Horny Trinity Part 3: “Sexually Transmitted Feelings”

Sex is a challenging subject to summarize into a lesson, and I felt it was necessary to spread it out into three different parts.Part 1: “Pews of Desire”, I examine my earliest physiological experiences with puberty.Part 2: “The Pelvic Compass”, focused on the social dynamics of courtship and seduction. Those two lessons were essential stepping stones for the pen-ultimate experience of my sexuality… love.

Part 2 left off with this sentiment:
I needed to find a genuine identity that would be worth dating

That is precisely what I did going into High-School. I stopped chasing tail and focused on my own personality. The little socializing I did was conducted without ulterior motives, and was centered around my passion for heavy metal music and video-games. Freshman year quickly passed by and to my knowledge not a single woman knew I had a penis. Until the beginning of my sophomore year when a complete stranger slipped a note on my desk.

“My friend thinks your cute, if you ask her out she will say yes”.

A few weeks later I was in her friends basement and I reached my curious hands up her shirt and fondled her breasts. I liked this, and I hoped it was making her just as happy; but when I touched her vagina I realized: happiness shouldn’t feel that dry. Later that evening she brought out photo-albums and shared stories about her fondest childhood memories. I wondered what part of her body I could touch next, and as my erection subsided I actually started listening to her stories. I eventually figured out that she wanted a partner, not an enthusiastic diddle buddy.

Two lonely years later fortune struck again when I intercepted an online chat message on my friends computer. He assured me he had no interest in her and encouraged me to pursue at-will. Her screen-name was something like “Metalica chick”, so all I knew about her was her age, an interest in heavy metal, and a cute smile based on a black & white yearbook photo. Since I was in a heavy metal band I figured it was already meant to be. We started dating soon after that first chat and this time I did it right from the beginning. I listened to her stories, smiled warmly when she looked into my eyes and I kept my pervy hands to myself. After our official first date we spent the evening in a little park where I successfully escalated my way into her heart. We laid on a grassy hill looking at the stars and she took my hand into hers, placed her head against my shoulder, and she smiled at me in a way that seemed like she had been with me for an eternity. We shared our first kiss in that very moment and I knew immediately something I had never known before. This is love.

I couldn’t fully understand or rationalize this new feeling, but I was aware that something different was happening to me. We went on a spring picnic date near the lake in a spot where we couldn’t be seen and spent hours in our private garden of hormones. I felt how happy I had made her vagina and I told her that I was in love with her. She happily agreed to be my first ever date for a school dance. 

I had finally made my first note-worthy public statement in the social-dating world as I pinned a flower to her dress, took expensive photos in front of a cheesy school backdrop and held my date closely in my arms as we danced the night away. Everything was perfect accept a moment during the last dance she seemed a little sad about something. I knew it was my job to hold her close and make her feel safe. I did not sexualize her that night because I knew she needed a supportive partner to make her feel safe. The next date she was back to her horny-self, and gave me my first ever hand-job; this first was memorably concluded when she said, “Ewe! It’s everywhere”.

Our young love had also spilled out into the school hallways as we passed our special binder of love-notes back and forth five days a week. In those notes were three passages that I will never forget. The first referenced one of the greatest mistakes I have ever made. 

She wrote,
 “I wanted to sneak in the bathroom and give your first blowjob, but you locked the door and I didn’t want anyone to hear me go in”.I wrote back,
“SHIT!!! I will never lock a bathroom door ever again!”

She wrote back with the second unforgettable passage,
“My parents will be out of town tonight come over and be my first, I’m ready bring condoms”

I was delirious with excitement and ditched school to go condom shopping. I spent the rest of the day in my room trying on condoms and watching the clock count-down towards the end of my childhood. I got a phone-call from a whispering girlfriend telling me to come over and wait silently in her backyard. After one hour, then two, and finally nearly three hours later her backdoor opened. She stands in a dark laundry room with wet hair and drops her bathrobe to reveal a sexy outfit. Before I could express how much this was moment is worth every trial & tribulation I had ever endured, she tells me the bad news. Her little-brother was still awake and in his room right next to hers with his door open. She devised a plan that I would wear her bathrobe and calmly walk into her room as if I’m her. Then fifteen minutes later she would walk in her room and hope that her brother would think she got dressed and was walking around the house. We looked nothing alike, and I feared the worst.

