floorpie

I just caught a portion of the 50th or 60th broadcast of the MTV Music awards, and Jimmy Fallon just introduced Guns ‘n FUCK’N ROSES!!!!

Holy crap do they ever suck now.

The fact that the half-bald gutarist is clearly NOT Slash notwithstanding, they also have a few other, more basic things stacked against them:

.: they’re still playing the same songs from the 80’s
.: Axl Rose can’t sing more than three words before sounding out of breath
.: oh, and Axl Rose can’t actually sing at all to begin with.

Oh Monsters of Rock, why hath ye forsaken me?! Headbangers Ball, Hair Metal, Sex Drugs Rock ‘n Roll, where art thou?! I’m nearly crying for the loss of one of MY bands from back in the day.

Oh no he’s NOT wearing Millie Vanilli dreads is he? He is!

On a lighter note, I now know that my merely emulating Guns ‘n Roses sounds exactly like the actual Guns ‘n Roses… meaning, obivously, that I must be a kick-ass singer and I am well on my way to rock stardom… or something.

I’m back from the land of milk and honey and movie stars. We made the drive in unremarkable time, due mostly to our main conduits being closed for various reasons. Nevertheless, I made it back to my apartment, aka The Inferno, re-arranged the phone books and am now back to unfortunate reality and am paying bills with non-existent income.

And, for those of you who’ve seen through my thinly-veiled last few post, things with ADG are really very good. Turns out the key to this whole thing is communication. I wish someone had told me that to begin with!

Things are never as bad as they seem…except for when they’re worse, but this isn’t one of those times. I think things will work out. That is to say, things will work out, I just hope they work out the way I’ve been wishing they would.

Jobs, on the other hand, are incredibly hard to come by for some reason. Either I’m too picky, way under-qualified, or it’s just the way it is now. I just got news that my “last” good chance is no chance at all, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do now. I’m far beyond panic at this point, which is good, because if I weren’t I’d be extremely worried right about now.

In other news, the lady that lives in the apartment beneath me has left her complimentary telephone books outside her front door for roughly two months now. I wonder if she’s rebelling or just never looks down. I’m considering moving them to different positions every time I go downstairs to see if she notices. Correction: I am moving them every time I go downstairs to see if she notices. She’s not a particularly elderly woman or anything…maybe late 40’s to mid 50’s. She lives alone, and is a divorcee…though the only proof I have for that is my own mistaken opinion that everyone in America gets married eventually, and usually by 35, so she must be divorced by now. Also, by the scant views of her apartment I’ve gotten through the window I see house-sized accessories like large dining tables and china-hutches, now being crammed into a one bedroom in the boring part of Silicon Valley. I’m fairly sure she doesn’t work, as she seems to be home just as much as I do, and somehow, I feel absolutely no kinship with her. There is at least a quiet understanding between myself and the rest of my immediate neighbors…though we are not friends, we at least acknowledge that we exist in the same relative proximity. This woman, though, has never returned a single one of my “hi’s”. Hmmm.

So I’m out of town this weekend. I’ll be in LA, so if you’re there and happen to see me, you’re right, it was that guy from floorpie.net.

The hardest part, I think, is accepting that the dreams you had, the ones you optimistically banked on, will may not come to fruition. You believed in something to the point where you saw your future life, unfolding in front of you, and, although the details of that road remained indistinct, the general direction was obvious, and the eventual destination was fairly clear. Unfortunately, sometimes dreams are just that, dreams.

So, when the skies become dark and the rains begin, your already indistinct path seems lost, and, you are now forced to turn around and look at the life you do have instead of the one that might have been. That reality is never as good as the dream, or what you were hoping for. You’ve already been there, you’ve already done that; and, don’t your accomplishments and blessings seem just a little bit paler without the reflected glory of your wished-for future? Now your future seems like a grayed-out version of your past, continuing to plod along the same well-worn trail, when what you were hoping for was a new path, an improved version of the present.

But nothing in this Life is guaranteed, unfortunately. Not even, in fact, that your road of golden hope is forever dimmed to gray, and cannot be reclaimed. For that you get up again and again and keep trying.

I need a job. Not having one is ruining my life, and I ain’t talking about money.

Also, one of my closest friends is moving away.

I am having a bad year. In fact, I often think about how I’ll someday think about (how ya like that alliteration?) when I was 27, and if I’ll remember it happily, sadly, or indifferently. There is only one amazing, beautiful, wonderful thing that happened to me this year, while the rest has been fairly demoralizing. A pity, really, to have a whole year associated with one glorious event over an otherwise dismal sea.

Forever the optimist, there is still time, though, to fix what is broken and to persevere.

That, by the way, is something interesting about me that people don’t really realize. Someone once told me that, knowing me, I don’t really publish anything personal about me on here at all. Well, you caught me at an uncharacteristic time so lucky you, here comes Genuine Dave: Generally speaking, I am a sarcastic, self-deprecating, low self-esteem, cynical son of a bitch. Also generally speaking, I am a fiercely loyal, caring, arrogant individual who will make you laugh and laugh. And that’s what people don’t realize about me, I am both of these things. Both of these completely opposite, at-odds things. At the same time.

