ORA-LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR

This morning I had an experience to remember in the elevator, having just been subjected to a very sad occasion on a wet, lukewarm fall afternoon the day before. When I found out about it, I teared up. I liked this guy’s comic genius and I wanted to hear more of it from him, but his diabetes and stroke had other intentions.

It was learned he passed away at 7am, 11.29.11 and he was 41. His name was Patrice O’Neal, a hilarious comedian and actor, and his delivery was one of a kind. He told truths in different ways and allowed his timing to keep you in the moment for the full hour he was on stage. His presence (6’5” (?), 300+ pound man) would be disconcerting in a dark alley, but his smile and diastema made him seem more like Gentle Ben. His subject matter was off-putting for some, while others laughed with him.

Patrice had a special called “Elephant in the Room” on comedy central earlier in the year and he talked about among other things sexual harassment, so the occurrence in the elevator was slightly relevant, well, to me. When a comic dies it hits me HARD, because I know their material and love what they do for a living. They pull me out of a deep hole of depression and there’s no way of saying thanks for that. So a quick payment of respects, if even for a minute, is beyond warranted. There are some entertainers who just memorize other people’s words from a page, go through the motions, and get $20 million a picture. While others who use their own words and start in the filthy comedy clubs that one out of a million make it. Heck, the odds of making it is probably even worse than that.

Patrice was at a show in the audience and he was one of those hecklers that, when a comedian had enough and said “you think you can do better???”, he got out of his seat to prove to the comedian that indeed he WAS and worked the club the next week. It was learned yesterday that THAT was his first experience on stage.

but Patrice had a way of explaining the feelings in his own words that people don’t generally think of when thinking of different subject matter… for instance: sexual harassment. To paraphrase, he said something like this to compare having women work with men but not allow men to harass them: “its like grizzly bears working with salmon… … … covered with honey…” and if you so much as smelled the fish they were off calling HR and having you fired.

I had just watched his “elephant” special yesterday as a way of remembering his genius, and I stepped on to an elevator with two women. This morning I decided to wear my blaze orange knit hat over my cap. The woman standing in front of me had an orange knit sweater on and had struck up a conversation with the woman standing behind me. The woman behind me said to me “you should take off your hat and give it to her because you two match…” and the woman in front of me said “yeah that would be nice”… but I responded to the request by saying “right but if I asked you fto take off your sweater because we matched I’d be getting a call to HR”… the elevator doors opened and they had such a laugh because, well, it was true.

Anyway, I am no Patrice O’Neill, nor O'neal, nor am I a comedian… but I know the man will truly be missed.

III

mailer-daemon... its time for murder.

so i send out a "hey facebookers, check out my blog" email and the usual suspects decide its the right time to respond... kara, kristin, kiwi, you know... the favorites. still waiting for all the state workers to reply (if in fact this is not a blocked site) and they will eventually...

but when you send out a mass email to friends and family you always get a notice of who in fact did NOT get the email. for free no less... and that daemon guy seems to always have his finger on the trigger the second i hit "send"... he's always there no matter how long your email is to tell you "don't bother asking Bill what he thinks of your email cause Bill moved on past you and decided not to send you an update of his email address so just make it known to your shitty life that Bill isn't in it anymore..." ipod contacts: delete Bill.

is there any wonder why the USPS is going out of business? i liked throwing my mail into the mailbox, reopening that tiny door to make sure gravity still worked, and letting my letter go far and wide across the country to anytown, USA... and like clockwork it arrived there. and just like your swatch, or um, rolex, the battery sometimes died in the USPS's clock and your letter was basically a message in a bottle waiting to be found. the greatest thing though was that noone was there to tell you it wasn't delivered. at that point its their fault.

i think this daemon guy's message needs to be corked and sent on his wet, wild, merry voyage, and leave us believing that everyone always got our emails, so we always feel good inside, like the USPS does... this is a free service provided by daemon, which is not far from "damian". (err, lucifer himself...that book's darth vader. . . maybe it'd be better if james earl jones told you your email didn't make it... )

yet usps is going away slowly but surely, unlike the price of stamps, which never goes down. imagine if your reply to the publisher's clearing house had the golden ticket yet some dude dressed like chuck cranston after the big fight with wren showed up at your door to tell you ed mcmahon wasn't around the corner with balloons for you... you'd wanna kill him too.

