And Bobby McGee

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." - Janis Joplin

I crossed over the Fair Lawn Ave. Bridge last night while listening to Joplin's Pearl. I came off the bridge to a green light and slowly rolled onto Route 2o when out of the corner of my eye I saw a bright red blur that wasn't slowing down. The pickup truck had run the red light without so much as slowing and was bearing down on me without remorse.

I remember thinking that I didn't want to die listening to Janis Joplin because while I occasionally appreciate her music, I really don't like it all that much. I would have much rather died listening to something I thoroughly enjoyed.

'Course I didn't die. I couldn't. Not like that at least.

I spun the wheel pulling the nose of my car back onto the wrong side of Route 20 while whipping the tail out into the path of the truck. I leaned into the wheel, and onto the gas pulling the ass of the car just past the front fender of the truck. We didn't miss each other by much...but we did miss.

I got my car pointing in the right direction and moved on.

Me and Bobby McGee was playing on the radio. I thought of how odd that was. That song has come up three times in the past year now. I picked up the guys and made my way to the diner. The tableside jukebox was open to Joplin's Pearl. I made OJ get me change and popped in seven songs worth of quarters. No one even noticed as I hummed along with Bobby McGee...

It's been awhile, eh? I wasn't away. I wasn't doing anything else. I was getting ready. Thinking. There's a story I have to tell before this story moves on. It's a tough one. I was waiting till my time at Rutgers, at WRSU, in New Brunswick ended. But in truth that's all been over for some time now. I just haven't gotten to where I need to be, but now it's time. Not to end anything, or start anything new just yet. It's time to tell that story, so I can keep on telling this one.

"This is just thing number 654 in a continuing series of things I hold onto to keep myself going. This ends I walk out that door and start looking for number 655. Nothing else to it." - Palomba

The Evolution Of A Theoretical Hard-On

"O Rose, Thou Art Sick.
The invisible worm
that flies in the night,
in the howling storm,

has found out thy bed
of crimson joy:
and his dark secret love,
does thy life destroy."
- William Blake, The Sick Rose

I had, in my days of youth, the idea that there existed a perfect sort of love. A love that, when given range, could give a man wings. This love was my hope, my salvation, my one and only ambition.

This love does not exist.

In its place stands a myriad of emotions which float between the tangible and the theoretical. The simple and the sublime.

"In love at a distance, so much of life has to be invented." - Joyce Carol Oates

But what of life at a distance? What happens to a man who can't seem to get a grip on the reality he has been presented? Why is it that those of us with the most simple desires are often those who are left wanting?

Too often people try and forget love. They try and bury it. Try and hide it. Try and stop it from being what it is. I've never understood why anyone would want to get rid of love simply because it hurts. Anything that is worth anything hurts at one point or another.

I think every love I've ever known has hurt, some more than others of course, but every one at least a little. Never stopped me from loving anything or anyone that had some love coming to them, mostly because I knew that one way or the other it would all work out in the end.

"There's been a time in the evolutionary history of everything that works where it didn't. A time in the history of everything that is known when it wasn't." - T.O. Hob

We are so much better than this.

There is that common misconception that love needs to be something other than what it is. That love is a business in which hearts and mind are currency to be bartered and bargained with. People never remember that love is the sort of thing that makes up its own rules as it goes. People always forget that love is unique.

It's for that reason alone that I can love you, and you can not even know me. That I can love someone in ways they wouldn't even understand. It's why someone else's love can be confusing, and why your own love can be downright frightening.

It's why I can say all of that and not feel the least bit sappy, or naive, or romantic.

It's why love can be cold.

This a lesson on life and love from a man who doesn't even have the faintest practical understanding of either.

"Who are you to tell me who I can and cannot love? Fuck you! Who are you to tell me I can't love them? Fuck them! I can love them even if they don't love me!" - Kong



We judge the world too harshly sometimes and other times we simply judge wrong. How is it that we can ignore the folly of those who choose wrong when it is simple to choose right? But we can not forgive those who fail to do right when what is right is near impossible to discern from what is wrong?

