Bar Bar

Archive for March, 2009

A Man Down Part 3

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Welcome to the third installment of “A Man Down.” I can only hope this is as fun to read as it is to write. It helps if you read in the voice of the Narrator. He sounds similar to Rorschach from Watchmen in my head; however, not quite as gravely though. Now take that voice, and cross it with the confident arrogance of Michael Westen from Burn Notice, and you’ve got something similar to what I have. But no more dissembling! I welcome you, dear reader, to Part 3!

***

As I enter my apartment and lock my door, I let out a heart-felt sigh. Coming home is one of the best feelings out there. The outside world is grimy and uncertain. At least in the place you live, there is certainty. Certainty that the place is yours. That the rent is late. That the power bill is a month overdue. Certainties that are certainly depressing, but there is a strange comfort in them. They may be problems, but they are your problems. I take off my suit jacket and tie, and crack open a beer as I head to the computer. Time to send an email off to Mr. Pentus. Time for me to see if I can find out what this Manhunt is about.

When you decide to contact some nefarious specter on the Internet to arrange an illegal deed or service, you need a system to cover your tracks. You wouldn’t go to the lair of your nemesis carrying a map to your loved ones and an unspoiled thread leading home, now would you? Fortunatey, it’s remarkably easy to set about covering your tracks nowadays. There is a plethora of websites out there that obfuscate the origins of your queries, and most major browsers include a “Stealth Mode” that doesn’t keep histories or cookies. Never say that porn didn’t give you anything.

I like to go a few steps further. In the apartment building across the street, there are a few dozen people with unsecured wireless routers. It was a simple matter to break into the basement and set up a spare machine behind a false wall. That machine is my Gateway; it randomly cycles between available networks, and allows me to access them remotely from my apartment. The computer I use for my own nefarious deeds, Hale, is connected through this shell set-up; all my personal computing needs are done completely legally, through another computer called Faux that is hooked up to a basic broadband package. The set-up isn’t perfect. But then, it’s only meant to buy me a crucial hour or two that I could use to escape. And yes. I name my computers. It’s really not all that strange.

I sit down in front of Hale and guzzle down half of my beer. Now that I am properly motivated, it is time to see if I can arrange a meeting with Mr. Pentus. I create a virtual operating system session on Hale, and start the process of hiding my browsing from the outside world. I lazily navigate the seedy underbelly of the Internet for a while, until I come across the board that “H1DdeNS3cReT” said he first found Mr. Pentus on. Sure enough, a quick search is all I need to find a post by the dog himself.

Mr. Pentus (2:30:30 AM) ::: Greetings to the depressed and downtrodden of the Internet. I come to you with a gift. Are you tired of the way the outside world treats you? The scorn, derision, and even hate they heap upon you? Would you like to show them your true strength; to show them who you really are? I can help you understand how to show them. All for a moderate fee, of course. All you have to do is send me a Private Message. I’ll get in touch with you.

Part of me always worries when I find someone on these boards using proper capitalization and punctuation. These people tend to think of themselves as the crème de la crème, and tend to treat everyone else like they aren’t worthy of notice. They are the stuck-up royalty of the Internet underground, and they can be prickly to deal with. A few quick tests show that Mr. Pentus has covered his tracks well; his IP address reads out as 000.000.000.000. Which should be impossible. My bag of tricks momentarily expended, the only route really available to me to crack this case open is to join up. Time to see how deep this rabbit hole goes.

For me, it is always a bit of a game to pick the proper user name. I like to choose one that plays upon the ego or expectations of my mark. Mr. Pentus seems to be the arrogant and controlling type, and wants to prey upon the arrogant and egotistical hordes beneath him. A few minutes of thought give me one I feel is appropriate.

PM@[Mr. Pentus] ::: AV3nG1nG4nG3L (3:44:78) ::: y0 d00d. wh4ch00 s3ll1ng? c0uN7 m3 1n. 3m417 @ AV3nG1nG4nG3L@gmail.com

As I said, I’ve gotten pretty good at the vermin-talk. I idle about Hale for a while, refreshing the inbox of “AV3nG1nG4nG3L”, hoping that Mr. Pentus was awake. Seems he wasn’t. I set Hale to do a heuristic search through a bunch of BBS boards overnight, and I went to sleep.

