Below are the 17 most recent journal entries recorded in alleghenymack90's LiveJournal:

Monday, July 24th, 2006
3:36 pm	Reality about Sam You know, in all fareness, Sam is actually very good to me also. She is a very good friend. She lets me stay over in her house a lot, she lets me eat her food, she invites me to have a yard sale with her. She did some tarot card reading for me. She puts up with a lot of crude and lousy humor from me. She's wrong about the whiny bitch, but I am wrong in saying that I am never shown respect by Sam. In fact, she shows me a decent amount of respect. She is very good to me. She speaks harshly sometimes, but I don't have to answer harshly, because that just makes it worse. (Comment on this)
1:14 pm	Vans Warped I am having mixed feelings about Vans Warped. I mean, it's probably going to be the last expensive thing I'm doing this summer. So moneywise I am not worrying. I like listening to music, I like listening to new music. I like being out having fun in a summer party or scene. I just am worried about Sam. This may seem trivial, because it is. But I am worrying. Crowds bug me, especially crowds of drunk people and crowds of drunk people at a concert because they like to mosh and press each other. And I cannot count how many times I have heard or read about people being crushed to death at concerts. That's why I don't go into crowds at concerts, I stay back. Yeah, i enjoy the music. I mean in most concerts are loud enough so that you can be a football field's length away and still what they are singing. So no matter what, I am staying at a safe distance from the crowd, but close enough to enjoy the music. Plus my ears are gonna be always screwed-up, and I am always gonna have a tough time with loud noises. It's just the way it is. I am not complaining, it's just why I have to stand where I stand. But it frustrates me the way Sam gets mad at me for that. it's like worse then my grandfather: one time when I was a kid, I was staying up at my grandfather's summer cottage at Lake Edinboro. My grandfather and I went to go to a telephone booth to call my parents. As I am walking along the highway, cars are streaming by loudly on the highway. The big mac truck comes grumbling passed me, with a big boom. It hurts my ears, I cup my hands over my ears. It's a natural reaction. i wasn't complaining or whining, I just clutched my ears. My grandfather snaps at me like a nasty dog, "Stop That! You can't do that!" The fuck I can't! What, so when I stub my toe on something, I'm not allowed to say, "Ouch!" You really don't understand the whole cause and effect idea, do you? Well my grandfather is a strange guy on that term. I hope he's learned the lesson. It be a shame for a 85 year old man to have live his whole life and not understand cause and effect. Anyway, it's like Sam gets mad because I don't like getting too close to loud speakers and in a crowd with drunken, over-heated people. So many people have died at concerts like that. Sam likes that, I don't. And she asks like she puts up with me for that. Screw that! You accept it or you don't. There's nothing wrong in the scenario of a grown man chosing to stand at an enjoyable but safe distance, nothing whatsoever. And Sam takes it so person, like I don't want to stand near her. That's ridiculous. I don't want to stand in the thick of a crowd of crushing, drunk people. I don't want to stand with her on railroad tracks with a train baring down on us either. Should she take that personally also? I don't take it personal that she likes to stand in a crowd while I stand outside of a crowd. It's choices. She's a young woman, she makes her decisions. I am a young man, I make my decision. I am worried that Sam stands too close she might get hurt too. But this is a risk she is willing to take. It's not my fault if it turns out badly, just like it's not her fault if I am standing so far back that I can't make out the group onstage. And I am tired of having to explain this. I have been to an event like this before, the music is always very loud. So, no matter where I stand, I will probably hear the music. I also don't like Sam calling me a whiny bitch. It's wrong and mean. Am I the whiny bitch who has paid for countless dinners and taco bells and pizzas from Pizza Joe's? Am I the whiny bitch who gets spoken to like I am a jerk and still sticks by that person? Am I the person who paid for a whole trip to Baltimore at first? Yeah, Sam paid me back and I appreciate that. But I still paid for the trip first off, which I was not obligied to. So if I hadn't have put up the money in the first place, we wouldn't have even gone to see MCR, and the Poe House, and eaten at The Hard Rock Cafe. I mean right to the moment I got into the car to go with Sam, we didn't even have a plan, reservations, and Sam had no spending money. But yet we were still going. I was scared basically: here I am going to a distant place to see a band I really don't know about with a person so hardcore to see them that she see them even when she hasn't got the funds to see them or a place to stay during continuous rain. I had fun on the trip, and I had loads of fun with Sam, and loads of fun at the concert, so it did pay off that way. I don't want special treatment, I just want the respect I deserve. And calling me a whiny bitch is not respectful in anyway. So the whiny bitch bullshit can and will stop. I don't deserve it, and I won't take it. (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 3rd, 2006
3:32 pm	Having a dilemma I don't know whether or not if I should call Erin or not. I have called her a few times this week, and she has not returned a phone call. Not that I expect her to. But I just figured if we were still cool, then she would call me back. The last time I kept trying to get in touch with a girl who wouldn't return my calls or e-mails, she freaked out and said she didn't want me to, that it was freaking her out. Why it freaked her out, I don't know. We had a very fine date, talked once again on AIM, and then the next thing I know, she doesn't want anything to do with me. I can't remember being rude or arrogant. She told me she had acting classes at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. I have a normal fascination with ghosts, and anyone who follows ghosts in Pittsburgh knows that the Playhouse is said to be one of most famous haunted places in the city. So I asked her questions on it. Maybe she was freaked out by a healthy interest in the paranormal. Maybe she just didn't like me. I never understood that. If you don't like someone, or don't want to date someone, why wouldn't you return a call just to say that. I mean if the person you reject is an adult, they will accept it, hold in thier humiliation and walk away. I don't want to call, and be almost labelled a freak. I just don't know what to do. I don't know if I should call or just let things be. Is this a sing that she is just really busy or she doesn't like me? I can accept it if it is about my weight. Just tell me. One girl did call me and told me, she said because I was to old for her. I think that was a sweetened reason. I don't even need a reason, I just want some word or confirmation. Current Mood: confused (Comment on this)
Friday, June 2nd, 2006
7:01 am	About Erin You know what. I am being immature about this. Erin doesn't owe me any call backs or replies. She isn't my girlfriend. There are no strings attached. She wants to quit calling me, it's up to her. I am just glad we had as much fun as we could. I don't want end with Erin resentfully or all shook-up. We had our fun. I just hope she is doing okay. Current Mood: awake (Comment on this)