Is it because we too do wrong when it is all so simple to do right? Or is it because we would like to think that, despite our histories, we would be able to make the right decision in the face of near insurmountable adversities?

Is it just that we are fools?

"I ain't never had much use for God, and he ain't never had much use for me. But if he needed me all he'd have to do was holler and I'd be there in a jiff. I much expect he'd do the same for me." - Lazarus Jones

I'm not preaching. I swear. I'm just saying. The reason that perfect sort of love doesn't seem to exist is that we won't let it. We're just like that. I can't explain it anymore than you can.

But for some reason I'm constantly trying too.

Maybe it's so that when I figure it out, you can too. Maybe you can ride my coattails into something neither one of us saw coming.

Who knows? Certainly not me. Not yet anyhow. Not by a long shot.

We're going to try and be funny. Try and be witty. Try and be our old selves. We're going to smile, and laugh, and act in ways we never have before just to see what it's like. We're going to continue to be hung up on a past that never happened, a present that is happening all too fast, and a future which could go in so many different directions.

"It's not the end of the world. It just feels that way." - King

So I stand here and shout out to deaf ears, all the while wondering how many words I have to type before I break through that barrier. How many things I have to say before I'm heard. How many emotions I have to experiene, how many thoughts I have to think, how many people, places, and things I have to learn to love before I can figure it all out.

So I stand here, and if, but for a second you stand with me know that I will stand with you when your time comes. When you stand up and make your decisions...I'll be there, if for no other reason than I can be.

I don't know what any of this is guys, and I don't know why I feel the need to put it here. But I do know one thing...

There is no light...we run on.

Conspicuous Consumption: Or The Palimpsest And The Sciolist

"Nobody really knows what it is out there." - LBJ on Vietnam

"And when he gets to heaven,
to St. Peter he will tell,
One more soldier reporting sir
I've served my time in hell."
-Guadalcanal Epitaph

"Believing and seeing are both often wrong." - Robert Strange McNamara, Secretary of Defense, Kennedy & Johnson Administrations

I guess we all fight wars of our own sorts.

Though I wouldn't dream of fighting the most horrible fights.

Much thanks to those who make it so I don't have to...in every possible way.

The Second Coming: The Jesus Lobotomy Returns

"Shit, God owns my ass. I mean, I always knew he owned me...but now he's got all my shit too." - Lazarus Jones



When God rains down on you with madness you need to pray to someone else for sanity.

I knew from the beginning.

When I woke up yesterday morning, after several fitful hours of nightmares, I had the feeling that things were about to be spoiled. I've been wandering since we've last spoke. Stuck in this cage the whole time, but wandering all the same.
As yesterday dragged on three things came to me. Three things would happen. Three simple coincidences. But I had no idea how it would all work out.

By four the pieces had started to fall, by seven the framework was in place. By a quarter after ten I imagine it was all over. And I wasn't there for any of it. In a little over six hours the world changed without me. Good for it.

But last night brought disappointment as well. Don't Tuesdays always?

Life just isn't as easy as it used to be. But for a few moments in there I was hanging tough. For a few moments I was kicking ass. For a few moments I was me. I was wandering free like the Palomba of old.

And then as today wore on, a day that started with such promise, things began to slip. The puzzles pieces cracked and crumbled till they all formed a picture I hadn't intended them to form.

Last night had segued into today and today had suddenly turned ugly.

It ruined it all.

So sitting in my living room I listened carefully as God dictated the new rules.
And then I did it again. I did what only fools do, I made the same mistake twice. I asked for something. Something I shouldn't have asked for. I knew as soon as the words left my mouth...I was in deep shit.

And I still am...

The Former Six Million Dollar Man: The Prelude To The Kong Manifesto

"You did what you could kid, it didn't work out. You just live with it."

"What if you can't?"

"I don't see as you have any other options."

"There're always options, and when there aren't enough you just make more."

