of that happened.
What did happen was I was accused of plagiarizing the work of others, the first several times that would happen, and made to feel like a fraud. It would be two years before I wrote any fiction on a computer again.
But damn the rush of feeling those keys clack under my finger tips is still a rush. When I am in the zone and my fingers, index and thumbs I am still a hunt and peck typist although I can do 50 words a minute so suck it typing teacher whose name I do not remember, are flying its like sex.
Yeah I know everything is a sex metaphor, grow up.
During the time I was experiencing the rush of typing my stories I also discovered something else. I discovered brushes and paints, I discovered chalk and paper, and I realized that some paper a pencil and a stapler was all needed to make my own comics. I discovered the graphic arts.
Let me say this before I go on. I love drawing and painting but I really suck at it. This isn’t me being self deprecating or trying, as the Brits say, to take the piss out of it. I am a descent writer and I think I get better with each piece I write, but no matter how much I drew, painted, and created in the visual medium I never got any better.
Now with that said on to the gushing.
I created a metric fuck ton of art between the ages of 11 and 13. Some where there are stacks and stacks of my work moldering, while there are a few I’d like to see again the vast majority are better left for the survivors of the apocalypse to find and revere as the work of a mad child god because some of that stuff was dark!
The comic books are another story.
The first friend I made after we moved to Dayton was a guy named Casey. Eventually he ended up turning on me after his other friends decided I was a piece of shit and made him choose. But I don’t blame them they were following their asshole nature. I blame him for being a pussy about it.
Anyway Casey told me how he made comics. He would take regular typing paper, fold several sheets in half, draw on them, add the dialogue, staple them at the spine, and then add the cover art.
I was blown away, as a lifelong comic book fanatic and wanna be writer I’d never considered this. I plunged head long into the project and created my own publishing universe for me and the few people I trusted to look at my work, mostly my grandfather John. The art was horrible but the stories … well some of them were bad but some were actually kinda competent. I aped the Marvel and DC style of using a one universe umbrella and having my books take place within it. I had multiple titles, miniseries, crossovers, and one shot specials.
Yeah I’m a geek.
Eventually I stopped doing this, I believe it was after my former step brother, the one I finally stood up to at Easter when I was 17, started giving me shit. He was actually a really talented artist when he wasn’t being a junkie asshole and he decided my art offended him. He spent the entire summer between 7th and 8th grades badgering me until I decided to never draw comics again.
More than anything else I created as a child I wish I had those little comics. I have no idea what happened to them and neither does my grandparents.
Great now I’m sad.
Alright I’ve rambled enough go do something productive. Write a story, take a photo, or make some love. I don’t care what you do as long as it’s not something harmful or destructive.
-Josh
January 29, 2014
The Shit That Scares Me Part 4 - All the Rest
So what have we covered in this little trip down my personal terror lane?
Movies, yeah we did that one looking back at the scary movies I have been willingly subjected to for so many years, it was a hoot.
Books, of yeah we delved into the book that made me afraid to close my eyes at night, good times.
Television … again I ask you who the fuck was the person that made that damn show FOR CHILDREN???
Alright then, moving on.
There are thing which have made me want to fudge my boxers over the years that have nothing, or nearly nothing, to do with my former essays. I don’t think I am particularly squeamish or easy to scare but I am honest about what scares me. There a handful of these things which have impacted me when I was a child and stay with me to this day.
So here we go, I’m ending this one with one of my ultra famous bullet pointed or numbered lists, I think I’m going with numbers on this one.
What, did you think you were getting out of this one without a list?
Shame on you …
1. Clowns, I know I told you about the incident with the Scooby Doo episode and that is indeed the basis for my fear of clowns. But as the years went on I became more convinced that clowns are really a front for demons. This belief was solidified when I read one of my mom’s murder books.
(Side Note: My mother may have read nearly every true murder book published over the last 25 years. If I ever need to deal with a dead body I will probably as my mom.)
This particular book was about John Wayne Gacy and there was a picture inside of him dressed up in his clown getup. I took one look at that picture and knew there was nothing good or descent of bout the clownish species.
2. Ants, bet you didn’t see that one coming. This particular fear comes from an episode of MacGyver of all things. In one episode Mac was in the Amazon rainforest and there were many ant mounds. I’m not sure why he was there or if those were even a real species of ants. In the episode the people were using a make shift moat to keep this army of ants away. I shit you not it was played like the ants were organized and intent on seizing Paris before the Brits could react. The key to Mac’s awesome defense strategy was this sluice gate that allowed the water to be diverted from the river and encircle them as the ants passed by. Well as these things do the gate got jammed and the poor bastard who’d been the stupid white men’s guide volunteered to open it manually. As he opened the gate and saved the dumbasses who didn’t now better than that the only reason he rainforest exists is to kill white folk the ants overran and devoured him. It was fucking gruesome and served to cement my fear of ants.
Seriously … fucking ants.
3. The Dark, yeah I know everyone is afraid of the dark. Well you know what? Fuck you that’s what, the dark is scary. There are lions, serial killers, and clowns hidden in the dark. I grew up in many places and most of them were well lit. Even on the dirt road in Augusta Michigan we were really close to the township building and fire department so the exterior lights served to keep the out of doors dimly illuminated. But when we moved in with my pseudo step father, mom never married Steve but he did a good job taking care of me and my unnamed brother. Steve lived on an honest to god farm, he didn’t work the farm but instead leased his fields out to neighboring farm while he loved on the home place. There was a massive green farmhouse and two barns one large and one medium sized. There were also a few out buildings and some massive tees. I fucking loved the two years we lived on the farm.
Except for the dark.
There were no lights. None on the street, none on the buildings (well there were but they weren’t kept on), none from the time city many miles away. Except for the front and back porch lights the farm was black as the devils armpit (bet you thought I’d say asshole). I would be in bed, hear a noise outside, pull back the curtain and see a macabre landscape cloaked in nothing but moonlight, and there was no telling what my adrenaline fueled imagination would see. There was many a night I was sure we were moments away from being eaten by the monster living in the barn.
Also my mom swears up and down she saw a UFO over the farm one night. So yeah there’s that … fuck the dark!
4. Horses, we are going to end this one with the murderous, deceitful, evil quadrupeds that’ve been trying to kill me since I was a wee little fat boy. I am not shitting you, horses fucking hate me. When I was five we were at my Grandfather’s (the bio one) farm. He and his wife had horses. They stabled them for other people and took care of them. One of the things they did was teach kids to ride. One day one of my family members decided it would be just a swell idea to teach Josh how to ride a gods damned horse. They put me on this massive black beast that then took off back into the barn and dumped me in her stall. People tried to tell me that she must have liked me so much that she wanted me to come live in her stall, but I knew the truth. That animal wanted to eat me.
My feelings towards horses were set when I went to summer camp. Between fourth and fifth grade I went to summer camp, the shit that went down there is a tale worthy of its own series of entries but today we are going to talk about one incident. They had … you guessed it, horses there. I didn’t want to ride them but I allowed myself to be convinced to give it a try.
