Intro- The Scribbles

The Scribbles

Must start writing now. That is what my brain was telling me just a second ago when I opened up this God forbidden laptop. I have decided that I will make the attempt of writing something everyday. As I understand writing is just a muscle: if you don't use/work out, it will eventually die from non-use. And I can't have that, I enjoy writing too much. But at the same time I don't do it enough. I do plenty of things I slightly enjoy but are much more unhealthy and morally questionable. Why? Why do I do deplorable things that are in no way productive.... more than I write just for the sake of writing so I don't lose that muscle? Good question, one I wish I knew the answer to. What I do know is I just wrote something.

G

Part 1 of 3

He pays his five dollars and enters the pool area. He is immediately hit by the stifling humidity which makes his first breath a bit laborious. He circles the outer edge of the pool in search of an empty lane, passing the children who occupy the outermost edge learning to swim for the first time. He hears the laughter and splashes of water and smiles to himself. He quickly regains his composure and the smile dissipates. After all, he is here for business. He eyes the rest of the pool taking note of the other swimmers performing flip turns and utilizing every swim stroke in the book. He knows he cannot perform most of these water acrobatics but he is not concerned because he is more than just a swimmer. 

He spots an open lane and drops his towel, swim cap, and goggles. He removes his shirt and shorts revealing a pair of running shorts which would appear to be skimpy if he wasn’t surrounded by men in speedos. He sits down at the edge of the pool letting his feet dangle in the water as he dawns his swim cap and dips his goggles in the water. The lady in the lane to the left performs another flip turn and motors her way back to the other side of the pool almost mechanical… fluid but powerful. He looks to the lane to the right of him where an older gentleman is leisurely doing the back stroke. The man has no idea he is there. He puts on his goggles and submerges himself into the water. The water encapsulates him like a film of liquid saran wrap and he immediately feels at ease. Sound has now slowed as well as his movements; he exhales and watches as the bubbles dance to the surface. His head emerges from the water as he grabs the wall of the pool and plants his feet firmly against it. Time to begin. 

He lets go and his feet spring from the wall as he ducks his head below water and dolphin kicks with a fury. He is like a thoroughbred out of the gate at Belmont Stakes when the horn sounds. As his body comes closer to the surface, parallel to the bottom of the pool, his right hand breaches the water with a pop as the water sucks in the oxygen in the place where his hand just left. His arm makes a tight arc above his right ear as his shoulders rotate almost perpendicular to the bottom of the pool. His hand is poised as a weapon as it pierces the water directly in front of him. Without thought his left hand arm begins the same motion as his right arm fully extends in front of him and his shoulders rotate in the opposite direction. As his left hand enters his right hand grabs ahold of the water, like it’s a tangible object, and propels him forward as his feet kick in sync with the movement of his arms. He can feel it now, the streamline. That saran wrap feeling is now gone as he effortlessly glides through the water stroke after stroke. He exhales and the bubbles run from his mouth and nose in escape. As his right hand breaches the water so does his face ever so slightly, just enough so his mouth can open to suck in that pocket of air that his shoulder has provided. He feels his lungs fill with that vital necessity and continues with his head down as if he were swimming downhill; eyes fixated on the wide blue line beneath him keeping his direction true. 

He reaches the other side of the pool but doesn’t flip turn because he doesn’t know how. He simply touches the wall, turns around, and begins again. He finds his rhythm, and as he does his mind begins to wander like the ripples of a pebble being thrown into a lake. The stresses of everyday life don’t exist here underwater, they can’t penetrate it. It’s only him, the lane line below him, and the water. His one hour of solitude has begun.

What Is Fascism? No, Really What Is It?!

We need to talk about words, and how we use them. For instance: If I say Mussolini, a word comes immediately to your mind, unless you’ve been living in a cave your whole life; You are excused. Fascism. It’s an ugly, derisive word that is in the list of many descriptions that get extensively over used in modern culture. The list is exhausting: from parents to politicians, lady-friends to landlords, no one seems to be exempt from one of the most improperly used term that indicates a Despot.

The strict definition of the word Fascism is, in fact: “A Governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, and emphasizing a national aggressivism and often racism”. Interesting. Herein lies the rub; at what point do we start taking this word seriously? There are all sorts of caveats that go with this definition, as is with most words that dance upon the razor’s edge of hate and intolerance. In modern society, a stranger is more likely to accuse you of Fascism than say they love you, and there is an inherent flaw in the idea of that. I know that I seem to implore the notion, but things seem to be creeping more and more into another Orwellian fever dream that ceases to stop. Nazis are beating people in the streets; nuclear war is a common water cooler discussion today. What are we to do, swim in an apathetic sea of semantic relativity? We are a jaded society, polished smooth by the ever increasing speed of information, interest and vice. What measures, on a personal, national or outright human level do we start to say that Fascism is not acceptable? That question in itself is enough to give you the shakes.

