The world as we had thought we knew it has spiraled out of control and ended for all intents and purposes. In my last blog I was concerned we would collectively forget about Covid-19 after it was over.
I was wrong. A fair number of people are already, actively trying to forget it now, in the middle of it, all the while swearing that it's over.
The world ended a few days ago, no one actually noticed it. In fact, it's been over for a while. No one cares. REM sang their verse and went downstairs to get high or drunk.
People will think I am kidding, but it's true. My own mother chides me for believing that this invisible disease is real as if all diseases aren't invisible until someone gets it and you have to watch them die. I cry for that person who, right up to the moment their father's hand goes cold, couldn't believe that face mask was necessary and that staying at home was ridiculous. Now she stands there, knowing that the disease is real, that her father's death was preventable and that the enormity of it all is so far past any single person's responsibility that it's almost laughable as she walks back to her car through the crowds of protesters and deniers running to and fro as if the disease was all the hoax that my 88-year-old mother believes it is. My mother does acknowledge that something is seriously wrong, but even her experienced mind cannot grasp the unreality of it all. Her dementia is localized in the fact that she is cut off from reality and society and even in denial she is living in isolation and quarantine thanks to me and her inability to age gracefully.
I can't hold that woman who just lost her father, except in my mind. I can't even hold anyone else, because this threat has taken away our ability to touch for the fear that all of this presents. Meanwhile, our leaders squabble over tiny amounts of money while combatting public outcry while the Grim Reaper walks the halls of ERs and Retirement Homes.
I can only pray that somewhere in all this apocalyptic madness that someone finds a cure/treatment/vaccine before the world goes to war over a popularity contest and blames it all on Obama for starting it in the first place.
It is the age of the Coronavirus or COVID-19. People talk about this disease as if we will all remember it in times to come. Bad news guys, we won't. Its probably going to last another 2 months on the news, 3 months on the web and someone will bring up that damned Gorilla and everyone will "move" on. This the Internet and America. There's a presidential Election and the mud will be flying between Trump and Biden in no time. Sorry, Bernie, the Democratic Party is throwing you off the bus again as unelectable. Anyway, that's another blog in itself. The fact is that Americans will move on. It's what they do. Ask an American about the Ebola outbreak The few who were paying attention will tell you it is over and besides, that was 4 years ago. The truth is its not over and there are still cases popping up in Africa. No one cares. No one- other than those who had it or those who lost their families, friends, and neighbors to it. Ask an American about 9/11. Some of them will get very serious for as long as it takes to remind you that there is no comparison but Congress was willing to forget the first responder's subsequent health crisis' and almost not renew the pledges of support that they had made to those men, women, and families. Does anyone remember the people who died in those buildings? Does anyone recall the panic and insecurity of this country as our President told the public to buy garbage bags and duct tape against the likelihood of the WMDs that would soon rain down chemical weapons upon our cities? No, they don't. Just like all those people who have no idea what happened in Detriot or rather to Detroit or Flint or Sandyhook or Columbine or Waco or Katrina or Puerto Rico or (the list goes on) Americans forget and they forget quickly. Not all Americans, but many. You can blame the media, the Internet, the Millennials, the Liberals, the Democrats, the Republicans- Hell, let's blame Obama (they will for many years to come); but, the bottom line is not whose fault it is. No, it's our Fault, America's fault. We allow the forgetfulness. Welcome it even. It's how so many of us cope with things we feel we cannot control. So, in a few months, when the scare of the Coronavirus has worn off and toilet paper returns to the shelves and the disease has become treatable/curable, people will move on- and all of the vows that we will never recover and never forget will be forgotten and people will stop washing their hands for 30 seconds. Hand sanitizer will stop being a commodity and face masks will disappear leaving the victims bereft and angry. It will join the ranks of the Flu and Pneumonia and this country will not give it much more thought until it comes around again or doesn't. There will be another, newer disaster, a volcano, earthquake, tornado, blizzard or terrorist attack to distract us from all the promises made by our politicians and heroes. I don't really have a positive note to end on here. It is what it is. Okay, Fuck that. It should fucking matter! We shouldn't forget any of this! I won't. The fact I wrote this blog means I haven't forgotten you Flint, Michigan! or Waco or Katrina or (the list goes on)!
We all evolve. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes for the worse. Occasionally, we stop long enough to realize we keep starting blogs and deleting them because we lost interest in writing them or Netflix is just more tempting to do than to attempt to write in some cohesive manner.
Netflix mostly won although, my struggles with Fallout 4 culminated in me taking a long break and playing Warcraft instead. I have a 120 leveled Death Knight with great legs.
I spend almost every night doing one or the either or both or playing some Star Wars Commander (a fairly mindless game while catching up on personal emails and business.
Work mostly consumes me.
Also developing Arthritis and Tendonitis this fall changed most of what I can get out of my life on a daily basis. You learn to live with the pain first. There are NO QUICK FIXES with that. My knees are at a constant dull throb but flare into full-blown pain on a daily basis.