Wanna know what happened?
We went out on a ride, brought the horses up to a slow gallop, I was thrown from the hell beast, and was nearly trampled by the horse behind me. The horse actually did clip me with one hoof which left a wicked bruise on my side and a hairline fracture that eventually broke after I’d returned home to the dark and scary farm that attracts UFOs!
Interesting side note, I got back on the damn horse one time after that and they gave me a fucking ribbon at the end of camp for it. Sometimes this world confuses the shit out of me.
Okay that’s it, the end of the stuff that scared me as a kid and shaped my personality. I am sure there are things I left out, some of them intentionally because they have their own charming tale I need to tell. Now get out of here I am tired of hearing you laugh at me in my mind.
-Josh
Movies, yeah we did that one looking back at the scary movies I have been willingly subjected to for so many years, it was a hoot.
Books, of yeah we delved into the book that made me afraid to close my eyes at night, good times.
Television … again I ask you who the fuck was the person that made that damn show FOR CHILDREN???
Alright then, moving on.
There are thing which have made me want to fudge my boxers over the years that have nothing, or nearly nothing, to do with my former essays. I don’t think I am particularly squeamish or easy to scare but I am honest about what scares me. There a handful of these things which have impacted me when I was a child and stay with me to this day.
So here we go, I’m ending this one with one of my ultra famous bullet pointed or numbered lists, I think I’m going with numbers on this one.
What, did you think you were getting out of this one without a list?
Shame on you …
1. Clowns, I know I told you about the incident with the Scooby Doo episode and that is indeed the basis for my fear of clowns. But as the years went on I became more convinced that clowns are really a front for demons. This belief was solidified when I read one of my mom’s murder books.
(Side Note: My mother may have read nearly every true murder book published over the last 25 years. If I ever need to deal with a dead body I will probably as my mom.)
This particular book was about John Wayne Gacy and there was a picture inside of him dressed up in his clown getup. I took one look at that picture and knew there was nothing good or descent of bout the clownish species.
2. Ants, bet you didn’t see that one coming. This particular fear comes from an episode of MacGyver of all things. In one episode Mac was in the Amazon rainforest and there were many ant mounds. I’m not sure why he was there or if those were even a real species of ants. In the episode the people were using a make shift moat to keep this army of ants away. I shit you not it was played like the ants were organized and intent on seizing Paris before the Brits could react. The key to Mac’s awesome defense strategy was this sluice gate that allowed the water to be diverted from the river and encircle them as the ants passed by. Well as these things do the gate got jammed and the poor bastard who’d been the stupid white men’s guide volunteered to open it manually. As he opened the gate and saved the dumbasses who didn’t now better than that the only reason he rainforest exists is to kill white folk the ants overran and devoured him. It was fucking gruesome and served to cement my fear of ants.
Seriously … fucking ants.
3. The Dark, yeah I know everyone is afraid of the dark. Well you know what? Fuck you that’s what, the dark is scary. There are lions, serial killers, and clowns hidden in the dark. I grew up in many places and most of them were well lit. Even on the dirt road in Augusta Michigan we were really close to the township building and fire department so the exterior lights served to keep the out of doors dimly illuminated. But when we moved in with my pseudo step father, mom never married Steve but he did a good job taking care of me and my unnamed brother. Steve lived on an honest to god farm, he didn’t work the farm but instead leased his fields out to neighboring farm while he loved on the home place. There was a massive green farmhouse and two barns one large and one medium sized. There were also a few out buildings and some massive tees. I fucking loved the two years we lived on the farm.
Except for the dark.
There were no lights. None on the street, none on the buildings (well there were but they weren’t kept on), none from the time city many miles away. Except for the front and back porch lights the farm was black as the devils armpit (bet you thought I’d say asshole). I would be in bed, hear a noise outside, pull back the curtain and see a macabre landscape cloaked in nothing but moonlight, and there was no telling what my adrenaline fueled imagination would see. There was many a night I was sure we were moments away from being eaten by the monster living in the barn.
Also my mom swears up and down she saw a UFO over the farm one night. So yeah there’s that … fuck the dark!
4. Horses, we are going to end this one with the murderous, deceitful, evil quadrupeds that’ve been trying to kill me since I was a wee little fat boy. I am not shitting you, horses fucking hate me. When I was five we were at my Grandfather’s (the bio one) farm. He and his wife had horses. They stabled them for other people and took care of them. One of the things they did was teach kids to ride. One day one of my family members decided it would be just a swell idea to teach Josh how to ride a gods damned horse. They put me on this massive black beast that then took off back into the barn and dumped me in her stall. People tried to tell me that she must have liked me so much that she wanted me to come live in her stall, but I knew the truth. That animal wanted to eat me.
My feelings towards horses were set when I went to summer camp. Between fourth and fifth grade I went to summer camp, the shit that went down there is a tale worthy of its own series of entries but today we are going to talk about one incident. They had … you guessed it, horses there. I didn’t want to ride them but I allowed myself to be convinced to give it a try.
Wanna know what happened?
We went out on a ride, brought the horses up to a slow gallop, I was thrown from the hell beast, and was nearly trampled by the horse behind me. The horse actually did clip me with one hoof which left a wicked bruise on my side and a hairline fracture that eventually broke after I’d returned home to the dark and scary farm that attracts UFOs!
Interesting side note, I got back on the damn horse one time after that and they gave me a fucking ribbon at the end of camp for it. Sometimes this world confuses the shit out of me.
Okay that’s it, the end of the stuff that scared me as a kid and shaped my personality. I am sure there are things I left out, some of them intentionally because they have their own charming tale I need to tell. Now get out of here I am tired of hearing you laugh at me in my mind.
-Josh
January 28, 2014
The Shit That Scares Me - Part 3 Television
Television scared the piss out of me as a kid.
Let me back up.
When I was really little all we had was a 19 inch black and white TV with the rabbit ears. Often we were forced to rape the poor antenna with tons of tin foil in order to get a signal. But I grew up with television and it was good.
The first thing I can remember scaring me as a child was a specific episode of Scooby Doo. In this episode the gang (Scooby, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, and Velma) were investigating a haunted recording studio. There was a Clown Demon Ghost Monster of some sort haunting the building.
I don’t know why, maybe this was where the Ringling Brothers killed PT Barnum?
Anyway I was like 4 and watching this thing while my mom made food, probably Cream of Wheat, in the kitchen. Then all of the sudden this fucking clown bastard jumps out from behind a door, scares Shaggy and Scooby, and sends fat little Josh screaming from the room and into his hiding place in the bedroom closet.
What kind of mother fucking sadist makes this kind of thing for kids?!?!
I absolutely know this is why I am terrified of clowns to this very day. I a admit I am a 37 year old man who wants to beat every clown he sees into the ground then urinate on their demon carcasses!
