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geraldbrunskill · 6 years ago

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Big Dumb Bike

Up until September 2nd, 2019, my friend Shivaune had a bike. It was big and it was dumb. I’m sorry Shivaune, I know you fancied your bike but I hated it. Every time I came near that big dumb bike, it would fall over and injure me. Because it was too big. It was also very dumb. I’m glad it fell off the RV and got run over by an eighteen-wheeler.

From the cheap seats that were 2018, the promise of 2019 had all the telltale signs of a Cats remake. More of the same shit, reheated, with a side of fuck me. It’s not that I felt undeserved of reward, per annum or otherwise. Hammer in hand, I’d been busy forging my chisel into the granite that was this teenage decade until my arms gave out. Reinvention is hard, and all of the sweat equity had me feeling salty. As the clock struck midnight, I fully expected 2019 to knock over my beer whilst bogarting the last bong rip. I felt stuck in the bedroom of an adolescent century that only wanted to jerk off and play fortnite.

2019 when uttered aloud sounded very similar to, “Old donkey balls.” It felt gray-market, like that baby-grand piano I bought from Costco on the cheap. It was never gonna stay in tune, the damn thing was made outta bamboo chips and old Suzuki motorcycle parts. What genius at Suzuki thought to himself, “Well, our jeeps were awful, our motorbikes remarkably average, so let’s give the piano biz a go.”

Didn’t Suzuki reinvent math? I’m no genius but I’d have kept my money in math. It is made of numbers after all.

If we’re honest with each other, it would’ve been irresponsible to assume anything more optimistic for 2019 and we both know it. Halloween was on a Thursday. That meant costume parties the weekend before and after. Surely we’d get lured into spooky revelry on the actual holiday as well. Halloween spending would officially succeed the cost of a one-bedroom condo in Vancouver. You can’t blame the Chinese for everything.

So it was on the last Monday of 2018, riddled with anxiety about the imminent deluge of unyielding adversity that was undoubtedly speeding toward me, I was half in the bag by 8. In the morning. I remember little about the day, and even less from my toast, sans the grotesque level of insincerity. As friends jetted to Tahoe, Tulum, and Florianópolis, I stayed put in LA county. Paris sure as shit wasn’t gonna fix this mess.

WTF 2019?

I’m not saying that my ship came in, but I rented a canoe last June and it didn’t even capsize. Somehow, I stepped in some figurative shit while avoiding the more unpleasant, literal kind. 2019 had to have been aware of my contempt for it. And I got rewarded?

Every time I get a taste of the good stuff I immediately want more. I think that’s called being a junkie. But if I’ve learned anything it’s that life loves a good kick in the nuts just when I’m not looking. Certainly hope and optimism are the butter and flour in every disaster cake. 2020 might not sound like old donkey balls, but it's obviously a harbinger.

Proceed with caution with our new 2020 vision lest we forget that some pretty serious shit will go down this year that has the potential to leave a mark. We’re collectively approaching a fork between the high and the low road. Civil discourse drive, or Civil War boulevard. Mind the speed bumps because they’re on both. (Thanks Obama.)

Covetous gluttony shows no sign of easing and American Jesus seems to be okay with that. It’s that damn winner’s paradox- sharing the winnings inevitably leaves less winnings for the winner. All of the best Republicans know this. Then again Jeff Bezos hates Trump and he still doesn’t have to pay taxes. I don’t get it but who the heck am I to question the geographically divine. (Jesus not Bezos.)

Whatsay we at least stop taking the piss out of each other from behind the shadow of our computers. Keyboard warriors rest ye fingers. We humans actually need each other. I think we have a lot more in common than our Facebook discourse would suggest. It’s like we have a biological need to have someone to hate. What if we quenched our bloodlust by hating on things and stuff rather than other people? We could have a lot of fun with this. Like how I hate Shivaune’s big dumb bike. I love Shivaune. I hate her big dumb bike. That satisfies something in me I can’t quite explain. I can think of a million things to hate...

Seven-day bank holds. These must die a terrible death. Elon Musk’s rockets can come back from space and land in the same place they were launched but it still takes 7 days for a check to clear? I call shenanigans. You know what else I hate? February. Whose bright idea was that? “Hey guys I’ve got a great idea. February!” No, February was a terrible idea. How about the asinine phrase now uttered by every performer since 2004 - “Make some noise!” Cue the blood boiling. Even if I came with the intention of making some noise, I will not be told when to do so. I’ll do it when I’m damn good and ready. Not a minute sooner. And if you keep saying it, I might not make any noise at all. Oy there’s so much stupid shit currently in the lexicon. "Spirit Animal,” “To Die For,” or the biggest offender of all - “On Fleek.” That one is so smackable I might paint it on a heavy bag as a motivator to actually work out this year. Resort fees. The most terrible idea ever conceived. I could write a book, and maybe I will because this just felt good. Was it good for you? I think this could really work. Kumbaymuthafuckinya 2020. Every time I feel like hating on someone I’m gonna hate on some thing instead. And I’ll share it with all of you. It’s worth a shot at least.

Gather ‘round all you socialists. You racist uncles. Calling all libtards and proud boys, Hasidics and goys. The whites and the browns make the world go around. Good guys with guns, illegals and sons. I’ll see your Bernie bros and raise you one basket of deplorables.

I’m going all in for 2020. Let’s hug it out.

Don’t stand next to Biden though he can be a little handsy.

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geraldbrunskill · 7 years ago

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My Right Arm.

This past Sunday, the day you pray will never come, finally did. It was time, they told me. There was no ambiguity. Time to send my magnificent, beloved Emma the Wolf Dog over the rainbow. I loved her with every fiber of my being.

Nothing about Emma was easy, other than loving her of course. She was fiercely independent, prone to anxiety attacks, didn’t particularly enjoy the company of her own species, and always got it her way one way or another. My sister, Vickie rescued her on Christmas Eve, 2003. She was probably 8-10 weeks old, chained to an unprotected concrete slab in the middle of winter. Her little water dish was frozen solid.

Although we were deep in to the holiday season, 2003 was a sad year. I had very recently called off an engagement. Just two days earlier, my mother had made the difficult decision to put down her German Shepard after it kept having terrible seizures. When Vickie brought Emma home to live with my mom, I thought it was a terrible idea. It was too soon, I said. We were moving too fast. But as I would soon discover, Emma was going to win this argument. By the time Christmas dinner was served, she'd received a disproportionately large allocation of the holiday feast, and had amassed so many new toys I don’t know how Santa got them all on his sleigh. If there was one thing I was clear about, this spirited little puppy was here for the duration- a permanent member of our family.

