G. Eric Francis's Blog, page 2

The BITCH of it All (to all the ladies)

May I have a few minutes of your time folks?
I wanna talk about a word that I sadly use WAY too much.
For those who have taken the time to know me, y’all know that I try to have the best intentions in mind in whatever I do. However, due to what is expected of males in this society, my upbringing in the NYC, or plain ignorance, I use the word BITCH waaaaaaaaaay too much.
Now I have been thinking about this lately, especially with all the news about men losing their damn minds when it comes to how little they think of the opposite sex.
Y’all have heard me quote Chuck D many a time (Without Mothers they’d be no brothers...w/o sisters they’d be no misters). Starting with my own mom, even in her current state one of the most dignified people I’ve ever known, I have always held women in high regard throughout my life.
However, I also have had a weakness for them too, which is why I didn’t get married to nearly 31...based on what was originally a hookup.
The word “bitch” can take on a variety of different meanings....none of them flattering, to be honest.
Guys call each other “bitch” to signify that they are weak...like a stereotypical woman.
A woman who acts like a “bitch” is simply an unpleasant, bitter, evil, pick any unflattering description person.
Stop “bitching” means you complain and nag too much...like a stereotypical woman.
I can go on for a while, but I am trying to get my 11-year-old to go to sleep (and yes, I know it is 5:42 in the early evening as I write this).
I have a horrible habit of referring to women I don’t know as “that bitch.” Not proud of it, but it is sort of programmed into my dome, and sometimes it is hard to turn off.
“That bitch is crazy.”
That is one of my guilty “favorites”, sadly.
“Bitch has lost her mind.”
I usually say that when I am watching “Maury” (it’s been a longer furlough than usual; don’t judge me)...or watching anyone in Congress continue to butt-shiv fellow Americans.
Now you ladies are good for calling each other bitch a lot, which like how the “n” word is used sometimes as a term of endearment by those of the chocolate/mocha/does he had a white daddy persuasion, makes little sense to me as well. I have heard it used as a term of endearment between women who have been friends for years. But, much like if a Caucasian attempts to use the term “my n.....”, it isn’t taken well if folks who are not in the group it usually applies to use it.
We have never been a logical species.
Women (besides minorities and all other folks who aren’t worried white males in power) in my eyes have always been fucked over the world over (literally and figuratively) since the minute Eve bit that apple (if you believe in that sorta thing). They are other looked upon as just ass or “2nd place” beyond men.
That’s just stupid, because some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met are women. Makes no sense they generally make less than guys (except in my house, cause my girl...sorry ladies, I call her my girl cuz she is...makes about 33% more than I do), are looked at nothing more than conquests and baby makes by a good majority of men (despite their public persona saying otherwise).
How is it right that a bunch of men get to decide what women do w/their bodies?
Last time I checked guys didn’t bleed every 28 days, give birth, deal with breast cancer (well, most of the time), are gawked at like Wile E. Coyote does the Road Runner , and generally are thought of in a lot of ways as property.
And that doesn’t even cover how a lot of ladies are pressured to make sure their hair “is did”, makeup is on point, and can’t even dress “sexy” because it makes some dudes think it is a free vagina pass.
I am a dude, and I have NO IDEA what women have to...well, I sorta do, with that whole excess melanin thing that makes it black wabbit season in this country. I think I can relate somewhat, because in a lot of ways minorities and women are generally looked upon as LESS than.
But I am also part of the problem. “Bitch” ain’t cool. I am not saying that some ladies don’t deserve to be called as such (just like, even tho a lot of folks of color would agree, there are some folks who play the “n” part sadly because they think that is what is expected of them). I guess that while I can’t promise that I can stop, I have to think about this...if my Caucasian associates thought it was cool to say to me “What up (insert the several dozen derogatory ways I can be describe because of my race)”, even if they say they meant nothing by it, I’d had to slap a....
Well, you get my point.
I will finish with this (since Noah is now asleep...yay!).
I love all women, cuz as far as I am concerned, y’all bleed red (horrible joke just popped in my mind....damn it) just like I do, are better built than most men (that’s why y’all can have babies and outlive us; you have seen how we men act when we are sick or get a paper cut) and should be treated like anyone else who deserves it...with respect and as equals.
Doesn’t mean that a few of y’all are just mean fuckers and deserve to be calls that “b” word.
Hey, goes both ways.
I have run into (and have been) a few assholes in 48 years.
Hope all of y’all enjoy your holiday next week.

