The Gun Thing (In a Cat Perspective)

Lately, I've been very outspoken on this issue, on Facebook, getting people to respond to an atrocity.  I have always owned cats.  Commanche, Siren, Kumo, Mocha, Natsha, Chloe, Lilly.  Those cats have been with me throughout my entire life.  Kumo is still here.  Commanche died from probably cancer, something no vet will ever know.  Siren, on the other hand, and she had been mentioned in blog posts before, I didn't know how to deal with.  I left her in an abandoned lot in Brooklyn, simply because I didn't know how to care for her.  I knew where she had been left was a rescue center for cats, that she would be found and taken care of.  I'll never forget "dropping her off" there.  She followed me home and I shooed her away.  She was sick in a cat way that vets, without the money I had already put into her ($2500) could not diagnose.

And so, this cat, who slept with me every night for ten years became too much to handle (or, sadly, too expensive).  And, I let her go into the wild.  I'll never stop feeling guilt for that.

So, there are kids, who are not cats, who got shot in a small Connecticut town.  And, I feel like there are so many citizens of this country who just see them as "pets."  They are things we have very little obligation towards because we want what we want.  That "want" turns into a very personal validation of an outdated need.  We don't need guns anymore in the way the Constitution printed it.

I had put on my Facebook post that this country really doesn't care about its' citizens anymore.  That basic heath care was a fight.  That we had to get all uppity to just have one basic right announced and put into law for all of us.  That was a battle.  And, we, seemingly, the country won that one.  Yet, when it comes to this senseless violence, this death without meaning, we are silent for the most part.  There will be another one of these.  We will sit there and say, what could we have done differently?

Back to Siren.  If I had the resources (which were not there), I would have gotten her help.  I'd have taken her to as many clinics as she could have been taken to (which had not existed), and I would have done all I could have done.

A cat and the gun are the same in so many ways.

The Boss and What He Means To Me

There have been countless numbers of fans who have seen Springsteen......countless numbers.  Yet, I guess all I can do is personalize my experience of seeing him.  Incredible.  He is 62, I'm 38.  I cant imagine all that he exerted at once.  Did I also mention I'm an ESL teacher?  I have to give all I got for 2 hours and 35 minutes after a break because I'm tired.  I bought into his sincerity because it isn't bullshit.  He really wants you to walk away from his show and feel good.  He wants you to go home and feel perplexed as I do now because most of what you thought was a "good" or "great" show can't hold up to him.  It is impossible to watch his show and think he doesn't care what "you" think.  And, that is what is what makes Broooooce, Brooooooce.  I didn't think it was possible.  The last stadium show I had seen made me doubt the entire idea.  But, I was......speechless.....and I felt everything he wanted me to feel.....There was only one song from Nebraska.  It came and went.  There was Born to Run.  There wasn't Atlantic City.  There was Johnny 99.  Damn, it was awesome.  Just can't believe I was so close to him.....

So, back to home.  After my mom died, I listened to Philadelphia  as if the song couldn't end.  It was on repeat.  It still makes me cry.

There was no reason for Bruce to play that song on Wednesday.  If you wanna know why it has resonance with me, then just e-mail me....

There was no Atlantic City.....Yet he spoke of ghosts.  And anything he played at that point could have brought back a million scary memories.  Instead, he just made me hold Leigh in ways I hadn't before.  Or, more so, she held me in ways she hadn't seen me before.  And on, and on....

Horror! The Horror!

Began the night watching episodes 9 & 10 of Boardwalk Empire. Pretty good stuff. Then, I thought about the film I had taped, oops, dvred on IFC early tonight. And yes, I did turn a noun into a verb right there! Early tonight or late afternoon was "The Changeling.". It's a 70s film that is really scary. Instead I watched "The Pact". Pretty awful and not that scary. New York magazine said it was awesome. I say, it sucked.

Queen of Something

Went on the annual pilgrimage to see a movie with LG.  For the past few summers, she and I have gone to see a flick.  The years before were Fright Night, Inception, etc.  Usually, we see summer blockbusters or summer fades.  Today we decided to see The Queen of Versailles.  Tough, tough movie to stomach.  I'm going to leave the rotten tomatoes site to fill you in on the breakdown of it.  Essentially, it is a film about too much.