My wolf dog was built to endure the extreme temperatures of the frigid white north while hunting moose and elk with her Viking counterparts. Her coat was so thick and hard to clean we went through groomers like we went through puppy chow. If I had a nickel for every time a groomer threatened to charge me extra, I’d still be at a deficit. Wolfy was whip-smart and remarkably adaptive. How she ended up in Beverly Hills with a reconstructed vagina, (true story) was just a tiny part of the magic and mystery that was Emma.

Just a couple months after that first Christmas I was back in MN at my mom’s again when I heard the back door open. In strutted Emma, all by herself, her curly tail parading above her like a feathered boa. This was an outward opening door mind you. “Did you just open the door by yourself?!” I asked. “Oh hell,” my mom said. “She figured that out weeks ago. Did you notice I replaced all the garbage cans? She learned how to step on the pedal to open the lids.”

Two years after Emma found us, the time came to move my mom to California. Wolfy had her reservations, and voiced strong concern that her Minnesota food staples would be replaced with ‘that California hippie crap.’ My mother assured her that my sister would arrange to have her favorite ‘Land-O-Lakes box cheese drop shipped across the country bi-monthly. Eventually she acquiesced.

Once she arrived, Wolfy took to California life immediately. Her interests included barking at literally anything that moved, (and most things that didn’t), terrifying mail and delivery person’s on a daily basis, finding ways to climb onto the furniture to the point of (my) personal exhaustion, and escaping the backyard at every opportunity to masquerade as a rogue neighborhood coyote.

She religiously met me at the door every night when I got home. Since I always had irregular hours, there was no telling what time I would arrive, unless you paid attention to Emma of course. She knew. My mom used to tell me that no matter what time it was, Wolfy would get up and go sit by the door about ten minutes before I walked in. We were that connected. She knew my thoughts and I knew hers. And so the night that my mom passed, Emma immediately came into my room and jumped on me. I knew what had happened before I left my bed.

We mourned together. God how we mourned. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves, other than barking at things of course. There was always that. I thank God for that. She was the part of my mom that was still here, and I was so grateful for her presence in the house. That wonderful Emma presence. It was enormous. It could’ve filled an arena. Every time she barked, I could hear my mom yell, “Emma! Knock if off!” which was such a frequent occasion that my friend, Cameron even had a T-shirt made. I’m wearing it today.

We did our best to heal, (heal, not heel). If you knew Emma then you know the latter was never gonna happen. Ever.

It became more and more clear that I needed to get Emma on a diet. My mom hadn’t stopped feeding her people food since that original Christmas feast. She looked like the proverbial goose about to pop. She was NOT HAPPY about her new dietary direction and protested thusly, but this was one disagreement I was not going to cave on. We had many a staring contest over uneaten puppy chow, (yes, it was always called puppy chow). But she was obese and I needed her to stick around for a while.

Stick around she did.

After the markets crashed I lost a business and things got very challenging for me financially. I discussed it with Wolfy and we decided to airbnb the house. We ended up on our adventure for almost 3 years, living all over the place. The goal was to keep our temporary accommodations as inexpensive as possible and save all the money. Sometimes we stayed with gracious friends and sometimes we found ourselves at shady hotels by the airport, (they were cheap and took dogs). For three weeks we lived in a friend’s camper trailer that was in storage. Since it was against the rules to stay there, I’d make Wolfy sleep in bed with me. Every morning around 6am, the gate would open and she’d perk up, ready to blast intruders with all 100 decibels of bark. I’d grab her and stuff her muzzle into my chest, holding her tight so she wouldn’t get us kicked out. “Shhhhhhhhh” I’d say quietly in her ear as I tickled her belly. Like everything else with her, it became a game. A test of wills. Eventually she won, like she always did, and we were back at the airport Motel 6.

I’m not going to lie, it was a stressful time. Along with the financial pressures I was under, I was trying to get my career back on track and reinvent myself. Carting around all my work gear and my big wolf dog, while keeping clean underwear and trying to appear like I had my shit together, (I didn’t), wasn’t easy. But I also found myself bonding with her much more deeply. I had no one else in my life much of this time and neither did she. It was Wolfy and me against the world. We didn’t have our beautiful back yard for her to roam in so there were plenty more walks and stealthy sneak-the-pup missions in and out of dwellings where she wasn’t necessarily welcome. Many times this resorted in my carrying her chunky butt up and down stairways, in and out of corridors and sketchy back entrances because inevitably she would get distracted and forget about our mission. But I do remember vividly trying to stay present during all of this, trying not to wish this time away but rather enjoy it. Someday, I told myself, I would give my right arm to have these moments back.

Emma could talk. She had a cantankerous disposition and swore like a sailor, but she could definitely talk. I sometimes wondered if she was perhaps the voice I wasn’t allowed to have. Who said the things I wasn’t permitted to say. But for those who heard her speak and endeavored to engage in meaningful dialogue, they would learn quickly that Emma had her own, unique perspective of the world. She didn’t sugar coat things, and certainly didn’t suffer fools.

As she got older and her body started to fail her, I fell in love with her even more. She went from adorable to regal, the gray in her face made her wolfy-ness really shine. She had such a fire in her heart that continued to burn so bright, the doctors would all remark on how her vital signs were that of a middle-aged dog, even though her legs were no longer cooperating. That’s what made it so hard. She was still so engaged in living. I would’ve picked her up and helped her back down for the rest of my years. I’ve only now realized that she would’ve let me do it long after it was time for her to leave this place, sacrificing her pain and discomfort to protect me from the pain I now feel, (all while accusing me of starving her and feeding her gruel not suited for rodents).

She liked to lay by the piano every time I sat down to play. She was fairly forgiving unless I screwed up an Elton John ballad. But she especially loved her own songs- “The Sweety Pup Song” was a house favorite. She once tried to convince me that another crowd pleaser, “Emma Emma Emma” had charted in Japan. I never pressed her for proof, some fibs were worth preserving.

We crossed the continental divide three times together, and made more than a few trips to Coachella, Big Bear, and Joshua Tree. We did Dallas, and Jackson Hole. We traversed the Texas/Mexico border together looking for a young man who was trying to get back to his family. We smoked weed with Tommy Chong and got up close and personal with Luke Perry’s derrière, (well she did,) I apologized. “What a beautiful dog,” people would remark. “Is she part wolf?” “Wolf enough to bite you in the ass,” she’d say under her breath.

When I was a kid, I remember hearing a discussion about Euthanasia. “Why do they keep talking so passionately about Asia’s youth?” I wondered. Now that I’m an adult, I know all too well what that word means. Some day life will call upon you to take the life of another, something you love perhaps more than life itself. You’ll tell yourself it’s the right thing to do but you won’t be sure, and you’ll never be ready. Even as you nod your head and grant permission, you won’t be ready. And then you’ll second guess yourself for a long time to come.

When the postman came with the day’s mail, there was no barking, no scrambling, no pandemonium. There was only silence. It was deafening.