6:25 am	Two more bite the dust Well it seems that two more women bit the dust. I don't mean they became ill or anything. I mean in terms of wanting to date me. Yeah, my love life has really faded out. I am not sure why either. Allison I don't care about. We did even meet, and she seemed different to me. I mean she seemed like an Uber-country fan. And I don't mind Country, but there is kind of a cultural divide. Perhaps she was put off by some of my comments. I said on my Profile that I wasn't a huge country fan, but that I admired certain artists in that field, particularly the Dixie Chicks. I ended this point by saying that the Dixie Chick got too much grief over the Bush comment. I didn't say "I BELIEVE they got too much grief over the Bush comment." They got too much grief over the Bush comment. That's a fact. When someone sends you death threats because you reveal politics that is different from theirs, they need to locked away in a military lab where they can do testing on them. Or we should keep people like that as specimens for the Aliens who want to abduct humans and do experiments on them. We have a pact with Aliens, "Hey, if you don't abduct a decent, innocent human being, then we will provide more abnormal specimens that we as a society wishing for progress and harmony amongst humand kind have no need for." Yeah, I can see boycotting the Dixie Chicks if you disagree with them. I can see criticizing them. But if you start sending death threats to people because you disagree with their political views, then we need to get you off the streets and into a new home at the San Diego Zoo. Anyway, I don't think Allison's rejection had anything to do with my country statements. I just think it had to do with the fact that I'm a college student who lives at home. What bugs me more is Erin won't return my calls or talk to me long when I am on the internet. I don't understand why. I mean I thought she and I were doing good. Then all of a sudden, I feel like I am getting the cold shoulder. Maybe I am not, maybe I am just being paranoid and she is really busy. But, I am getting the same feeling from Erin that I got from Kelly. And I have absolutely no idea what went wrong with Kelly. Was it my fascination with ghosts? Maybe she just got a bad vibe. So be it. it must be something about me. Maybe Erin was put off by the fact that I can't hear very well and had to have her repeat stuff. Don't know. Maybe I was too weird for her. Maybe it simply was my weight problem. I am not totally sulking about Erin. It hurts, I wish I knew what went wrong. We probably would have hit a snag about the children thing. She does want kids, and I am not making any guarantees that I'll ever be a father. At the rate of how my love life is going, I probably shouldn't worry about the kids factor anyway. I mean, why does someone bring up kids on the first date? Why ruin an evening when it's just a date. I mean if we had hooked up as a couple, then I can see. But if you are just dating, why spoil the fun? Oh well. Dating is never easy, for either side. Current Mood: apathetic (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 28th, 2006
10:36 pm	My heroic fantasy dream I recently had one of the most exciting dreams that i've had it a long time. I was an older brother to a baby sister, which is odd because even though I have a sister, Morgan, she is in fact three years older than myself. Anywho, in the dream, an evil spirit lord kidnapped my baby sister and made off in the void, the world between the life and death. I came onto my sister's room while my parents were out of the house for some reason. The evil spirit was hovering over her crib, when I came in, it saw me. It had the face of Skeletor, He-Man's arch nemesis, and wore the cloak of the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come from A Christmas Carol. I looked at me, and I looked at it, horrified. My baby sister was crying. The sight of the monster horrified me, I can only imagine what fear it was causing the infant. The creature screamed a hideous, woeful moan, like the Banshee in Ireland. It snatched up my sister, and carried her into it's world, via a porthole or vortex in the wall. I jumped after it in the wall, feet first. I think my instinct was to karate kick this creature by fling myself upward and having both my feet spring out. I basically used my whole body as a flying battering ram, with my feet as the tips. I did hit the creature on an impact, but it only stunned it and made it madder. The creature knocked me to one corner of this chamber in the spirit world, and I was stunned. It ran down this path. It was like I was in a dark, hellish, nightmarish Land of Oz. In fact, I think it was Oz, because I looked down the path, could see behind a tree, and there was a man dangling from a noose. It is said, something of an urban myth now, that during on of the scenes in the 1939 musical Wizard of Oz featuring Judy Garland, that the camera may have caught the shadow and outline of a depressed film crew member hanging himself in behind a distant tree, as Dorothy and her three companions dance, sing, and skip down the road, Off to see the Wizard. I don't know if it is true that a man actually hung himelf, but you can see some off screen movement behind the scenery. So say that this was merely a crew member who was trying to retrieve a goat or pig used in the early farm scene in the movie. The pig had gotten loose, and almost ran onto the screen, but a stage hand caught, and accidently tipped over a ladder in the process. Anyway, my mind gave this nightmarish version of Oz that extra haunting quality, and added the dead man in. Anyway, I ran out ot the woods to safety. And I fell asleep in a corn field. I saw the scarecrow, but it did not come to life and dance and sing. It was an actual, inanimate scarecrow. But, there was somebody who came onto to me as I climbed out of the cornfield onto a green brick road. Someone famous and dangerous, but a good man nonetheless. A ancient gunfighter from the Old West period in American History: Wild Bill Hickock. I had recently been watch video rental volumes of the Deadwood series, an HBO series that dramatizes events and characters surrounding the infamously brawling town of Deadwood, South Dakota, when it was a booming minig town of the Old West. Charismatic Irish actor Ian McShane plays a real-life saloon keeper and criminal deal broker from that period named Al Swearengen. He is basically to the Old West what Tony Soprano is to New Jersey, except he has no family and he doesn't have the sense of conscience that Tony does. Swearengen is ruthless, menacing, and almost completely socipathic. Anyway, for a first few episodes in the show, wee see the arrival and times of Wild Bill Hickock (b. James Butler Hickock) when he was a living legendary gunfighter and pistoleer, one of the deadliest from that period in America. It shows Hickock living in Deadwood, the events leading up to his death, and the events surrounding his assassination at the hands of invenerate gambler who Hickock had beaten and humiliated while playing cards. Hickock was shot in the back of the head one day while playing cards, when he was uncharacterisitically sitting with his back to the door way, by a deranged man named McCall. For awhile, while Hickock was alive in the show, it shows his close