So yeah … fuck Scooby Doo.
The next thing I remember scaring me on the boob tube was Night Gallery. Yeah I know what you are thinking, with all of the awesome terror in the Twilight Zone why the hell do I pick Night Gallery as the scarier show? Well on the whole I don’t. For the most part Twilight Zone is the superior and scarier show, except for one episode. In the episode “Last Rites for a Dead Druid” Bill Bixby played a guy who is being stalked by a statue that looks just like him but contains the soul of an ancient druid. It was kind like the Weeping Angles in Dr. Who in that the fucking statue only moved when Bill wasn’t looking. In the end the statue got him and switched places.
It terrified me.
Sad part is when Night Gallery became available for streaming I immediately watched that episode. Kids, never watch something you have not seen in 30 years and have fond memories of. Man that shit did not hold up, it was so bad it made me laugh. Still little chubby Josh had the shit scared out of him by that dreck once upon a time.
But still I know this wasn’t made for children, and fuck I knew it when I watched it, but who the hell lets kids watch this? I ask this being the guy who has let his kids watch every horror movie with me since they were born. They don’t seem any the worse for the wear.
Moving on.
Anyone remember when the networks showed cartoons all morning every Saturday?
Anyone remember that ABC used to show their weekend specials after the regular cartoons?
Sometimes it was a cartoon, sometimes it was a live action, sometimes it was comedy, sometimes it was drama, and sometimes when we were very lucky it was horror. Those were the best to me it didn’t matter if it was animated or if it were live action as long as there was a little bit of the fright in it. But then there was one special that stood head and shoulders above all of the others. There was one special that to this day still has the power to make me breathe and little harder and wonder if there is somebody walking down my hall when I am trying to go to sleep at night.
There was “The Red Room Riddle”.
Based off a short novella of the same name, I actually read it after seeing the special and it’s just as fucking scary, it was first shown in 1983. I started watching it not knowing it was one of the scary ones and by the time it was done I was terrified to look outside for fear of seeing the ancient house keeper walking down the street.
Watch or read it and you will know what the hell I’m talking about.
And this time I’m serious, who the fuck makes this specifically for children?
The first example was the overreaction by a four year old. Most children would have just yelped and maybe laughed after the clown scared Shaggy and Scooby. But Josh was traumatized. Okay I will write that one off to me being a wuss when I was little.
The second was clearly my fault. I knew Night Gallery was not for children and gleefully watched it anyway. To paraphrase the great Sam Jackson, “And I would do it again!” So I will take the hit for the terror.
But the Red Room … I seriously who is that bastard that green lighted that? Not to belabor the point but that damn bit of 80’s TV still scares me and I am nearly 40 years old, I wish I could write something as scary as that! Whoever that was needs a hug, a high five, and a kick in the balls.
Moving on!
As I grew older TV scared me less. I still enjoyed horror television but it was to the movies that I turned when I wanted a fright. Tales from the Darkside, Monsters, Twilight Zone Series 2, Friday the 13th the Series, and Freddy’s Nightmares were some of the shows I loved but was not exactly terrified of as a kid. That was until 1990 and the return of one of Horrors greatest iconic characters. That was when the Crypt Keeper made his television debut.
The Keeper was funny as fuck. I won’t even try to tell you otherwise, much like Freddy Krueger the Keeper never scared me. He was almost a buddy who walked you through the tale of the week. I knew on the premiere night when a psychotic Larry Drake dressed as Santa Claus and attempted to kill a murderous woman in her snow locked house that I was hooked. The show made me laugh, it made me shriek, and it always entertained me.
I was a definitive show in my life.
These days I still love scary TV with The Walking Dead being the scariest show on the tube in my opinion. But being scared as an adult is very different than being scared as a child. No episode of Walking Dead will ever scare me like The Secret of the Red Room or Bill Bixby being stalked by a crazy weeping angel ancestor.
Next in the fourth and final installment of this subseries I will discuss the other things that scared the shit out of me as a kid. From animals, to weather, to people I will be giving you the final roundup.
-Josh
Let me back up.
When I was really little all we had was a 19 inch black and white TV with the rabbit ears. Often we were forced to rape the poor antenna with tons of tin foil in order to get a signal. But I grew up with television and it was good.
The first thing I can remember scaring me as a child was a specific episode of Scooby Doo. In this episode the gang (Scooby, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, and Velma) were investigating a haunted recording studio. There was a Clown Demon Ghost Monster of some sort haunting the building.
I don’t know why, maybe this was where the Ringling Brothers killed PT Barnum?
Anyway I was like 4 and watching this thing while my mom made food, probably Cream of Wheat, in the kitchen. Then all of the sudden this fucking clown bastard jumps out from behind a door, scares Shaggy and Scooby, and sends fat little Josh screaming from the room and into his hiding place in the bedroom closet.
What kind of mother fucking sadist makes this kind of thing for kids?!?!
I absolutely know this is why I am terrified of clowns to this very day. I a admit I am a 37 year old man who wants to beat every clown he sees into the ground then urinate on their demon carcasses!
So yeah … fuck Scooby Doo.
The next thing I remember scaring me on the boob tube was Night Gallery. Yeah I know what you are thinking, with all of the awesome terror in the Twilight Zone why the hell do I pick Night Gallery as the scarier show? Well on the whole I don’t. For the most part Twilight Zone is the superior and scarier show, except for one episode. In the episode “Last Rites for a Dead Druid” Bill Bixby played a guy who is being stalked by a statue that looks just like him but contains the soul of an ancient druid. It was kind like the Weeping Angles in Dr. Who in that the fucking statue only moved when Bill wasn’t looking. In the end the statue got him and switched places.
It terrified me.
Sad part is when Night Gallery became available for streaming I immediately watched that episode. Kids, never watch something you have not seen in 30 years and have fond memories of. Man that shit did not hold up, it was so bad it made me laugh. Still little chubby Josh had the shit scared out of him by that dreck once upon a time.
But still I know this wasn’t made for children, and fuck I knew it when I watched it, but who the hell lets kids watch this? I ask this being the guy who has let his kids watch every horror movie with me since they were born. They don’t seem any the worse for the wear.
Moving on.
Anyone remember when the networks showed cartoons all morning every Saturday?
Anyone remember that ABC used to show their weekend specials after the regular cartoons?
Sometimes it was a cartoon, sometimes it was a live action, sometimes it was comedy, sometimes it was drama, and sometimes when we were very lucky it was horror. Those were the best to me it didn’t matter if it was animated or if it were live action as long as there was a little bit of the fright in it. But then there was one special that stood head and shoulders above all of the others. There was one special that to this day still has the power to make me breathe and little harder and wonder if there is somebody walking down my hall when I am trying to go to sleep at night.
There was “The Red Room Riddle”.