I followed her direction exactly and it worked. I lit a bunch of candles and we lost our virginity. I was loving, passionate and gentle as I climaxed quickly. I held her in my arms until she fell asleep and I snuck out leaving her a love note on the nightstand. It was the greatest night of my entire high-school career, and I was too happy to even sleep that night.

On the following date I was excited for round two sex. She came over to my house wearing the ugliest green velvet blouse I had ever seen; but its oddness turned me on and I looked forward to unbuttoning it. Sadly she was in a bad mood and I spent an hour relentlessly kissing a half-interested partner. I took out the condom hoping sex might cheer her up and she ignored the gesture but proceeded to give me my first ever blowjob instead. At the time I thought it was amazing, and looking back it was really just patch-over.

The next day, I got the the third unforgettable notebook passage when she wrote,
“Lets take a break”

I wrote her a long letter to declare my supportive intentions to endure this break and start over where we left off when she is ready. I figured we are in love how can a little break possibly threaten what we share. I went to our meeting spot and she was not there. We eventually crossed paths and as I approached her she was visibly holding back tears and kept walking. I discovered that she was back with an ex-boyfriend, and even worse that he is actually the guy she really lost her virginity with before she met me. 

The next day I approached her with a large envelope filled with our professional school dance ripped to pieces along with our binder of love letters with my autograph on the cover. 

Below my autograph I added this note:
(verbatim)
“You can sell this when I’m a rich and famous rock-star”

I learned who her ex was and I instantly remembered them exchanging a long look at one another during that school dance. He was the reason she was sad that night, and I imagine him looking at a woman he loved dancing with someone-else and I know he felt the same sadness. 

Over-time I began connecting all these dots and red flags that had I intentionally overlooked. I slowly began to understand and accept that she was never in love with me. That is what makes this difficult, because everyone is the prince and princess of their romantic fairy-tale. We must accept the harsh reality that these fictions are only worth creating because we never know how it will end and who it will end with. But through all the mistakes, failures and dark days of loneliness we keep writing this story because you never know when you can finally write: “Happily ever-after”. Until then always write, 


“to be continued……”


Does anyone have a “Sixth Sense” story of their own? If so please share 🙂

Role Model Caine Monroy

Hey Avery, this weeks lesson will be a new Role-model. I will also be releasing the finale of my three part “Horny Trinity” to be posted and read live Sunday night April 15th at the Nerdologues.

Avery, I would like to introduce you to nine-year old Caine Monroy. The only thing I know about this young man is what I learned from this video. So take a moment and get caught up.

Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

Caine has many admirable qualities on display. He is ambitious, creative, dedicated, humble and seemingly just a fun kid enjoying life. These things are conveyed well in this mini-documentary, but this is not why I chose Caine as a role-model. Look back at the 2:10 mark and this is what you see:

Then the camera pans to the left and you see this:

This is the part of the story that captivated my interest. I know creative fun kids exist in bunches around the world, but Caine has applied a craftsmanship to his imagination. He dedicates himself to effort without any concern of success or judgement. Caine has achieved all of this because of the exposure he has with his Father. What is especially inspiring is the simplicity of what he is emulating. Caine is not being inspired by a famous artist, athlete or a millionaire businessman, he is looking up to a Father that works hard, loves his son and doesn’t hide it.

Avery, I have been aspiring to be a lot of things in my adult life and I think the best of them all is to be someones role-model.

Please visit: http://www.Cainesarcade.com

Jaws the Remake

Hi Avery,

Today’s lesson is for the both of us, and together were going to learn from Steven Spielberg and his 1975 classic thriller, “Jaws”.

Before you get out of the water and close this blog for the summer, I must remind you that this is only a lesson, not some misguided encouragement to spoil the holy grail of the summer blockbuster. So get aboard this ship because:

“I have a bigger boat”

Jaws is considered one of the greatest cinematic thrillers ever made, and is regarded with a love from multiple generations and cultures of movie-goers. But there is a story about the making of this film that has resonated with my philosophical ideals of parenthood.

Avery, I day-dream about the many ways I will achieve the status “worlds greatest Dad”, and I don’t mean some $5 coffee mug people buy as a cute father’s day gift. This is an actual award to be presented in my honor & likeness and commemorate the greatest Father of the year. As genuine and naive as this goal may be, it has also left me conflicted. I have began to wonder if being the best is actually for the best?