I’m Afraid. I’ve got to explain to you why I’m afraid. I don’t fear death. I don’t fear any repercussions this world can offer me. What I do truly fear, is living out this entire given existence and not having the courage to say “This is not right” when I witness atrocious acts occurring all around me. I have a daughter to hold myself accountable. I owe her a better life… a better America. We all have something precious we hold dear and innocent. It truly is what makes us humans, and not savage animals. No one wants a worse tomorrow for them, no matter when. Am I delirious for believing in a society where ideas are not politically mandated upon each other? It seems almost taboo to talk about. The belief of a Utopian society... What does that entail? America is the land of the free, the home of the brave… life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Who gives us the right to dictate the dreams, hopes and desires of others? Certainly not me, nor anyone I call friend. My Grandfather was a Cop in Layeffette in 1967. He walked Black people home from church and the grocery store with his pistol glistening in the sun. He meant business, and so do I. I don’t advocate violence, I abhor it actually, but at what point do we stand up and say we’ve had enough? We are a suppressed society, fitting every horrific characteristic of the pure definition of Fascism, but our President is totally acceptable, Twitter this and hey, look at that and…whew. I need a breath.

I’ll wrap it up by adamantly and obstinately requesting this: let’s just stop throwing the word Fascist around. STOP IT. It makes your argument weak, and it takes away from the dreadful seriousness that is true Fascism here in America. We need to start viewing our situation a little more closely. I haven’t had the definition of a word such as Fascism give me such a startle in quite some time. Wake up people, once it’s at your front door it’s too late.

JJ Electric out

Remastering Remastered: Starcraft Brood War

I tried to remain patient but felt growing jitters as I waited anxiously after school on the last Friday and 31st day of March, 1998. My birthday had recently passed on the third and I had made my father a deal I had never made before--I would forego my birthday present until the release of the game I had anticipated more than any instant gratification on the day of my birth could provide: Starcraft.

When the moment finally came that we entered into what was, in the days before widespread internet shopping, the hallowed halls of the big electronics store, I could feel my excitement rise. I thought I knew everything about the game that one could know. I was a regular reader of PC Gamer and Electronic Gaming Monthly along with the burgeoning world of websites that were popping up across the internet. But what I did not expect was to be confronted with the conundrum of choosing which box face to get. In those days games came in giant boxes that would seem comical by today's standards. There were three to choose from: the gruff human Terran, the slimy insect-like Zerg, and the advanced, enigmatic Protoss. After spending as many moments debating the merits of each choice and the importance of choosing the right one (it made no difference: they were all the same game) as my father would tolerate, I finally settled on the box with the Protoss cover. I could never have known then that I would still be playing the Protoss race almost 20 years later.

There are no accolades that I could give Starcraft and its expansion, Brood War, that have not already been given. It is a game of resource building and strategy that requires a great degree of mental focus and physical coordination to play at top levels. I would never have considered myself a master of Starcraft, though I once played the game for hours a day, becoming intimate with every detail as I poured over fansites for data and statistical tables. With the release of Starcraft: Remastered today, updating the game's graphics and sounds, I look forward to delving once more into the game that I always loved. Although the prospect of mastering the game may now be out of reach, I will always be striving to play my best and improve, and in that sense I will be in the process of mastering. After all, isn't that all we can ever really aspire to? In any true sport, there can never be any true master. There is always room for the potential for someone to play it better. Once one considers themselves a complete master, there is nowhere left for their skills to go but down. If you take affront to my allusion that Starcraft is a true sport and require an explanation with a compelling argument before entertaining the notion, then please have patience, it is a topic I look forward to addressing soon.