I awake to the sound of a garbage truck blaring its horn. One of the downsides to being a private detective is that it is feast or famine. The pay is great when you get it, but it can often be a long time between paychecks. As a result, I tend to live in some pretty unsavory neighborhoods. I check the clock, only to find I had slept for a short five hours. As I sit in my bed, rubbing the bleary mess out of my eyes and wondering if I could get convicted for shooting the driver of the garbage truck, it occurs to me that Hale looks odd. I had left it running a search; there should be a results page by now. I cautiously stride towards Hale, absentmindedly starting my coffee machine on the way.

The aroma of fresh coffee starts to circulate and imbue the room. I barely notice. Hale has been compromised. Which just can’t happen. The screen is black; but it is the warm black of an active screen, not the cold black of an inactive monitor. At the bottom right of the screen, a single question resides, a cold bone white on the warm black background.

_::: Hello, Mr. AV3nG1nG4nG3L. Would you like to join my game? :::_

I stare numbly at the screen. How did he get past the Gatekeeper? How did he compromise the virtual sessions? How? Underneath the question, the big box of the entry cursor mockingly blinks, waiting for my response. How deep does the rabbit hole go, indeed? There is only one thing for me to do.

y3s.

As I hit the Enter key, the screen goes completely dark. A few moments pass as I wonder if Mr. Pentus had nuked my system. Without warning, a new sentence pops up in the bottom right.

_::: Excellent. I will contact you with details, including payment, in Five days. :::_

Five seconds later, the screen goes dark again. I can hear the hard disk whirring slightly, and Hale comes back. It’s as if nothing had happened. For the first time in a very long time, I start to think that I’m out of my league.

I don’t know how long I sat and stared at Hale’s screen. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. All I could think of is how I need a new plan. Mr. Pentus is playing a much deeper game than I anticipated. At the least, I have five days to worry about it. I meander my way deeper into my apartment, trying to sort out some sort of plan. A quick shower, shave, and breakfast aren’t enough to keep my attention. I am out of my element. I need something to pick me up, something bright to catch my mind. It is time to go see Millie.

***

And so we come to the end of another edition of “A Man Down”. As always, I eagerly demand your comments and thoughts. Do you like where the story is going? What would you like to see changed up? Do you like the story so far? Would you buy this as a short story? What you say and thing is important. Also, I am going to make a concerted effort to be better about responding to comments. I ask you to respond to the comments of others as well. And yet again, remember to friend me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter @Chiron7936.

Posted in A Man Down | 2 Comments »

Pelican’t

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Hello dear reader! The blog you are reading tonight is being typed and strung out for you by a Jake in a very odd state of mind. This week has been a bit of a rollercoaster experience. I experienced a shockingly wide breadth of emotions, ranging from loved, to anger, to hatred, to childlike glee. A lot of the reasons and motivations for my feelings, while important, are required to be secret by necessity. Suffice to say, if I am able to tell you, I’ve either already told you, or promised to tell you at a more appropriate time.

Begin your curious wondering about whether or not you’ve been told something.

I tend to worry. And I’m not a group person. I like periods of personal time with small pockets of people. But I’ve started to notice that people react to me strangely. Like I’m the one who is odd or something. As for me, I celebrate and embrace my oddity. And yet, even so… perhaps I should try out things that I have written off as a bad idea. After all, nominally, I am human, and therefore I am prone to being wrong. So I think I’ll try a few new things in the coming weeks. Who knows? It could be fun!

I would also like to take the time to rectify a huge mistake I made. This mistake was a glaring one, a chink in the armor of my perfection. I promised a certain lovely someone a pelican story. And I shall deliver. As a background to this story, you need to know that I volunteered at an animal wildlife refuge during my formative high school years. It was an exciting time, and I eventually was trusted to do animal pickups.

Relatively soon after gaining the enhanced responsibilities inherent in doing animal pickups, I found myself alone in the Refuge. At the time, this was still a novel experience. I wandered the building, feeding and cleaning the birds. There were always a lot of birds. They ranged from the graceful songbirds, to the mentally retarded doves. The pigeons and doves always outnumbered the pretty birds by a 10 to 1 ratio, at least. How I hated those doves and pigeons… but that is a story for another time. After tending to the avians, I checked the outer cages. We had a few larger avians… a crane, a few seagulls. But there was nothing too unusual. My duties completed, I decided to relax in the office with a magazine for a few hours. Oh trust me, it was a cushy job. Once the animals were taken care of, you usually had 2 or 3 hours to kick around. The only real responsibilities then were to man the phones, and take regular walkabouts to make sure the animals were still kicking.