The Black and White 80's

Getting ready to call it a night, but I wanted to share something that occurred to me on the ride home.As a lot of you are, I am a child of the 1980's. Growing in the Bronx was a little different world compared to what a lot of you experienced. The biggest thing that I treasured about that decade was the music. I, of course, grew up in the age when hip-hop began its infancy, and I listen to a lot of R&B as well (part of the whole culture thing). However I also listened to a lot of pop radio (WPLJ, Z100 before it became the mega station it is today), a fact that my one of my cousins (who I sadly used to be close to once upon a time) gave me shit about.A black kid from The Bronx wasn't supposed to listen to Madonna, Bon Jovi, etc.I usually listen to either the 80's station on SiriusXM (I am gonna miss that when my extended trial ends) or Backspin, a station that plays classic hip hop. I alternate between listening to my massive amount of music on my phone and the subscription service. Yesterday I was grooving the billboard countdown from August 19, 1989, and it made me think about the fashions, the music and the once in the blue moon good times I had in my youth.Of course knowing the way I think, y'all will find it no surprise that I started to compare what it was like in the 80's for black folks/latin folks compared to white people.Ride with me for a minute before you roll your eyes.When i was a teen, all I wanted was skinny ties (white match) gold chains (ok, Italians...lol -- oh, couldn't afford gold so I got that plated shit that made my skin break out like a snake) Sheepskin coats, Kango's, British Knight Shoes, Stripped Lee's (for the 5 minutes there were popular), iZod shirts (white match), Gazelle Glasses, and shell-top adidas, which I could never wear because my feet were too damn wide.I did get practically every color of Suede Pumas tho.As I recollected though, I saw the divided line between the cultures as well.White folks had films dedicated to what the 80s was supposed to be like.The Breakfast Club.Sixteen Candles.Weird Science.Pretty in Pink.Fast Times at Ridgemont High.Porky's (well, that was the 1950's, but still an 80's film.That was just the tip of the iceberg.The inner city kid view of the 80's in cinema?We had Beat Street and Wild Style.Little off balance, don't you think?(And don't you DARE mention "Breakin'." While a favorite, once you tossed the white girl in there it sort of lost any time of street cred).As I compared these two things, I laughed and shook my head on my drive home. The views back then was simply a repeat of history...kids from an era who should be able to relate to that time and have most of that stuff in common.Back then "rap" to white kids was "Ice Ice Baby", "Wild Thing" (the Tone Loc Version, not The Troggs), and "Walk This Way."It was safe back then.We have always been a nation of division, teaching each generation what we feel is correct "history." While I understand that you are subject to your environment, this country has been built on making sure ghettos remain ghettos, history remains blanco, and even certain music and styles of the times (even tho, as it has been throughout history, appropriation has taken hold, with some Caucasian youth copying the styles of the day, but won't deal with the issues of the times).At 48, I am still a fan of rap music, thinking the Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole's of the world having something to say besides talking about their latest acquisitions (both of the materialistic and feminine kind). I don't follow fashion trends in my middle age; if it is clean that is all that matters to me.But I am an 80's kid, and will be so until God calls me home.However, the biggest thing that struck me as I pulled into my garage the other day is that my 80's is a lot different that some of my associate's vision of the decade of excess.Sort of makes sense when it comes to how I see America as dangerous, while others think it is perfectly fine.