friendship with Wild West character Calamity Jane, an vulgar, unkempt woman who ultimately had a heart of gold. Anyway, Keith Carradine played Hickock with a tainted regalness and quiet dignity that made Hickock a respectable man trying to deal with an ugly and dangerous celebrity that ultimately killed him. Anyway, I guess the characterization of Hickock that Carradine displayed stuck in my head, and it was Keith Carradine I saw in my dream as the protrayer of Hickock. Hickock came almost as a guardian angel. He gave me the score and informed me of what I was up against. The creature who had stolen my sister was a renegade demon of some sort, who was the mastermind behind a ring of evil on earth. In his spare time, this creature liked to kidnap little babies and keep them, almost like hunters who enjoying going after dead than mounting their stuffed heads on their walls. Hickock then informed me that I was one who could fight the evil set-up by this evil. He then showed me how to fire and quick-draw with a set of Navy Colt Revolvers, circa 1965, and a shotgun. He left me with a small arsenal, then told me I was on my own. The dream ended after a tremendous battle I had with gangster smuggling illegal weapons into the US. There was a final element that is crazier than anything I have said so far. The comedian Bobcat Goldthwaite joined my ranks as an ally, and helped me fight off these ills with a gang of other struggling comedians. Professional Comedians by night, crimefighters by day. I know, it's absurd, but it was a fun dream. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 10th, 2006
3:46 pm	My Comic Book Hero I am trying to devise an origin and make-up of my comic book hero alterego. I think the best kind of powers that I can have is to be able to turn myself invisible, with the same capability of turning on and off a light switch. And then using my invisible capabilities to solve crimes, sneak into secured locations. I know that most of the fiction we see about people turning invisible shows them turning maniacal and evil. But there was one story that showed a man turning visible just trying to survive and right some sort of wrong. That movie is The Memoirs of the Invisible Man. In it, Chevy Chase plays business exec of some sort who is turned completely invisible, clothes and all, when he gets stuck in a building that has a freak radioactive meltdown. When an evil spy master, played devilishly well by Sam Neill, wants to capture Chase's character so that the government will have hold of an invisible man who can be tested, experimented on, and used to turn other operatives invisible. Chase's character becomes a man on the run. While Chase does get to live out some brief fantasies, he doesn't turn evil but actually becomes heroic. In one scene, he nonchalantly snatches a purse from a would-be purse snatch and lethargically walks the purse back to its owner. This is kind of what I want to be. But I don't want to do the typical radioactive/nuclear explosion that alters or mutates the character into a super being. And I don't want to do the thing where he is stung by a bee or is bitten by a turtle. My character is a reporter, Daniel Moran. He is an investigative journalist who is covering a situation in Paraguay. He stumbles onto a plot by some chemical manufacturer to use a certain type of toxin to eradicate life in the jungle. Those who are plotting discover him, chase him, and nearly leave him dead, with a bullet lodged in his brain. He is found by some tribesmen who take him to their village and nurse him back to live using organic means. One thing they use is a kind of powdered green tea. To the amazement of the villagers, this turns Moran invisible. The immediate wrap him head to toe in some bandages, so that they know where he is. He wakes and finds himself alive among the villagers. Through the help of a villager who speaks English, he comes to understand what happened to him and how he came to be amongst the villagers. When he discovers thay underneath his wrags he is invisible, he asks why and how. The villagers inform him that once he drank the powdered green tea concoction, he turned invisible in a matter of seconds. Why they gave it to him was a choice by the medicine man of the village. The medicine man thought in order to restore Moran to his full health, he needed a certain ingrediant in his system. So he chose the Palapa, a green tea-like potion mixed with dried ground bark and mixture of tarantula's blood. When he drinks the potion again, Moran turns visible. No, this is too complicated. Where is this guy going to find a tarantula whenever he needs blood for the potion? of course, to grow the kind of trees that the bark comes from, a jungle tree, he's gonna have to have a place when he can grow trees. A park near his house? A cave near his house. Hell, maybe I can't be in Sam's movie. It's gonna take half a movie to create my own super hero. Why not just a guy who is a spy/detective. Not the James Bond kind of guy. But almost a kind of Fox Mulder, ex-FBI agent turned into a kind of Lone Gunman. Nah. no good. Maybe I aught to stay out of the comic book world for awhile. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 21st, 2006
7:55 am	My Date with Erin It was good and it was fun. There should be a comma after good in that last sentence, because grammatically speaking, "It was good" is a sentence. However, I think I would rather waste time writing about the error than actually fixing it. See, I am a somewhat happy. I am not going to get overzealous about the date yesterday, but it was a rather enjoyable one. It was cut short because Erin developed a stomache ache after we ate at Panera Bread, and such an occurence kind of calls a halt to any romantic proceedings. Not that the date was particularly romantic, but the concept of a date does have, in general, a romantic connotation. I don't think I was on my best behavoir. I think perhaps I could have been a little more serious and not joke around so much, but Erin didn't seem to mind. But you know, a date doesn't have to be something out of a Danielle Steele novel to be enjoyable. Besides, it's just the first date. And it was an enjoyable one. If there is a next time, then I think things will flow much easier. And for all I know, it could be the only date. I would like to see Erin again. I haven't talk with a woman that much fluidity in a long while. Then again, Samantha and I talk with a good amount fluidity and we are friends. So, I could at least anticipate a friendliness with Erin. We even got into a comical debate about my having kids. Gosh, it was the first date, and already the woman is insistent that I will be a father someday. I think it was a more beneficial concern than anything else. Like someone, a friend or stranger, pondering if they will ever find love with a special someone and the kindhearted person, such as Erin, wants to pep them up and bestow some hope in them. I think Erin loves kids so much that the idea of another young person not sure about such a "grand arrangement" is bothersome and she wishes to, once again, pep them up. It's almost like one of those poets or struggling artists in France, expatriate some, so in love with hedonistic activities such as drinking wine or loving finds someone who has not sample the nectar of a good merlot. "Oh my dear boy, you have not lived until you have sampled a Merlot under a Parisian sun. " "No that's okay sir, I wish not to dabble" "No, No you must, I insist. No good man should live without tasting such drink." "Maybe later, monsier, I am trying to watch my weight." "Pish-posh, we're not talking about weight now! We're not talking about allieviating the stomache alone. We're talking about energizing the mind. Come drink with me, you shall not leave my abode until you sample it." And so on. It's a neighborly insistence upon Erin's part, or so I gather. And I find it rather adoarable. I find Erin rather adorable on the whole. I think in my attempt to be funny I laid out some lame jokes, but she rolled along with them in stride. She even has a comical patience with my semi-deafness. It's not bad when I'm in a room, but it's bad when I'm in public and there is all kinds of public noise. Probably best not to bring the subject of children up. I've learned one thing about the Melia chapter. In a relationship or however you think of a meeting between two people, don't worry about the distant hypatheticals until they become immediate possibilities. Current Mood: good (Comment on this)