I had only been reading for a short while when the phone rang. I sprang into action with the speed and grace of someone who knew that they were doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. Yeah. You could sit and read. But you were supposed to do something; take inventory, clean empty cages, sieve out some mealworms… but that stuff didn’t always need to be done. But still, I clearly felt guilty about it. The phone call was from the police department. It seems some poor bastard clipped a pelican while going over the Mid Bay Bridge. The police were requesting that someone go pick up the pelican.

The policy at the Refuge was to never leave the place unattended. There was always supposed to be someone manning the phones, or to be there in case the Animal Control people needed to do a drop-off. I abused my newly granted powers of autonomy, and decided to go save the pelican!

Were this blog a movie, this is where the epic and inspiring score would start.

So I jumped in my car. That day, I was actually driving my mother’s Saturn LS. I sped down the road, making it to the scene of the environmental crime in record time. For the uninformed, the Mid Bay Bridge is a two-lane bridge between the mainland of Niceville and the barrier island of Destin. There just happens to be a distance exactly equal to the width of my mom’s car between the lane and the side of the bridge. I cautiously got out, and grabbed the tool of my trade. You want to know what you need to catch pretty much any wild animal? A towel.

The bird was flopping along the side of the bridge, coming dangerously close to traffic. Also coming dangerously close to traffic was myself, as I tried to sneak up on the pelican.
As I was about to make the pounce, some redneck jackass blew his horn as he sped by. I twisted to the side and jumped. Right into the barrier of the bridge. If I had been standing up when I moved, I likely would have flipped over the rail. Slightly daunted, I moved again to get the bird. I pounced, throwing the towel over it and wrapping it in what I thought was a smooth motion. In interest of full disclosure, I can admit that an outside observer may have found it amusing and/or awkward. Cradling the bird delicately in my arms, I made my way back to the car. The hard part was fast approaching; I had to open the car door, and get the bird into the cat carrier in my backseat. Yeah. I planned to put a pelican, which is a rather sizeable bird, into a cage designed to keep felines contained. It was a solid plan. So I tried to manhandle the bird into the cage.

I assure you, any animal wrapped in a towel does not immediately become calm and sedate. They tend to get furious and try to get out in a flurry of arms, legs, beaks, and other vicious natural weaponry. So when I say manhandle… I really mean manhandle. Anyone who has tried to get a cat into a bath knows what I mean. It was at this time that I heard the “Whoop whoop” of a police siren. Yeah. A cop stopped me. So there I am. Half in, half out of the car, holding the ass end of a pelican while trying to shove it into a container was shifting across the seat. And the cop tries to talk to me. Asks me who I am, and what I’m doing. Once I replied I was from the Refuge, he visibly calmed down. After asking a few more (not really) stupid questions like, “Is that really how to do that?” and “What kind of training did they put you through?;” the cop did the coolest thing I had, at that point, seen a cop do.

He stopped traffic. On a bridge. So I could have the time I needed to safely insert the bird into his temporary home. I got the pelican into the cage, shut the doors, thanked the officer, and he moved traffic so I could do a three point turn. I drove back to the Refuge, bird squawking in the back seat, immensely pleased with myself. At the Refuge, I did a cursory examination of the pelican. There were no obvious injuries. I ensconced it in one of the larger cages in the Refuge, and made a call to the contracted vet that it needed to be looked at. I gave the pelican a fish, and then went back to my rounds. No missed calls, no animals in distress… another day saved.
That is the end of this pelican story. As a quick wrap-up, the pelican turned out to have survived his traumatic impact with the car just fine. We kept him at the Refuge for four or five days, and released him back into the wild.

In other news, there was a party here on Saturday night. The lovely and talented Tanya was celebrating her birthday. A cadre of cool compadres and I hung out in my room, and during the wild, wooly, and wonderful discussion that happened, a few ground rules were established that we should all abide by. The list follows below.

  1. If you have boobs, you are right.
  2. If it is your birthday, you are right.
  3. If you are wearing a bear hat, you are right.
  4. If you are unkempt and scruffy, you are untrustworthy.
  5. If you are purebred Asian, you know kung fu.

The interesting thing about this list; is that if you follow it strictly, I am both untrustworthy and right. Now it’s funny how that works out. I feel like that a lot.