I think I've spent every moment of the forty-two hours since NBC called Ohio for George W. Bush thinking about how I would blog about what has to be one of the most severely disturbing incidents of my life. If you know me you understand that my life is really just a series of disturbing incidents so that's saying quite a bit.

I spent all night, and all day, and all night again thinking about what I would say until I realized I didn't have to say it at all...so many other people would say it for me, so here we go:

Forever Haunted More Than Afraid - I don't know this kid, but his blog kicks ass, and his post-election post is pure gold.

Who Do You Work For? - Don't know this kid either, but her pre-election thoughts about this country are pretty damn insightful.

Nocturnal Vizion - A fellow Rutgers alumn who's thoughts on non-voters are spot on.

The Julmeister - Another Rutgers Alumn who is rarely wrong about anything.

One By One The Vultures Pick Away At My Sanity - A mother and a military wife, someone who seems to really understand what's at stake in this country right now and whose opinion probably should matter a little more than the rest of us at a time like this.

And there are so many more, so many thousands and thousands of more. But these are just a few.


I can't not say anything. I can't not say it all. Here's the thing. Just because I am absolutely convinced I am right, doesn't mean everyone else has to be wrong. Maybe George will do better, it's possible, it's at least something to hope for. Hell maybe he did great these past four years. Maybe with someone else in office there would have been more terrorist attacks, more wars with worse casualties, millions of more people without jobs. Maybe Al Gore would have gone skitzo-apeshit and nuked half of the Middle East by now. Maybe John Kerry would have started to catch 'Nam flashbacks in the middle of national defense meetings and begun to drop napalm on Baghdad. I don't fucking know. All I can go off of is how I feel, and what I think. I think this country just made a huge mistake, and I know that millions and millions of people agree with me. But can the 59,329,883 who voted for George Bush be completely wrong? Wouldn't it be easier for the 55,788,192 of us who voted for John Kerry to be wrong? I don't get how any of those people could say with any certainty that they are absolutely right. I think the best any of us can say is that we're pretty sure we're not wrong. But anything's possible...and hell that's about as much comfort as the 55 million who agree with me can hope for. That anything's possible, and maybe these next four years won't be that bad.

___

But I won't put all my eggs in the basket of hope...no, no. I'm writing a manifesto. I'm calling it the Kong Manifesto and it's all about a way to create a third party that actually has a chance to make a difference in what has become a two party system. As I told someone from the Nader campaign on Election Night, "A third party only makes a difference if it can find a way not to suck."

Hence The Kong Manifesto, which is coming quickly, and will be here for all of you to see and share and improve upon till even if it's still nothing, it's more than what I started with.
___

And now to the root of my title. The Former Six Million Dollar Man. I need to explain, but in as roundabout way as possible. As usual.

On Tuesday night we covered the election for WRSU down in Rutgers, I went into Tuesday night assuming that it was our last show. The plan always was that we would pack it in when Matt got a job, and last week Matt got a job in radio (as has Julie, and as has Mark which means that there are jobs in radio out there, they just aren't meant for me). So with Matt having a job I assumed we were done right then and there. But we weren't, seems we have at least one more left, and when I found out about this I was reasonably pleased...except that I know I'm just prolonging the inevitable.

So much of my memories of the best year of my life are tied to that place, and some of the greatest people I've ever met came from that place. So I'm sure you can see why I am not looking forward to leaving.

I remember arguing with a ticket clerk at an airport in Tulsa because she wouldn't let me on an earlier flight. I remember getting on that plane and making it back into New Brunswick just in time to catch the new news crew coming out of the studio. I'd heard their broadcast and they were fantastic. And there they were coming out of the studio with me, a relative stranger, waiting to congratulate them. They had no idea it took an argument with a ticket clerk, a connecting flight in St.Louis, a bribe to a cab driver, and me pushing the Pontiac at a hellacious pace to make it back in time to be there when they came out of the studio.

I remember driving all night, straight through back from Atlanta to get back in time for a show that ended up being cancelled. And I remember being glad I made it back in time anyway.