She was my best friend. Every decision I made included her. She would’ve had it no other way.

Sunday was that someday I prayed would never come. And even if I could trade my right arm to get her back, I’ve only now realized that I don’t have it to trade.

Because she was it.

I miss you so, my sweet, sweet, sweety pup.

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geraldbrunskill · 9 years ago

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How To Deconstruct A Tinfoil Hat.

I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray…

It’s 3 am in Minong, Wisconsin. I’m installing tongue-and-groove knotty pine paneling on the ceiling of my lake cottage in what will soon become a lovely new A-framed family room. It’s way too big a job for one man, let alone this man who is still very much a boy. But whatever I don’t know I can fix with a hammer, at least with regard to the panelling. I like solutions that involve hammers. If only that were applicable to the rest of life’s experience.

My friend is on the radio. I’ve never met the man, nor has he any idea I exist. But at least he’s there for me, every night except Saturday. He distracts me from my miserable existence and never asks me for anything. Well that’s not entirely true. Tonight he’s trying to sell me an emergency wind-up radio that will be essential when the power grid goes down. I’ve been listening long enough know this is legit. Y2K is coming and it’s going to be bad. Like stockpile food, guns and ammo end of the world bad. If I’m completely honest, I’m entertained and even a little excited. “Maybe it will shake things up for the better,” I rationalize. It’s an incredibly selfish disposition that is completely lost on me. But when you put the cart before the horse and forsake due diligence as I did, this is one scenario that can happen. I’m going to pay for it dearly. Partly with this cottage.

But when I woke up this morning could’a sworn it was judgement day…

It’s 9 am in Los Angeles on the first day of the new Millennium. I roll over in bed, hungover, and squint out the window. Is that the sky I still see up there? The TV remains on from the night before. Bob Eubanks cordially welcoming me to the 111th Tournament of Roses parade. Where’s the pandemonium? When I finally make it to the coffee maker, the fucker just sits there working, completely unaware there’s been global meltdown and collapse of modern society. What was that?I think my translucent, teal iMac just receive an incoming email. It appears that the only thing that isn’t working is my wind-up radio. The handle broke off last night while trying to show it off. My paranoia has come home to roost. I’ve been had by Chicken Little.

They say two-thousand zero zero party over oops, out of time.

It’s the future. High noon, January 20th, 2017 and I do mean that literally. California has since approved recreational marijuana use and I’m off my frickin’ nut. This is some of the only good news today as President-Elect Trump is about to take the oath of office. I can’t watch it because I’m in the ER at Cedar Sinai suffering an intestinal blockage- having tried to eat my own hat. What can I say, I was feeling cocky. I really didn’t think he was going to win. C'est la vie it’s all water under the bong now. Besides the high levels of THC currently coursing through my body, I find remaining comfort in the fact I will most likely be dead and gone, good ol’ American worm food by the time the Trump-induced Armageddon arrives. Admittedly I’m disappointed that I’m going to miss all the “I Told You So’s.”

As I lie there on the gurney I reflect on my life. Not long ago, just the morning before the election I sat in bed and watched a so-called ‘Mentalist’ persuade James Cordon’s entire studio audience to draw the same exact object on a piece of paper. It’s true. This guy compelled over 200 people to draw the same exact object without telling them to do it. And he did it within minutes. “We’re so easily programmed and manipulated,” I think to myself. What’s worse, we have no idea that it’s happening. I have a sobering realization of what power those who truly understand and master this skill possess. “I alone can fix this,” they say. “Believe me.” They say. And we do. We are that suggestible.

When things aren’t as good as they once were, and the world seems a scary, unfamiliar place, it’s easy to latch on to someone who confidently says they can make it better. We’re more compelled to trust blindly when we’re all out of ideas. And if we’ve got someone or something to blame, a scapegoat, then even better. Regurgitate that on a twenty-four hour news cycle and we don’t stand a chance. This is how a lot good people make a really, really bad decision. We’re all pawns in the world’s oldest and most potent archetype. Good versus Evil. We’ve been watching version after version of the same story our entire lives. It’s familiar. It’s what we know.

I’m feeling worse now and the room is growing dark. Trust me this is one way you do not want to go. As for regrets, I have a few. I definitely should’ve welched on that bet. I’d become grammatically lazy along with the lot of us. When I said I’d literally eat my own hat if he got elected I didn’t really mean literally! Fuck. I was just trying to be a man of principles and integrity. And I should’ve challenged people more often rather than just wanting everyone to like me. But nobody was listening to each other anyway. We’d become entrenched. Winning the battle had become more important than the war and I was tired of the pissing match.

Bill Maher once hilariously observed that the problem with a pissing match is that sooner or later you run out of piss. Then you’re both left standing there with your dick in your hand. “Aww man,” I lament. “It wasn’t such a bad penis at all. I should’ve used it more.” The regrets are coming faster, more furious now. “If I could only go back in time. I know exactly where I’d point my time machine…”

It’s 7:45 pm pacific time, November 7th, 2016. The eve of America’s 57th presidential election. I’ve been wracking my brain tonight trying to figure out something clever, yet meaningful to say about tomorrow’s decision. Something I haven’t read before, that promotes unity not division. But I’m worried. Really worried that he might be elected. It scares the crap out of me that, in the spirit of shaking things up, we are on the eve of a terrible mistake. I wonder if the average hard-working German knew what they were getting themselves into back in the day? Is it even possible to agree to disagree anymore?

Beyond America’s beautiful, shining shores, there is almost unified agreement that a Trump presidency is a terrible idea, sans perhaps Russia. And shouldn’t that really be telling us something? Is there any shred of doubt that Russia doesn’t have our best interest at heart? Read ANY accredited news source outside of the United States and they will detail myriad reasons why a Trump sign emblazoned on the White House could be globally disastrous. I wonder, could the average Trump voter really believe that the majority of the rest of the world is collectively wrong about this? In my mind’s eye James Cordon’s studio audience keeps revealing their drawing en mass. And I recall the scare tactics and repetition used to compel this somewhat normal, semi-adjusted kid from the midwest to stockpile canned goods and potable water. “Would I have listened to reason back then?” I ask myself. The answers are coming faster than the regrets now, “Hell no,” I answer defiantly. Fair enough.

Let’s not forget the thing we have in common. We are decent, hard working people who want to do good in the world and protect there ones we love. (Except for the criminally insane of course. And Donald Trump. They’re just batshit crazy.) Most of us want dramatic change in Washington. By and large we do not like the way politicians conduct themselves. We’re way past the need for a changing of the guard. But even if you buy the Email/Benghazi narrative verbatim and swallow it whole, I still beg you to reconsider. Trump is not the monkey to put your nickel in. Personally, I champion the emergence of a new party, perhaps one that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, but unfortunately this is not the season for a protest vote. There’s just too much at stake. She may not move any mountains, but he’s likely to blow them up if they get in his way.