Based off a short novella of the same name, I actually read it after seeing the special and it’s just as fucking scary, it was first shown in 1983. I started watching it not knowing it was one of the scary ones and by the time it was done I was terrified to look outside for fear of seeing the ancient house keeper walking down the street.
Watch or read it and you will know what the hell I’m talking about.
And this time I’m serious, who the fuck makes this specifically for children?
The first example was the overreaction by a four year old. Most children would have just yelped and maybe laughed after the clown scared Shaggy and Scooby. But Josh was traumatized. Okay I will write that one off to me being a wuss when I was little.
The second was clearly my fault. I knew Night Gallery was not for children and gleefully watched it anyway. To paraphrase the great Sam Jackson, “And I would do it again!” So I will take the hit for the terror.
But the Red Room … I seriously who is that bastard that green lighted that? Not to belabor the point but that damn bit of 80’s TV still scares me and I am nearly 40 years old, I wish I could write something as scary as that! Whoever that was needs a hug, a high five, and a kick in the balls.
Moving on!
As I grew older TV scared me less. I still enjoyed horror television but it was to the movies that I turned when I wanted a fright. Tales from the Darkside, Monsters, Twilight Zone Series 2, Friday the 13th the Series, and Freddy’s Nightmares were some of the shows I loved but was not exactly terrified of as a kid. That was until 1990 and the return of one of Horrors greatest iconic characters. That was when the Crypt Keeper made his television debut.
The Keeper was funny as fuck. I won’t even try to tell you otherwise, much like Freddy Krueger the Keeper never scared me. He was almost a buddy who walked you through the tale of the week. I knew on the premiere night when a psychotic Larry Drake dressed as Santa Claus and attempted to kill a murderous woman in her snow locked house that I was hooked. The show made me laugh, it made me shriek, and it always entertained me.
I was a definitive show in my life.
These days I still love scary TV with The Walking Dead being the scariest show on the tube in my opinion. But being scared as an adult is very different than being scared as a child. No episode of Walking Dead will ever scare me like The Secret of the Red Room or Bill Bixby being stalked by a crazy weeping angel ancestor.
Next in the fourth and final installment of this subseries I will discuss the other things that scared the shit out of me as a kid. From animals, to weather, to people I will be giving you the final roundup.
-Josh
January 27, 2014
The Shit That Scares Me Part 2 – The Books
My love of scary books started with comic books.
I am not Stephen King so it wasn’t the EC horror comics that first scared the shit out of me. For little josh it was the Marvel Tomb of Dracula comics and related series. These books came out a little before I actually started collecting comics. As I’ve said before it was GI Joe number one released in the early 1980’s was the comic that got me into the collecting world. But I came into a treasure trove of older comics when I was in elementary school which was stiff with horror comics.
I was a huge fan of Dracula from the Universal and Hammer horror films. The Marvel treatment of the count was and still is one the most awesome adaptations I’ve ever read. It was scary, funny, and smart. But fuck did the art in those books scare the shit out of me. I wish I still had them. In the hobo life I lived for most of my childhood those books were lost in transition.
Then I read Dracula.
I know it’s weird when you consider how much I loved the movies as a kid and how much I love books in general that I had not read Dracula at that point. I plead stupidity and youth as my only defense. Hey I was a stupid fat kids who was and still is blind in one eye.
I loved Dracula but it didn’t change my life. The books age and style made it slightly difficult to get into and I was already so washed in the film versions of the story that I couldn’t get Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee out of my mind as I read. In the years since I’ve read and listened to the books several times and I love it. There are things I would change, hey I’m a horror writer fuck you if I have opinions, but it deserves its place as a classic. I know in my heart people will still be reading it 200 years from now.
I know right now you are probably bracing yourself for yet another pseudo cock sucking of Stephen King. Yes I will always be up front that King is my favorite writer of all time and my literary hero. I don’t get into debates about his writing if I can help it because I know I am extremely biased. Stephen King is the writer I most want to be like. But it wasn’t reading Stephen King that changed my life.
It was Mr. Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
Fall of 1987 was a really hard time for me. I’d been transplanted against my will from southeast Michigan to southern Ohio. I was miserable, I wanted to go home, I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. My mom was having her troubles but she was still my mom and she did the things she could to make me feel better. Sometimes I would wake up with a new book lying next to me on the bed. My mom was the person who taught me it was the little things that made all of the difference. The best was when she would stay up all night recording movies for us off HBO.
On morning we woke up and she’d recorded four movies for us. There was The Vindicator, The Stuff, Night of the Creeps, and most importantly Reanimator. While the other three are some of my favorite 80’s horror flicks it was Reanimator which grabbed my fear center and squeezed until I screamed and peed my panties. I watched the movie half a dozen times over the next week always hiding my face when they entered the morgue.
Let me take a minute to talk about Mr. Jeffrey Combs.
Jeff Combs was the star of Reanimator playing the role of Dr. Herbert West the eponymous Reanimator. He is my absolute favorite actor of all time, if there was a person to play me in the movie of my life I’d pick Mr. Combs. Of course the man would need to wear a fat suit and it would probably kill him but fuck he is an amazing actor and he should have won an Oscar by now!
Now back to Lovecraft.
That was my first exposure to the work of HP but it was not my last. The next week I went to the library, I practically lived at the library back then, and checked out a Lovecraft compilation containing “Herbert West Reanimator” along with several other tales. I was forever changed by that book. To this day my greatest professional regret was to not have been a writer during the great pulp age … except if I was I would have punched L. Ron Hubbard in the face, lying douche-bag.
I discovered Stephen King, outside of his movies, in eighth grade. One night The Shining was on TV and it scared the piss out of me. A few days later I checked the book out of the same Lovecraft sharing library. I have never been so scared by a piece of printed fiction in my entire life. You know that episode of friends where Joey makes Rachael read The Shining?
Fuck you it was a funny show!
Anyway in the show Joey reveals that when the book becomes too scary you need to hide it in the freezer. I wish I’d known that trick back then because I didn’t sleep for an entire night.
Now I write Horror for a living, shit it still weird to say that writing is my job. I know it’s obvious that I try to do my hero’s justice in my writing. I don’t think I ape their styles too heavily, but if I do I don’t apologize, what I try to do is build mood and terror in a manner which would hopefully make them proud.
Or maybe scare them?
The list of scary books that influenced me is so long I could never lost them all. But I think I hit the ones that kicked me in the guts the hardest and started me on my journey. If I’ve missed any of the super important ones … well you’ll never fucking know.
Next installment of this subseries will deal with the television shows that scared me and shaped me. That one is going be a little harder, I am a writer of the TV generation and I know it shows.
-Josh
I am not Stephen King so it wasn’t the EC horror comics that first scared the shit out of me. For little josh it was the Marvel Tomb of Dracula comics and related series. These books came out a little before I actually started collecting comics. As I’ve said before it was GI Joe number one released in the early 1980’s was the comic that got me into the collecting world. But I came into a treasure trove of older comics when I was in elementary school which was stiff with horror comics.