To the Blancos

Let me talk to the "majority" for a second.
Not the ones who say something.  Not the ones who speak to their kids and say, "An asshole is an asshole and a bitch is a bitch, no matter what shade they come in."  Not the ones who know that a person's character determines how they should be treated.  And finally, not the ones who realize that we all are gonna end up in heaven, hell (or for those who don't believe in that stuff, a hole or a vase).
I am talking about those who don't say shit.  
I am not just talking about not saying anything about black folks, LGBT folks, Muslims, or anyone else who either don't fit into your peg holes of what being "American" is.
I want to take me personally for a second.  
Beyond traffic tickets, I've never broken a law.  I go to work (begrudgingly, but I do) every day to pay my bills, make sure the kids eat, have a place to live, and have a couple of nice things.  I am loyal to a fault when it comes to my friends, and will help when I can.
Yet I am a walking, breathing endangered species.  People read my posts and outside of a few friends, no one says a thing.
It's just me popping off at the mouth as usual.
I have some LGBT friends...shit, I have some LGBT family members.  They are black AND gay.  That's like having a bullseye on the front AND the back of your ass.
Now most of these people have backup...or at least I hope so. During the HVAC drama a couple months back, I saw who had my back and who didn't.  
Truth is truth.  
But every time someone else is shot and killed, rights deprived, or bigoted against, I rarely hear shit.
A couple of likes, a few sad emojis, but nothing else.
Over the last few days I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how to help someone I care for deeply.  It has kept me up at night, and I couldn't care this person can walk in public and not worry about anything happening to them.
When I scream via social media at the people who know my name to at least ACKNOWLEDGE shit is messed up, that silence is deafening.  But when my wife puts up a cute pic of the kids, y'all all over that shit.
Priorities are sorta messed up, don't u think?
This apathy is the reason why I spent the weekend seeing how this once proud country is now a laughingstock.  
Let me say that again.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS BEING LAUGHED AT.
Where is all the patriotism now?  
I shake my head, because I know some folks who take the time to read this will just QUIETLY say to themselves THAT (INSERT RACIST OR INSULTING COMMENT HERE) needs to STFU.
I can't do that.  
I see nooses left in federal employees chairs.  Mistrials where if it was anyone other than that majority they would be getting a needle or growing old in a cell.  I see 1 billion people getting blamed for a few thousand nut jobs (as a black man, I understand).  I see people who happen to love who they love getting judge because they each have a set of testicles or bleed every 28 days.  
I see folks who, because they feel they don't look like their friends on FB who simply go on with their vacations, privileges, their lives...because they know they don't have to worry about what the folks who are not in their "club" have to deal with every second of the day.
An 8-year-old child of color who happened to have autism wandered off on Friday night in a town not 5 miles away from my home.  Found him in the bottom of a pond the next day.
Now I gotta give credit; a whole bunch of people tried to find that kid...not all of them were just black.
It was a child who is now going to be put into that hole that I mentioned earlier in this piece.
I wonder if he'll be laid to rest to someone who in life wouldn't give 2 shits about his disability or his color.
Or I wonder if that person was alive simply wouldn't care if he lived or died.

Just like a lot of that "majority" does every day.

Death, Life, Death, Life, Black, White, and a Hug.

A few thoughts as I get ready to get ready to start another work week.
As Carla mentioned earlier, a woman who works at a local supermarket here lost her son in a horrible fashion.  To my understanding it was the 2nd son that she has lost.  
I saw her as I was picking up lunch for work, and I gave her 2 hugs, teary eyed after the 2nd one.  I felt so bad about her, because this woman is one of the nicest PEOPLE I have ever met.
I know y’all think I beat the race card way too hard, but hold on for a second.  This woman is in her 80’s, but is in better shape than most people half her age (like myself…lol).  She loves Noah, who always calls her “Grandma.”  Here is a woman who grew up in a time where people like me well, were…not people in the eyes of many.
Just like I am today, right?
Any way, it amazes me when I meet people like this who just simply see me and my kids as just people.  It also saddens me how some people who grew up in the era of segregation, Jim Crow, the KKK (well, they are still here, but that isn’t the point)  can be…well…trump supporters and others just judge folks on their character.
Carla’s grandmother was like that…a grand old dame who was awesome at Scrabble and had a secret crush on Nat King Cole.
That shit would have gotten her ass beat if that was public knowledge in her day.
I complain and moan about money all the time, but the biggest thing I hate in life is seeing the way we have degenerated back to something that, while it has always been there under the surface, is all out and smelling up the joint.
I am sad when I see the things I see on the news all the time.  Not just to people like me, but everyone else who doesn’t fit in to the blinding WHITE vision that this country has had for 241 years.  
I don’t know how we have survived this long, not starting another civil war.
Then we have people like that wonderful old woman at the supermarket, greeting people with a true warmth that I wish we all had to share.  A person who simply saw a man and his son.
Just like I saw a heartbroken woman who I called a friend that needed a hug…or two.