Monday, February 20th, 2006
10:44 pm	Saw this one guy try to help this one dude out. One thing the helper tried didn't work, and the helpee got mad at the helper. Not mad at the situation like he should have been, but mad at the helper. Helper was like screw it, forget you then. Which I totally understand. If someone cooks you breakfast, and the eggs turned out scrambled instead of over-easy, it's still pretty nervy to bitch out the Cooker. Fuck you then, cook your own goddamned meal. I'll take helpful criticism, I'll take jokes, but total bitching out when I'm trying to help. Sorry, I have more respect for myself than. And what I can't stand is when someone acts in wrong way, and you call them on it, and they don't have maturity or courage to admit their mistakes. We have this bad idea in our society that admitting when you are wrong is a sign of weakness. The John Wayne kind of movie character bred that kind of thinking, or guided it. John Wayne had this saying in the John Ford's The Indians-Are-Always-Bad Calvary movie She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. He'd go, "Never apologize, mister. It's a sign of weakness." BULLSHIT. Apologizing when you have nothing to sorry for is a weakness because it lowers your self-esteem. Apologizing when you know you are wrong is a sign of maturity. And compared to some, it's courage too. Refusing to apologize even when you know you are wrong is a kind of denial and denial never fixes anything. Yeah, I've done that to people, and felt pretty shitty afterwards. That just tells it's the wrong attitude to take. I've acted like a spoiled brat and refused to concede when I know I was wrong. I felt just like a spoiled brat afterwards, and I didn't like it. Current Mood: contemplative (1 Comment |Comment on this)
7:07 am	Had a romantic dream last night I had a dream that I had invited one of the many women i chat with on dating services over for coffee, tea, cake, and scrabble. We seriously talked and chatted. She even had a distinctive face and form. I can hardly remember her name now. But it was nice. Nice to have someone around who was romantically and emotionally interested in me. Very nice not to seem like just another guy friend. I am tired of that role. I should be more. I have been a better friend to some women than their boyfriends have been. Or at least to Kristin I have. But I don't think Kristin will ever be eager to be that. I need to call her up more. I don't know if I put her off with the whole abortion discussion. But she hasn't totally rejected me. Why do women feel so hurt when they find out a guy friend has though about them in that way. Duh! It's obvious. We get along as friends, we find each other attractive. What else is there? Well maybe not the latter. You need the later for it to be romantic. Oh well, I need to just calm down and think now. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 29th, 2006
7:48 pm	My dream about a Rally and Fight with Friends I had a dream last night in which I think i finally let go of my regrets and anger over the Python/Rally fight me and Sam had. It was a dream in which my friends want me to go to a movie we have planned to see, and I choose instead to follow the "high ground" and go to a rally to protest Rick Santorum as president, after I guess another faulty election or something like he jailed someone who was in protest against him; something the very kind and Christian Santorum would do. I have a debate with my friends Kristin, Scott and Phil. Phil scoffs at me, Scott argues with me, and Kristin says that she is hurt. Well I go to the rally anyway, and at the protest is we go into this creek near some park south of Pittsburgh, stand bare-chested and bare-footed, slap our chests with purple paint, and listen to some guy ina gorilla suit give a speech. Women are piddling around and I can see their womanhoods, and I piddle in front of them, and they are not impressed but amused at my manhood when he comes out. My dream, I have to be self-flattering a little. The joke is, when I'm trying to be chummy with women, they are bored or put off by my attempts. :I just saw your hoo-hoo and you just saw my cha-cha, but that doesn't make us friends." I felt a little hippy-like and a little ridiculous I felt good for doing this crazy thing, ad a little silly for the way we did it. I guess it was because some of the discussions I made with people were a little ridiculous, even if they did ultimately sum up a basic truth that Bush was an asshole and should give Sheehan her 30 minutes. But it was also kind of like being released of guilt from a mental parole board. I felt guilty for Sam missing Python/ Even though I didn't actually promise Sam that I would do it, I knew damn well I wouldn't do it. I know I broke Sam's heart in away, and it probably resulted in her stopping to ever vaguely considering to date me under her conditions. I had told Sam a week before that I had fallen in love with her. I had, but when she couldn't do it. i felt hurt, like I put my conscience on the line and no one was on the receiving end. Sam and me probably won't work as a couple, we are too different. She is really bright and quick, I am kind of simple and slow. She is independent, and I am still dependent. She is experienced, and just not in sex. and I have a lot of maturing to do. I was in love with Sam, but that incident put me off that. I know after that, we are better as friends. I do still love Sam as a friend, and she has been a god-sent as a friend. I don't know what I would have done without her companionship and understanding sometimes. My mind and its problems cause me to hold on to things for too long. And last night's dream released me from it. I realized that the mistakes were made, things were said, and the spilt milk was wiped up. I made my amends for Sam missing Python. If the two Italian dinners weren't enough, hopefully going to see Phantom was. And The pissing in the creek and gorilla-suited leader was a kind of fuck me for my self-righteousness towards Sam. Okay, I was proud of the rally, but I wasn't altogether proud of making a very-wounded and special person like Sam feel like she had been ditched or rejected. I just needed a night to do my thing. I needed to do that rally, and would have done it again. But I would also make it up to Sam or anyone else if I had to, without regrets or gripe. And I would still leave the waiter a generous tip. Now Sam thinks I am mad at her again, and I am not. I am confessing or sharing that I am finally releasing myself from the guilt. That I am done picking at myself over this mishap. I hope she understand I was releasing myself, not carry-on a grudge. Current Mood: anxious (Comment on this)
