Welcome Home

         A young Billy Newell's first construction job was to lay out and pound the very road that the Devil himself parades on. If you've ever lived in Prattville or traveled through it on the way to Birmingham or Panama City, you don't think twice about hell fires or stop to take a picture. Imagine the conversation of a family from Maryland, on their way to their beach home in Seaside, passing by the wooden words “Go To Church Or The Devil Will Get You!”, and for the first time in a long time praying to God not to break down. These Yanks come through our parts wanting a passport and phrasebook, and some are unlucky enough to actually need one. We laugh as the one State Trooper on patrol sniffs out the foreign license plates on the road, barely going 5 over. Behind the wheel, Mr. Cleaver curses at Sgt. Gamble for this very reason who barely listens over scratching his gut and the swishing spit pool of his chew filled mouth. This ticket will be the trooper's revenge somehow for all the big and little problems in life, and The Cleavers forever think of us as a hostile people continuing our fight. They will say we are bitter about the war, because we still fly the flag high over Clanton, but we aren't. Books call it the Stars And Bars, but my grandfather called it our cross to bear, and told me that history repeats itself only if you forget it. Something very true in that. We aren't known for our reading, but we do remember an awful lot. Like our past, our promises, and our manners. Years later when Billy Newell bought the land to build his sign, it wasn't to scare off company, it was to invite them in the only way he knew how. 

2 Poems, 1 Post

Chew

I focus on the window when I chew.

Not what's outside.

Just the panes and paint, maybe a latch or lock,

sometimes the drapery.

An artist might eat the rain clouds

or pinch the snow off the mountain tops

beyond this lemon scented glass,

but it's nice in here too.

Our boiler man came last week,

we had to get a new one,

and gave me the card for his brother,

a tile guy.

What umbrage! What balls.

Even though people know

a good hard wood floor

when they see one.

Everyone's just trying to make

a buck off of everybody else.

I bet if you wrote your name on

the first dollar you ever spent,

odds are it'll wind up back in your pocket

sooner or later.

To The Lost

I want to crumple up every thought I have, throw it in the fire, and see those ashy dregs reveal themselves as Napoleon, Plato, Jesus and the lot. The rubble years in the making. We've got to wonder if Van Gogh crawled away slowly when he saw the other side of Starry Night, its blank white backside, and knew right then what no brush could touch. We are just animals with enough color to keep us warm. Beethoven went deaf, love was just lines on a page, and when his eyes went too he knew nothing but hunger like the rest of us. The world is much the same place it has always been, but that growing abyss between truth and beauty, sweetness and light, and Heaven and Earth will keep growing in the corner of our eyes until we hunt it down and shake the loose change that's been missing from the start.

Bear With This Blog

Since I am taking two Creative Writing classes this semester I'm supposed to put in 30 mins of work in for each class every day. What this means is while the material on here may and indeed be more frequent it will also be incomplete thoughts, scattered visions, and very personal. So I probably won't announce every time I add something on here. Just the things I deem worthy enough to press some extra buttons for. There will be stream of consciousness, short stories, and a lot, and I mean a lot, of poetry. I can only conclude that as my posts become more frequent so will my readership, and that's okay. I mostly like to write on here so if my computer crashes I'll at least have some scrapes for a portfolio.

This first post was an exercise called Expert where you had to explain in some shape or form what makes you unique. What experiences or knowledge makes you a human, an individual, and shows your soul. This is what came out and besides some of the grammar and spelling it's my scribble verbatim.

I know The Pogues were nothing without Shane MacGowan and that my hometown prides itself on peanuts. I know the exact date girls start to wear their spring dresses, but I won't tell a soul and you'll just have to find out for yourself. I know that some projectionists sit on a solitary toilet in there booth and wait for the change over with a book. I know because I've seen it, and no one comes back from that. I know Swamp Thing is not the same as the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and have never heard someone even mention the two in the same sentence, but I know it all the same. I know you should never trust a burger joint waitress with a smile, and that banks give out lollipops to anybody who asks. No matter how old. I know I don't know how to shoot a gun, but that squirrel surely crawled off and died in a hole when I was 12. I know it's okay to walk on graves if you apologize in a whisper, and that you should never take an arrowhead that doesn't belong to you. Which includes them all. I know all the U.S. Presidents in order, but I don't vote and maybe never will. I don't know what team is playing on the screens in the bar, but I can tell by their hands who is going home with who. I know that Bart Simpson and I will never grow old or die, and sometimes the sky is green in Chicago right before the rain. I know that I'll never look good in anything but a tux, and the few times a year I wear one I know that every compliment I get is hard to take, but heartfelt, and exactly right.