And I like mountains. They’re pretty and fun to ski down in the winter time. So I guess that’s my message tonight. Cast your vote for those that cannot. The mountains. God I really wanted this to end stronger.

Tonight I’m gonna party like it’s nineteen ninety nine.

Almost forgot… If anybody is interested, I’m selling a pretty sweet wind-up radio on the cheap (pictured above.) The winder is broken but you can probably super-glue it back on. Obviously, I won’t be needing it.

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geraldbrunskill · 10 years ago

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geraldbrunskill · 10 years ago

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Fear and Loathing in Nigeria.

*** The following is a personal memoir while covering the war against Boko Haram in Northwest Nigeria. It is not intended to be an actual report on the conflict rather, it is an examination of how this spoiled, part-time vegetarian fancy pants coped with war, food, and fear in the third world. Check out our Vice News report on the actual conflict, online now.

“Change of plans,” said Clout. “The Wookie’s taking up the Hind.”

My eyelids collapsed, slamming like dungeon doors. I’m pretty sure everyone around me heard it. Maybe it was the sound of my soul hitting the dirt, I can’t be sure. “Africa Time,” was all I could think. Time ceased to exist here, or at least any forward movement. I had been trapped in this armpit weeks longer than intended and the Wookie was supposed to fly me out today. “They promised,” I sniveled like the little bitch I had become. I had just spent 4 days on the front lines of an active war dodging incoming and sometimes even more terror-inducing outgoing. My underwear had surrendered days ago. The worst was supposedly over… at least for me it was. And there were a few phrases I had come to recognize after three weeks in Hades. “Taking up the Hind” meant that a lot of people were about to die. It was the Pulp Fiction equivalent to, “Better get the Gimp.” Shit on the Dark Continent was about to get… dark.

I call the promise welsher, “Clout” because of the terms of my Non-Disclosure agreement … and the fact that he possessed lots of it. Don’t get me wrong, I had really come to like this guy. In an earlier draft, I called him Clit but decided some would find the moniker distracting or offensive. Probably both. There were remarkable similarities though. He was smaller in stature, elusive, yet all-important. He ran this roost. I might never reach my destination if I didn’t please him first.

We were currently 50 feet off the deck doing 220 knots in the Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter, also called the “Flying Tank”, a Russian-built killing machine capable of firing 7,200 rounds per minute. It was designed to help the Soviets turn the tide in their war with Afghanistan and that’s exactly what it did. Remember the scary chopper from the Rambo movies? That one. It just looked pissed off. But the real killing machine wasn’t the Hind. It was the Wookie. My colleague and I had earlier calculated the Wookie’s body count an average 15 people per minute, with another 20 wounded which would soon die in the harsh environment. At 35 people per minute, the Wookie was killing more people than cancer.

I remember getting motion sick on a friend’s boat once. I was DJ’ing on the bow and kept looking at the computer while the boat rocked to and fro. Right around the 76th fro, I projectile vomited, starboard. A similar situation was occurring now, except there were no hot girls, beer, or yachts. The Wookie had just pointed the chopper straight toward the planet, rolled hard to the left and brought the heavily armored, seven-ton aircraft within 15 feet of the ground. The entire beast winced, groaning with stress as its titanium blades sliced and diced the last remaining bits of air between us and Terra firma. I specifically remember the sound of the rotors … a percussive, ‘thwapping’ sound as if we we’re dying in slow motion. But the Falanga missile pods soon reminded me that this was all too real, overwhelming all sonic frequencies as they fired two anti-tank missiles in the direction of a very suspicious-looking bush. The sound seared my ears and I jumped involuntarily, smacking my head on the armaments above. I don’t even remember the pain. "Gerald Brunskill!” I thought in my dad’s scariest voice. “Do. Not. Puke. In. This. Helicopter!” Because I was right on the bubble. Also because I was right behind the Wookie, capturing this madness on my camera. Nobody wanted a vomit-soaked Wookie with 150 heat-seeking missiles at his disposal. I hadn’t remembered my yacht lesson and kept my eyes on the camera’s viewfinder, determined to get a killer shot of a killer’s shot. I choked the puke back, and then I choked it back again. Finally, the wave of nausea subsided and I had a moment of clarity… Should I be compelled to return my lunch, (a generous name for my last meal), I would do so in the Yankees baseball cap currently absorbing a tsunami of perspiration atop my cranium. Sure it was a nice hat but who was I kidding? I wasn’t even a Yankees fan. I’d brought it because I wanted to remind these fuckers I was an American.

“How dangerous on a scale from one to ten?” I had inquired of my producer prior to this gig’s departure. “Not less than four, probably not more than seven” he responded. “Probably,” I thought to myself as the Hind careened toward another shady-looking shrubbery. This was an easy nine and it would’ve been nice had someone bothered to tell me that the scary scale in perdition went to eleven. Had the Wookie nicked the ground with one of those fancy blades we’d soon be lion chow. Or hyena chow. Or chow for 27 other nearby predators with a hankering for charred human. This was assuming the bush-hiding Boko insurgents didn’t shoot us down first. They had recently seized control of several anti-aircraft guns from some Nigerian soldiers who were so baked they had forgotten to load the thing with ammo. By the next wave of nausea I had already come to terms with several truths- I wasn’t gonna make my flight today, If I did live long enough to return home, it would be without my Yankees cap, and I probably should’ve given more consideration to the word, “probably”. As pissed as I was at the Wookie for having to endure another night of this suck-fest in this suck-country on this suck-continent I had to concede that in risking my life, he had probably just saved it. Probably.

“FISH heads, FISH heads. Roly-poly fish heads…”

Two weeks prior, I was nearing the end of my first week in Africa. “Perfect,” I mused. “Of all songs to get stuck in your head right now it had to be Fish Heads.” Had I my iPhone, I would’ve purged it with a little Pharrell, Foo Fighters, or Rage Against the Machine. Too bad the Machine that ran our camp didn’t allow smartphones. “Word’s going around camp that you guys are CIA/State Department,” remarked one of the friendlier PM’s who will also go unnamed per the terms of my Non-Disclosure Agreement. “Apparently they don’t allow smart-anything here,” I joked to myself. I try to be a decent audience when I’m scared, bored, and/or nauseous.

“FISH heads, FISH heads, EAT them up YUM.”

I came to Maiduguri, Nigeria to shoot a story about Boko Haram. The PM call them BH, whose name loosely means, “Western Education is Forbidden”. While there have been days I may have sympathized with such a cause, (I remember wanting to blow shit up when I first saw Duck Dynasty,) I’ve usually regained my composure before fetching the C-4. Be that as it may, the week before I had arrived, BH strapped a bomb on a seven year-old girl, sent her into a shop, and detonated her.