I was a huge fan of Dracula from the Universal and Hammer horror films. The Marvel treatment of the count was and still is one the most awesome adaptations I’ve ever read. It was scary, funny, and smart. But fuck did the art in those books scare the shit out of me. I wish I still had them. In the hobo life I lived for most of my childhood those books were lost in transition.
Then I read Dracula.
I know it’s weird when you consider how much I loved the movies as a kid and how much I love books in general that I had not read Dracula at that point. I plead stupidity and youth as my only defense. Hey I was a stupid fat kids who was and still is blind in one eye.
I loved Dracula but it didn’t change my life. The books age and style made it slightly difficult to get into and I was already so washed in the film versions of the story that I couldn’t get Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee out of my mind as I read. In the years since I’ve read and listened to the books several times and I love it. There are things I would change, hey I’m a horror writer fuck you if I have opinions, but it deserves its place as a classic. I know in my heart people will still be reading it 200 years from now.
I know right now you are probably bracing yourself for yet another pseudo cock sucking of Stephen King. Yes I will always be up front that King is my favorite writer of all time and my literary hero. I don’t get into debates about his writing if I can help it because I know I am extremely biased. Stephen King is the writer I most want to be like. But it wasn’t reading Stephen King that changed my life.
It was Mr. Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
Fall of 1987 was a really hard time for me. I’d been transplanted against my will from southeast Michigan to southern Ohio. I was miserable, I wanted to go home, I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. My mom was having her troubles but she was still my mom and she did the things she could to make me feel better. Sometimes I would wake up with a new book lying next to me on the bed. My mom was the person who taught me it was the little things that made all of the difference. The best was when she would stay up all night recording movies for us off HBO.
On morning we woke up and she’d recorded four movies for us. There was The Vindicator, The Stuff, Night of the Creeps, and most importantly Reanimator. While the other three are some of my favorite 80’s horror flicks it was Reanimator which grabbed my fear center and squeezed until I screamed and peed my panties. I watched the movie half a dozen times over the next week always hiding my face when they entered the morgue.
Let me take a minute to talk about Mr. Jeffrey Combs.
Jeff Combs was the star of Reanimator playing the role of Dr. Herbert West the eponymous Reanimator. He is my absolute favorite actor of all time, if there was a person to play me in the movie of my life I’d pick Mr. Combs. Of course the man would need to wear a fat suit and it would probably kill him but fuck he is an amazing actor and he should have won an Oscar by now!
Now back to Lovecraft.
That was my first exposure to the work of HP but it was not my last. The next week I went to the library, I practically lived at the library back then, and checked out a Lovecraft compilation containing “Herbert West Reanimator” along with several other tales. I was forever changed by that book. To this day my greatest professional regret was to not have been a writer during the great pulp age … except if I was I would have punched L. Ron Hubbard in the face, lying douche-bag.
I discovered Stephen King, outside of his movies, in eighth grade. One night The Shining was on TV and it scared the piss out of me. A few days later I checked the book out of the same Lovecraft sharing library. I have never been so scared by a piece of printed fiction in my entire life. You know that episode of friends where Joey makes Rachael read The Shining?
Fuck you it was a funny show!
Anyway in the show Joey reveals that when the book becomes too scary you need to hide it in the freezer. I wish I’d known that trick back then because I didn’t sleep for an entire night.
Now I write Horror for a living, shit it still weird to say that writing is my job. I know it’s obvious that I try to do my hero’s justice in my writing. I don’t think I ape their styles too heavily, but if I do I don’t apologize, what I try to do is build mood and terror in a manner which would hopefully make them proud.
Or maybe scare them?
The list of scary books that influenced me is so long I could never lost them all. But I think I hit the ones that kicked me in the guts the hardest and started me on my journey. If I’ve missed any of the super important ones … well you’ll never fucking know.
Next installment of this subseries will deal with the television shows that scared me and shaped me. That one is going be a little harder, I am a writer of the TV generation and I know it shows.
-Josh
January 24, 2014
The Shit That Scares Me – Part 1 the Movies
This needs to be said right up front. I like to be scared and I am easy to scare.
Few things scare me more than a good horror movie. Bear in mind that good is a relative term. Also that I can’t fucking stand Casablanca, Citizen Kane, or Gone with the Wind. In this essay I am going to touch on the key horror movies which have touched my life and influenced me as a creator. This is by means a comprehensive list. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of horror movies in my life.
My father has told me this story several times in my life. When I was little one of the channels on television was showing the Brian Depalma version of Stephen Kings Carrie. My mother, who’s always had a strange idea of what is and isn’t an appropriate thing to show a child god’s love her, let me watch.
Dad says I was terrified.
I like to think he is right.
Growing up in Metro Detroit we had two UHF stations we could watch. For any of you who are confused by that statement Google it. I’m not here to educate you that are what the schools and the streets are for. If they fail you Uncle Google can teach you everything you did and didn’t want to know about life.
Anyway where was I?
Right UHF TV in Detroit.
We had two channels (50 and 20) mostly they showed syndicated schlock but on Saturdays they became widows to another world. On channel 50 they would show the “Thriller Double Feature” and on 20 they showed the “Saturday Shocker” both were awesome. My little brother and I would park ourselves on the couch or splay in front of the television and gorge on vintage horror. I was give an education in filmed terror from the universal monsters, Vincent Price’s vast catalogue of work, every bad B horror movie from the 50’s and 60’s, and they best of the giant animal and 70’s exploitation horror flicks. All of them edited for television, but that didn’t matter.
These are some of my best pre puberty memories.
It was from these sessions that I came to love the Hammer horror films. Again Google them, I am not the big titted or tight abed teacher you always wished would ask you to stay after class to “Clean Erasers” just waiting to take you innocence and do all the work for you.
Lazy pricks.
Fuck, moving on.
The movie that stuck with me the longest and scared me the most was called “Horror Express” starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Telly Savalas. This movie scared me in every amazing way possible. When those zombies advanced car by car through the train … fuck me!
Don’t be surprised if I steal the setting for a future work.
I actively sought out things that would scare me as a kid. Even though, or maybe because, they terrified me to my core I felt drawn to them and repelled by them at the same time. When I was watching a horror movie every bump and scrape caused me jump. I felt alive at a time when I was feeling a deeply growing sense of disconnection from the world around me.
The first time I saw Michael Jacksons Thriller video I hid behind a chair.
Yeah I know that sounds crazy but I was in second grade and when it got to the zombie scene I nearly wet myself. But over the months whenever I was in a home where they had MTV, hey we still had rabbit ears and a 25 inch black and white TV in my house, I would watch and wait for that fucking video to come on.
I’ve always been a masochist.
Fall of third grade I saw Halloween for the first. I’m not sure what I can say about that movie which hasn’t been said before. This movie broke the shell for me. There was no blood and a kick ass story. It scared the shit out of me. Whenever I am asked about my favorite movies the original Halloween is always on the list.