It is about a small company that did everything wrong, but could.  The guy in the film says he supported Bush through Florida, says he did everything he could to support him, yet denies the legality of it.  Nary a soul is there to truly like in the film.  They are all privileged.  They are used to things we will never have and when they have to work a bit, things simply die.  It is quite sad to see a dead lizard, cold eyes and cold blooded as they may be, simply die because someone lets it happen.  The sadness grows in this film.  It is sad because people just acquire shit as they become more wealthy.  The bikes grow.  The pets grow.  The egos do not.  

That s what makes the film worthy of watching.....barely.  Jackie went to RIT.  She worked at IBM.  She is not stupid, yet she inflates her tits to a point that is impossible to ignore looking at.  She is/was so humble and now she is a facade.  She blames her loss on her husband.  He supported Bush, photos of him and Palin, and all you wish for in the back of your mind is the worst.  The film makes them human, yet it makes you hate them.  I guess the bottom line is they are shits.  They are these people who borrowed, consistently, beyond their means. They are the people who were smart enough to borrow and then buy back.  They are the people who made millions suffer.  

Frankly, it was a hard film to watch.  I saw family members getting bullshit laser surgery for vanity while they were running out of money.  It hit close to home.  It just made me realize, as fat as I am, as bad as I may look in a Seersucker suit in a few weeks, I will never be as ugly as they are.  My excess is books.  Not bikes, not cats, not snakes.  I, we, pretty soon, will never have a dead pet.  

The difference is we give a shit.  It isn't about who takes care of me.  We take care of each other and we don't make it too large to simply disobey that law of life.  The Queen of Versailles is sad because the people don't know that.  They consume to consume.  That is Jackie's existence.  She is smart, yet so stupid.  Looking at her early photos shows you how dumb she really is.

3:15, Amityville Style

One of the first scary movies I had ever seen was The Amityville Horror.  After I saw the film, I went ballistic.  I read everything about the place.  I even read High Hopes, which is a pretty rare book to find these days.  Anyway, Lutz woke up every night at 3:15.  He heard voices inside of his head to kill his kids, chop wood, go to the basement and find the red room.  He heard the devil.

Since quitting smoking, I don't see Josie, the red-eyed pig.  I wake up and head to the fridge.  In the fridge is cheese.  Fucking-A, I bought alot of cheese at the last trip to the market.  Cheese from Italy, France and even Cali, I think.  The devil tobacco forces me to look in the damn fridge at about 3:15 every night.  It has turned into my red room in the basement.   The red room grows in my stomach.  There is no escape.

Awake?

Today was one of those days.  I woke up late, at 10:30 or so, eager to face the world and then opened up the web to the NY Times, as usual.  Today wasn't usual.  12 Dead.  38 Wounded.  The Dar Knight Rises.  I had this crazy project to work on....freelance.  All I could do was stare at the screen.  Nope.  Most of that work wouldn't get done today.  It would have to wait.

Why?  How many of these fucking shootings have to happen in the US until we have to face guns?

God, I was asking earlier today, how much worse it could have been if the guy had stood at the exit of the theater.  How much worse it could have been.

Why is that even a thought I had?

4:21  Awake with that.

Love

I've written about that hate shit for the past two posts and feel like it is time to turn the tables back to the other extreme in a way. Back to love. In a month from now I am going to be a married man. I'll wake up next to FL and just look into her eyes and I'm guessing, I'll just smile.

The oddity of meeting here again and the dating her, the actually marrying her is something I think no soul in the world could have ever predicted. I sure as hell couldn't have.

She makes me better. She reels me in. For chrissake, she pulled cacti out of my toes once. I guess, this passing storm truly has allowed me to take some inventory. Not bitch about the weather and just look at FL, her quirks, her solid genes, her beauty and just ask myself, "why me?"

I'm kinda fat. I'm surly and moody. Well, she is surly and moody, too. But, she has that young shit going on. She could've done way better than me. So, I will take this time to simply gaze out onto truly ugly and worn down Coney Island Avenue and bask in my luck. My found love, which I return as best I can.

Hate Cont'd

I was out with my friend named Big B tonight and we were talking about Mark Maron and how courageous he was for just putting it out there in his beginning podcasts.  How ballsy it was for him to just say exactly what was on his mind.  To just say I fucking hurt and heres is why.....blah, blah, blah.