And now, dear reader, it is time for this blog to end. I once again beg you for your comments and criticisms, for your digital love and hate. Remember to friend me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter @Chiron7936. Comments are super important for me. It keeps my blog fresh, not stale like some other amateur blogs you may have read. So comment!

Posted in Normal | 7 Comments »

A-Musing

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Back in the day, when I was but a wee little Jake- well, to be honest, I wasn’t quite wee then, I was the same height as I am now. But I was tiny in other ways. Hells bells, not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter. What I mean by that poorly planned sentence is that way back then, I had a lot to learn about life, and love, and science fiction. Back then; the world seemed fresh, new, and exciting. There was just one problem. There was just one teeny, tiny, almost insignificant problem. I was a teenager. As such, my body was full of raging hormones that I had no ability to control or understand. As such, I had a lot of anger and angst built up. I was moody, whiny, and your typical teenager.

Okay, so I wasn’t your typical teenager. I didn’t act out. I didn’t rage, or slam doors (often), or yell curses as I stormed throughout the house. I wrote rants. I thought they were pretty good. The very first one I emailed to my friends. I called it a marathon email, because I typed that bout of insanity up at roughly 2 or 3 in the morning, and then sent it to all my friends via email. It was one long rambling stream of conscious amalgamation of strange. All in all, it was a pretty novel experience for me. I felt a great sense of catharsis; I certainly felt better after writing it. As a sample of the inanity of it, here is a portion of it:

“Hmmm… All emails need a purpose. This one is serving as a temporary patch for the flat tire that is my life. Yes, these free association emails are at best a quick fix, seeing as there really is no human response. In my sugar and Monty Python soaked mind, there is no way that I can really let this be a true outlet. It just is not as comforting as having a person there, sharing in your pain, talking it out with you, and discussing philosophical viewpoints on the matter and sex of the universe, or any other dreary philosophical question. Like, “Would a swallow really be unable to carry a coconut, and if he could, what color would his imagination be?”

A few of you, hell, all of you are probably wondering what the hell a marathon email is. Well my friend, compadre, amigo, amiga, buddy, etc, a marathon email is one in which it continues until my eyes cannot stay open, the point at which the ‘H’ key declares war on the ‘P’ key, for no reason other than the fact the ‘P’ key likes to eat frosted prunes. Or the point where my bleary, sleep deprived eyes perceive the various marks and characters on the screen performing various synchronized ballet movements, to the twisted strains of “Atomic Dog,” by George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelick pouring out of the headphones. And let me tell you, those ‘M’s can do one hell of a pirouette. And eventually, as the sleep deprivation strains onward, the number keys join the arrow keys in a far-reaching conspiracy, involving the dreaded DELETE and PAGE DOWN keys, to stage a coup and undermine the popularity of the alphabet keys. That is when I will stop.”

See what I mean? Pretty out there. I mean, a keyboard civil war? Frosted prunes? Who the hell writes about that? The short answer is that I do. This marathon email sparked a need, a need to express myself.

And so it went on, for one thousand, five hundred, and eleven randomly connected words. I was pretty good at ranting back then; all told, over a period of a year or so, I wrote thirty-one. I’m not ashamed to admit that at one point, writing them became part and parcel of me trying to impress my first girlfriend. No, I don’t know how being alternately random and depressing was supposed to impress her. Go back and reread that part about hormones. It kind of did work; she ended up submitting rants for my site. As did all my friends. It helped me get through a bunch of difficult stuff I was feeling. Not to mention it was a lot of fun. I found out my friends were pretty insane as well. It kind of helped me work on ideas for the comic I was doing back then as well.

There isn’t much to this week’s entry, sadly. It’s more of a realization that I want to do more with my blog than just kvetch and moan about how much life sucks. I want to be crazy, wild, insane, and amusing. I’ve done a good job at editing myself out of what I type lately. I plan to stop that. Perhaps this will help me kindle my muse; find something in me that revels in creativity. Because I fucking want that part of me back.

Tonight, I sat at the computer and wondered what to write about. A very wise person suggested waffles and penguins, but I couldn’t parse that into an intelligible rant. So I started thinking and brainstorming. Which is always a dangerous process for me to start. Chances are, I’ll think up something quite amazing and disturbing. Oh, dear reader, how I did. The most fun I had back then was in writing rants, and reading and posting the rants my friends created. I’d like to recapture some of that glory from the heady days of my youth. I’d like to open up the possibility of guest rants.