Then you discover that you complain about it and suddenly you're yelling at kids to get off your lawn and hating modern music.
Yes, you are now an old man.
It sucks.
So I went back to daydreaming. I write mostly on Twitter and as a result, I mostly gave up on the blogs. I can admit now that I burnt out on blogging big time. I just would sit down and stare at the screen before going to Warcraft as a means of survival.
So where do I go from here?
I don't know. I still work part-time and take care of my mother. I have so little time that I end up so tired that I cannot write like I once did. I feel so depleted at night and feel like there's never enough time to work on my fiction. I write a fair amount of Twitter poetry each week, then share it to a Facebook page.
I am planning to reorganize my patreon and Website. So that will change.
I just realized this blog is not as interesting as the idea of it sounded as when I started it.
Anywho, I am back and will be writing more interesting blogs and maybe just maybe a youtube video
until then you know the Drill.
Once upon a time, I blogged. Now I work.
I used to churn out content, now I sit in front of the computer twittering, netflixing, and playing mindless games.
I was a contender.
Now I am a lousy Blogger.
The question is does anyone care?
Do I care?
The first answer is yours.
The second in mine. I do care.
But writer's block, depression and downright dread of coming up with content that's not boring like this is becoming boring.
Diety! so dull.
Anyway. Now that I have lost your attention. I will say that this will be a summer of transitions as Life According to Mike is going to the Tube and this blog will become the companion piece although I am considering moving this to Discord. Why?
I hate writing in a vacuum.
So. Look for changes.... I mean if you are still awake or here and not deleting your links.
With that being said.
This was Boring according to... nevermind.
These are not in order the top ten are but the others would take the rest of the year to sort. I am going to break down the whys in the following blogs. It's taken me 3 months to narrow down the list to 150 and that was so damn hard.
The Princess Bride
The Empire Strikes Back
12 Angry Men
Blade Runner
Strictly Ballroom
Dr. Strangelove
Tangled
Secondhand Lions
Harvey
Rashomon
The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition (the trilogy)
Princess Mononoke
The Road Warrior
Dredd
Edge of Tomorrow
Groundhog Day
The Artist
Hot Fuzz
Ghost in the Shell (anime)
Tron
Bridge to Terabithia
Tron Legacy
Cyrano de Bergerac (original)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The Shawshank Redemption
To Kill a Mockingbird
Casablanca
Equilibrium
Toys
The Matrix
Mary Poppins
The Man in the Iron Mask
The Highlander
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The Life of Brian
Time Bandits
Clerks
My Neighbor Totoro
Howl's Moving Castle
Laputa
Nausicaa
Fletch
V is for Vendetta
Serenity
Starman
The Abyss
Beauty and the Beast (Disney)
Beastly
Airplane 1 & 2
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Deadpool
Labyrinth
The Dark Crystal
Fight Club
Spirited Away
High Fidelity
Star Wars: A New Hope
The Seven Samurai
Interstellar
The Terminator
Ferris Bueller's Day off
Friday
Ghostbusters (original)
The Hunger Games
Something Wicked this way Comes
Aliens
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 & 2
Harry Potter Movies (all of them)
Shot in the Dark
The Pink Panther (all of the Peter Sellers ones)
Captain America
Wonder Woman
Conan the Barbarian
Stardust
Ladyhawke
Cocoon
Captain America The Winter Soldier
The Dark Knight
Gladiator
300
Akira
2001
A Fish Called Wanda
Layer Cake
Star Trek 4 the voyage home
Star Trek 2: Wrath of Kahn
The Truman Show
Toy Story Trilogy
Epic
Singing in the Rain
Camelot
Galaxy Quest
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Troy
Batman Begins
Iron Man
Legend
The Avengers (Marvel)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Willow
T2: Judgement Day
Star Wars Rogue One
Star Wars The Last Jedi
Star Wars The Force Awakens
Hildago
Inception
The Green Mile
Shrek
The Usual Suspects
Brazil
Leon: The Professional
Wasabi
Back to the Future
The Dark Knight Rises
Amelie
Some Like it Hot
Better Off Dead
Say Anything
Up
The Big Lebowski
Pirates of the Carribean Black Pearl
Dancing in the Rain
Children of a Lesser God
Star Trek (Remake)
Ghost
Office Space
Raising Arizona
Oh Brother Where Art Thou
Hamlet (Gibson)
La La Land
Brave
Witness for the Prosecution
Kick-Ass
Chocolat
Real Genius
Shaun of the Dead
Jungle Book, animated
Jungle Book live action (recent)
The Cat from Outer Space
The Three Musketeers (Disney remake)
The Musketeer
Cyrano (Gerald Depardieu )
The Incredibles
Big Hero 6
Zootopia
Super Troopers
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
True Lies
The Book of Eli
These aren't necessarily the best movies, just my favorite ones. base argument is these are the ones I would not hesitate to rewatch over and over again.