The Doves Still Cry

I have told this story before, but I wanted to start this by bringing it up once again.
On my 15th birthday, my Aunt Emily and Uncle Robert took my cousins Terry, Carol and myself to go see a film called “Purple Rain.”  Back in the day my cousins and I were tight, like brothers and sisters in a lot of ways.  I can’t remember exactly if going to the movie was for my birthday or just good timing, but I was excited to go see the film.  At the time I liked Prince, but I wasn’t the die-hard fan that cried at his desk uncontrollable when the news of his passing hit my smartphone some 32 years later.  I dug “1999”, “Little Red Corvette” and earlier songs like “Controversy” and “I Wanna B Ur Lover”, and I heard that the film was pretty cool, so off we went.
In hindsight I was surprised that my aunt, a fairly religious woman, would take us to a “R”-rated (which it definitely deserved) picture, but as a 15-year-old teenaged boy, seeing Apolonia in that, ahem “light” was pretty cool.  But the “adult” scenes in the film were nothing compared to its star.  Here was a guy dressed in what most people would think was a woman’s shirt who handled a guitar like an extra limb, oozing badness in the coolest of ways.
I was hooked that night, and I immediately picked up the soundtrack, listening to it all the time at the loudest of volumes when my mother wasn’t home on her old Fisher stereo.  
Fast forward to my 17th birthday….better known as the most embarrassing of many times in my life.  The year before my friends (yes, once upon a time I had people who actually liked to hang out with me) threw me a surprise 16th birthday party, the first one I remember ever having, and it was so awesome I tried to hold one on my own.
Good Lord, that was a social disaster.
I wore these way too tight dress pants and shirt that I sweated through so bad, it was that sort of hot that day.  Growing up in the Bronx in the late 1980s was in the back end of the birth of hip hop culture and fashion, and folks, I wasn’t dressed for it.  A lot of kids did indeed come, but they cleared out REAL fast as I kept playing “Kiss,”, “Mountains” and “Anotherloverholenyohead”…over and over and over again.  Those kids wanted to hear Eric B. and Rakim and others from hip-hop’s royalty of the time, and thankfully (and unthankfully as well lol) my cousin Terry, the cool kid from Brooklyn who was a DJ on the side, brought his vinyl and danced with the girl I had a crush on at the time (oh, let me mention that my ex, a gorgeous Jamaican girl that I should have NOT screwed up with as well as the girl that I broke up with her for was at the party as well….ugh). 
But Prince was to be played at that party, and I thought folks dug that.
No.
In college, when “Purple Rain” was being blared out of my dorm room, folks knew that I was not in a good place and left me alone.  I remember a girl’s who had a crush on me (but back in my shallow days her weight deterred my interest) got me the bootleg of the “Black Album” (which was released some 10 years later legally) and I played that sucker until the tape broke (tried to carefully splice that sucker with scotch tape; y’all know you all tried that at least once).
As his popularity waned and the hits stopped coming, I always made sure that every Prince album/cd/digital download was in my possession.  Throughout my life, even tho I would never meet the man and the closest I got to him was several hundred feet away at an outdoor venue in Indianapolis, his attitude,creativity, stubbornness, secret charitable nature and all around uniqueness was the one constant that gave me peace in what turned out to be a disappointing life so far.
Then April 21, 2016 came.
I know a lot of the people who know me think I am being silly; he was a celebrity, someone who wasn’t a friend or family member, or knew I even existed.
But that wasn’t the point.
He was my muse, my hero, my therapist, my screaming at the top of my lungs as I drove to a job that I didn’t want but I had to do to survive.  He was a guitar god, a musical prodigy, a 5 ft 2 inch heel -wearing androgynous dude who could handle a basketball (right, Charlie Murphy?) as adeptly as a 6-string.  He spoke of the Sign ‘O’ of the Times, talked about when doves cried and his mother never being satisfied.  He probably helped procreate more than his fair share of babies with “Adore”, “Scandalous”, and duh, “Do Me Baby “playing in the background of many a lovemaking session.  He could rock, he could roll, he could get funky, he could jazz you up…about the only thing he couldn’t do well is rap.
Prince Rogers Nelson tried, but it wasn’t good.
Ultimately, as today is the 1st anniversary that he left the world a gaping hole, I can only say these things:
I wish he got help in time, and for those who are suffering as he did in silence, please do so.I love my aunt and uncle for bringing me to the movies that night in Times Square.I thank you, Mr. Nelson for providing me the light in the dark times, and the sun when things were good.
And finally, I wish you were still here to live to see a few more Dawns with us, because these people who are calling themselves “musicians” couldn’t hold your guitar pick.
I miss ya, and if people think I am weird for it, so be it.  A short dude who wore high heels, makeup, 7-inch heels and once wore sunglasses with 3 lenses (representing the mind’s 3rd eye) was pretty weird too.
Yet we cried when he was gone.