Paper vs Plastic: My Imaginary Argument With A Barnes & Nobles Employee

This is what I would like to say to every worker behind a Nook counter:

         "Look man, I know you are just a corporate peon in the grand scheme of things, but you've got to help humanity out and stop selling this garbage. Don't get offended at me calling you a peon! You're wearing an apron for Christ's sake! They've emasculated you and ripped your balls out, and you're getting mad at me? No, no, no. Listen. You get paid minimum wage to sell this junk to people who are dumb enough to buy it, but they are still smart enough to read books. Why are you punishing them? There was hope! But I'm sure you get commission, right? What? They make you sell 5 or 6 a week to keep your job, and you make them a grand just by making the screens all flashy for some magpies that walk by and the only thing you get in return is 15% off biscotti in the coffee shop. Yeah, that's a fair trade. Is that why you wear an apron, because they make you make coffee too? No? Are they afraid you'll get book all over you and ruin your shirt? I don't understand this crap. People come in here and they want to buy a beautiful, nice smelling book. Sometimes for their children! With pretty and pleasant pictures that they can hold in their mind and it makes them grow up to be good and caring people that start that process over. Would you read your kids Goodnight Moon on a computer screen? Hell no! Because your parents didn't read you Goodnight Moon on one. Oh, but it can fit 9 billion books on it. I'm not the Library of Congress, dude. I read maybe 7 real books a year, and buy a crap-ton more that I put on my shelf and never get to. I know it's bad, but people come over and they see my bookshelf and they are so impressed! No one puts a Nook on display or builds mahogany cabinets for it. I wouldn't even put it in a mahogany trashcan. You are putting a whole wood based industry out of business. Oh, but your saving treeeeeeeees! Not only are there no more shelves, but there is no more paper to bind books for. How sweet. I'll tell you what, though. Those trees you're saving might as well be shoved up your customer's butts, because you're screwing us all over. When you make things exclusive to your Nook I have two options. I can send off for a physical copy that will take 4-6 business days to get here, or I can just download it on this $200 machine instantaneously. Sounds pretty convenient. Snap my fingers and voila! But you mean to tell me that you don't even carry some books in the store anymore, so it will force my hand? I can't find Watchmen anywhere. It's meant to be read in paperback form. That's the beauty of comics. I've got to pay $200 bucks just to read a crappier version of the original. In what freaking world does that make sense? Not mine. Not your world either. Who cares if the thing can get internet on it? Dude, be honest. If your book had a picture of a naked lady after every page of text do you think you'd be able to finish it? Exactly. If I wanted something that could do 20 things I'd buy a Swiss Army knife, and then I'd stab every Nook owner in the face. I'd even use the corkscrew to make it slow. Sure it has 5 hours of battery, but I want to sit on a beach with a cooler full of Bud Lite for a straight week, never leaving my chair because I'm so enthralled by Lizzy's pill addiction in The Baby Sitter's Club. What happens when the revolution comes and those crazed lunatics cut the power. Our children will be illiterate and it will be your fault, Ronaldo! What happens when you're in coffee shop, not this one though because it sucks balls, and the girl across the table is reading the same book as you. You don't know though, because you both have Nooks. That was your future wife, and now you'll die alone in a room full of empty shelves and a cold square piece of metal and plastic to keep you company. Oh, and can I get this gift wrapped?"

Darfur? I Hardly Know Her!

(A Social Commentary on Peer Pressure, Apathy, and Mustaches in the 21st Century)

Every couple of months I find it necessary to clean my Facebook. This process is a sometimes enjoyable one that includes: getting rid of outdated applications, picking a new profile picture, updating my basic info page, and leaving groups that just don’t matter to me anymore. Completing this list is essential if I want to feel like a productive member of this website, and really society as well. This being said I always run into the same obstacle. Darfur. Yes, the small African region, which so happens to be plagued by genocide and other naughty things, is ruining my online experience. “Why?” you ask. It’s because I’m a coward.