I fucking love Freddy!
The year of Halloween was the first time I saw the first two Nightmare on Elm Street movies. My mother rented them on VHS for me and my brother to watch. But I need to say this. Freddy Krueger has never scared me. The movies have managed to creep me out but they have never terrified me. Still even the worst of the Freddy flicks are a joy to watch. The touched and influenced me creatively but they never made it hard for me to sleep.
I know ironic right?
Jason Voorhees is another kettle of fish.
The Friday the 13th movies were the thing of legend in my elementary school. We would constantly talk about things we thought were in the movies and whenever a new issue of Fangoria came out we would tear it apart looking for Jason related items. But none of us could actually prove we’d seen it.
I saw my first installment in 5th grade.
My cousin Lenny was watching me and my brother while my mom was on a date. He took us to the video store, remember those, and let us each get a movie. One of the movies we rented was Friday The 13th Part 3. It scared the living fuck out of me. I am not even kidding I didn’t sleep for nearly 50 hours after watching that movie. Even now, after watching every one of the Jason movies multiple times the iconic sound effects from the movies still have the ability to freeze my blood and make me check all of my corners. It was the scariest thing I’d ever seen.
It held the title for less than a month.
I have told this next story many times so let me give you the condensed version. I would skip it but it is THE moment which changed my life.
When I was 10 years old my father let me watch a movie. It was Halloween night and everyone was exhausted from trick or treating and gorged on candy. It was about ten at night and I was just about ready to doze off for the evening when my dad and my step brother came in and changed the channel.
“You going to love this,” my father said as he set down on the couch next to me.
As the black and white movie began to play on the small screen I was quickly becoming bored with it. That all changed when I heard something emanating from the TV.
“They’re coming to get you Barbara!”
Immediately my attention was captured and for the next 2 hours, although it felt simultaneously like 2 minutes and 20 hours, I was a prisoner. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Every shadow, every sound out in the windy Michigan night, and every creek in the house was one of the living dead coming to get me.
I was terrified.
I was an addict.
Not long after my Great Uncle Jerry showed me Dawn of the Dead, still to this day my favorite movie of all time. I believe until the day I die I will never love a movie as much as Dawn … but nothing will ever scare me like Night.
As I got older I watched a lot of horror movies some of them great, some of them horrible, but most of them mediocre at best. I was not scared again, truly scared, until spring of 2004.
I fucking hate love Zach Snyder.
When they announced that remake of my beloved Dawn of the Dead I wanted to cut a bitch. When I learned George Romero was having nothing to do with it I wanted to start punching homelesses! But despite those feelings I bought a ticket for opening day and with my oldest daughter and my mother, yeah I told you she was an odd bird, I sat down to watch Dawn of the Dead 2004.
I really wanted to hate that movie. I swear I entered that theater prepared to storm out in righteous indignation screaming my hate at the poor stupid kids who worked the concessions stand and making sure they never trusted a bald fat man again. That didn’t happen though.
I fucking loved it.
It also scared the shit out of me. My wife watched amused as I was unable to sleep until sometime around dawn. Fuck me that was a damn good movie. When I bought it on DVD it was added to my zombie collection with all the reverence of a Romero film.
That’s it. There are other movies which have scared me in my life, I’m sure many of you would find the list of things with the power to scare me cute. But these movies are the ones that, through the terror they filled me with, helped carve my personality to what you see now.
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
-Josh
Few things scare me more than a good horror movie. Bear in mind that good is a relative term. Also that I can’t fucking stand Casablanca, Citizen Kane, or Gone with the Wind. In this essay I am going to touch on the key horror movies which have touched my life and influenced me as a creator. This is by means a comprehensive list. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of horror movies in my life.
My father has told me this story several times in my life. When I was little one of the channels on television was showing the Brian Depalma version of Stephen Kings Carrie. My mother, who’s always had a strange idea of what is and isn’t an appropriate thing to show a child god’s love her, let me watch.
Dad says I was terrified.
I like to think he is right.
Growing up in Metro Detroit we had two UHF stations we could watch. For any of you who are confused by that statement Google it. I’m not here to educate you that are what the schools and the streets are for. If they fail you Uncle Google can teach you everything you did and didn’t want to know about life.
Anyway where was I?
Right UHF TV in Detroit.
We had two channels (50 and 20) mostly they showed syndicated schlock but on Saturdays they became widows to another world. On channel 50 they would show the “Thriller Double Feature” and on 20 they showed the “Saturday Shocker” both were awesome. My little brother and I would park ourselves on the couch or splay in front of the television and gorge on vintage horror. I was give an education in filmed terror from the universal monsters, Vincent Price’s vast catalogue of work, every bad B horror movie from the 50’s and 60’s, and they best of the giant animal and 70’s exploitation horror flicks. All of them edited for television, but that didn’t matter.
These are some of my best pre puberty memories.
It was from these sessions that I came to love the Hammer horror films. Again Google them, I am not the big titted or tight abed teacher you always wished would ask you to stay after class to “Clean Erasers” just waiting to take you innocence and do all the work for you.
Lazy pricks.
Fuck, moving on.
The movie that stuck with me the longest and scared me the most was called “Horror Express” starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Telly Savalas. This movie scared me in every amazing way possible. When those zombies advanced car by car through the train … fuck me!
Don’t be surprised if I steal the setting for a future work.
I actively sought out things that would scare me as a kid. Even though, or maybe because, they terrified me to my core I felt drawn to them and repelled by them at the same time. When I was watching a horror movie every bump and scrape caused me jump. I felt alive at a time when I was feeling a deeply growing sense of disconnection from the world around me.
The first time I saw Michael Jacksons Thriller video I hid behind a chair.
Yeah I know that sounds crazy but I was in second grade and when it got to the zombie scene I nearly wet myself. But over the months whenever I was in a home where they had MTV, hey we still had rabbit ears and a 25 inch black and white TV in my house, I would watch and wait for that fucking video to come on.
I’ve always been a masochist.
Fall of third grade I saw Halloween for the first. I’m not sure what I can say about that movie which hasn’t been said before. This movie broke the shell for me. There was no blood and a kick ass story. It scared the shit out of me. Whenever I am asked about my favorite movies the original Halloween is always on the list.
I fucking love Freddy!
The year of Halloween was the first time I saw the first two Nightmare on Elm Street movies. My mother rented them on VHS for me and my brother to watch. But I need to say this. Freddy Krueger has never scared me. The movies have managed to creep me out but they have never terrified me. Still even the worst of the Freddy flicks are a joy to watch. The touched and influenced me creatively but they never made it hard for me to sleep.
I know ironic right?
Jason Voorhees is another kettle of fish.
The Friday the 13th movies were the thing of legend in my elementary school. We would constantly talk about things we thought were in the movies and whenever a new issue of Fangoria came out we would tear it apart looking for Jason related items. But none of us could actually prove we’d seen it.