Desensitzed

“Desensitized”
March 19, 2017


So I got up this morning way too early as usual (it seems that since I passed the age of 40 sleeping in late is simply no longer in my DNA) and as is my norm (especially those days that I have to get up and have to deal with the confused, entitled American public) I picked up my phone to see what was going on in the world. 
Stopping to look at one of the biggest social networks (wasn’t that a movie?) in the world as usual, an old friend (who I made out with once; great kisser, much better friend) posted an article about some local students, some Mexican, some African-American, who recently won a robotics competition.  Instead of reveling in their victory, they instead became news fodder when some fine Hoosiers told the Latin students to “Go Back to Mexico.”
Yup, that happened.
Now I should be partially grateful that for once the black kids weren’t told to go “pick some cotton” or some ignorant shit like that.  However, since one of my best friends is of Latino descent (not Mexican, but doesn’t matter) and a spent a good deal of my childhood with folks like this, this did not amuse me much.
But it gets better.
My sister posted a video of a black woman being taken to the ground and placed in a chokehold by a store owner who felt she was shoplifting eyelashes from his establishment.  She started to say that she couldn’t breathe but he wouldn’t let her go.
Sound familiar?
Oh wait, probably not because that’s “old news.” 
Sort of goes along with the whole “Fake News” deelio POTUS 45 keeps either blaming the media for…or makes up himself (see “wiretapping”).
So as I watched the video (and the accompanying video of black leaders in her community confronting the shop owner, reminding him that African Americans make up a good chunk of his business) as well as thought back to those poor kids (and these were LITTLE kids as far as I can tell), I realized something…
…I’ve become desensitized to this stuff.

Holy shit that saddened me.
As I mentioned above, I moved to Indiana 22 years ago last month.  When I got here gas was about .89 cents a gallon, and I remember as I woke up (my girlfriend at the time got a promotion here from NY and I was helping her get settled) we arrived in a town called Ellettsville, a few miles away from Bloomington (a town that a lot of Hoosiers know quite well, even though they have a problem accepting that those glory days are LONG gone). 
The very first thing I said to my former amour was, “Holy shit, I am in Mayberry.”
Now anyone over the age of 40 knows that is the fictional town from the classic show “The Andy Griffith Show.”  It’s funny that comes back to me now; my mom (God Bless her) LOVED that show.  Before her mind started to go bad, she would hunt that sucker down on cable, and even though she watched every episode of that show at least 100 times, she still laughed. 
That show right now reminds me of what the current state of America (namely, its current leadership) is trying to go back to.  A simpler time where you left your doors unlocked, everyone was friendly, you had family meals…
…and white was right.
That bugs me a tad. 
I don’t get where some (operative word, SOME) folks of the majority continue to think it is OK that they are so perfect and everyone else is so flawed.  They cannot accept that other folks from other cultures or persuasions can accomplish great things…and sometimes do it better than they can.  Because of this psychological block (or a lesson taught over and over again), they can’t deal…so they do what they can to make sure that some of us (race, religion, sexual choice or whatever doesn’t fit into their idea of the “round hole”) believe what they think of them.
Kids won a robotics completion, fair and square.  Instead of being proud of them because they were children, they tried to remind them that they will never be viewed as such.
If the black woman did steal, call the cops.  What I saw when that shop owner tackled that woman (true man there; his penis must be HUUUUUGE and BIGLY) was “WrestleMania”, except there was no script involved. 
Oh, wait a minute…she was black.  Perhaps she got off lucky being slammed to the ground. 
It explains how we ended up with a guy who thinks that feeding poor people doesn’t work, that having 60 degree days in January is not unusual, and why only folks like him (not like YOU folks, don’t think because you have the same melanin content you are “down”) and that same “white is right” mentality isn’t gonna butt-bend-us-over-and-insert-here us all.
241 years of the same thinking, despite the fact that we as a country put a black guy in the White House…twice.
We are a true oxymoron.

A 2016 Half Mast Middle Finger (with a side eye to '17)

ONLY 29 HOURS AND CHANGE BEFORE THIS YEAR IS GONE.
I will be doing what I've been doing for NYE for the last 17 years...except this time I won't collect a new year's kiss for the first time in 20 years. My girl has to work NYD, so I will be watching Seacrest (formally the late, great Dick Clark) ring in 2017 with a bunch of pop stars no one will remember 10 years from now.
It has been interesting, that's for sure.
1. Published my 5th book. While I am not a successful author, I am at least an author. Can't hate on that.2. I have a decent job with the federal government...until the new admin mucks it up.3. As I mentioned on Xmas eve, I am vertical and ventilating.4. I still have 98% non-grayed hair. But there is a storm coming, Mr. Wayne.5. My wife still thinks I am semi-cute.6. I was in a newspaper and a news story. And being black, also alive. Major bonus.7. My oldest isn't doing too badly for his first year in HS. I am still trying to deal that I remember vividly screwing things up with Juliet Allison Grant in the 11th grade, yet I am the parent of a HS student.8. The Giants are semi-interesting again, even tho I wonder if Eli has one more SB run in him (and a whole lot of upsets).9. I actually saw the Chicago Cubs....the CHICAGO CUBS...win a world championship. While as a Yankee fan I am a little spoiled, it'll probably be the only time I will have cheered for another team...and be pleased when they handled their business (special shout out to Cleveland, who actually now have something to crow about).10. Finally, despite all of the losses in the entertainment industry (and the destroying of my Generation X childhood memories), at least as long as we have electricity and technology, I can listen (or watch) to Purple Rain, have a little "faith", believe in powerful women characters who helped take down evil empires, and ask David Bowie to "Dance".
I hope y'all have major plans tomorrow night, but even if you don't, I hope 2017 brings some MUCH better times, news...and hopefully not the destruction of the United States for everyone except rich old white dudes.
Peace.