Monday, January 16th, 2006
4:00 pm	Corrections about Joseph Carey Merrick I have to make some corrections about Joseph Merrick's life that I made in my last journal. First off, Merrick's condition was noticeable on his face by the his second birthday. Secondly, Merrick's mother did not die giving birth to him, but rather died while he was a child of bronchial-pneumonia. Merrick died in 1890, 2 years after the Ripper murders had occured. The website dedication to Merrick's story, made no mention of his thoughts otherwise to the gruesome murders. Not that I really expected them to, he played no part in the case or murders other than to be sharing life in the same city at the same time and era as the murderer, victims, and investigators. So it's not worth noting on the website. According to the website, he was self-educated, quite the symbol of the mannerly, English gentleman, and much of the time childlike, with a tendency to over-simplify things. He was the subject of rows in the house of his father and stepfather. Whether the father beat in the way was described in that reading I heard so long ago was not mention, but it did say that his father and stepmother were utlimately disgusted and embarrased by him. The stepmother gave the father an ultimatum that either Joseph would leave the house or she would. The father chose to kick his son out of his house. Perhaps the punish I deemed worthy for the father back then was too barbaric, but that still doesn't mean I would have shakened hands with him and bought him a drink. Joseph, abhorred by society over his looks and effectively envumbered by his disablity, was only able to find work as a side-show "freak" in a travelling "Freak" Show. Alas, this was the era in which P.T. Barnum lived and thrived from this kind of business. But I do think the idea related in the Phantom show I saw yesterday, that the Phantom was probably a disfigured but brilliant inventor, artist, and magician who had been travelling in a main attraction at a Travelling Freak show, until he managed to escape. He was presumed to be dead, but Madame Giry, a kind of headmistress for the ballet dancers at the Opera House, believed that this mysterious phantom and this missing magician were one and the same. So I guess there is where the connection came into my mind. As I read the story of Joseph Merrick, I realize that for hims to do any kind of combat with a insane murdered like Jack the Ripper would have been a useless thing. Although he was a good man and a devout Christian, Merrick's disease left him crippled and cumbersome. But I am glad he was in my dreams. He turned what was a bad series of nightmares into a compelling suspense story of good versus evil. Like I said, I can be an intense and over-serious person. Current Mood: dorky (Comment on this)
10:25 am	My Day at the Phantom I went to go see the Phantom of the Opera at the Benedum Center yesterday, accompanied by the lovely Starcat herself. Although I'm probably doing something wrong by her to call her lovely, I don't care. She was very lovely yesterday. She had on this beautiful red coat, it fit her and looked so fine on her. She may not believe that any man could find a big woman attractive, but she's wrong. More wrong than she was about The Astronaut's Wife being a good movie. I thought it was a mess, and a waste of two good acting talents: Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron. But it was nice going to the play with her. And this time, it was fun seeing the play because I think I am older and I liked being creeped out more. And as sad as the Phantom's origins are, it is a excellent type of origin for a horror movie. When your ghost or "monster" has kind of a sad and dark origin, which becomes known not in the beginning but actually starts to be revealed by the middle of the movie, that's good horror story writing. The only thing I couldn't get out of my head was the part at the very end, when the Phantom breaks down to Christine and confesses that he was despised and hated for his disfigurement even by his own mother, by his own mater, that struck a note of sadness that almost had me crying. At least I can say I've always had a good and loving relationship with my mother. But for a child to hated for something beyond his or her control by their own parent, it's terrible. It's a crime against nature, and the parent is the culprit. But the fact that the story is told in the 1870s in France, it does seem even more imaginable and depressing. Even still at that time, many people, the so-called high class and the lower classes, the schooled and unschooled, sort of believe that a person was born with a deformaty because they were inherently evil and their disfigurement was a way of God and nature to mark them so the rest of the world could be aware of their evilness. As much as science was advancing and was furthering many things, none the least of was industry itself, there was still enough religious zealotry and fundamentalist insanity for people to take on these disgusting theories. But alas, how can a child try to reason with a grown adult, who feels because of her years and experience in the world, thinks her views are more grounded than the truth. I mean, up until 1950s, in the USA, the supposedly most advanced nation at the time, people, even doctors of medicine and psychology, felt homosexuality was a mental disorder. Like a kind of anxiety. But the story of the Phantom's origins reminded, I suppose more subconsciously than consciously at the time, of the childhood of Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, who lived during the same era, the Victorian era. The only thing, the Phantom of the Opera is often debated to be based on a real life event or just the vibrant imagination of the original novel's author Leroux taken from mysterious and tragic deaths at the Old Paris Opera House at the time. Joseph Merrick, who I thought for the longest time was being called John Merrick, was undoubtably true person whose life was one of the most documented in the annals of medical history, British and internationally. But he has sort of the same life, he was born into a lower middle class family, his mother died giving birth to him. His upbringing was left to his father, who eventually married again and had other children. For awhile, the phsyical signs of Merrick's disease were not as grossly noticeable as it became later on in his life, but by the time he was about ten, it had taken enough effect to mar the boy in a serious way. Naturally, he was ridiculed and austracized by cruel, unbridled children at school and was even austracized and, in some ways quite physical, "punished" by his father for as medical condition he had really no control over. But his father hated his own son nevertheless for his deformity. He resented his own son because of the creature he became outside, and not appreciating the kind and good-natured person he was inside. This has happened before and probably will because even the most petty of human beings can become parents, either good or bad ones. I remember once, my library teacher in junior high, read us a book about the Elephant Man. And I remember during one of the chapters, how he told of the account of how Joe was sent out at an early age to work and