So, I guess this is my first copycat edition of why Jon Pauley hurts.  I would say it begins with......And this is a story I have only told a few close friends, or possibly only FL.  It begins with a flea market and my mom's manipulation of a scenario I was comfortable with and was used to, but then was twisted upside down.

Often times, on Sundays, my mom and I used to go to flea markets together.  Rarely, would she give me more than a dollar or two to spend on total bullshit.  A comic book here, garbage pail kids, etc.  That day she splurged.  To this day, I can't remember what I brought home.

We returned to our childhood house, but stuff was missing.  Immediately, I was suspicious.  (Or at least in this adult telling I was).  Things were not in the house.  Things were missing.  All of my dad's stuff was gone.

I begged for him to tuck me in that night.  My mom, god bless her soul, allowed me to buy all of this useless shit at the flea market to dull the pain.  Yet, it didn't matter if I had the entire collection of series 1 of the Garbage Pail Kids.  It didn't matter if I had a cool new hot wheel that was made of true die-cast steel.  What mattered was my dad saying good night to me.

So, that may be where the hate begins.  There are old Catholic school stories to tell of horrible things nuns had done to me.  Yet, I think this defines the moment where hate, doubt and skepticism of those you are not supposed to feel those things towards had begun.

Hate

This is my first posting via iPhone. It may be my last. We will see how that goes. This entry is titled hate because so much of it has been pouring through my veins lately. First of all, I am writing this while facing Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. FL is fast asleep, yet she is the one prompting me to address this fucked up, pent up negative energy inside of me. And by prompting, I mean a good thing. One of the best and open conversations of my life took place with her a couple of nights ago.

First of all, I thought that all moved forward in life. The brain just moves on and you forget shit. These days, I feel like I'm in a backslide. Memories are boiling to the surface. Ones I had thought I had forgotten are simply reappearing like random ghosts and I don't even see myself clearly anymore.

There is no melodrama here. It is just hard to take inventory of your life at the age I've made it it to thus far and just remember things out of nowhere.

Guess this is an ambiguous post on an ambiguous platform. Let's leave it at that. More to come on hate part 2.

Pops

Father's Day came and went as it always does with very little celebration in the peanut shell mind of mine, but it is important none the less.  I always look at the tattoo on my arm and the memory/specter of my father flashes through my mind.  As a really young kid, maybe 6 or 7, I was deathly afraid of heights.  My dad, I guess you call him fearless or irresponsible, threw me on a roller coaster called the Jackrabbit at Kennywood park in West Mifflin, PA.  In my mind, West Mifflin is Pittsburgh, but in reality, it actually isn't.  Anyway, my dad tosses me, quite literally on this roller coaster that climbed 90 feet or so into the air.  The only thing holding me to my seat is a leather strap, much like a barber's sharpener, and my pop's arm.  He wore a smile the entire way.  I cried the entire way through the ride.  This coaster, not to sound super geeky here, included a double dip segment.  It was built in the 20s, I think and was made by John Miller....coaster god!  Anyway, it had this segment of track where the hill is interrupted by another hill, much like a rabbit hop.  My father, I swear, protected me from flying out of the car.  Therefore, I owe my dad my fear of "getting over heights" by force.  The ride ended.  I swear, tears in my eyes, balling from earlier, all I said was, "Let's do it again."

Thank you dad!

Win?

Cannot begin to state how great tonight was. Jud at Yankee stadium. Friends due. Nova pitching a gem.

Break Shit

All I wanna do is turn over the entire apartment.  I can't , but man how fun it would be to just pretend the entire apartment were bugged.  Every couch.  Every pillow.  Every tear.  Just gone.

Comanche

I have always lost something in my life, be it my parents when they got divorced, a dog I was given after my mom died and a cat, of which I chose on my own.  Comanche has seen me through so much.  Throughout my mother’s death and all.  He was the spirit who kept me going when I had little left to even think about hope for.  And, fucking hell, what do you think killed him?  The same thing that killed my mom.  Pancreatic Cancer.  He was misdiagnosed with Pancreatitis.  For most cats, that can be a death sentence if found too late, or a simple dietary change.  For Comanche, the evidence of his pain came from a simple belly rub.  He used to sleep with me with my arm draped over him.  I must have felt like a boa, but he loved it.  He settled in and got even closer until one night when he meowed when I touched his stomach.  Comanche was a pretty silent cat; he either purred or was quiet.  So, that meow meant something.  Off to the vet we go.  This is the same vet as the Comanche sagas of 2008.  Blah, blah, blah.  They said he was suffering from something, but they didn’t know what.  They gave him pain reliever, which worked, but at the same time he was starting to become reclusive.