A G. Eric Francis Short Story

The Social Man
A Short Story by G. Eric Francis
“Wow, those are some pretty awesome pictures.”
The man looked at his computer screen, his right hand on the mouse wheel, slowly moving his fingers in a downward direction as he saw the pretty photos on his favorite social media destination on the web.
“I see that Mary had a latte this morning...sure looks good!”
He looked at the clock, and he sighed when he realized it was 3:42 in the morning. He knew he had to get up for work in less than 4 hours, but he couldn't sleep. His wife had gone on to bed before hours ago, another evening filled with nothing but reality TV and average home-cooked meals. Their 3 children: Monique, Unique, and Fo'ShoNique, all under the age of 10, had finally conked out after they all gathered in the basement to watch their favorite Christmas special, “No White Man is Breaking Into My House!”
It was a special done by a Hollywood power broker of color. The man wasn't a fan of his work, but respected that he carved a niche in an industry where pale was king.
Every night after everyone went to bed he would hop on that social media hot spot, living vicariously through the lives people put on the outside for the world to see. Sometimes he'd stumble upon some funny meme, or a news story that got his blood boiling (“How the hell did this buffoon get elected?”). Other times he'd play an online game...most digital casino games where he'd win millions of fake dollars, making him sigh even more, since a good day at a real casino for him was leaving enough to buy a lottery ticket.
He sighed as the thought of the 1 in 200,000,000 chance was about to be blown once again by him; the drawing was 4 hours ago, but he held off, the hope that perhaps that after 25 years and approximately $13,000 worth of torn up dreams would finally pay dividends.
“I spend too much time on these things,” he said to himself, rubbing his burgeoning belly as he said that. He looked at himself, caught between not caring about how he let himself get this large and sad because he didn't have the gumption to stop the early death he was signaling to come visit him.
He looked at a few more of his friends....wait....friends? Most of the people on his “favorites list” he hadn't seen in more than 2 decades. He had few family members who followed him and vice versa, because he was like Henry, the dentist elf from that Christmas show of long ago...never fitting in. His wife, a woman best described as waiting to die without being sick, was more like his roommate than his life partner.
So he escaped his drab world of a dead end job, no friends, too many bills and a car that he has to kick 3 times to start by living through the lifeless digital pictures of others.
He gets jealous sometimes, even though for all he knew half of people who posted online at the site could be drug addicts, swingers, or smelled like old adult diapers after a chili binge. What made him jealous though was that he didn't have the “outside.” Both his personal and public life was like oatmeal most days...necessary, but you really didn't want to ingest it.
After a few more flicks of one of his fingers on the mouse wheel took place, he began to lower the lid of his decrepit laptop down when a picture he didn't see caught his eye. A friend of his that he chatted with at night from time to time had put a picture of herself looking into a mirror. She had a night shirt on, her long red hair going in different directions, a blank look upon her face. The man lifted the lid of his laptop back up, and he noticed that his friend had written something using an eyeliner on both of her cheeks.
“What the hell?” he said to himself as he grabbed his glasses to get a better look at what his friend wrote.
In the neatest writing he had ever seen, the cheeks read:
“You Make You, So Be You.”
“Huh?”
The man read what his friend wrote on her face, shaking his head because it didn't make sense. He kept looking at the picture, reading the words, noticing the blank look, the stone-cold look in her pupils, as if she just decided to leave her body but it didn't realize it was dead yet.
Not sure as to what she was trying to convey, he simply shook his head and closed his laptop. While his job was indeed soul-sucking, he knew he had 3 mouths to feed.
His 3-hour nap passed quickly, and a groggy man got out of bed, heading downstairs to make a cup of java and once again look at how happy people were on the outside online again. When he signed in, a message notification popped up. It was from his friend's husband.
“That's odd,” he said as he walked over to get his piping hot cup of coffee, sat back down and opened the message.
A few seconds later, the sound of broken glass reverberated throughout the kitchen.
“What the hell Frank?” the aforementioned waiting to become a worm buffet spouse said as she ran into the kitchen after hearing all the ruckus. Her irritation quickly left her though as he saw the man she married sobbing uncontrollably.
The man blinked as he turned towards his wife, now dressed in black as he was, watching the casket of his friend being carried toward her last ride. As the church emptied, the man whispered “cancer” under his lips as his wife, putting aside her self-pity, took her husband's hand and pulled him towards the exit.
As he aged, the man noticed that time speeds up, and 2 weeks had passed since he said goodbye to his friend. It was once again a late night, and he was still looking at the pictures that people put up for the world to see.
He didn't quite look at them the same though. Over those 2 weeks he learned that his friend had stage 4 breast cancer, and despite the closeness they had, she never told him. It made him sad, because after all the things he confided in her...
“Wait,” he said in mid-thought. Going back to his late friend's page, he scrolled back to that picture she posted the night before she took her own life, not wanting cancer to win. He looked at the picture...then noticed that the picture was tagged to him. “Son of a legless gopher.”
The man leaned back into the chair he was sitting in, looking at the final message that his friend wanted to share with him before she had to leave him. A nauseous feeling came over him, and he felt tears beginning to well up in his eyes.
But he stopped them.
He began to shake his head for a few moments, then he started laughing quietly to himself.
“Damn you Madeline...you were always the smart one.”
The man looked at the clock, and saw that it was 3:42 AM. With one more slight chuckle, he blew his departed friend a kiss, closing his laptop and began to head for bed.
As he did so, he saw the lottery tickets from the night he saw that picture. He was so tired he never checked them, and the last few weeks made him forget them.
Grabbing his phone so he could scan the tickets, he waved his device over the bar codes of each ticket.
He had purchased 3 that week as he always did.
“All losers,” he said to himself as he began to crumble them.
He stopped thought, unfolding each one and placing them back on the kitchen table they were laying on. He stared at them for a few minutes, then he grabbed a pen and scribbled something on each one. Placing them side by side, he turned around and went to bed.
The next morning his wife woke up, turning over to see that the man was gone. Figuring he went downstairs to surf that site again, she walked down the hall to wake the girls (“Niques...wake up!”) then walked downstairs to get breakfast on. As she passed the table, she saw the 3 lottery tickets that the man had left there. Looking down, she began to read what was scribbled on them.
“Me being Me Begins Today...No Photos Required.”
“What the hell is that man talking about?” she said to herself. Grabbing her cell phone, she opened up the mobile version of the social media site so she could check her messages. As she did so, she got a pop up message.
Her husband had deleted his account.