I don’t exactly remember why I joined “For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur”, but I have a theory that it was during a time when my membership was in its infancy and I was floating in a sea of “unparticipation” in virtual activist organizations. Every so often I would read in the news feed that friends of mine had joined this same group and not only that, but had left it too. During these first instances I passed temporary judgments on these heathens which would last for the greater part of a second. This was always followed by instant forgiveness. Then I came to realize that they too had a ritual of tidying up their online domain, and had found it necessary to distance themselves from Darfur for the sake of having less obligations. That, or because it was no longer in style. 

I want to interject that, as I was once a Political Science major, you would think I might know a thing or two about global incidents. Seeing as the Olympics didn't happen the last two years, I feel like that just shouldn’t be a concern of mine. I do however have a thing or two to say about genocide. Surprisingly, I kind of respect it. I’m not one for confrontation so when I see that some mustached leader in a far off land has gotten rid of a ton of people, I have to applaud human effort. I find there is no better way to burn bridges between two groups of people than to burn one of groups alive. On the flip side Americans subject themselves to genocide every day. We are successfully phasing out the “Valley Girl” due to tanning bed radiation. From what I understand this has been in the works for years. Not only that, but fast food restaurants are bringing up new victims every day to replace the ones who are dead. Taco Bell has changed our dining agenda forever by adding a “Fourth Meal”, and Wendy’s Baconater is projected to cause more heart attacks than the Publisher’s Clearing House check deliverers. Unlike Darfur we have developed a killing method that is not only socially acceptable but looks good in a swimsuit and/or tastes delicious. 

Recently I was given the opportunity to be intellectually mortified by an aforementioned mustached leader. Dr. Jeremy Lewis, head of the Political Science department at my college and it’s only teacher, teachs the World Politics I am currently taking. It dawned on me during one of the lectures that not only did I not know what he was talking about half the time without the use of Wikipedia, but I never even wanted to come near to having an educated opinion on the matter. It would just take too much time, heart, and money to get to where I might be a guest of Real Time with Bill Maher, and I don't usually persue something unless I know I will be the best at it. All of Lewis’s lecturing on people thousands of miles away or half a century ago in gas chambers I will never tour, being fire squaded against walls I will never touch, or burned alive in their own huts that I will never smell made me void of all caring. It was as if he were talking about every puppy in ever pound in this world and how bad they needed a home. I wanted to help, but I just couldn’t. The task before me was too large, so large that it became useless to even care anymore. This is the kinda crap I think about when I clean my profile.
Marek Grodzicki, the creator of Save Darfur, promises this to be a real cause and that he has in fact followed through with his pledge. This group is different in many ways from other charity websites: It doesn’t ask you to donate. It’s in the title. The only thing you have to do is join and Grodzicki will have one more notch in his belt. If you read the reasons given for this group’s creation Marek makes a point to tell you that it is not for his “self gratification”. Oh. How very nice of him. Not only does he give to charity, but he doesn’t feel better about himself for doing so. Forgive me for being a sociopath, but I find it hard to believe that. Most things I do in my spare time are wholly for self gratification, and if they aren’t I find a way to incorporate that into my activity. Yes, by all means I’m selfish, but don’t ever tell me I didn’t warn you. Why do I put change into the Salvation Army bucket during Christmas time? It’s so that damned lady will stop ringing the bell for a few seconds to say “Thank you, sugar.” Plus, sometimes I’ve done something real naughty, but not as naughty as genocide, and think the sound of a few nickels clanging together will counter that. Fat chance, but it’s a thought, and it’s the thought that counts.

I consider myself a rather proficient Facebooker compared to other college students. I have successfully utilized the privacy settings so that no Sunday School teacher, professor, or future employer may see anything that would otherwise mar my reputation as an All-American-Church-Goin’-Tax-Payin’- Law-Regarding-Boy-Scout. It also helps that I blocked my own mother. It has crossed my mind several times that I could just quit the group and hide it from the newsfeed. As ingenious as that is, it’s also sneaky. And the only thing I hate more than Darfur is conniving and sneaky sons of bitches. I wouldn’t necessarily lose sleep over doing it the easy way. That sort of privilege is given to people who commit genocide. But I do feel that I would be looked at as an insensitive person if I left the group, because as we all know, Facebook is the apart of the real world now and the things we do on it matter in the grand scheme of things. So, I had to choose what I valued more to me: either try to offend the least amount of people possible, or march down the streets with my own pants on. I chose the latter.