earn some bread for the family like other children did at that time. He came home with a paultry sum of money, which was usually the case because he had few customers who wanted to by a paper or deal with a disfigured youth. When he gave his father the meager sum, almost as soon as he came home, his father beat him so savagely that he was left bleeding and unconscious on the floor where his father had left him until early the next morning. At the time I was full of hormones, so my immediat thought at the time, was to step into that house, drag the father out into the pavement, handcuff him so one of those iron fences, beat him with my belt buckle until I torn flesh from his face, and piss on his worthless, bloodied, blistered mug. And I'd stand there meditating and smiling while he squirmed from the salt in my extricated urine stinging his wounds. This was all under the imaginative understanding that if I could find a way to travel back in time, I would go about and right the wrongs of history. I was a very intense and serious person when I was a kid. Now, i realize that it's out of my hands, and that it is really his loss because he could of come to know the man his son became and what goodness trully was. I'm not saying that Joseph Merrick was a saint, but from all I've heard, despite his ailment, he was at most a good-natured, decent person. I had a dream once in which Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, seemed to not only be a good and decent man under a deformaty he had no cotnrol over, but he also contained an sort of mystical intelligence not usual in many men. This was shown in the dream by the fact the Joseph Merrick, who was alive and being kept by British doctors in care for study and exhibitions during Autumn of 1888 when the gruesome Ripper murders were commited. By whom, no one knows. This dream I think was also influence by the fact that I had recently watch of horrific suspense movie From Hell, based on a graphic novel of the same name, starring Johnny Depp as the real-life Whitechapel police inspector Fred Abberline who did most of the foot-work for the investigation, and Heather Graham as the doomed Mary Kelly, the last and most brutally murdered victim of Jack the Ripper. But in my dream, I twisted history around by having the Elephant Man, who in my dream seemed to possess the mystical deductive powers of a poor-man's Sherlock Holmes, personally went out into the London streets to track down and destroy the Ripper. It was as if Joseph was constantly pondering his purpose in this world and why he was alive at all. His doctor told him if there was a purpose, that one was to be an example and specimen that life is possible despite what cruel game the nature of human biology might place. By allowing the doctors of Britain to study him, he was also allowing them to understand further this ailment and further the advancement of medical science itself. But this wasn't a good enough answer. But then the Ripper murders started, and Merrick heard of them. While he slept, visions of the murders came to him and even hints of the suspect. Finally, Merrick managed to escape his confines at the hospital, and in my fantastic dream world, went out personally to put down the Ripper. It was a fight between good and evil, the first in the shape of a deformed but decent man, and the other in form of a normal-looking and arrogant member of daily society. I guess my dream cast the Ripper as one the upper class suspects who became associated with the case, either the Queen's personal doctor, William Gull, or that Montague fellow. By some way, Merrick did find the Ripper and in a long and desperate street battle, fueled by determination and wit, Merrick destroyed the Ripper. it was a messed-up dream, and I see that it's silly. But it was kind of exciting aswell. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 4th, 2005
5:34 am	Why i think i broke up with Melia One, it became evident all too soon in our relationship that melia and I had different ideas about children. She thought I didn't want kids out of some hatred of kids. I didn't want kids because I feel I will never be qualified to have a kid. I can barely take care of myself, how am I going to take care of something else. Why do people create this selfish image for someone who doesn't want to have a kid? Why do they create this abnormalcy over the idea of someone not wanting to have a child? When I bring it up and state my views, like I have red sores growing out of my head. Why is it weird that a neurotic person doesn't want to give himself the burden of having a child? I don't own to anyone to have a child. I didn't feel confident at the time feeling I could ever have a child. Perhaps that feeling will change once I graduate and define a contentable career and a fulfilling relationship with another person. Do not take the word "perhaps" lightly. These first three must be established before I even consider the unpromised fourth. And how am I being selfish? Am I being selfish to my parents by denying them the privileges of grandparenthood or to my sister by denying her the privileges of being an aunt? I thought the idea of having a child was to fulfill something in your own life, not someone else's? I thought the idea of having a child was something that should be done by a person who feels both the confidence and earnest desire to do so. So many problems with children and parents today is that I think some couples have children half-heartedly or irresponsibly. I remember sitting in a church on Christmas Day, when one is suppose to be celebrating the birth of one celebrate child of ancient lore, and this large family of children sat down in front of us. I do somewhat agree with my mother that it is just our luck that at every such occasion, children, quite often the noisy and bratty ones, must be situated somewhere in our close surroundings. I, unlike my mother, accept it with amusement because I have fun watching the kids run amuck and the parents behaving like children. I also accept it, because if we are not the poor schmucks who get surrounded by the children, some other schmucks will, and maybe they won't be able to hold their tempers better than I. Anyway, these four or five children were causing considerable havoc in their small pew. The mother was doing everything in her good graces to contend with the children and parent them. The father, an almost silver haired "gentleman" with George Hamilton features simply looked on, almost as much of a spectator as we were. The parents repeatedly exchanged glances. The mother's glances almost seems to be communicating the need for help and fatherliness of the father. And the father glanced back as if to be saying, "What do you want me to do about it?" One wondered at the time if this guy's sole understanding of being a father was being the guy who planted the seeds, at as copious amount as he, and only he, deemed necessary, and rather rear the mother on how she should go about rearing the children. It also seemed that he did expect certain quotas from her at the end of the months. I could have just invented that family story out of cynicism and annoyance, but my annoyance was well-founded because the father was very lazy in helping his wife in being a parent at that occasion. My cousin has had five children and has finally found the son he wanted at the end of the estrogen rainbow. It took him five tries, but he got it. But when I see him at parties, he seems to have the chauvinistic