.......And then a record skipped in my mind.  The above entry was written with careful words, poured over again and again.  They are a joke.  All I feel is anger.  Robbed twice in my life by some fucking disease no doctor can find.  By the time it is found, it is too late.  I am angry at myself for being in Florida dealing with family matters.  To return home and see your cat in exhaustive pain, ooze pouring out of his eyes due to dehydration, is just unbearable.  He was dying while I was gone and it makes me sick.  He had been there through it all with me in New York.  I got him in 1998 at the PetCo in Union Square.  His sister's story is something I will probably only write about when I'm near my own death, as I'm grappling with my own actions.  Yet, he saw me through many break ups, my mother's cancer, friends passing and going, a divorce, a new life in Ditmas Park.  

My hat always ends up on the couch.  These days, barely a week after putting him down, I keep imagining he is there.  But, no, it is just a hat.  

He was a perfect animal.

Bats Outta Hell

Restless nights come on like some fucking bats out of hell with vampiric nostrils flaring and fangs glistening while demanding to rob you of your sleep. They come on the first week of returning to work and with an early class full of bright eyed Asians eager to read English, beckoning to be taught. These bats implore you to rise from a partial slumber and consume Cheerios soaked in almond milk. After you are awake and unwilling to return to your bed, they gnaw at the wires hidden in your walls to dismantle your connection to the web. They laugh at your predicament and giggle while you type your overdue blog entry in Word, adding additional steps to a streamlined process. They haven’t made an appearance in several weeks, these soaring mammals of the night. But, alas, tonight, Wednesday moving into Thursday, the bats have flown into my evening and they will not let them be.

The first and most well known of them is named Christopher Leering. He is the silent type, yet he stares at you, fully aware of all you need to accomplish once the sun rises, determined to make you antsy with his beady, red eyes. You can’t really tell if they are menacing or not, they are simply focused upon you and will not turn away. A strange self consciousness begins to develop the longer these bloodshot pupils have time to feast upon your insecurities while sweating in plaid pajamas in an arid and overheated apartment. The longer Christopher looks at you, the more doubt creeps into your mind. You begin to wonder if anyone likes you at all in this world? What have you done to piss off so many people? What have they done to you to make you so pissed at them? Will things ever be normal again? Christopher Leering refuses to provide any answers to these questions. He stares for hours with an obtuse expression on his face. A bead of sweat forms on your brow and you continue typing, preferring to look at anything but the eyes of that thing.

Another diseased creature has flown in from the rafters. His name is Bela Lughostoflapasti. This is another winged beast who lets himself known as soon as he enters the room. He flashes photographs in the back of your mind and plays recordings over and over again until you wish to wretch. Bela never decides to replay home movies of positive memories. No, no! He brings along all of the sour footage. Scenes you wish had been edited out of your life and left on the cutting room floor for some intern (or a younger sibling) to have swept away into a dustbin and thrown into an incinerator never be seen again. Even if that had happened Lughostoflapasti would sweep in with gigantic wings flapping in fury to remove those pieces of distorted film and display them in vivid Stereoscope on the ceiling of your bedroom. If you turn away and face the pillow, a projector appears there, too. The window, with the orange streetlight glowing, suddenly turns white and shows you in awful situations doing awful things. Or Bela simply brings you back to a time you wish you could forget. Sometimes, you shudder and can’t believe you are awake. On some instances you fight back tears, only to see them become rapids on your pillowcase. Bela finds you and turns your sleepless eyes against you. He is a crafty bat indeed!

One of the kinder mammals in the apartment has seemed to have returned the internet to a functioning state. The modem is on and there are no ominously blinking lights. Alas, it works. Hopefully, the bats will return to wherever they came from. Tomorrow, oops, today is sure to be a long day.