Today I have closed a chapter in my life, because when I made the final click I became my own man. I have severed all ties in my relationship to a dying country. Did I feel any different when I went through with it? No, I didn’t feel anything at all. These first couple of months I am going to take it slow. Maybe one day in a lonely Comparative Government lecture I will think about all the good times we had. I might see Darfur on the newsfeed and I will cordially stop and maybe see what has been going on. I will say, “Remember when we broke our first 1,000 members?” There was excitement, sure. But there always is at first. I am going to keep that in mind when I see other charity organizations pop up. As much as I want to “Save the Manatees”, am I really ready to commit? It takes a lot out of me when I teeter on the fence and only care enough to show my concern and nothing deeper than that. It’s going to take some time for me to get over Darfur. For now I am just going to donate to bell ringers, because it is fast, cheap, I feel good afterwards, and right now it’s the only thing I can handle.

Fog Lights: A Poem

We've been drifting for hours

with the windows down

smelling the rain fat pine.

You are breathtaking, darling.

How do you put up with my cowlicks?

My drinking?

My sense of urgency to do nothing?

These and all answers are measured in gasps.

I grip the wheel and the god of common sense

-my warden-

kicks the seat, reminding me of some silent promise,

some absolution of

fallout.

The fog lights come on between those secret

mountain breasts and our two lane valley

hums to life.

Old Blasphemies play on the radio,

our song,

but I've lost you to the window.

On a clearer day, you could see the blasting scars,

and if you'd just look me in the eye

Oh, how my bags would rat me out!

Dream stole me up last night where I watched you

lose your hair from the drip.

Like your mother.

Making me run to those twin desert rivers and

drown

drown

drown

in the watershed.

  I will find a place to rest a while,

so that you might drive.

Leaving me to that window,

the fog,

and the places beyond.

My Favorite Movies

There are two types of people who have seen this movie. Those that love it and those that would rather cut part of their brain out so they won't have to remember ever watching it. The second type prefer Paul Blart as their go to for movies about mall cops, and I can assure you that the part of their brain they want gone was never there in the first place.

Observe and Report exists in a very grey area of comedy. It had enough big name stars (Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Ray Liotta, Michael Pena, Patton Oswalt and Aziz Ansari to name a few) to make a big impact on the mainstream market, but somehow it never did. For one thing, it's too, literally, crazy of a concept.

IMBD's synopsis:  "Bi-polar mall security guard Ronnie Barnhardt is called into action to stop a flasher from turning shopper's paradise into his personal peep show. But when Barnhardt can't bring the culprit to justice, a surly police detective, is recruited to close the case."

If you've seen the movie then you know between the lines the whole story is about Ronnie's (Seth Rogen) struggle with his bi-polarism, his larger than life idea of himself, and his dream of becoming a cop. Where Paul Blart gets derailed with fat jokes, Report is a human story at its core and stays true to it.

The black humor and extreme ego will be familiar to fans of Kenny Powers and Eastbound and Down because Director Jody Hill wrote and directed both. Danny McBride makes a suiting appearance as a Mexican drug dealer, and Ben Best, co-creator of E&D and better known as Clegg to its fans, plays a police detective alongside Ray Liotta.

Take this scene for example, in my opinion one of the best thing Rogen has ever done, you'll see that Ronnie and Kenny could be interchangeable as characters and that Observe could just as easily have been a series, and Eastbound the movie.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

Yeah, it gets pretty dark as you can tell. That's probably why it didn't bring in a huge audience. One scene in particular, and I won't spoil it because it has such a huge comedic payoff, between Rogen and Faris after they go on a date was even almost too much for me.

Jody Hill accomplishes something despite all the constant depravity. A jolly good time. The editing room did miracles for this movie. With a soundtrack that Wes Anderson and Scorsese would be jealous of, and ambitious cuts that pay off, I couldn't help get caught up in all of it.

This part is just a quarter of one of the film's montages if you want to see what I mean.

If you have the stomach for something this strong, I assure it will go down like a sweet rage-filled muffin.

AND IF ANYBODY KNOWS WHO STOLE MY COPY OF THIS MOVIE TELL ME NOW OR THE SAME THING WILL HAPPEN TO YOU.