Yo God II (He be quiet)

If you believe in that sort of thing, God once was very visible and very real.  He split oceans, talked via burning bush, and chucked locusts at the bad guys.

Hell, he even turned sinners into pillars of salt.  Now when a being can turn you into a giant salt lick, you would think that you would listen to them.

But human beings generally tuned him out...until they needed him, like the aforementioned ocean split.

So he sends down his kid, and all he did was raise folks to the dead, make the blind see, and oh...got nailed like a Farrah Fawcett poster in the 70's, only to get back up 3 days later and say, "Hi ya doin'?"

We still didn't listen.

So God decided to shut up, skipping the water splits and leaving us an instruction manual instead.  The Old Testament is like the prequel with all the good effects, with the New T being Google Maps.

Simple climax to this flick....BELIEVE AND BE SAVED.

About the only thing that was left behind once the major stuff left was faith.

That doesn't mean that "miracles" don't happen.  Hell, Noah Gregory shouldn't medically be here (ruptured placenta tends to usually be fatal).  But God these days tends to do things on the quiet...

...once again if you tend to believe in these things.

There is a member of my inner circle who doesn't believe in
God.  Have had many a conversation with them, but they can't dig what they can't see, hear or feel.

Faith ain't science.

Since God exited stage right, we have done a lot of things that should get us tossed into the fire.  Racism, war, sexism, bigotry, greed....we won't bother to list the 7 deadly sins; we are guilty of them all.

I have never had the greatest relationship with God.  I frankly don't get the dude.  Grandfather served him all his life...he gets murdered in his bed.  Mother served him, she is WAY down the dementia path.  Good things keep happening to good people.