Oh yes, dear reader. I want you. I’m not sure how this process is going to work yet. But I’m going to start ranting more, that’s for sure. Except for the “A Man Down” blogs, my blogs have gotten a bit… more depressing lately. So it is back to the perfect storm of free association and craziness. If you feel the urge to rant, to rave, to also write something, feel free! Write it up, and email it to me. I’m thinking of making Thursdays “Guest Blogger Day.” I feel that this would introduce a very interesting and fun dynamic to my site. Dear reader, all it takes is your willing participation.

Once more, dear reader, I implore that you leave your comments on this blog. Comment, critique, rant, rave, and deify me, if need be. Remember to friend me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter @Chiron7936. Comments are what drive me, what keep me going. And there have been precious few of them lately. Don’t be shy! By amusing! You totally could post anonymously as well! How cool would that be? You could be the Masked Commenting Avenger! Commenting mysteriously at the drop of a hat! You’d get your own costume, theme song, and line of collectible action figurines.

Posted in Normal | 5 Comments »

A Man Down Part 2

Monday, March 9th, 2009

Welcome to the continuation of “A Man Down.” I have decided to continue this story every third week; I feel this spaces it out, and keeps things fresh. Hopefully, this will work out. I will start off each continuance with the last paragraph of the previous installment. So without further ado, I welcome you to Part 2.

***

Another advantage to my outfit is this: when you wear a suit, even a simple and dirty one like mine and speak with confidence, people will believe anything you tell them. Before he can leave, I stride over to his table. As I slide into the booth across from him, I start my bluff. “Hello Mr. Secret. It’s been rather difficult to track you down.” When in doubt, subtly flatter the ego of your mark. Mr. Secret stops what he is doing, frozen like a deer in headlights. He pauses in fear as his panic-filled eyes swivel around the room, finally squeaking out, “Wh- Wh- Wh- Who a- a- are y- y- y- y- y- you?”

It is a good idea to keep your mark guessing. “Come now, Mr. Secret. You and I both know that names aren’t important. You never know who is listening.” This, with a small smile and a subtle glance around the room, has caused him to doubt his surroundings. Shifting my arm to the side just enough to reveal the gun in my shoulder holster tends to help that process along. Once you have your mark in a psychological low point, you launch your attacks. Or in this case, you fish for information. I place one hand flat on the table, and the other slides silently into my jacket. Keep him off balance. Make him think he is totally screwed. “I’m going to ask you some questions now. You can answer them here, and leave intact. Or we could continue this conversation in a more… private… location, and I can’t guarantee you’ll leave.”

Mr. Secret gulps, sweat spontaneously sprouting on his forehead. “Look, I- I- I d- do d- don….” Sometimes, I overshoot my mark a little bit. Little Mr. Online Badass is a bit fearful in person. Typical. Perhaps this Manhunt lead is all a fabrication. I slide my hand out of my jacket, and place it on the table next to my other hand. “Take a deep breath, Mr. Secret. Compose yourself. I have orders not to take you down, if possible. So work with me. Make it possible. Nod if you’re going to make it possible.” His nod is unsure, slow and shaky, like an arthritic septuagenarian trying to walk down a flight of stairs. “This Manhunt you found. How did you find out about it?” After several false starts and stammered sentences, he finally found his stride. “Well… I found a strange ad on an internet classifieds site. I- it- it promised thrills. That I’d be m- m- more confident. All for a reasonab- b- ble price.”

Clearly, the confidence paid off in spades. I would hate to have met this guy before he ran in this supposed Manhunt. As he struggled to form his next sentence, I decided to cut him off. “At which point you got in touch with Mr. Pentus? My Organization is very… interested… in talking with him. We would really appreciate any information you could give us to find him.” Part of digging for information is having a believable bluff. Most pricks like Mr. Secret are suckers for conspiracy theories. Throw in a few ominous uses of the word ‘we’ and a couple of references to a secret organization, and you’ll have them eating out of the palm of your hand.

Like an expert dentist extracting an impacted molar, after a bit of time I was finally able to coax some useful information out of Mr. Secret. I got a contact email and a phone number for the dread Mr. Pentus from him. The phone was probably cloned or is destroyed by now, but the email will be useful. Like most insecure people, once Mr. Secret starts talking, he starts getting more confident. More bold. They aren’t dangerous at this point. Just annoying as hell. Case in point; once Mr. Secret actually starts talking about his experiences in the Manhunt, he won’t stop talking.