I remember spending nights in bars so nervous that I could barely stop shaking and so shot that I could barely hear a word anyone said just so I could feel like part of the group. I remember shaking, and vomitting, and bleeding afterwards...but rarely regretting a minute of it.

I remember getting the call that my step-grandfather died ten minutes before we went on the air. I remember punching the wall, then shrugging it off thinking, "We have a show to do." I remember slipping out the back door of the wake early, changingfrom my suit in my car, and speeding down Route 1 to make it to a graduation party because I didn't know how many more times I would get to see these people.

Most of all I remember sitting in that studio and thinking that if the rest of my life could be just like that, it wouldn't be great, it wouldn't be perfect, it wouldn't be much, but my God I could have lived with that.

I rarely explain why I make the choices I make, but as I begin to change some of those choices I think I should.

I never say exactly what the bus company is worth. Never. I give hints, ideas, clues...enough to let people think that I'm only doing it for the money. People can seem to deal with that. They are ok with thinking that someone is giving up on their dreams because there's enough money involved to change misery into happiness. Except I've always lied about how much the company is worth. Always intentionally given people the wrong idea.

It's worth more than I've let on.

But I'm not in it for the money. I've always been in it because I'm afraid. Afraid of what else is out there. Afraid it might make me happy. People can't deal with that.

I'm so damn afraid of getting what I want because what happens if I get it, and then I'm still not happy? What then? At least this way I could think that if I ever got what I wanted I would be happy. It would give me hope.

It was a stupid fucking idea and I'm realizing it now when it might be too late. I knew all along that it was probably the wrong idea, but I thought that if anybody could make it work it would be me.

Whoops.

So here's where I'm at. I don't know what to do next. I don't know how to, or whether I even want to, get out of the mess I've gotten myself into.

All I know is that I spent a whole week preparing for a personal disaster on Tuesday night, and when I didn't get it that little part of my mind that doesn't work so well decided it couldn't let all my preparation be for naught. So it went and created a whole new disaster.

I would have to give up my car, my home, most everything I own and more money than most people can regularly imagine. I'd have to be crazy to do it.

I'd have to be crazy.

But has anything up to this point led you to believe that I'm anything but?

Click This Title To Hear Me Lose My Mind

Click that title to listen in on my ongoing mental breakdown live on the radio.

Or check me out at http://www.upsaid.com/futurerem

Once more for the road on 88.7 WRSU FM in New Brunswick.

On all night...till Kerry gets elected or till the cows come home.

One Way Or The Other

"Did...did the world always look like this?"

"Yeah, it did."

"Funny, I never noticed."



Tonight is the end of a lot of stories. Tonight is the end of things I can't even begin to tell you about. I wish it wasn't, so desperately wish it wasn't that I'm not quite sure how I'll be able to let it all play out. I think that's what gets me most, that the right thing to do is just go with the flow and let the river take me where it will.

Tonight I'm not supposed to fight it. Just let it do what it does and wait to see what happens.

One way or the other there is a game to be played. The future will be decided. On the day when the American public has to make the decision most crucial to its survival in the past twenty years...so do I.

Why is it that there's seems so much simpler than mine?

Even I know which way they should go...

Get the picture?

But what about me? What about that monster who haunts your dreams?

Where do I go from here?

What do I say?

Why do I have to be me today when all I want is to be someone else?

Someone who doesn't have to take one on the chin for the good of the world.

I guess it always had to be that way. There never was a Plan B.

One way or the other...except for me they're all the same.

I'm going to miss them all so much, miss it all so much. Nobody would fold the hand I'm holding...except me. I'd throw it in in a heartbeat for a second chance. Hell knowing me I'll probably give it up anyway.

I don't know. I just don't know.

For the first time in my life, I don't know what to say,

I don't like it. But one way or the other, the end is coming.



"Did...did the world always look like this?"

"No. I don't think it's ever been this beautiful before."

"Yeah. Ain't that something?"