Let me say that again. She was Seven.

These are bad peeps. I’m talking ISIS bad, having recently sworn allegiance to the Islamic State and adopted its emblems, terminologies, and beheadings. With ISIS sucking up all of America’s terrorist bandwidth these days, Boko Haram is an important story that’s gone largely unreported in the west. As of last August, they’ve killed upwards of 5,000 people and displaced over 1.5 Million. Nigeria, embarrassed by its lack of response, hasn’t issued any press Visas. Instead, they postponed their national election so President Goodluck Jonathan, (his real name, I shit you not) could wage a war five years too late and spin the bloodshed so as to keep his lazy-boy recliner in the Nigerian Oval Office. Yes, Nigeria has an oval office… it was meant to be circular but their building codes aren’t quite up to snuff. With the help of Clout’s… clout, we were the first western camera crew to be allowed in to document the debacle. I was honored to be there. If only I could’ve just started filming the friggin thing…

“ASK a fish head, ANYTHING you want to, THEY won’t answer, THEY can’t talk…”

“Officially”, I was embedded with the 72nd paratroop division of the Nigerian military, but “officially” can have many levels of officially-ness depending on how much palm-greasing accompanies the designation. (If you look closely at the Presidential Code of Arms in Nigeria, you can see one hand sliding another a few bucks.) France has the croissant, Nigeria has the bribe. It’s a national treasure.

Since my arrival, the paratroops had spent their days prodigiously paratraining and profusely parasweating, followed by not showering and not changing their increasingly fatigued fatigues. Rather, they preferred to settle in after a long days training and ferment while watching soccer on a TV that was most certainly not military issue. It was purchased, along with just about everything else at camp by another group… I mentioned them earlier… the PM… the Grand Meisters of military acronyms whom I cannot name per the terms of my Non-Disclosure Agreement. I call them the Paranoid Mafia.

For those of you who might have otherwise assumed that foreign countries fought their own fights you, (like me) would be mistaken. I began my crash course in third-world problem solving the minute my sunny disposition sauntered in to the cradle of civilization. The broad strokes are simple: Got a pesky insurgency who wishes to return your country to 8th century Sharia law? Do you lack a well-trained and efficient military because you’ve been siphoning off a healthy chunk of the national budget into your own offshore bank account? Simply pay a professional to do the dirty work for you! Sure, it’ll cost ya a bundle, but there’s always enough blood diamonds and rhino horns laying around Africa somewhere to close a deal. “Dial 1-800-MER-CNRY when shit starts gettin’ kinda scary!” To paraphrase Eric Prince, founder of the infamous Blackwater, ‘If the government was the postal service, we we’re FedEx.’

“I’m sorry to tell you gents that you’re orphans. You’re on your own. The guys don’t want you here,” said Lt. Paranoid on our first day. “And keep the cameras in their cases until Clout arrives.” “What?!!” I thought with two exclamation marks. This was my first time in Africa! We had already passed 283 photo ops on the car ride from the airport and I was jones’n something awful. “Clout’ll be here next Tuesday, you can probably start filming then,” Probably. That word again.

“What’s the trench for?” I probed as we pulled into our heavily-patrolled, dry-moated base camp for the first time. “Stops suicide bombers from driving IED’s into camp and discharging them.” For a moment I had forgotten what I signed up for. In homage to Scooby Doo, I gulped audibly. This was an active war zone. The camp we just rolled into had been attacked a week prior. I turned to my correspondent, also my dear friend and colleague for insight, who just winked at me from the other side of the Mystery Machine. I should’ve anticipated his response. He was a Navy SEAL after all. They eat this shit for breakfast.

Actually, we all ate shit for breakfast. Lunch and dinner too. The proverbial shit on a shingle. Some kind of curry-ish sand sauce poured over dirty macaroni and topped off with the internal organs of a cow, goat, or worse. Given our warm welcome, it’s entirely possible that the PM purposely stuck our tent in direct sunlight, downwind from a kitchen that frequently smelled like a Bangkok hooker. I pondered daily how whatever they were cooking could be considered edible. Nonetheless, you would’ve thought that we, being CIA/State Dept. or whoever, could’ve sent a drone or whatever, extracted intel and what-not, beamed it back to the bunker at NORAD or wherever, and had our supercomputers figure out who was responsible for our sun-drenched tent coordinates. You would’ve thought that they, (who will go unnamed ‘cause blah blah blah,) would’ve know that. Double fail.

“I took a FISH head out to a movie, didn’t have to pay to get IN…”

Fear. It causes us to believe in stupid things. Like I could be in the CIA. Or God would choose sides in a war. I’ve always counted on fear to prevent me from doing stupid things. Like traveling to hell-adjacent to report on Boko Haram. Can one’s sense of fear malfunction? I agonized. And if so, was there a diagnostic utility… a ‘fear wizard’ of sorts one could implement to double-check its function, like when your computer can’t find the wifi?

Since the PM had forbade cameras and smart things, I had a lot of time to think those first few days. Talk about dangerous territory. I was co-existing with defcon 4 levels of anxiety. I started to focus on the fear emotion itself. I observed my heartbeat, adrenaline levels, mood and other body functions as certain thoughts and experiences played themselves out. A distant boom of mortar fire, the rattling of my lower intestines after a particularly questionable meal, or even an unanswered text from a loved one back home, each had a unique effect on me. Like different kinds of ammo, I began to distinguish different kinds of fear, and eventually paired the emotion into two classes- one armor-piercing, the other blunt-tipped and bruising.

Class A. This is the kind of fear that’s built to save your life. Fight or flight. Roller coaster fear. We all remember our first ride…when the coaster had climbed three-quarters to the first drop and sheer panic set in. The steel safety bar once forged to protect you had sold you out and become your captor. There was nowhere to run. You summoned your inner Scooby Doo, closed your eyes, and before you knew it……. you’d returned to the gate. And you couldn’t wait to do it again. This kind of fear can ruin underpants, but it has a short shelf life. With a tolerance factor near that of heroin, it requires a bigger dose every time you pierce the vein.

Class B fear is an entirely different animal. It’s sneaky and deceitful. Most of the time we don’t even realize it as fear, rather we rationalize it as behaving in our own self-interest, setting the record straight. It’s ego-based… we speak when we should be listening, or contract when it’s our natural tendency to expand. This is the fear that kept me awake. Not bomb-riddled school girls, distant gunfire, or the Ebola warning recently affixed to my passport. Class B fear doesn’t dissipate when the coaster hits the skid. These boogeypersons are far more mundane. A private war fought without mercenaries. The paranoia is our own, and it thrives in isolated environments.