His eyes glittering with remembered experiences, he babbled onward. “So yeah. I found myself with three other guys at like, 3 in the morning. Just standing around on a street corner, waiting for a van to show up. You know hearing this out loud, it sounds stupid. But then, I was pumped. So pumped! I’m going to have the waitress bring me some chili fries. You want anything? No? Anyway, as I was saying, I was waiting there, and then this van comes around the corner, like you see in the movies. A big white moving van, you know? Anyways, we all get in the back of the truck, and there are these envelopes taped to the wall, with our names on them. So I go up to one, and like, it’s like out of a spy movie. There are photographs of the guys I’m with. And photos of some mean looking dudes, labeled as Hunters. And a map of some warehouse-y area. They dropped us off in an alley and sped off. It was tight!”

I have always found it amusing that when these insecure people finally find the ability to talk, the pace is always a mile a minute. Information is flowing out of him like the gushing torrent of water at Niagara. They are almost personable like this. You want to like them. But you can never forget that these pricks are, in fact, pricks. Mr. Secret here is likely responsible for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in fraudulent online activities. People like him write the viruses, the bad ones that take down whole swaths of the internet at a time. So I try not to like these people. I try to remember what they are.

I hate pricks like Mr. Secret. They feel pushed around and bullied in real life, mocked and ignored; and so they create a completely fake badass persona online to soothe their damaged psyche. What makes them pricks, is when they use this online persona to take advantage of other internet denizens. They find the naïve, the careless, the clueless, and they digitally rape them. They steal identities, credit card information, lives, and loves. All this damage just to get back at the faceless bullies in their life. It seems while Mr. Secret was out trolling for victims to take advantage of, he found a curious posting by the mysterious Mr. Pentus. As an emotionally stunted and socially fearful individual, he simply could not pass up the chance to become a badass, like one of his cheesy comic book heroes.

After a few minutes of him happily chattering on, I’ve had my fill. As his greasy hand moves to grab his glass of soda, I reach forward and snatch it. Pinching down on the meat of the hand between the thumb and index finger causes an extreme amount of pain. This pain isn’t damaging, but it is an excellent way to guarantee a person is paying attention. I pull him closer to me, so I can whisper menacingly to him. “Mr. Secret. That is enough. I am not your friend. I am not your enemy. I’m going to let you live, this time. But if my Organization and I hear that you’ve warned Mr. Pentus, or that you’ve lapsed into your evil ways, well. You may not live, next time. Do we understand each other?”

I am out of the booth and walking out of the diner before he’s had time to do more than emit a strangled yes. Sometimes, it really is that easy to get information out of someone. My instincts have served me well, yet again. It seems this Manhunt ring is legit. At least, it’s as legit as an illicit underground murder game gets. The drive home is uneventful, as I expected. Even so, I always take a roundabout route to get back; there is no sense in making it easy for someone to follow me. I am a cautious person. You have to be one in my line of work.

As I enter my apartment and lock my door, I let out a heart-felt sigh. Coming home is one of the best feelings out there. The outside world is grimy and uncertain. At least in the place you live, there is certainty. Certainty that the place is yours. That the rent is late. That the power bill is a month overdue. Certainties that are certainly depressing, but there is a strange comfort in them. They may be problems, but they are your problems. I take off my suit jacket and tie, and crack open a beer as I head to the computer. Time to send an email off to Mr. Pentus. Time for me to see if I can find out what this Manhunt is about.

***

That ends this edition of “A Man Down”. Thank you for tuning in. Your regularly scheduled blog returns next week! As always, I humbly request that you comment upon this story. Tell me what you like, what you hate. Give me suggestions. Give me pro tips! Give me something. As long as it isn’t a disease. So once again, dear reader, thank you for showing up. And I thank you in advance for your comments.

Remember to friend me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter @Chiron7936.

Posted in A Man Down | 2 Comments »

<(empty)3

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Once again, I’m late. There is no good excuse this time, no “Oh, we haven’t had Internet or power for the last day or two.” There is nothing so convenient available for me to point a finger at. The pure and simple fact of the matter is that I am completely at a loss on what to write about. I’ve taken more time than usual to try and find something to write about. Sadly, this did not spark any nascent creativity in me. I just feel… empty. Like there is an empty void of darkness where my inspiration and heart should be, a dark dank hole with a single 75-watt spotlight shining down on it.