Spielberg arrived on location with his screenplay, storyboards and actors ready to craft Hollywood magic. Also in tow was three different pneumatic Sharks controlled by a dozen special effect experts. Spielberg was ready to make audiences around the world be afraid to swim in open-water. I’ll never forget being at the beach and telling my younger sister, “Yes, a shark just like jaws lives in Lake Michigan”.

Avery, I wonder what your grand-parents would think if they could re-wind time and raise me again? Who would I be today if they were to reboot the process of my creation and right all their wrongs? Whatever their thought or reaction to this question may be, I want to take a moment and expunge them of their failures. Because in hindsight I turned out … alright. I have a steady job, a great life-partner and a strong passion for art & adventure; this was not magic or luck that I have learned to thrive in my environment. This leaves us with the key question of the lesson still unanswered, “is much of my current day success attributed to failure as well as successes?”.

Steven Spielberg has answered this question for us. The mechanical shark failed, and Spielberg had to shoot a movie about a shark, without a shark. Nearly every scene in the first half of the film had to be gutted and re-written on location. Everybody involved had to wonder if they were witnessing one of the greatest Hollywood train-wrecks ever. Let’s just assume Spielberg shared their doubts; but the money had already been spent and there was no way out. The wheels of life had been set in motion and a movie would be made for better or worse. Spielberg did his best to adapt on the fly, and judge for yourself, here is a scene that had no Shark.

Avery, live your life like the artist that accepts failure as a companion for success and not the threat. Spielberg did this, my parents did it, and Avery I promise to do the same for you. We only have one life to live, regret is a fantasy for the living, and a Jaws remake would suck.

The Pelvic Compass

Avery, I wrote a lesson called, “The Pews of Desire”. This lesson was about the conversion from youthful innocence into the nefarious challenges of puberty. That story was merely the part-one of three for the story of my sexual maturity that I’m officially dubbing as “The Horny Trinity”.

The Pelvic Compass:

My first attempts to court a partner is a cliche riddled montage of “Will you go out with me”, followed by awkward verbiages of, “Lets just be friends”. I would spread-fire this strategy at any suitable targets in my path and once spent an entire Saturday crossing off girls from a list of phone numbers. I was looking for love like a telemarketer would look for a commission. I failed thoroughly and decided to focus my rigorous efforts towards a single target. When she finally said yes, it was a moment of pure bliss. Avery, I need to take this moment to apologize to my first girlfriend:

“I’m sorry I emotionally and publicly terrorized you into dating me; and I don’t blame you for having a complete stranger call and dump me over the phone.”

I needed a rebound from this failure and decided to take a new approach to seduction. Since I had made all those phone-calls and attained a long list of “friends”, I figured why not be “just friends”. I spent all my free-time hanging out with these girls and I waited patiently in the weeds of desperation hoping for that perfect moment where pity mixes with availability and creates love. After establishing these friendships I presented my availability at the local “Sock-Hop”. I would walk into these special dance parties with my entourage of platonic gal-pals ready to work some magic. Every-time a slow song is played I would guilt a friend into my arms for an awkward slow dance where my hands would slowly inch down from their waste to their ass. I thought this was a subtle message, a cute wink 😉 that would build towards a perfect moment of discovered love. A moment that would never come.

This “friend” era ends with a memorable moment between myself and the queen-bee of my female posse. She had a powerful attitude that exuded sexual confidence and was the one girl I would never cross or put a move on. I respected and treated her like I would a male friend. Over time she responded to my harmless friendship by openly and aggressive flirting with me. My gut told me this was a game of manipulation not attraction, but I enjoyed the attention as fake as I knew it to be. One day we ended up alone in her bedroom after she had been fighting with her boyfriend on the phone. I was my usual sensitive shoulder-to-cry-on self, but she had different intentions. She pulled a chair into the middle of her room facing a large open bay-window with a view into the innocent suburbs. She directed me to sit down and keep my hands behind my back as she seductively danced for me. It was torture, like a eunuch being mocked by his own castrator she turned my own insincere seduction methods against me. I wasn’t her target of affection, I was just available to be used for a personal agenda. I had thought I was just a boy looking for a girl to love, and in that moment she taught me that these girls had already become women. I wanted to figure out ways to get something I wanted, I failed to consider the possibility that I was already getting what I deserved.

