Hello All

"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
                                                                                                            Mark Twain

Books. It doesn't matter how you read them... old dusty tomes with missing dust jackets, Kindle e-books, tattered garage sale paperbacks or brand new crisp hardbacks straight from the bookstore... books speak to us. I've been a book lover and a writer my entire life, and if you enjoy reading as much as I do, I hope you enjoy the time you spend with this blog. Together I'm sure we'll discover some interesting stories.  

‘Altogether,’ Kafka wrote in 1904 to his friend Oskar Pollak, ‘I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn’t shake us awake like a blow on the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we’d be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, at a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.’ -From The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka by Ernst Pawel

In an Octopus's Garden...

A new year. 

Beth and I are taking the kids to the Newport Aquarium today, and her mother is coming with us. Should be a fun day -- the kids are really into fish right now, so we're looking forward to it.

Didn't get much work done yesterday. Beth wasn't feeling well and slept in. We took the kids to Waffle House once she was up, and then I ran to Dollar Tree for a minute. Did some laundry. Domestic duties.

[Watching "History of the Eagles" on Netflix. Reading parts of "The Pale King" by David Foster Wallace. Listening to "A Stack of the Blues" compilation.]

I Fought The Law, But the Law Won

Beth, my wife, got pulled over today by the Yellow Springs Police. She was coming home from work and a policeman noticed that her license plate bulb was out, so he pulled her over. No ticket, just a warning, but I still feel responsible -- I should have noticed that it was out and replaced it before something like this happened.

I got nothing at all accomplished today. Hendrix is still off on his winter break, and so he was home playing with Stormy all day. I got up around 8, made Beth some coffee, then went to the bank and got the flat tire on the Pontiac replaced so that I could drive the kids up to the bowling alley in Huber Heights in the afternoon while Beth worked. They bowled a game and had a lot of fun -- Hendrix bowled a 63, Storm a 60 -- and our friend Jim Chrissis stopped by to say hello and chat a bit.

We're going bowling with some friends there tomorrow to celebrate New Year's Eve, so I made our reservations for that. Should be fun - if I can find a babysitter.

Got no writing at all done today. Read a good chunk of Norman Spinrad's "An Experiment in Autobiography" and a bit of David Foster Wallace's "The Pale King" before I had to go to work at 9 tonight.

More tomorrow.

[Trading Places and Jackie Brown. The Pale King. "I Got It" by Gorilla Zoe] 

"The Years Grow Shorter, Not Longer..."

I find it hard to believe that 2014 is almost over. It's true that the years pass by more quickly as you get older - I didn't believe that when I was first informed, but by God it's true. And, end of the year or not, I'm not much for resolutions, but this is the time of year everyone seems to be making them. I'm going to try and resist.

I've also never been much of a diarist, to be honest. I have good intentions... I think to myself that "I know... I'll start a blog!" or "I'll keep a journal!" and my updates last usually three days or so and then just sort of die on the vine.

But I am getting older... tempus keeps fugiting and all that. In 2015 I'll be 50 years old. Half a century. A long way since Huntington WV on an early Sunday morning in the summer of '65. Beth and I have been together now for over 20 years, which is mind-boggling. Hendrix is 7 and in school... Storm is 3 and will be starting preschool next year.

I have more writing projects than I know what to do with, and none of them near completion. Make of that what you want. 

Look for more updates in this space as time and my (admittedly short) attention span allow.

Drinking

Drinking alcohol -- at least the way I have been doing it -- is a selfish act.

When I go our drinking with my wife, too often I drink too much. I am not a violent person when intoxicated -- I simply smile, curl up in a fetal position, and begin to snore. Doesn't matter where, really -- could be in my chair, or by the fire, or on the couch, or in the back seat of the car. But you can bet your bottom dollar that once the Jager bombs begin flowing, passed out and unconscious is where I will be. Meanwhile leaving my lovely wife to spend the rest of the evening alone with her friends, wondering where her husband was passed out THIS time.

Selfish. Inconsiderate. Rude.

I've done it too many times, during too many events, and I've been rude to too many people. For this, I want to apologize. I'm sorry, to all of you. But especially to my wife.

Drinking alcohol is not a good thing for me. I realize that I can live a perfectly good life without alcohol. I am aware that I may need help in order to stop drinking. From this day forward, I will do my very best.

Pray for me.

Hot Wing Challenge

At work again. Monday night. Hot Wing Challenge night at The Harem, a gentleman's club on North Dixie Drive in Dayton, Ohio. It's 12:21am, early Tuesday morning 10/22/2013 as I type these lines. I have 29 entertainers -- that's "strippers" to you -- in my rotation, with about 8 or so others who aren't going on stage. I'll call last call in less than two hours, and be home and in bed at 4am.

My son has to be dropped off at kindergarten at 8:30am. I'll wake him up at 8, get some breakfast into him, get him dressed and pack his lunch and drive him to school. Then my 2 year old daughter will wake up not long after I return home, and I'll get her up, change her, and fix us both some breakfast. When my wife gets up, I'll take a nap.

The Hot Wing Challenge is the highlight of our Monday nights here at work. Twice every Monday night, at 11:30pm and then again at 1:30am, I bring two volunteers up out of the audience and we put them onstage next to each other. Then we place two steaming platters of hot wings in front of them and put three minutes on the clock. Whoever finishes first, or eats the most in the allotted time, wins. The wings, of course, are practically inedible -- the sauce the cooks use is specially prepared and beyond hot. But every week, people get up there and try it, to some pretty humorous results.

I'm tired, but not overly so. Tonight I'm going to go home and plug in my laptop before I go to bed and try to knock out two pages of the current writing project I'm working on right now. 

Back From the Dead

I'm at work, DJ'ing at The Harem. It's 5pm and I have ten entertainers in the rotation, which is a fairly typical number for this time on a Sunday afternoon. A small amount of guys, sipping their beer, watching NFL games on the big screens and occasionally tipping one of the girls. 

This has been, as they say, one of those days. Not a bad one, mind you. Just a little frustrating.

Last night, a good friend hosted a party at her place in honor of my wife, who just passed her state boards and is now a nurse. Good friends came, much laughter ensued, and bodacious amounts of alcohol were consumed. By me. And by our hostess.

I became a bit intoxicated. I didn't get crazy or take off my clothes or get into a fight or try to drive home, mind you -- I just wound up passed out in a chair near the fire, and another friend of ours drove me home. My wife is a bit upset with me, and now I'm in the doghouse.

But she did put her anger at me aside long enough so that we could take the kids to the local school's homecoming parade this afternoon, which was nice. The kids got lots of candy and really enjoyed themselves.