SILLY ME

Silly me... I fall for it every time. I think I epitomize the term sucker. Well I wouldn't go quite that far but it certainly feels like it. It's the feeling you get when you get taken in 3 card monty; you're not devastated so to speak but you feel foolish for even playing in the first place. "You're never too old". But it's for the best I suppose, whatever the fuck that means. "The glass is half full". I'm sure your''e trying to figure out what I'm referring to at this point and my answer is: I'm doing the writing here sooooo shut up and read, I may get there or I may not. I'm the writer remember? "The sky is the limit".
I'm going to pump my brakes here for a moment in fear of sounding petty. Which I am not, never have been never will be. I am more or less trying to figure out what the hell happened, I'm so confused. "You can do anything you put your mind to". Here is a nice comparison that just popped into my brain housing group: picture a detective witnessing an actual murder taking place before his eyes, and then have nothing to report after the fact. His colleagues are like, "dude you were there, how do you not know what happened?". And that is a fair question. However, it's like trying to solve a crime committed by Hannibal Lecter, just ask Jodie Foster.
Ok this is all sounding a bit dramatic as it very well may be, but not to fear because at the end of the day it's just more dumb shit we get ourselves into with high hopes and are ultimately let down yet again. "Live and learn". "Knick em dont cut em" is a phrase I often use when playing dominoes. It means, don't cut em wide open... just knick em. I just got knicked. Building my scar tissue.

Peaces and Creases
TBN

P.S.- Thank You

Where the Hell Have You Been?

What the fuck!? Where have I been? Anyone... anyone....? I don't have an answer to that question either. So allow me to introduce myself, Hello I'm me..... Well pleased to meet you, what was that name again? Oh yes, pleased to meet you People. Is that a nickname or your parents give you that name? You know what, it doesn't matter I am just pleased to be in your company. Wow can you believe I'm nervous? I feel like a school boy again. However, I do believe we have met before but our relationship has been strained. You go absent, then I go absent, but I'm not here to point the finger, it is what it is.
So what's been going on since we last spoke? Whoa, slow down. How about I go first? Cool. How can I be as abstract as possible...? I'm currently watching the TV show "American Pickers" which is heavy in American nostalgia. Nothing wrong with that, who doesn't love America!? Let's make it great it again shall we?
The problem with nostalgia is that it leaves out a lot of things that are not so great, hence the term nostalgia. I would love for the "Pickers" to run across some Rastus advertisement: a pitch black dark faced cartoon character smiling wildly while taking a large bite out of a piece of fried chicken, and hold it up for the camera while they asses. I wonder what they would bid on that? A nickel, maybe a dime if it's in mint condition.
Ok let's not start our reunion off like that. That's a bit heavy am I right? So what else...? Oh I recently returned from Mexico after a 3 week stay and let me tell you I can't wait to start building that wall. Ok that was bad.. JAJA. But fa real I enjoyed the shit out of myself. I literally just thought to myself "can Trump see this". Moments from now my door will be kicked in and my passport taken from me. But I digress, I love me some Trump. I remember when I got my first job. I was so excited. So excited that in the first 9 months I accomplished absolutely nothing! That's what excitement can do to a person.
Ok let's scratch that as well, I really didn't like where that was going. There are some people (not you People, you're the good kind, wink) that are absolutely amazing. So amazing that I must share. Ignorance is bliss, you can't cut it any other way. But is it really ignorance (bare with me)? Pretending to not recognize something or turning a blind eye to something doesn't really equate ignorance. Maybe ignorance is the wrong word. I'm not sure what the word should be. I'll tell you what, I know I been talkin your ear off, so we can pick this up later.
Well People it has been a pleasure getting reacquainted with you and I hope we can do it again soon. In fact I insist we do (i'm now watching the movie The Patriot hence my proper English). I apologize for my absence, however I slap ass with both hands. Till that day.

Pieces and Creases
Turbonegro- at your service

PS- (Mel Gibson is the shit, I don't care who you are) wink, shotout to JBug

Appearancers II- When Shit Hits theFan

We all know that person. That person who has built up in their own mind who they believe "appear" they are. However, their little belief of them self doesn't actually coincide with reality. Then you get caught up in their fantasy world and try to act accordingly. Well at least until that fantasy world and reality become so far from anything recognizable that you have to take a step back and go whoa. Now this person may be doing this consciously in attempt to build a world that suits them best, or unconsciously because they can barely see farther than their own nose. Once  you realize this gorge of disconnect you stop and address this person and futilely attempt to explain that you are living in two different worlds. One world that is make believe and the other reality. Now as much as you would like to make this discrepancy evident I would advise against it. No one wants to be told the world they are living is false and only serves them. I would recommend not being around this person when that world comes into question, and they actually stop to think about it. The result is not a pretty one. I now regret shattering that world. It's like telling a 4 year old that Santa Clause does not exist but instead of crying for a lost fictional icon the grown person will lash out in the most vicious way. All logic is lost at this point. Instead of considering what the person is saying they go into sheer attack mode. They will say things to/about you that will make you feel like you are being roasted on comedy central. Low blows no longer exist, every blow has malicious intent in order to cripple you for the sheer purpose to make you feel as bad as they do, now that their fictional world has been questioned and the cracks in their fantasy begin  to show themselves. They will even go as far as to attack your close friends for absolutely no reason. So when this happens all one needs to do is hunker down and let the insults flow off you like beads of sweat. Keep in mind you have just told this person Santa doesn't exist and the best way they no how to reconciliate is to attempt to tear you down. DO NOT take the bait, that is exactly what they want. They want you to make outlandish derogatory statements so that you will then stoop to their level which is not a good thing which I will explain why shortly.