After Junior High ended I decided to burn all of those bridges and move on. Looking back at group photos where everyone had a date to the dance but me, it makes sense that I eventually vanished from that circle. I was the forgettable member of the group and I decided to just be forgotten. I carried no ill feelings towards them, I just needed to find my own genuine identity that could be worth dating and also be groped by while slow-dancing in the dark 😉

To be Continued:
The final chapter of the “Horny Trinity” shall conclude live at:
The Nerdologues Your Stories – Sunday April 15th at the Upstairs Gallery 7pm
(and the text version will be posted that following Thursday)

Role-Model Amy Hempel

Avery, your brain shall be force fed the words of Amy Hempel. I know that sounds like over-bearing brainwashing parental silliness, but please read below and respect the scriptures that define my creative love.

(All quotes in bold italic are from the novel: The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel)

“S-O-S,” the father informed. “What you want to remember is: Be Simple, be Original, be Sincere. That’s the winning system.”

What makes her so special?

“Did you know that when they taught the first chimp to talk, it lied? That when they asked her who did it on the desk, she signed back the name of the janitor. And that when they pressed her, she said she was sorry, that it was really the project director. But she was a mother, so I guess she had her reasons.” 

Avery, I once had the markings of being another shallow product of suburban mediocrity, and then I discovered the author Chuck Palahniuck. His literature gave me the confidence to challenge the status quo and left me in a state of hostile unease. I understood exactly what I didn’t want to be, and I solely defined my identity on that one-dimensional negation. I attended some of Chuck’s live readings, and he sang the praises of Amy Hempel.

“They say the smart dog obeys, but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.”

I felt a raw truth in her words and learned something about who I wanted to be, rather than who I thought I was. Her writing can weave equal poetic layers of Joy, Sadness, and comedy with an extreme economy of word count. Every time I read the story called “The Most Girl Part of You”, the hair on my arms raise and my eyes water with tears of joy. Her talent for writing is so vast and unique it should have scared me off from being a writer but it only inspired it further. I owe most of my creative ambition to her words and every time I write, I think “What would Amy say?”.

Here is a quote from “The Most Girl Part of You”:

“That was before his mother died. She died eight days ago. She did it herself. Big Guy showed me the rope burns in the beam of the ceiling. He said, “Any place I hang myself is home.” In the movie version, that is where his father would have slapped him”

“The children’s dog had been killed the month before. The children felt it would be unfair to get another dog — unfair to their former dog. The children were in pain, and I felt I knew what to say. I said to their father, quoting a lovely poem, “Tell them this: ‘The need for the new love is faithfulness to the old.’” He said, “That’s what I used to tell myself when I cheated on my ex-wife.”

Avery, there is something about the general idea of minimalism where it both haunts and seduces my attitude on life. I hope to infuse this attitude in my future as your Father, and at the most difficult of times, I can always discover new emotions and ideas on life as I read Amy Hempel from the perspective of your father.

Read a sample of her work here.

I will say it again: Read a sample of her work here. DO IT!!

Awkward Parenting: “Chaising Amy”

Avery,

“Awkward Moments of Parenting“, will be a short-form series about my awkward experiences within this theme. Just remember to laugh with me instead of at me, because your time will come.

The year was 1996, and while in the car with my Mom I heard an advertisement for the movie, “Mallrats” played over the car radio. Eventually I rented both “Clerks” & “Mallrats”, and fell madly in love with both of these movies. I memorized the dialogue, and idolized the characters of “Randall” and “Brody”.

“Say would you like a chocalate covered pretzel?”

A year into this obsession I was excited to find out the next Kevin Smith film “Chaising Amy”, would be playing at my local theater. It was the first of his movies to play in a theater near me. I told my Mom I wanted to see this movie. She thought it was a romantic comedy, and said, “lets go together”. I thought this was a good idea.

We sat down in the theater and right-away I could tell my Mom was not the only person confused by the romantic-comedy like title. I pointed towards three old ladies and whispered, “Those people will leave this movie in less than 15 minutes”.

Then this happens:

We hysterically laughed, and those three ladies walked out immediately. The experience of laughing at adult humor with my mother was fun for a moment, but just like those old ladies we probably should have walked out as-well.

Everything went downhill fast as the movie goes down a non-stop rabbit hole of homosexuality and homophobia, accompanied by the patent Kevin Smith sexual vulgarity.