That is what I see, right now, when I close my eyes. I see an empty cavernous cylindrical space, the walls black and slightly ribbed vertically. It is kind of like an enormous quasi-organic metal trashcan. You know the type, the kind that Oscar the Grouch lives in. Except, from my vantage point, you cannot see the top or bottom. In fact, it’s a seemingly endless space. A spiffy platform floats in the middle of the space, which is a strangely high-tech accoutrement for such a decidedly Spartan space. That single 75-watt spotlight shines from the mysteriously shrouded heights upon this platform. The air itself feels thick, warm, and stagnant, like the fetid breath of some horrible space monster. The entire space feels dark, scary, but somehow significant. This space was created for something, to showcase some unbelievable horror or unimaginable treasure.

By this point, dear reader, I am sure you are wondering what is on that platform. You no doubt wonder what it is that mysteriously shrouded light illuminates. For surely, all this construction, all this build up, had to be for something. I hate to break it to you, kiddo, but there is nothing on that platform. It’s the stark and shocking kind of nothing that you find inside a hermetically sealed room. The kind of nothing you see when you look at the Star Trek-style science fiction shows; the brilliantly lit and white corridors, not a spot, not a speck, not even a bit of pile of the carpet out of form. But in this expansive and dark space, with all the dirt and dank and oppressive atmosphere surrounding it, it doesn’t feel clean at all. In fact, it feels rather unfinished. Like someone began to create something, but then reached the platform, threw his hands in the air, and said, “For fuck’s sake, I’m out.”

I fear that is me. I am that mysterious creator, the person who, near the cusp of finality, of closure, of worth, gave up. I find myself jaded, cynical, and darker than I used to be. I worry too much. I complain too much. I just… I don’t know how to make it stop. Or how to turn it around, to make things better for me. I have been making steps and strides with that. I’ve been doing my best to be sociable, fun, and to keep from meddling in the lives and actions of others. Even so, sometimes I feel that I have run out of the light and laughter in my heart. I think that is the worst bit. That tight little worry and fear that I am losing my touch. That tiny little fear that I am no longer amusing. It grabs and seizes me in my darker moments, and convinces me that I am falling out of touch with reality.

I don’t know what is up with this last week. I know I kvetch and whine about not having a muse, and not having ideas… but this week is the most arid and desolate period I’ve had yet. It’s kind of like the difference between the desert of the Antarctic and the desert of the Atacama. Sure, the Antarctic is a desert, with a shortage of precipitation… but I think you’ll find the Atacama is far more arid. And it is far, far less hospitable. What I’ve felt the last couple of days defies explanation. It is not pleasant. It is not happy. But I think it’s just a lame and stupid phase.

At the end of this, I suppose that I have news of a sort to update you with.

As for my “Life-Affirming Commitments” that I started up in the very first blog post, I feel I am doing quiet well. Commitments Numbers One, Two, and Six are definitely done and completed. I am trying to work on Commitments Numbers Three, Four, and Five this week. Commitments Numbers Seven and Eight are always on the docket, but never quite seem to get solved. To be honest, those two worry me the most. Those are the two that I want to have completed the most; and by all logic and luck, they seem to be the ones that will take the longest to solve. And Commitment Number Nine is getting close to the time of action. If you want to help me with any or all of the unfinished Commitments, I will accept any and all help.

This is the last week the full edition of my blog will be seen on Facebook and MySpace. After this week, you will see a short excerpt and a hyperlink. That will be the format for the blog for the indefinite future. I feel that this is the right move for me. I want to drive traffic to my site. That will be the home of me.

Next week, I plan to continue the “A Man Down” story. That is right, I will continue the story every third week. That seems to be the best choice. If it is super-popular and awesome, I may bump it up to every other week.

It is now time for me to shamelessly whore myself to you. I want you to comment on my web site. I want your hate, your love, your thoughts, and your instincts. A lot of time, energy and thought went into [http://www.jake-morrison.com]; and I really do want it to evolve into a community of confidants, a collaboration of colleagues, a fellowship of friends. I want it to be all of these, and more. So help make my dream come true. Comment on my site. Befriend me of Facebook. And follow me as @Chiron7936 on Twitter. If you do these things, I will love you forever. Or at least until someone else does them, whichever comes first.

Posted in Normal | 1 Comment »