So they have spilled their load as you pseudo listened to them desperately try and fill the cracks in their bio-dome. Inevitability they will end the conversation although you have been attempting to end the conversation for some time. Not just end the conversation mind you, but go as far to block you as if you have any intention in talking to this person again after they called you a dead beat and told you your mother sucks cock (ok they didn't really say that part but I'm sure it slipped their mind at the time). So you reflect on the conversation, wipe your brow and crack a brew believing its all over and can move on. Not so fast. That person contacts you a couple of days later which you may or may not have been expecting. In my case I thought is was over. Silly me. They hit me up with like 16 text messages apologizing for the things they said and just want some more clarity as to why I threw a rock thru their fantasy dome. DO NOT fall for this ploy as I did. They're not actually sorry, they just say they are apologizing to get a foot in the door. It is done quite brilliantly saying all the right things to get you to lower your guard. As soon as you do BAM, they are right back at it. Not only do they revert back to the rhetoric from the other day, they also become absurdly petty, like pointing out misspelled words and bad grammar as if your text should be on par with an academic paper. They are still upset that you have torn down their fantasy world and are now having to face actual reality and most times they don't like what they see. So they take it out on you. You can choose to partake in a ridiculous conversation that goes nowhere fast, which I did. Or you can bitch up and tell them they are completely right and you are wrong blah blah blah... vomit. Fuck that, don't let em off easy. I just kept responding to their nonsense until they blocked me again which I was quite grateful for. So at the end of the day I lost a fictitious/fake friend which ultimately means I lost nothing.

Peaces and Creases
TBN

Disclaimer: This blog is a work of  fiction and by no means is intended to resemble any actual person
wink

He Been Gone but He Still Here... 2017 Manifesto THROAT PUNCH

Aw nah hell nah, yall dun up and done it! Hello fellow citizens, long time no speak. I've been gone but not lost. So fear not, Turbonegro has not forsaken you. Yet. That's a shot out to my Trump fans out there (if you are a Trump fan, you are reading this by sheer accident and have clearly lost your way). So lets begin shall we?

It's a brand new year and the movie Idiocracy is beginning to hit closer to home, am I right? Idiocracy is the new 1984. Dewayne Johnson 2020! Actually that would probably be a step up from our current leader who's name shall be unnamed (second line, first paragraph). So that happened. So what's been up with me lately you ask? Well funny you ask because I was just about to tell ya. Excuse my rhetoric, I just finished reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I got that Mark Twain twang flowin thru me. But I DYgress! So mid October I got an unexpected roomie. Spoiler alert, fucking trainwreck full of infants. Didn't turn out so well. If you take a alcoholic former Marine suffering from PTSD, and mix it with a bi polar maniac who's used to being the alpha (I see you Electric, wink), a dash of narcotics and exorbitant amounts of alchohol, "what the fuck do you got? you got the realest and illest killas tied up in a knot". Shot out to my boy Em. No it was fucking mayhem. I look back on it and could swear to you that we lived together for the better part of a year. But, I learned a lot, loved a lot,cried a lot, fought a lot (mentally and physically), and am a better man for it. Would I do it again.... just like 9/11, never again ( FUCK YOU Electric).

Other than that whole fiasco, man shit, I know about as much as the next man. I don't know if I'm coming or going. I was just now scrolling thru my post's over the years and not very many of them are very positive. So I submit to you my Kanye's workout plan- I been back in Tejas for little over a year now. Noooooot exactly how I pictured it would go down. But when does anything ever turn out how you pictured it? So it's 2017, a whole new year, and it's time to get back to work. Roots are starting to grow and we cant have that. Sooooo I need to:

• finish my book- maybe
• backpack to Guadalajara- maybe
• move to Colorado- maybe
• finish writing a screenplay- maybe
• go to prison- strong possibility
• or make 2017 my bitch and THROAT PUNCH all the likes of ya!!!!!!!- ding ding ding

#70shadesofdarkerness

Peaces and Creases

TBN

P.S.- The answer is all of them. Talk to you sooon

STAY SALTY