We were not a family that discussed sex, and we definitely did not talk about gay sex. As someone contemplating my future as a parent, it blows my mind to consider being in my Mother’s shoes for that awkward silent car ride home. Less than two-years prior to that day, I was watching the Ninja Turtles, and now I was laughing at lesbian fisting jokes.

I wonder what kind of movie or art your developing mind will gravitate towards. Will I hang in there and soldier through this transition as courageously as my Mother did.

Camp Unknown

Hello Avery,

I love sharing stories about my childhood with you, and all too often I can only recall the darker and tragic fair of my past. I wonder if certain moments of un-tarnished joy are like the rare diamonds of memories shaped by the miles of earth hiding it  from sight. Thankfully, I have discovered one these rare historical gems of my past, and the more I contemplate its meaning, the more I can see how it has influenced every good decision, that I have ever made. I was thirteen years old, and on my way to my first and only summer camp. Far-far away from home, and every familiar face I had ever known, this is the story of camp unknown.

Camp was an immediate contrast to my everyday life. I had been living in a household that always had a kitchen filled with delicious snacks, soda and frozen pizza’s; I was accustomed to eating at-will, and with king esq. porpotions. At camp there was no food or sugary beverages available outside of the cafeteria’s three-meal schedule. I could no longer wash down a jumbo bag of chips with a two-liter of mountain dew, and call that, “Dinner”. This change taught me the difference between wants, and needs. Avery, let me be clear, a two-liter of Mountain Dew is not a need. The best part of this dietary shock was discovering a new love in a thing they called water. There was this one special water-fountain right outside of my cabin, and I would close my eyes, lean in close, purse my lips, and let it bestow my thirst with a blissful-brain-freezing-hydrating love. I have never tasted a better fluid to this day; as they say, first loves never die.

Another important discovery made at camp was in the form of a new social challenge. The simplicity of my childhood friendships was being eroded by the winds of popularity and puberty. This change of social-climate presented a threatening possibility that all my friendships could easily go extinct. Camp was starkly different, because you were a stranger among strangers, that are being offered an opportunity to be a genuine character with a fresh start. It was simple, everybody was a friend by default, and there was no incentive to be the enemy. The strange part of this social-setting is that I really can’t remember most of theses people; they became this fog of faceless friendly equals. I may not remember their names or recognize any of them if I saw them today, but I learned more about socializing from these nameless memories, than any of my past or current local best-mates.

Two of these strangers stood out above the rest, and will never be forgotten. One came from a five-minute conversation with my cabin camp-counselor. He was probably in his early twenties and had a general purpose duty to break up fist fights, tell us were not evil for masturbating (not a bad message… but kind of weird) and  most importantly he had to make sure nobody dies or gets molested. I never had any one-on-one interaction with him until this one special day called “The Hobby Fair”, all the counselors were to present a hobby of their choice, and we were supposed to pick something we had never tried before. Every table had a long line of kids figuring out what activity to try except one, and I saw my cabin counselor sitting there beneath a sign, “Bible Study”.

I thought,

“Why would anybody choose to study the bible”.

As a thirteen year old, I sincerely didn’t know that people chose religion, as a fun way to spend their time. I was raised in a Catholic family, and had been treating my faith like a chore. I summoned the courage to approach him with my curiosity.

I asked,

“Why would you want to do this on a Saturday?”

He said,

“I enjoy studying the Bible it makes me happy”

I replied,

“Has anyone signed up?”

He calmly states,

“None yet”

I asked,

“What will you do, if nobody does?”

He smiled warmly and responded,

“I will enjoy my Bible alone”

From this conversation, a controversial question stuck to the back of my mind; was he happy because he believed in God, or was he happy because he believed in the motives of his choices? The answer to the question seemed so clear and implied for him,  and very much the opposite for myself. This moment became one important piece of finding the faith in my own choices and I still firmly believed in my choice to sign up for soccer, and I did so with his inspired conviction.