I saw my first installment in 5th grade.
My cousin Lenny was watching me and my brother while my mom was on a date. He took us to the video store, remember those, and let us each get a movie. One of the movies we rented was Friday The 13th Part 3. It scared the living fuck out of me. I am not even kidding I didn’t sleep for nearly 50 hours after watching that movie. Even now, after watching every one of the Jason movies multiple times the iconic sound effects from the movies still have the ability to freeze my blood and make me check all of my corners. It was the scariest thing I’d ever seen.
It held the title for less than a month.
I have told this next story many times so let me give you the condensed version. I would skip it but it is THE moment which changed my life.
When I was 10 years old my father let me watch a movie. It was Halloween night and everyone was exhausted from trick or treating and gorged on candy. It was about ten at night and I was just about ready to doze off for the evening when my dad and my step brother came in and changed the channel.
“You going to love this,” my father said as he set down on the couch next to me.
As the black and white movie began to play on the small screen I was quickly becoming bored with it. That all changed when I heard something emanating from the TV.
“They’re coming to get you Barbara!”
Immediately my attention was captured and for the next 2 hours, although it felt simultaneously like 2 minutes and 20 hours, I was a prisoner. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Every shadow, every sound out in the windy Michigan night, and every creek in the house was one of the living dead coming to get me.
I was terrified.
I was an addict.
Not long after my Great Uncle Jerry showed me Dawn of the Dead, still to this day my favorite movie of all time. I believe until the day I die I will never love a movie as much as Dawn … but nothing will ever scare me like Night.
As I got older I watched a lot of horror movies some of them great, some of them horrible, but most of them mediocre at best. I was not scared again, truly scared, until spring of 2004.
I fucking hate love Zach Snyder.
When they announced that remake of my beloved Dawn of the Dead I wanted to cut a bitch. When I learned George Romero was having nothing to do with it I wanted to start punching homelesses! But despite those feelings I bought a ticket for opening day and with my oldest daughter and my mother, yeah I told you she was an odd bird, I sat down to watch Dawn of the Dead 2004.
I really wanted to hate that movie. I swear I entered that theater prepared to storm out in righteous indignation screaming my hate at the poor stupid kids who worked the concessions stand and making sure they never trusted a bald fat man again. That didn’t happen though.
I fucking loved it.
It also scared the shit out of me. My wife watched amused as I was unable to sleep until sometime around dawn. Fuck me that was a damn good movie. When I bought it on DVD it was added to my zombie collection with all the reverence of a Romero film.
That’s it. There are other movies which have scared me in my life, I’m sure many of you would find the list of things with the power to scare me cute. But these movies are the ones that, through the terror they filled me with, helped carve my personality to what you see now.
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
-Josh
January 23, 2014
S.O.S.
Something has been bothering me the last week I have felt wrong and off. People have been commenting that I don’t seem like myself and asking me what was wrong. I’ve been telling them nothing and looking at them like they are crazy monkeys ready to fling their poo at me.
Last night I was working on my new novel (sorry kids not ready to reveal what it is yet) and I realized they were right, something is wrong and after some deep thought (or deep for me at any rate) I think I’ve nailed the feeling down.
I feel like I’ve entered the doldrums.
Doldrums
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“The doldrums is a colloquial expression derived from historical maritime usage, in which it refers to those parts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing winds are calm. The low pressure is caused by the heat at the equator, which makes the air rise and travel north and south high in the atmosphere, until it subsides again in the horse latitudes. Some of that air returns to the doldrums through the trade winds. This process can lead to light or variable winds and more severe weather, in the form of squalls, thunderstorms and hurricanes. The doldrums are also noted for calm periods when the winds disappear altogether, trapping sail-powered boats for periods of days or weeks. The term appears to have arisen in the 18th century – when cross-Equator sailing voyages became more common.
Colloquially, the "doldrums" are a state of inactivity, mild depression, listlessness or stagnation.[1]
The word is derived from dold (an archaic term meaning "stupid") and -rum(s), a noun suffix found in such words as "tantrum".[2]”
That is not to say I am suffering from a new bout of depression or that I should be consulting my doctor in regards to my medication. I feel pretty good. My life is pretty fucking awesome at the moment.
My kids are happy and healthy, I mean damn we’ve managed to get the girl the braces she’s need for years.
My youngest son will be 16 in two weeks and he’s champing at the bit to get a job and earn some money
My older three are all responsible adults in happy committed relationships.
And my Bunny Girl is … well she’s is the light of the entire family.
My marriage is in the best place it’s ever been.
The day job sucks as always but I can tolerate it.
The drama at my wife’s job seems to be coming to a conclusion we can accept.
I am making enough writing every month to cover the rent.
I am flushed with ideas and working on multiple projects simultaneously.
To put it all in perspective the only thing I can point to and say “This is awful!” is my lack of a functioning automobile while still paying on the dead one.
So yeah … not to brag but my life is pretty fucking good.
So what the hell is wrong with me?
Get some answers
I blame my right arm for all of this bullshit, let me explain.
In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean there is a patch of weeds and limited wind called the Sargasso. It is the collection point for refuse and debris from all across the pond.
The Sargasso Sea
From NOAA.Gov
“The Sargasso Sea is a vast patch of ocean named for a genus of free-floating seaweed called Sargassum. While there are many different types of algae found floating in the ocean all around world, the Sargasso Sea is unique in that it harbors species of sargassum that are 'holopelagic' — this means that the algae not only freely floats around the ocean, but itreproduces vegetatively on the high seas. Other seaweeds reproduce and begin life on the floor of the ocean.
Sargassum provides a home to an amazing variety of marine species. Turtles use sargassum mats as nurseries where hatchlings have food and shelter. Sargassum also provides essential habitat for marine species, such as shrimp, crab, and fish that have adapted specifically to this floating algae. The Sargasso Sea is a spawning site for threatened and endangered eels, as well as white marlin, porbeagle shark, and dolphinfish. Humpback whales annually migrate through the Sargasso Sea. Commercial fish, such as tuna, and birds also migrate through the Sargasso Sea and depend on it for food.
While all other seas in the world are defined at least in part by land boundaries, the Sargasso Sea is defined only by ocean currents. It lies within the Northern Atlantic Subtropical Gyre. The Gulf Stream establishes the Sargasso Sea's western boundary, while the Sea is further defined to the north by the North Atlantic Current, to the east by the Canary Current, and to the south by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current. Since this area is defined by boundary currents, its borders are dynamic, correlating roughly with the Azores High Pressure Center for any particular season.”
Boy howdy that is a dense bit of writing!
Let me boil it down for you. I feel like I am stuck in the weeds. For most of 2013 I seemed to leap every week. Sales jumped every day. Projects were being churned out nearly as fast as I could envision them. I was riding a high that never seemed to have an end.
When I tell non writers that writing and publishing feels like getting stoned they look at me like I’m crazy. But it really is, I’ve never felt anything in my life which matches the feeling of writing the last line on a piece of work and hitting the save button.