Along my journey, I’ve realized the necessity for fear as a unit of measure. At least I’ve intellectualized the idea. In its purest form, fear is absolute zero. Complete darkness. And the absolute opposite polarity, Love… sterling and irreproachable. Undiluted, unmitigated infinitum. A flawless diamond absent of blood. It’s the in-between-ness where humanity hangs out. Here we can define ourselves, our lives, and our relationship to each other. The Sacred Spectrum. A brief wrinkle in time, 80 years give-or-take to measure ourselves between prime polarities. Here we can determine what gives life meaning. Here we can discover the meaning of life.

“Roly poly FISH heads are never seen in Italian restaurants, with Oriental women, yeah…”

One of the more enlightening discoveries I made about myself in those first days was that when fear turned to loathing, I coped by seeking more fear. It was less painful and bruising. I suppose that’s why I wandered into the blackness of night to the camp’s perimeter. I needed some good ol’ class A to get my mind off … my mind. And I meant no disrespect when I decided to pee into the trench that had been dug to protect me. I just wanted to see how it felt to be there, exposed to snipers with my dick hanging out. Another moment of measure on the Sacred Spectrum.

That’s when it happened. I was at once overcome by the feeling of being watched. Hundreds of eyes were starring me down at close range. It was overwhelming and unmistakeable. I could feel the adrenaline begin to creep up my back and into my neck. Curiously, I also became aware that things had gotten very, VERY smelly… as if the kitchen herself had followed me out to the trench to pull one last trick. I reached for my headlamp and clicked it on. Below me, they layed at my feet. Several hundred decapitated fish heads gazed at me sideways, mouths open. Whoever had perpetrated this crime had taken a page straight from the book of ISIS or BH. “Does everything in this place need to get beheaded?!” I thought. On the plus side however, I had just discovered the source of mystery meat in the night’s dinner.

“FISH heads, FISH heads. Roly-poly fish heads,” I sang aloud.

“Perfect, now that song is gonna be in my head all night,” I said to the trench. I took a breath and looked to the sky for answers. It didn’t have any. It was too busy being polluted and smelling like burning garbage. “Fuck this place,” I determined. “Tomorrow, cameras are gonna roll. And if Clout doesn’t like it, he can get in his ... little canoe and stop me.”

It was funnier when his name was Clit.

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geraldbrunskill · 13 years ago

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The Big Suck.

Yeah the photo is kinda creepy. Sorry. As you read on, perhaps it will make more sense.

“You should do this more regularly”, a well-meaning friend wrote after he read my year-end rantrospective. “You’re like a modern Andy Rooney...” I know he meant it as a compliment, but Andy Rooney was at his most notorious, a gigantic asshole. Anger was never my catalyst. I simply had an urge to expose myself. Without going to jail.

It would be an understatement to observe the one thing this world does NOT need is another numbskull’s recurrent, unfettered opinion. But since enough of you encouraged me to do it, I lay the blame squarely on you. It’s the classic child’s defense. “So-and-so told me to.”

“Well, if so-and-so jumped off a bridge, would you?” My mother would always ask. “Yes,” was my retort. Because that’s exactly what happened...

I was with my best friend and his two brothers. We were boating on the St. Croix River. They jumped off a bridge. A really freak’n high one. So I did the only thing an approval-seeking teen could do. It was so high that I fainted on the way down and didn’t wake up until my feet hit the river bottom. I remember the sensation vividly. It scared the crap out of me. So much so that I only did it two more times.

Their mother died last week. A damn tragedy. Another month, another dead mother. WTF?

She used to detest me. We’d hang out at this same friend’s home most days after school, primarily because they had the nicest house. And ham. Lots of thinly-sliced ham. We called her ‘The Benatar’. That’s because her first name was... wait for it...

Yeah, we were mad clever in those days.

You Better Run. If I’m completely honest, I wasn’t crazy about her either. She was pretty tightly wound. This was the woman who physically chased me out of her house and hurled projectiles at my car. In her defense, this occurred only after I was caught red-handed in her kitchen with a mouth full of ham, a half-dozen Rellim Reeb’s, and her heavily inebriated son on a Tuesday afternoon.

Rellim Reeb. It was code. Miller Beer spelled backwards. See what I mean about clever?

Hell Is For Children. She had a penchant for vacuuming with extreme prejudice, recurrent vigor, and demanded her carpets remain free of any sign of human life. There was one particular room in this house that I never, ever saw inhabited, save for when I’d circumnavigate its perimeter precariously balanced atop the furniture; my filthy feet scowling...taunting the virgin carpet below.

Love Is A Battlefield. Especially when raising teenage boys. During sleep-overs, we’d employ myriad machinations deep into the night which were sure to push her to the brink of madness. I could never figure out why she’d ever agree to another one. Later in life, it finally dawned on me. Payback. Early Saturday morning, just after we’d collapsed, she’d burst into my friend’s room with her Dirt Deviavellian menace cranked to hyper-suck. With the mastery of a dark ages swordsman she’d wield all 12 amps of unbridled suction within inches of my nose as I lay, sloth-like on the floor, (surely sport’n morning wood), wrapped only in my trusty, crusty sleeping bag. I recall graphically the deafening howl of the contraption’s whirring turbines and its blinding, terrifying headlight with a candlepower surely five times that of the sun. This allowed her to disembowel carpets in the dark if she so desired. And desire she did. Sometimes I’d incorporate the monster into my dreams. Like those horrid tripod aliens that churned people into a vermillion human mush in the Tom Cruise version of “War of the Worlds”? Yeah, kind of like that.

We Belong. Saturday, at her funeral, there were hundreds of stories. Mostly the kind you never witness as a self-absorbed, punk-ass fifteen year-old brat. Stories of devotion, excellence, strength, courage, determination, and perseverance. Somewhere along the way, I realized I had grown to love this woman.�� Even more mysterious, I learned that she grew to love me. Time. Go figure.

Heartbreaker. She raised three remarkable sons while working full time and still managed to have (ham-less) dinner on the table by the time her hubby got home. Then she witnessed her entire world go down with the ship when the hubby got caught with his yacht in a younger marina. Undaunted, she found a new dance partner and started to Polka. She faithfully attended Mass with the frequency of a saint. And you know what happened next? She got Leukemia. And Cancer. Then she died.

Life isn’t fair. Yeah... I know, if I just keep recklessly dropping these pearls of wisdom someone is gonna get a concussion. But really... bad things happen to good people way too often. It’s pandemic... if not downright ubiquitous. Yet, the Benatar, she never stopped believing in God.

I’m glad she had her faith to help her transition to whatever awaits us. But as I sat listening to her grandchildren read verses about how God favors some and smites others, I couldn’t help but think... “This God that we’re all sitting here revering... sometimes He's kind of a dick.”