The second memorable person was the evident poor kid. He wore a large stained t-shirt that had this huge clown face on it. At night our cabin would host playful wrestling matches where This kid would physically dominate everyone he faced, and would celebrate each victory with frightening impersonation of King-King. Later that week, the campground finally opened the pool. You had to take a swimming test to receive a special wrist-band that permits you to swim in the deep-end. I passed easily and spent all my pool hours jumping off the diving board and playing a game of deep-water treasure hunt. The rules were you had to challenging someone to collect the most sunken objects from the bottom of the pool, with just a single breath. Just as my clown-shirted friend did in the wrestling ring, I dominated every challenger that dared to try. Then one day I saw my friend walking up to the diving board. He was wearing the proper wrist band and of course he swims in his horrible clown shirt. He carefully shuffles to the end of the board, pinches his nose, closes his eyes and leaps forward into the water. In theory, he was going to use the bottom and push himself towards the latter. In reality I can guess his feet probably didn’t reach the bottom, and he clearly didn’t know how to swim. I waited, in a single moment of panic, wondering, “How does a person not know how to swim, and when is an adult going to save him?”. After that never-ending second of panic I took action, dove in head-first, grabbed him by his gigantic thighs and used all my leg kicking strength to push him up and over to the the ledge of the pool. By then a crowd gathered and over the ledge to safety. He coughed up a half-gallon of pool water and managed to make a small joke of it all by saying,

“I knew I could do it”.

Through the culmination of these different events I had discovered a belief system within myself; for the first time ever, I grasped a new notion that personal-worth wasn’t attained through popularity, faith, status, intelligence or wealth; it was exclusively defined by the value of your actions within the scope of your opportunities.

This camp was not for normal kids. I was sent there because I was labeled an “emotionally troubled youth”. There were some obvious red-flags that made it easy to pick me out of the crowd. But looking back as an adult I would like to think there was a teacher or social worker that heard some sort of cry for help. Whatever the motives for selecting me may have been it proves an all-important lesson that no matter where, when or why; we all have a responsibility to share, care, and act; because every human-being deserves an opportunity to be more than just another sad story.

Walk This Way

Avery,

I can’t in good conscious believe that you will achieve anything more than the standards of my own living, just because I tell you to do so. I dream that you will choose to spend your evenings engaging in a variety of intellectual challenges, alongside an age appropriate context of responsibilities. My strategy of providing this path, is best described by a rule I learned from the craft of screenwriting, “Show, don’t tell”. Avery, if you were alive right now, all I could possibly show you lately, is an unhealthy addiction to video-games, porn, Facebook debating and the Netflix instant queue. It would be an easy path of ignorance to sit on my couch of lethargic shame and believe that I will magically break all of these habits the day you are born. I owe you more than that, and I will set a higher standard for this family to live by, starting right now.

Rather than specifically focusing on one goal, I could be a much better parent if I simply generalize my self-improvement, in an effort to be an all-around better person. That is what I want for you Avery, O let thy be the light.

Dad’s manifesto of change:

Seven days a week, I will spend a minimum of thirty-minutes on each of these things:.

• Chores

Dishes, Laundry and the litter-box

• Exercise

Weights, Yoga, and Running

• Creativity

Writing, Editing, Photography

• Reading

Fiction, Non-Fiction, Science, Philosophy, Journalism, self-help, and Barley Legal

Accountability:
Good intentions are routinely lost in the fray of repetition and exhaustion. I need a hook, that keeps me dedicated to this mission statement. That hook is this blog and it’s regular readers. I will live tweet these daily goals @Lessonsforavery and I will add a recent tweets gadget to the side bar of this blog. So everybody and anybody, will be able to see my progress, and if I’m slacking, they are encouraged to tweet @Lesssonsforavery and provide me a social media kick in the ass, if they wish to.

Follow me!

This is what it’s like to be an adult Avery, struggling to micro-manage these fleeting attempts to convince ourselves that we have control of something. We shall all fail at some point, even so, our ultimate goal is to simply never give up, in-spite of all the fore-shadowing of our eventual demise. Life must be treated as an opportunity, to be something more than those before us. Procrastination is the poison, that blinds us from death, by creating the fear of life. Now or never, count me in; be prepared Avery, because your next.

Below, are some pictures from my less-than-recent accomplishments, hopefully these shall serve as motivation, to be a better person.

First two pictures are from a 10K foot-race I participated in 2008. Finished in 1:01:33

These are from the top of a mountain I free-climbed in the Appalachians.

And Finally, these are from another hiking trip. Diane and I completed this treacherous 9-mile long day-hike through thick swampy forests, across cable bridges, and around the largest water-fall in South Carolina.