III

Mark Twain Awarded the George Carlin Award for Wordsmiths…

Well, that’s how I saw it. Sittin here with Gibbee watching the George Carlin ceremony to win the Mark Twain award for American Comedy at the Kennedy Center on WITF… What’s more funny than a dead Kennedy right? Carlin of course!

as I watch I am inspired to write… I dunno why. Gib is off having a smoke while giving me a moment to think and I decided to grab the laptop. Why? I dunno. I guess I am better on paper, err, in pixels…

What is it in the back of the throat that twists your heart in two and makes you decide to not swallow anything… air, water, nothing can get past the emotional throat choke. But when you don’t feel like crying or are with your uncle knowing you would look like a tool bitch crybaby for doing it while watching a comedy presentation… the complete opposite of why comedy is put on… at 35 I might add… that tight back of your throat is telling you something: As long as you don’t cry this will hurt.

Point is I feel like writing because I guess George always made me feel better. When I was younger and was going through my parents fighting or my parents divorce, or going to a new school where all the kids made fun of me or going home to a tumultuous home life of a sister crushing my spirit more than the kids at school did, I always had George to remind me to laugh once a day and get this shitty feeling to leave if even for a minute. George reminded me to keep my head up during the hard times and like Mike Hill he inspired me to find the funny in just about anything. When you laugh at natural catastrophes and humanity going to hell you know where your sense of humor is. Beyond the gutter, even beyond the grave. If that fictional place of hell had its own hell, there is where you’d find my sense of humor. In there, as a rapper named DMX titled his CD to remind you: It's dark and hell is hot.

I remember in 2008 just before George’s special for his twain award came on it was learned he passed away. I felt lost. I felt tossed out from the boxcar of life and tumbleweeded down the oily tracks and my world as I knew it stopped. I didn’t just lose my comic icon or the world’s greatest wordsmith… I lost my friend, my uncle, my reason for having my sense of humor… … … and the throat choke gets tighter… I remember I wore black for three days and sulked in my chair at work. People would walk past me, the weird quiet guy who didn’t talk to anyone at work, and asked what the problem was because I looked like my puppy died. I guess it was written on my face. I lost that voice in my head who reminded me to see whatever it was and find it funny… remember I am not even related to this man nor have I ever met him, he just reminded me that there’s more to life than people shitting on you.

What brought me out of it? Well, George of course. As I have told Christine Stanisec I decided one day (I guess the third day) that George needed resurrected. My savior from the hell I was living under needed saved himself… the throat loosens… so I threw in my collection from the VCR tapes to the CDs to their respective players and listened. I laughed, I cried, I felt emotionally discombobulated as ever, and at that moment I knew I was ok. I was back to “normal”, whatever that meant... I went back to orange or any other clothing I had on and decided the emotional feelings I was going through was done. I had to remember him in life instead of in death and go from there.

Remember to laugh at least once a day. They say “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”.  I say “A laugh a day keeps the psychologist away…”

Thank you Ge--- err, excuse me, Mr. Carlin.

III

GRAY MATTERS

ever think of writing a book?

first what is it going to be about, the subject matter?

is it fiction or nonfiction, and which one of those means true or fake? (i can know the answer of that question and walk into a library or a bookstore, err, do a search on my ipod and have no idea which side of the aisle to be on).

finally, thinking of everything even before word one is written, sometimes a title is best to know in the beginning. . .

so i am thinking of writing my (true) adventures from writing this blog, personal history, BS BS BS, emails i have written to my family, and general thoughts and insane dreams of a person with depression. i feel its important to understand what this is like because if people knew what clinical, suicidal depression was like and not just know how to treat it, it may get more attention and possibly a cure. instead of giving more money to pharms for meds that just make you more depressed and/or suicidal. (i believe the suicide part is intensified when you are on any particular med that said it would be the panacea to your ailment and it turns out to be a fictional story by big pharm.)

anyway, i decided on a title for the book of short stories and thoughts and decided to call it "Gray Matters".  (BTW google is saying its spelled gray or grey but it depends on where you are writing it from. the UK thinks they're so above REAL english. . . american slang.)

above all else when you have ass pain while excreting solid waste it makes you realize how good you had it ten minutes ago.  after a while if the pain continues, you eventually have to get your ass split so its easier for the solid waste to be released from the trap door. i had just gotten out of the hospital and went to the drug store for some drugs and walked to the back of the store for my prescription. i stand in front of the counter waiting with my new acquisitions of metamucil and tucks medicated pads (bring on the late thirties!) and i see there's a rack of books waiting to be bought. what is the one that i see? "How to Deal with Annoying People". i decide against buying this book due to the fact that a sober me is terribly annoying and i will just notice how other people deal with me vs how i'd deal with other annoying people. i put that book down and spin the carousel... guess what i need at this point...?



a new title. although as i reread this one immediately while watching "modern marvels' history of snack foods" i think of better title yet it has a few connotations... hopefully i won't need to go back to the drug store and see a new book on the rack called "Blue Matters"... thinking more on the depression side of blue vs a comedian who works blue.