Whiskey Confessionals: The Ineffable Prophecies

"[Humans] were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse." - G00d Omens

"No-one gives a crap about Mike; Thats why i'm acting nasty. You know what you can do with your life; Introduce it up your jacksie." - The Streets, Empty Cans

It's been that kind of week. Been sick, been tired. Been half out of my mind. One year blog anniversary comes and goes with barely a nod, I tell the story that in part changed my life without so much as blinking. I'm beaten, battered, and broken. I bought an Ipod. I saw The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou in NYC with Crago and Todd G. I owe the IRS at least $60K. I've fired two people in two days, just a week before Christmas. People like to yell at me. Plans don't go as they should. My head hurts. The liquor store is closed so all I have is a 357 Ml. bottle of Jack. I don't even like Jack. It will have to do.

I went to dinner with my father tonight, completely by coincidence, and mostly because he didn't seem to want to be alone. But instead of chatting nice about what's going on in our lives (which is nil anyhow) we talk business and he tells me over and over again how I'm shit and my brother's the hard worker. Me shit? Maybe so, but the kid the only hard worker? My ass.

I don't get it. Never have. Maybe never will. Fuck it. What's next?

Fucked up if you ask me. Fucking raw. Makes me mad.

All I want to do is get out for a bit. Not be stuck here for a few minutes, grab a drink, shoot the shit, hell I'd even go bowling I'm so bored. But no. Not right now I guess. Instead I'll sit here, talking about this, and waiting for my show on Tuesday night. Waiting for The Phantom of The Opera to come out in the theaters. Waiting for anything else that seems to remotely interest me.

Because right now...it's just me.

"Or maybe it's that I realized that it is true; No-ones really there fighting for you in the last garrison. No-one except yourself that is, no-one except you. You are the one who's got your back 'til the last deed's done." -The Streets, Empty Cans

"It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people." - Good Omens

I know. I mean I think I do. We're all a bit alike really.

All of us.

Which means I'm a bit like them.

The other Palombas.

Sometimes I see it in The Kid, no matter how much he tries to be a little fucker the real deal slides through. He just can't help it sometimes. But the more he fights it, the more likely it is he'll never get it to all shake out.

It's right scary with The Old Man. How much I'm like him sometimes. We laugh alike. Never at the same things. Never at the same time. But sometimes in the exact same way. We sound alike sometimes. I'm more eloquent, I use bigger words, I can ad-lib better than he can. My voice is stronger. But, just sometimes, our voices sound alike. We say a word the same way. We roll the bass up from our chests the same way when we're angry. We make the same noise when we get really frustrated. We both say "fuck" a lot. We dial phones alike, and hold the handset in the same way. Our fingers move in the same way when we're searching for something on our desks. We scratch our noses in the same way. When we forget to comb our hair in the morning we both get that freakishly large offset widow's peak...no matter how much we fight it. I think we both smile the same way, but I don't know for sure. Neither one of us smiles enough to tell for sure.

But none of that makes a difference. None of it ever matters. They're both Palombas, but they're so much more like each other than I am like either one of them. I'm the Other Palomba. And they never really let me forget that.

I love them though. Like I love a lot of people, just more. Because they're my family. All I got sometimes. I always have been, and always will be, willing to pull them out of the fire when it gets a bit too hot. But it doesn't go both ways. The Old Man hangs me out to dry, and The Kid just leaves me hanging.

Fuck all.

I do all the work and The Kid gets just as much as I do. The Old Man stomps and shouts, and tries to browbeat me into becoming more like him in the exact ways I'd do well to not be like him. All the while I stand here trying to keep some sort of integrity. Hold onto the little bit of dignity that I have left.

The Old Man likes to remind me that everything I have came from him. And I like to remind him that it's his fault I'm here in the first place and he at least owes me the chance to make good on it. He's the reason I'm here at all (although that dubious distinction seems to be spread a bit thin lately) and I can't figure out which one of us resents that fact more on a daily basis.

I know, I got the shit end of the stick. But I can't help but think that the shit end of this stick is pretty sweet in and of itself.

Not too long ago someone I like to consider a friend said he didn't understand how people could say all the private shit they said in these things. Other people read that shit he said. Well...maybe, and maybe not. And if they do, maybe they get it. Or maybe they didn't, and now they do. Maybe they read this and walk away and think...sometimes the shit end of the stick isn't all that bad.

"I don't see why it matters what is written. Not when it's about people. It can always be crossed out."- Good Omens

"This is the end of the something i did not want to end, Begining of hard times to come. But something that was not meant to be is done, And this is the start of what was." - The Streets, Empty Cans