Most people see one or the other, or one first, and then transitioning to the other, and perhaps back the other way again. Once they are firmly entrenched on one side of my coin, they see the rest of my existence through that filter, and see it’s signs everywhere. The fact that the other side of my coin exists slips their mind.

This is understandable, I don’t understand it myself (what an odd thing to say). The dichotomy, I think, is rare, but it exists.

So I says to Mildred, I says, both of these things are me; but, unfortunately, the negatives stick out more than the positives… that being just the nature of the beast, somehow. I liken it to getting grades in class, actually (if I may traipse down this tangent a bit). You get an A, and you keep doing A work, and you keep your A fairly easily. you get that one C, though, and it will take you forever to get back to that A. One C out of a multitude of A’s and you pay for it the rest of your semester! One negative and you see it forever, no matter how many more A’s you score.

Anyway, so I says to her, though you may see the self-deprecating, sarcastic-wit Dave, and begin to think that I must be the most miserable, depressed person you’ve ever met, you need to remember the other side of that coin. I have the utmost faith in my life and abilities, and remain the foolish optimist. I truly do.

So don’t worry so much, I’ll come around.

PS I started weaning my self off Pepsi last week, and if you know anything about me at all, you know that that is paramount to saying to myself, “You know Dave [I’m on a first-name basis with me], all these fingers are really inefficient. I don’t really need the opposable thumbs.” This may account for some of the dark mood.

You know what’s sad? An animated version of Michael J. Fox in the new Aquafina ads. There he is, in stylized animated form, simultaneously reminiscent of both Waking Life by form, and Back to the Future by visage.

It’s great, of course, that he’s still out there, taking a quick break from his worthy crusade to check in with The People; but, it makes me wonder: why did they have to animate him? Has his Parkinson’s changed him so much that We wouldn’t want to see him that way? sigh That guy is awesome… I mean who didn’t start kicking their skateboard tails, flipping it into their hands, after he did it in B to the F? I hope he wins…

Named, me thinks, in several places as one of the so-called Top 100 books of all Time (an honor, as an aside, increasingly hard to obtain and keep as time increases, with volume of candidates following closely), Ulysses was banned from print in all English-speaking countries until 1934, for crimes of obscenity.

For crimes of obscenity.

A book now touted by some to be one of the most influential novels of the 20th century was quite recently unprintable due to obscenity. This makes me wonder, perhaps correctly (or not as the case may be) whether our current moral fiber is now loose and wispy like the wind, or are we rather more cultured and erudite with our increased age? The latter seems unlikely… ’cause if you’ve been to Wal*Mart, we’re anything but cultured when compared with the pre-WWI days (of course there is the venerable Le Target to redeem us).

In either case, I am on page 24… of 783. Judgement to be rendered upon completion.

I will reserve judgment until I get some more insight, but people please: what is up with the stuffed animals in your car’s back window? I mean what is that? Granted, maybe I’m missing something…scratch that…I’m definitely missing something ’cause I just don’t get it.

scene opens: a Chuckie Cheese. Kids run to and fro, jumping in various ball bins and playing video games. A twenty-something man stands huddled in a corner, his concentration fixed on the contraption in front of him – a “claw machine” where you try to grab stuffed animal prizes by use of a mechanical claw

Man: (to self) Easy….eassssy..that’s it. Soon you will be mine Toucan Sam Knock-Off!
scene: the claw comes to rest over a plush toy, then slowly descends, it’s jaws gaping wide in hopes of capturing it’s prey. Gingerly, the claw arises again, it’s charge imprisoned within
Man: YES!!!! I have the PERFECT place for this! Right next to my Kleenex boxes in my Tercel’s back window!
scene: jealous looks are abundant from those nearby: unlucky, unskilled, and un-Toucaned. He pities them.

Reader Mail

Hello friend! Well, I’m tying the knot! Can you believe it? That is my big news, I don’t really have a whole lot more than that. Write me back soon! 🙂 Steph
Steph (if that, indeed, is your real name [which it’s not]), if you really think you’ll use the charcoal grill, then I say go for it! Gas grills are more convenient, and for us non-BBQ-snobs probably sufficient taste-wise, but they are more expensive. So, if you’re looking at grilling maybe only three times a month, charcoal is probably the way to go. More often, I’d choose the convenience of gas.

Hey Dave, What do you say we try again this Friday? Things at work will hopefully have settled down by then… Jenny
Jen, changing the batteries in your smoke detectors is always a good idea, and often overlooked. I recommend changing them in the spring when the time changes. (if you live in Hawaii, Indiana, or Arizona, you’re screwed)

Dave, will you marry me? Love, Fakey Fakerston
Dear Fakey, Yes. Yes I will.

Timmy, is that really a picture of you?
No, actually it’s not. It’s a picture of my successful twin brother with the high paying job and loving girlfriend. This is what I actually look like. As I’m sure you can surmise, I am a very, very, unhappy man.

(this post inspired by moxie)

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(via 50 cups of coffee)