attitude or misconception that rearing and tending to the kids his his wife's job. He seems to have lack of worry or eagerness to participate in the job of parenthood at the family get togethers. I guess my cynicism prejudicially create that image, and I admit I really have no clue as to how committed to his kids my cousin is. He is working, he is a breadwinner. His wife seems to be a stay-at-home mom. It does seem to be the old traditional arrangement that the man goes out and earns the bread, and woman tends to the home and the kids. My parents followed some of that, but overall it seems to have to been a partnership. Maybe not a 50/50 partnership, but it was a 30/70 partnership. Anyway, it's funny. My father and mother have always held different degrees in respect of religion, especially the Catholic religion. They were both brought up Catholic, and both are still rather Christian, if you hold to the true essence of the word. But they didn't both stay Catholic. Well, when my older sister Morgan was a little girl, her and my dad had set up a kind of system for escapism from Sunday mass sermons. We'd come to Church, starring Caryl Phillips as the mom/wife, Albert L. Phillips Jr. as the dad/husband (my mother would like to add "the degenerate"), Morgan April Phillips as the bicentennial redheaded daughter (ages 1 to 29+), and yours truly as as the baby. Right after the Apistles and right before the priest got to do his act, Al would lean down to Morgan, his daughter, and whisper oh so softly into her ear, "Morgan, don't scream." Knowing that morgan was 2-years-old, and my father always having a good head for mathematics and deception, knew that most 2-year-olds, especially his, have the tendency to do the opposite of what they are told. Hence the phrase "the terrible twos". Well, Morgan, never one to disappoint the nature of things and my father's scientific expectations, would belch out what some have revered as "the original rebel yell." Priests would forget their vocations, alter boys would stir awake, readers would skip like scratched records, the organ would hiccup to the tune of "Camp Town Races", and pious old rosary chanters would pass entire decats in the wake of my sister's barbaric yelp. I am kind of proud of my sister when I heard of the bombastic power of noise she possessed. During our adolescence, I sometimes considered my elder sibling's noise to simply be that. And my father, on cue, would carry out his daughter to his own and the delight of the audience. Mother would eventually catch-on to the rouse as these staged outbursts always occured at the same exact time, each Sunday, give or take a few seconds. When Matthew R. Swirceski, in a quest appearance as the Judjew (Polish for "Grandfather"), reported to my mom, his daughter, that my dad, her husband, would secretively whisper those words to Morgan at that synchronized timing, my mother put 2 and 31 together. The jig was up, but it made for several clean getaways while it lasted. Eventually, Morgan would grow out of the terrible twos. Oh wait, if Morgan was 2 and is three years older than me, then I wasn't even born or was just barely born. But my father never had the same system with me, as I can remember almost always standing to the side of my mother that was opposite from my father. Morgan would normally stand in the middle of my parents from that moment on or next to me, who again was on the side of my mother most opposite to my father. (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 27th, 2005
10:07 pm	Fight about the 80s I got into a fight the other day with Sam about the 80s. i wasn't trying to be political, but I approached it in that vain. What I should have said was not everything was great about the 80s. And then give my reasons: the bad economy for the middle and working class, the deficit, the Challenger blowing up, and two guys in the White House who had little business being Presidents, let alone back-to-back. At least Reagan was certainly more literate than the bozo we have now. And at least Bush seemed to have a little more savvy, but I still don't trust him anymore than I could throw his ass. It got on my nerves when Samantha said the economy didn't effect her, right after I said the economy made things at home stressed and depressing as many were losing their jobs. I doubt what she said was totally true. I will bet anything Reaganomics did little to help her family's economy. Reagan had little simpathy for the American labor force or for sound socialist ideas that keep people alive. But even if Reagan's policies didn't hurt her family, many others around her and me were hurt. Yeah, at the time, I didn't care about such things either. I cared about Pizza, school, cartoons, toys, and the little league sports I would have rather not have participated in. We were in the bliss of innocence and ignorance, but once we grow and realize that Neverland had a horrible pollution problem, I can't look back on that time with the same attitude. I enjoyed my childhood and experienced growing up. But saying the depression of the 80s didn't matter to me because it hardly effected me is a little like a young gentile in America during the 1940s saying the Holocaust didn't matter to me because it didn't effect me. I wasn't the one being halled off to gas chambers and concentration camps, so why should I care or why should I let the Holocaust being a mark against the 40s being such a great decade. I'll be less dramatic. It's like a Rockerfeller or Mellon during the 1930s saying, "The Depression wasn't so bad. I still made my money. I still had my power and affluence." I am being hard. The 80s were no worse or better than any other decade. It means something to us because of the nostalgia, because it is the childhood/exposition of our life story. I have those feelings also. But I can't say the 80s were all good, especially since I particularly almost lost a close family members due to bratty little snobs, neglegant adults, and a lackluster Healthcare System being run by scam artists/HMOs that had little or no control by the government because that crappy B-Movie idiot thought there was "too much government." Yeah well too little government to regulate stuff like that got a lot of people destitute, killed, and almost killed my sister. So when someone asks me what were the 80s like, I will say, "They were the bulk of my childhood moments, some great, some terrible, and a lot in-between. Maybe I have a tough time looking back on the 80s because I didn't a lot of stupid things that I thought myself incapable of doing even though every other kid has done their share of the same thing. But at least my mistakes and stupidity are mine, they are my mistakes with the lesson I have learned. I remember I actually thought the movie Jake Speed was entertaining. And I actually thought Out of Africa was a must-see masterpiece because it won the oscar. Out of Africa is a must-see if you want to be bored and put to sleep. Current Mood: nostalgic (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 11th, 2005