But we did tell him to shut up.

My cousin preaches his word.  My aunts are loyal servants.  My HBIL is a pastor (at least he is ordained to do weddings, anyway).  They teach the word, despite their own personal struggles (both for what they have and who they are).  They have faith.

Each day there is more bad news.  The United States have shown its ugly over the past decade, culminating in an election that was so ugly it should have a bag on its head.  Nightclubs are burned down (or shot up), and a man whose only crime (shitty crime, yes, but moving on) was not paying child support and being afraid of being smoked because he was black...then got smoked because he was black.

And once again, no justice.

Yet  human beings continue to do what they do, like lemmings going over the cliff.

Oh, and telling God to shut up.

How has that worked out?

Once again, assuming you believe...or have faith in anything anymore.

Cellulite and Life

My co-worker told me the other day that I write "books" when I post my thoughts on FB.
I have a lot to say sometimes, my fellow sufferer in government employment, but since I have either pissed off friends and or family members (and my wife is busy getting her ass kicked at work during the weekends) I have no where else to release my many thoughts.
Weekend is complete and I, like millions of others until we get put back into a recession after 1/20/17, are getting our souls bandaged up as we return to work.
I write tonight to discuss a very important subject with the few who bother to read my postings...
...being a fat slob.
Whenever I look at pictures of my 16-year-old self (the young male that my wife said she would never look at because I was too damned skinny for her tastes) I wonder if I could ever get the gumption to be that guy (well, not exactly; that guy aged 31 years and the skin simply isn't that tight no mo').
Sleep apnea which isn't helped by a well-overdue needed to be replaced c-pap machine doesn't allow me much in the way of REM sleep. Assuming that I get my old schedule back of 11:15 to 8, I could simply get up early 3 times a week and begin to work out...if my wife with the bad knees and back can actually go with me, since it is her membership. Despite the release of my creditors via legal means, I still owe other things (and people) monthly payments where I cannot swing a membership on my own.
Oh, and despite my 200+ blood sugar measurements in the last few months, I simply am not motivated.
But I should be. An associate (who only gets a hold of me when she needs something...my wife knows whom I speak of) whose parent passed on from diabetes-related complication had I believe 1 to 2 fake legs (can't remember).
He also didn't give a shit about his health.
Over the last few weeks I have heard horror stories of lost feet and legs due to diabetes.
You would think that should scare me to at least change my diet, right?
Have you seen the cost of health food? Shit, it'd be cheaper to put away money for my funeral that is probably coming 15 years earlier than I'd like.
I remembered once upon a time when I was all muscle and my younger sibling was this skinny thing that I could punk out.
Now he probably has like 5% body fat and can bike from VA to...Cuba, probably. In like a day with breaks. I have been jealous of him a lot over the years, since he has the confidence and motivation to where it has put him where he is today.
Me? My old friend's daughter once asked me if I was having a baby.
Kid, it hurts when I poop due to leafy veggies and spicy mexican @ 3 AM. I couldn't push out a kid (which is why women outlive men; they are simply built better).
So I am a fatty (as my uncle, who can be somewhat of a dick sometimes, pointed out to me over turkey week when he asked me to suck in my gut so he can get a picture). When I look at myself in the morning, I see a little bit of the old me in there. At 47 with about 2 years of dedication I probably could drop the 60 lbs (don't want to drop below 200, even tho I should be about 180 based on my height) I need to get rid of to extend my life...until C and I can no longer afford our health insurance and die of a paper cut.
A smart woman from AZ I once went to college with (who has aged spectacularly well; she has taken care of herself...Gene, you are a lucky SOB) said I shouldnot measure myself against what people show to the outside world.
There is a validity to that point.
But when you see either the best acting job in history or true happiness in that "outside", well....that's hard.
Parts of me (the one that likes to make people laugh, or give advice to those who respect my opinion) I do honestly like...even thought if what my mother said is true is dooming to hell. A lot of me though...the beaten soul part, mostly...not so much. I tire of the "rah-rah" stuff that folks send to me, even though I know they mean well. I will tell you a little secret though, as I look at the clock and know that I have to take my fatty self to bed.
Yeah, I need more money. I need to lose the weight, which of course requires motivation (walking is free and I have a spaz of a dog that would assist). I wish instead of folks offering advice they would listen more...not just to me and my rantings, but to their fellow human being.
But what I really want?
To get up tomorrow (god willing), take a deep breath and say, "Everything is OK."
You know, before being fat eventually kills me.