It’s nearly sexual, something else which hasn’t been right in my life lately.
Once again I blame my right arm.
As most of you know I was crippled for most of December and a good chunk of January. For about a month to six weeks my Pimp Arm was crippled and near death.
What, you have no idea what I’m talking about?
Stop right now, go back and read the older Essays.
You call yourself a fan?
Anyway In the beginning of December I developed a massive staph infection in my right forearm. Long story short, minor arm surgery and massive antibiotics meant nearly a month of no writing and no masturbation. Side effect was that traditional sex, or at least what I define as traditional sex, was painful … and not in the good naughty way either.
Yes I know TMI … at least I didn’t tell you how hard wiping was.
About a week ago I was able to write more than a few hundred words in one sitting once more. It felt good, it felt wonderful, it was goddamn near orgasmic.
It was frustrating.
Over the last year I’d established a pace and routine to my writing which allowed me to produce at what I consider an amazing rate. When I was starting out as a professional writer (2007) I was lucky to crank 500 words a day. Before the maiming of pimp arm I was knocking on 3000 every day. Now I’m back to 1500 at best.
I feel crippled.
I’m in the doldrums.
I’m stuck in the Sargasso.
I am sure it will get better, to be honest I already feel like I’m getting my footing back and picking up speed. But today I am feeling a little sorry for myself so I decided to share.
Know what?
I feel better now, thanks for listening.
-Josh
Last night I was working on my new novel (sorry kids not ready to reveal what it is yet) and I realized they were right, something is wrong and after some deep thought (or deep for me at any rate) I think I’ve nailed the feeling down.
I feel like I’ve entered the doldrums.
Doldrums
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“The doldrums is a colloquial expression derived from historical maritime usage, in which it refers to those parts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing winds are calm. The low pressure is caused by the heat at the equator, which makes the air rise and travel north and south high in the atmosphere, until it subsides again in the horse latitudes. Some of that air returns to the doldrums through the trade winds. This process can lead to light or variable winds and more severe weather, in the form of squalls, thunderstorms and hurricanes. The doldrums are also noted for calm periods when the winds disappear altogether, trapping sail-powered boats for periods of days or weeks. The term appears to have arisen in the 18th century – when cross-Equator sailing voyages became more common.
Colloquially, the "doldrums" are a state of inactivity, mild depression, listlessness or stagnation.[1]
The word is derived from dold (an archaic term meaning "stupid") and -rum(s), a noun suffix found in such words as "tantrum".[2]”
That is not to say I am suffering from a new bout of depression or that I should be consulting my doctor in regards to my medication. I feel pretty good. My life is pretty fucking awesome at the moment.
My kids are happy and healthy, I mean damn we’ve managed to get the girl the braces she’s need for years.
My youngest son will be 16 in two weeks and he’s champing at the bit to get a job and earn some money
My older three are all responsible adults in happy committed relationships.
And my Bunny Girl is … well she’s is the light of the entire family.
My marriage is in the best place it’s ever been.
The day job sucks as always but I can tolerate it.
The drama at my wife’s job seems to be coming to a conclusion we can accept.
I am making enough writing every month to cover the rent.
I am flushed with ideas and working on multiple projects simultaneously.
To put it all in perspective the only thing I can point to and say “This is awful!” is my lack of a functioning automobile while still paying on the dead one.
So yeah … not to brag but my life is pretty fucking good.
So what the hell is wrong with me?
Get some answers
I blame my right arm for all of this bullshit, let me explain.
In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean there is a patch of weeds and limited wind called the Sargasso. It is the collection point for refuse and debris from all across the pond.
The Sargasso Sea
From NOAA.Gov
“The Sargasso Sea is a vast patch of ocean named for a genus of free-floating seaweed called Sargassum. While there are many different types of algae found floating in the ocean all around world, the Sargasso Sea is unique in that it harbors species of sargassum that are 'holopelagic' — this means that the algae not only freely floats around the ocean, but itreproduces vegetatively on the high seas. Other seaweeds reproduce and begin life on the floor of the ocean.
Sargassum provides a home to an amazing variety of marine species. Turtles use sargassum mats as nurseries where hatchlings have food and shelter. Sargassum also provides essential habitat for marine species, such as shrimp, crab, and fish that have adapted specifically to this floating algae. The Sargasso Sea is a spawning site for threatened and endangered eels, as well as white marlin, porbeagle shark, and dolphinfish. Humpback whales annually migrate through the Sargasso Sea. Commercial fish, such as tuna, and birds also migrate through the Sargasso Sea and depend on it for food.
While all other seas in the world are defined at least in part by land boundaries, the Sargasso Sea is defined only by ocean currents. It lies within the Northern Atlantic Subtropical Gyre. The Gulf Stream establishes the Sargasso Sea's western boundary, while the Sea is further defined to the north by the North Atlantic Current, to the east by the Canary Current, and to the south by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current. Since this area is defined by boundary currents, its borders are dynamic, correlating roughly with the Azores High Pressure Center for any particular season.”
Boy howdy that is a dense bit of writing!
Let me boil it down for you. I feel like I am stuck in the weeds. For most of 2013 I seemed to leap every week. Sales jumped every day. Projects were being churned out nearly as fast as I could envision them. I was riding a high that never seemed to have an end.
When I tell non writers that writing and publishing feels like getting stoned they look at me like I’m crazy. But it really is, I’ve never felt anything in my life which matches the feeling of writing the last line on a piece of work and hitting the save button.
It’s nearly sexual, something else which hasn’t been right in my life lately.
Once again I blame my right arm.
As most of you know I was crippled for most of December and a good chunk of January. For about a month to six weeks my Pimp Arm was crippled and near death.
What, you have no idea what I’m talking about?
Stop right now, go back and read the older Essays.
You call yourself a fan?
Anyway In the beginning of December I developed a massive staph infection in my right forearm. Long story short, minor arm surgery and massive antibiotics meant nearly a month of no writing and no masturbation. Side effect was that traditional sex, or at least what I define as traditional sex, was painful … and not in the good naughty way either.
Yes I know TMI … at least I didn’t tell you how hard wiping was.
About a week ago I was able to write more than a few hundred words in one sitting once more. It felt good, it felt wonderful, it was goddamn near orgasmic.
It was frustrating.
Over the last year I’d established a pace and routine to my writing which allowed me to produce at what I consider an amazing rate. When I was starting out as a professional writer (2007) I was lucky to crank 500 words a day. Before the maiming of pimp arm I was knocking on 3000 every day. Now I’m back to 1500 at best.
I feel crippled.
I’m in the doldrums.
I’m stuck in the Sargasso.
I am sure it will get better, to be honest I already feel like I’m getting my footing back and picking up speed. But today I am feeling a little sorry for myself so I decided to share.
Know what?
I feel better now, thanks for listening.
-Josh