6:47 am	Okay, Enough Is Enough I am literally going crazy. I am utterly alone. I am so fucking afraid that I will end up a nothing, a bum, a vagrant, an unloved, unfucked vagrant on the side of the street. And you know what, I get the feeling like everyone around me is saying, yeah, that's how you will be and you should accept it and love it. BULLSHIT!!!! This is no fucking good. I am having a hard time just being Sam's friend. I am having a difficult time. I guess I got in over my head. I got carried away. I thought I could rise above my station, and ascend. I thought a nice, good-natured guy like me could get a nice wonderful girl. And you know what, I had one, I had a girl. and I gave it up, because she almost gave me up for the prospect of children. I am not saying I do or don't want any kids, I am just not making anyone anymore promises or commitments. I don't commit to anyone who isn't willing to commit the same with me. If that makes me an ogre in someone's eyes, fuck you, and get contacts, because you see things in an unhealthy way. I was a little turned off by Trent Reznor at the show. I shouldn't be. he payed money, good money, for his graphics to go right. He payed a professional, not some fresh, green guy in college or fresh out of college. At least, I hope not. If he did do that to such a person. I don't know. I know he puts a lot of heart and soul into his shows and thats the way he should do it. And he has a message with his art, which he has mastered. And when a technical malfunction or you know, someone goofs, he gets all aggressive. You know, shit goes wrong on the job, sometime people goof. I can''t blame Reznor for his irritation. I just think he laid it on a bit thick, but maybe not. I see the reason why he should get mad at that guy, and definately fire him, but to threaten physical repurcussions. No one will level that threat at me, if I were in that situation. Fire me, lecture me, but you threaten to kick my ass over a fumble, I will meet outside at that fucking flagpole, my friend, and I will go toe-to-toe with you every round you want. I respect your art, and you paid me good money, and I didn't deliver. Fire me, go ahead, but you wanna kick my ass for that? Take your best goddamned shot, but I warn you, it better be a good first shot. But, I understand why Reznor was mad, and he should fire that guy. I just wonder, if a guy like Dave Grohl or Jack White had set-up some visual aide to his show, and there was a glitch, would they react the same way. I just refuse to back down to a bully. I should have kept on wearing that Pirates hat. No man has the right or place to kick my ass because I support a different sports team. If such a neanderthal tried that, I would sue him or her for every red cent they make. I love the Steelers, they are my team. But if I see a Browns fan walking around South Side with his team's insignia on, I feel I have evolved far enough from my simeon ancestry to not beat him up for that. Not amount of alcohol will excuse me or him from that. it's like me getting pulled over for possession of marijuana by a cop. yeah, I'm a little annoyed by the cop. He should know better not to harass me about a drug less dangerous than certain legal drugs. Nevertheless, being mature, he is just doing his job. I don't get mad at him; I get mad at the stupid cocksucker who made possession of weed illegal. It's like if I was to get busted for soliciting a pro. I get annoyed with Serpico because he/she's got nothing better to do with his/her investigative time than to bust me for wanting to get my rocks off? Murders, rapes, child molesters, and kidnappings going on, and this stupid schmuck thought he'd waste his/her time, my time, and taxpayer money by restricting my sex life with another consenting adult? But, in the long run, they are doing their jobs. Too bad the powers that be in the state and national capital decide that should be part of their job requirement. I sound sleazy, but you know, I am talking about basic liberty. I am getting off the point. Maybe their are better things I could be doing ona Friday night than watch internet porn, but you know, it's my business, it's my life, let me fuck up, and learn from my own mistakes as long as no one else gets hurt. Current Mood: anxious (Comment on this)
Friday, September 9th, 2005
8:28 pm	Rejected Again Well, four girls so far. Four girls in my life so far have 86ed my affections and my advances. Why? I don't know. My mother keeps implying that it is my weight. I guess she could be right, which is ironic because each of these women are hefty women, and more beautiful than Scarlett Johanson and Kate Winslet combined because of it and because they are decent, good-natured, sexy, and down-to-earth women. However, my foul-tipping has had other elements. Two of these women have just gotten out of relationships and that is tough. The other woman is just too busy with her college career and work. Too busy for five minutes on the phone? Too busy to call back when you say you will call back? Hmmm, that's a goddamned busy schedule. Sorry, I am bitter. too bitter. I shouldn't be getting upset. Five women are drops in the bucket in the great ocean of women out there who I would consider eligible, or single, childless, and below the age of 45. But see, i guess because it is still tought me to approach a woman in the first place, i place a big concern into the woman who I can have good conversations with. So, I guess I take bigger stake than I should. Ah Fuck it. Shit happens, and sometimes romance doesn't. Timing is everything, I guess. Actually I have only been on dates with three of these women: Samantha, Kristen, and Kelly. Kelly was a date, clearly and statedly. Kristen was not a stated date and neither of us probably thought it a date at the time. But we were two, young, single people out on an evening together and I know I was subconsciously sizing her up. Maybe I didn't the first couple times we hung out together. But I eventually started to. And Sam was the same thing, although I was aware that it was a date, she wasn't. So if her heart didn't say it was a date, then it wasn't. Which, I like because I kind of have a clean slate. And the Vigil thing was just a terrible misunderstanding. I made a mistake. I could have done a lot worse. I wasn't on a date with Sylvia. I didn't even get a chance to have a telephone conversation. Sylvia also said because she didn't know me that well. I wanted to remind her that's why people get numbers: to get to know each other better. But sometimes, women see pressuring where any man would see reasoning .Not every guy who gets to talk to a woman on the phone thinks he is going to sex her up or date her the next time he sees her. He hopes dating could be next, and he would love it if sex were possible. But a lot of guys are just as eager to get to know a woman for her non-sexual qualities. Which, I guess is a hard truth. Guys are basically after sex in an ultimate sense, and most woman don't actually want a guy to totally be himself. Anyway, she says she just got out of a relationship. She is probably lying and just rejected me for my weight. Well, it happens. She did say that I seemed like a nice guy. Maybe that's my problem. Okay drop 50 pounds, and the nice guy routine. Drink beer and stop being self-conscious about berating a woman who shares her time, her heart, and her body with me. I have rejected at least one person in my adult life because of their life. I cannot tell you how petty I got over it. See, I felt guilt for doing that, and stupidity. But now that woman is married with a beautiful baby daughter. And here I am, caught with out a seat during a constant musical chairs game. Sorry, I am whining. Shit happens, you wipe your ass, you wash your hands, and you move on. Shit happens, Shit happens. I have a great idea for a bumper sticker: "It's not masturbation; It's sex first-person singular." Current Mood: bitchy (Comment on this)