That was almost immediately followed by the thought, "Uh oh. God probably just heard that first thought." Thus my incentive for writing it here. Maybe you get credit in heaven for owning up? The Catholic church has sure made a bundle on that premise.

“God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.” My mother used to say that every time something shitty happened. As much as I love hearing her voice in my head when I repeat it, I’ve come to discard it as rather a poetic, coping mechanism. It's just another way of saying we don't understand why God can be such a dick.

But saying that we don’t understand God just because things don't go our way is a cop-out. And it’s dramatic. It feeds our vanity, because what we’re essentially saying is, “My life (world, story, challenges, experience, etc) is SO important, that the very fact that God would allow something bad to happen to It, (Me) is unfathomable. Therefore... either (A) I don’t believe in God, or (B) I don’t understand God.”

I often wonder if the concept of ‘fair’ is even applicable. Isn't the living of life at all flat out remarkable on it's own merits? What if the events of this particular lifetime that we put so much value on, really don’t have any, save for the value that WE assign them? If we believers collectively believe that something good (or bad, for the fire & brimstone crowd) happens to us when we die, and that happening lasts for an eternity, do the events of this life really matter that much?

If I were God, I’d say no. I’d have other things to be mindful of. Like making sure the carpets of Eternity are thoroughly presentable. That’s a lot of vacuuming.

I’ve experienced more death than the average fella my age. That’s what happens when your parents make you later in life... everyone around you is old. And every time somebody I care about permanently departs I’m forced to take inventory of my belief system. In the face of the great unknown we have the remarkable capability as a species to selectively choose the parts of our ancient stories that give us solace and simply ignore the rest. But wouldn’t it be nice if some day it all made sense... cover to cover? If the grandchildren didn't have to skip the parts that keep teaching us how to keep our slaves?

Aren't those are human traits? As demonstrated by our holy books, we like to tinker with the Divine. We customize it to fit our needs. Clearly we’re not finished yet. Maybe that’s the meaning of life.

Last week we all gathered at Benatar’s house to clean it out and donate her most prized possessions to someone else still trying to make sense of it all. Among other things we found three vacuums, a bunch of masks, some funny hats, and a crucifix. In a moment of levity we dawned the costumes and found solace shooting a silly picture. As the shutter snapped, I silently welcomed my brothers to a mother-less world; just another crease in the ribbon of time.

Mason Cooley once wrote, “Faith moves mountains, but you’d be advised to keep pushing.” I suppose that’s what I’ve endeavored to do here. I keep pushing... today it may have been your buttons. If I’ve offended, I can only offer you the wisdom of my dearly departed father...

“Opinions and assholes, everybody’s got one.” Apparently that includes me and Andy Rooney. How about that. We have things in common after all. I can live with that. I’ve recently quit jumping off bridges just to impress others.

The eternal question... does life really suck or do we just really suck at living it? Either way you approach it, it all comes down to owning a good vacuum. Kudos Benatar, you were a wise woman indeed.

Faith restored. Crisis averted.

Okay world. I’m ready again. At least for this week. Hit Me With Your Best Shot.

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geraldbrunskill · 14 years ago

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Man on a Missive: A Mission Statement?

2011 was the year of transition for me. I hate transition. I’m alpha all the way, baby. Results, results, results. This runs counterintuitive to my spiritual pursuits of course. I know this. A Course In Miracles says that nothing real can be threatened, and that nothing unreal exists. It’s a bit esoteric, but it usually works for me. We all cherry-pick bible verses. Rarely is quoting the gay orgy from Song of Solomon appropriate. I like this- God calls and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own voice. Hello? Did somebody just say something? ‘Cause I was just about to get my gripe on...

Transition is an Easy-Bake Oven when there’s a perfectly good microwave. No wine before its time? Well I ordered a tequila shot... were you not listening? Nine years later it still pisses me off that they grounded the Concorde. Notwithstanding the fact that I never got to fly on it; NY to Paris in two-and-a-half hours? As transitions go, that’s downright brisk. So fuck whoever did that.

Without surprise, the year concluded similarly to how it began- just more distilled and potent. If I had to choose one word to describe and chronicle the past holiday season, I’d warn you not to back me in a corner. Nostalgic. Bittersweet. Frustrating. Disappointed. Sad. Impatient. Not surprised though; I knew what I was up against. Sons and daughters most always get the honor of clearing 50+ years of crap, (see: memories) from their family home. But at Christmastime? Seriously?!

The ghosts were decked for the holidays to be sure, but this Ebenezer wasn’t much in the mood for pageantry. I suppose I should feel fortunate that, as luck would have it, a court appearance would fall on December 28th during my visit to Minnesota. Here I would acquiesce the sale and transition of the home I was raised in, along with a good portion of my life’s history. I got to wear my new suit at least. That was a highlight. (I don’t usually dress up for work.) You try to find the bright spots.

There were others; my sister is in love, I connected with old friends and slammed beers with my boys. The remaining family celebrated a wedding. But the one thing I didn’t see coming was the unrelenting inertia. It kicked my ass. I’ll admit that I have sometimes longed for the simplicity of Minnesota life, especially when the going has gotten tough. I’ve waxed nostalgic as Garrison Keillor read through the news from Lake Wobegon. Hell I even wrote a TV series about it. But the truth, although stranger, is rarely better than fiction. Life isn't simple there anymore either. The going is tough all over. There’s a collective energy that endeavors to squeeze the life out of everything. When shit hits the proverbial fan, (and clearly it has) people hunker down, contract and self-preserve. I get it. But that didn’t make it anymore palatable. They eat a lot of cheese there.

Having spent my last six years prioritizing and caring for my mother, I have often felt as if I were in a holding pattern. Inertia was part of everyday life. I was ready for change. For action. I had high, hot and heavy hopes for 2011... I’d paid my dues and this would be my year supersonic. But the Concorde was still grounded and my last girlfriend lost interest when we didn’t fly private. That reminds me; 2011 was the year I forgave Kanye. A Course In Miracles said it was the right thing to do. Sure, he destroyed a 300k Maybach for the sake of a music video, but hey it was half Jay Z’s idea.

Given the opportunity to live my last six years over, I would choose the very same path. Every minute. In every heartbeat. The gratitude I hold in my heart and novel full of memories fills the void left by my mother’s departure with a near-complete lack of regret. My parents not only loved me, they demonstrated it. Best of all they endorsed me. “You wanna be a musician? Fine, take the garage and make a studio out of it.” In Minnesota, giving up the garage is the equivalent of giving up a Kidney. What a gift this time with her was... as was she.

But wow. So much free time! Not necessarily a good thing for a results-oriented Leo. What to do? Since that important work meeting I’d been waiting for wasn’t happening til ‘next week, or next month, or next quarter ad nauseum, I went out and made me some amazing new friends. Most of them younger than me. I needed this. In those same last few years most everyone in my immediate circle had moved on, (and in) with each other. Good ol’ Karma gave me a social ‘do-over’. Who wouldn’t trade their Prius for that?