Live Reading Audio: Pluck the Pain Away

Pluck the Pain Away performed in front of a live audience at The-Nerdologues

Play Audio in pop-up player

or visit: http://yourstories.podbean.com/

It’s March, which starts with the letter M. You know what else starts with the letter M? Mmm… donuts. ALSO – music! This episode is all (mostly) about music and features some fantastic original, never-before-heard songs by comedians Andrew Bentley, Bill Kenkel, Steve Persch and Claire Freidman, as well as a really touching monologue about music’s power from blogger Shawn Boyle. Claire, myself and all-around creative fellah Myke Golliday also have non-musical nerd moments to share. Join us, won’t you?

 Source: http://yourstories.podbean.com/

Role-Models for Avery: Louis C.K.

Hi Avery,

This is going to be a running series from now and then, where I share a personal role model of my own. I can’t hide my naive notion about how I hope everything that makes me tick, will just blow your mind. Obviously, this is a romanticized idea of my ego clashing with reality, but that doesn’t mean the feeling is not real or that it’s not important. Will my personal role-models have a direct impact on you? Maybe some will, some won’t, and some could be like a stepping stone toward finding your own. Think of it as a relay-race, where we wait for our turn to carry the momentum of our predecessors and eventually pass the baton to whoever’s next in line. Read along, and keep pace kiddo.

             Louis C.K.

Louis C.K. discovered he wanted to become a writer and comedian, citing Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, and George Carlin as some of his influences.[1] When he was ten years old, his parents divorced. He and his three siblings were raised by their single mother in Newton, Massachusetts.[11] His primary reason for aspiring to produce movies and television was his mother: “I remember thinking in fifth grade, ‘I have to get inside that box and make this shit better’… because she deserves this.”[11] After graduating from Newton North High School, C.K. worked as an auto mechanic in Boston while summoning the courage to try stand-up.[2] His first attempt was in 1984 at a comedy club’s open-mic night; he was given five minutes of time, but had only two minutes of material.[12] The experience kept him away from comedy for two years.[13] C.K. gradually moved up to paid gigs, opening for Jerry Seinfeld and hosting comedy clubs[2] until he moved toManhattan in 1989.[12]

[Source: Wikipedia.Com]

Avery, this particular role model is very specific to my future as a parent. I once believed that parenting was nothing but a nightmarish chore; in the vein of a surrender from accomplishing anything of creative value. I also thought most parents were insincere and gratuitously over-sell the rewards of parenting, so I crudely chalked this up as being a mere delusions of their “Stockholm Syndrome”, or another example of the phrase “misery loves company”. Now I wonder, even if that were to be true, how would it be different or worse than any other purpose that I had ignorantly painted as the superior path? By the age of twenty-eight, I could no longer pretend I still believed my own anti-parent mantra, and I was learning how to accept that my life can’t be limited by a commitment made by an out-of-date version of myself. I discovered Louis C.K.’s stand-up during this internal dialogue, and I have never been the same.

Louis C.K. demolished every fallacy of parenting that I had conceived of, and he did so in a way that felt honest, dark and yet equally beautiful. Completely void of all the cliche’s and over-sentimentality, that had become the standard nauseating trite of new parents. I needed his comedic voice, to show me that parenting is not summed up with some bullshit lie like, “You will love it when their your own”. Louis C.K. was one of the first parents who never sounded like a used car salesman, to me. In the end, when I listen to his stories, good or bad, I genuinely feel excited to have my own, and laugh, because life doesn’t cater to the living, its just a stage, and his humor made me feel like I needed to create a bigger story for my life, and stop laughing at or judging everyone else’s.

The one temporary problem that plagues Louis C.K. as my role-model, is that he is tragically still alive. His impact on my life can’t be undone or forgotten, but life has a funny way of spoiling your idols, as you watch them demise through physical death and eventual cultural irrelevance, (these things are really not that different). Or worse case scenario, I will find out he has been molesting his kids, and planning a massive murder-suicide. Louie, if you read this, (and my ego hopes you do), please don’t fuck me and my imaginary child Avery, for writing this love letter to you.

Go to https://buy.louisck.net/ and buy his latest stand-up special online (DRM free) and some proceeds do (or did) go to charity. It’s “hilarious”, and if you want more Louie, get caught up with his TV series on FX called Louie. Also worth mentioning, at this moment, a lot of his stuff is on the Netflix Instant watch.

Since being a parent is clearly difficult, creative, and rewarding in a variety of ways, it means a great deal to me if I can start laughing about it now, before its to late.