Per my preceding year’s resolution, the sex was better in 2011. But I’d still take more. I pined. I became increasing aware and simultaneously perplexed as to why I chose the ones that didn’t choose me. The reverse had also been true. I contemplated challenge, my own inner cave man, the “thrill-of-the-chase”, and wanting what I couldn’t have. I concluded the only good thing about unrequited love is... nothing. It erodes your self-esteem. So fuck that too.

2011 was my first year as an orphan. My first year “next in line” on the life/death cycle. For those of you who haven't experienced it, prepare yourself for a cold, hard slap in the face. From a wet hand. Even though my parents were fully incapable of saving me from the big, bad world in their latter years, there is a definitive shift in one's psyche when they are no longer around to bare witness. I assume it would be easier to absorb had I a significant other or a private jet. But they're just impermanent intoxicants, aren't they? We're all going to die. You can't spend or screw your way out of that one.

I’d consider a mid-life crisis but the trouble is I already had the red Porsche in my late 20’s and the ex got that.

Although I may write (okay, preach) the "Be - Do - Have" paradigm, I concede that I still largely define myself by Doing something before I ever get around to Being something.

So I pledge to work on that. Whatever.

Here’s what I learned about the world this year: The truth came out... Wall Street cannibalized our country. The only people who seemed to care were the hippies, (who are only effective at one thing- super-awesome music festivals.) Guys. You say you want a revolution? Study the French one, or the American one, or the Egyptian one, (That last one’s even on YouTube!) Just stop pissing on the sidewalk. Christopher Hitchens died from throat cancer and it still wasn’t enough atonement for Fox news. Spotify lived up to the hype until I discovered it was telling all my FB friends I was listening to the Backstreet Boys. Donald Trump remained an intolerable douche bag. Japanese officials proved they are far more adept at containing nuclear truths than they are at containing nuclear reactors. Our food supply is crap. Literally. There’s wood pulp in our ice cream and plastic in our cheese wiz; our chickens are fed contaminated shellfish from the gulf oil spill with a side of cattle blood to mask the smell; our cattle are fed the oily chicken poop, bio-engineered corn, (which they can’t digest) with a chaser of euthanized pets from state animal shelters. I’m not even going to tell you about the pigs. Welcome to the new circle of life that would drive Simba to smoke Meth. Standard and Poors should downgrade, “Eat Shit and Die” as the most offensive insult. I mean why not? Everyone’s already doing it.

Monsanto patented a Soybean with the help of Clarence Thomas. He used to work for them, wink wink. Next up? Salmon. They are going to own a fish. Cattle farts are the biggest source of air-pollution in the world. Deep Horizon is still leaking into the Gulf. You know what else I’ve discovered? Most people could care less. After all, Russell Brand and Katy Perry split. Plus, the McRib is back and on sale for 99 cents thru tuesday! We’ll spend as little as possible now on our food so that we’ll be forced to spend exponentially more to fix ourselves when things inevitably go haywire. We’ll never agree on who’s gonna pay for it as long as there are Democrats and Republicans. Stupid people continue to get more press than smart people. We can now be indefinitely detained if those in power even suspect us a terrorist. Signs that you might be a terrorist? Storing seven or more days of food or having one or more missing fingers. Google it. Yes They Can. (While you’re googling, enter Rick Santorum’s last name. Best practical joke of the year.)

Just one man’s opinion: Iowa is not, and never was, a taste-maker. Allowing Iowa to be the nation’s political barometer is about as asinine as feeding chicken shit to a... oh never mind.

On the eve of 2012 I watched the ball drop...alone, from a Minneapolis hotel room. (Dick Clark. I love you. You first introduced my band to America. But it’s time buddy. It’s time.) As I reflected on my past and pondered my future, I gleaned seven new insights:

1) It sucks to alone in a hotel room on New Years Eve.

2) I am perhaps more restless than I have ever been.

3) Any success I've previously achieved has been due to aggressive and often risky decisions and well-executed action.

4) As successful as I am, I’ve not found the success I seek in my latest endeavors because I have become risk-adverse.

5) I’ve become risk-adverse because I am increasingly aware and preoccupied by my own precariousness. Losing the game has at times become scarier than playing.

6) I'll get to these last two shortly...

Before I do, please don’t mistake any of this for belly-achin’. Life is beautiful. It’s easy to say that when you’re born a healthy, white, American male. As anyone who is not one or more of these will tell you, it’s like tee’ing off while already standing on the green. Somedays it feels like I cheated. I landed in the one-percent and my fifteen minutes of fame was championed by Ed McMahon. Damn if I haven’t been taking all this dumb luck for granted. Well that’s gotta end. As you’ve already read, I’m pretty sick of biting my tongue. And even more tired of the waiting. Haters gonna hate, right? My friend, Ian Gurvitz once wrote, “That’s what they do here. They kill you with neglect.” Truly one of the great insights to surviving LA.

In 2011, I became deftly aware that life’s greatest truths are also life’s greatest ironies, (an irony in and of itself, ironically.) Here’s one tried and true: The only thing constant is change. That’s good news if you’re in the market for a new flat screen TV, the things are half the price they were a year ago. Bad news if you’re stuck in a rut, an expired belief system, or simply left paralyzed by fear of the unknown. As my own life has continued to change, I was also able to conclude this:

6) The longer I delay risk, the less I have to wager.

Talk about irony. Here's another-

7) My most perilous options have become my most viable.

It’s not important that I share what those options are. (But given the new terrorist laws, I want to be clear that I am in no way planning on blowing something up. I only have 3 days worth of food, not including beer of course.)

These new days of 2012, I feel a fire in my belly that I’m pretty sure isn’t heartburn. A therapist told me years ago to write down the things I sought to change. I finally listened. There’s waves of change both port and starboard and every skipper’s got their own way of navigating these oil-tainted seas.

One of my friends sold it all, jumped in a van (with some sweet flames on the side) and is driving cross-country in search of The Good in America. He’s going to chronicle and publish his findings. I wish I had the balls to do something like this.

Another friend had to take a job in New York while helping his mom battle stage-four cancer 1500 miles away. His kids are 3000 miles away and his ex wants more alimony. My heart aches for all (well most) of them.

In Colorado, Tim Tebow is kneeling to thank Jesus for helping him destroy the dreams of an opposing quarterback. On the other side of the world, a child is kneeling because she doesn’t have the strength to stand.

What are you Being? Doing? Having?

Me? Well if I take 2012, then divide by my 7 new insights I get = 287.428571∞

That doesn’t help me at all. And I’m still pissed about the Concorde. Fuckers.

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