There are others that I have liked more but decided to never rewatch or own.
Once upon a time...
I know it's historical but come on, no one really knows how or why it happened. more than 400 years of history and school plays later and no one really cares anymore.
So, once upon a time there was a thanksgiving to some the much confused terminology for the people who lived here in what is now called the US of A. In which a handful of them - I mean a tribe and by a tribe I mean a handful of a tribe of whatever you want to call them since we are not really sure what call themselves (the pilgrims and other europeans kind of wiped them off the planet before we could establish who they really were).
Anyway, I digress.
These guys helped out a handful of pilgrims or colonists who may have completely died off afterward anyway survive their first winter on this continent and thus indirectly establish a holiday that bear little to no resemblance to anything that had to do with it in the first place other than a general sense of ironic gratitude for survival.
This is probably the reason me and the turkeys spend most holidays like this alone on the front porch while everyone else is grateful inside.
But seriously, I won't be treating this as a national day of mourning for Turkeys or the First Nations or the millions of others who were subsequently wiped out by the avarice of a group of ignorant savages in their greed and destruction. That would be cheating.
We need a day that observes that this happened and as a country built on such evils to observe it that is separate from other holidays.
Also, Turkeys are supposed to be our national bird not our national meal.
So, let's begin again.
Once upon a time there was a holiday that marked our gratitude in the broadest sense of generalization to those who enabled our survival as individuals, families, communities, towns, cities and states and, in fact, as a nation to thank all those people and peoples who gave us the ability to thank them today.
So let us reconcile ourselves to that and stop killing turkeys and giving into repeating the sins of our forefathers and become the people who celebrate Thanksgiving for some other reason than rampant gluttony and preparation for a national day of utter greed.
amen.
from Mike who was exiled to the front porch with all the other turkeys in America.
Having said that, I put forth this proposition. I am an expert on Sex.
Not because I've had it, but rather that I have thought about it.
A lot.
I am, in fact, Technically, a VIRGIN. Technically by the American version of sex.... the college version anyway. To put it plainly. I have not ever placed my penis in any hole. 'nuff said.
Actually- now that I think about it I am an expert on not having sex.
I WANT SEX
just not bad enough to look for a hooker (which I can't afford anyway) or pick up "loose men or women" in bars and TINDER, add a healthy dose of fear of STDs and you can picture my life in a sad string of failures at pickup lines, online dating sites, and the multitudes of women who would never consider me as a sex partner (men too). BUT THIS BLOG IS NOT ABOUT MY LACK OF SEX OR THE REASONS FOR IT. It's about my point of view on Sex. Which means it could well be completely wrong. (i.e. go find another blog if this bugs you) I am going to say things I will most likely regret and if my Murphy Luck holds up, I will alienate the one woman who would have loved to fuck me.... or not. (Finally, a word to my father and mother and stepmother) when I use the word Fuck, it will be deliberate rather than just as a convenient expletive.
So SEX!
It seems to me... it appears to me? No. It seems to me that fantasy books have spelled out the difference between most men and women with magic.
In the Wheel of Time books, Robert Jordan describes the use of the one power as being different from a man to a woman.
"The One Power comes from the True Source, the driving force of creation, the force the Creator made to turn the Wheel of Time. Saidin, the male half of the True Source, and Saidar, the female half, work against each other, and at the same time together to provide that force...." Moiraine Damodred
"Saidar is described as a gentle, but infinitely powerful river; a force which will do what you wish it to, but requires patience to be "persuaded;" otherwise it will carry you away. A woman must submit to Saidar in order to access it, an act universally known as embracing the Power. Weaving for a female channeler consists of guiding the flow of the Power to achieve the desired end.
Saidin is described as a raging torrent, just as powerful as Saidar but tempestuous: a raw, untamed force that must be "coerced" through the strength of will or else it will overwhelm you. In contrast to Saidar, a man must make Saidin submit to him in order to access it: a process known as seizing the Power. Weaving for a male channeler involves wielding it much like a weapon and directing it to do his bidding." (taken from A Wheel of Time Wiki, http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/One_Power)
I can see sex like this.
Women recognizing that sex is a gentle but powerful force that drives the body to new levels of pleasure and ecstasy which if properly harnessed can be controlled, managed as long as a woman does not give into the temptation to be swept away with its force.
Men realize that sex is very much a wild raging torrent of lust energy that has to be coerced into a tool that brings power and pleasure like a weapon to be used on another in order to master someone for the desired results.
It's not all-inclusive or exclusive as there are women who will take on sex like a man and men who will take it submissively and subtlety.
Is this a generalization?
Yes, it is.
Then why believe it?
Because I can.
and because it's fascinating to see it played out around me in books, movies, and real life.
I have felt the force that drives me as a man to consider, HELL, to entertain such forbidden concepts as rape, control, using force on another to satisfy my urges. It's always abstract for me, I am like Walter Mitty, ever imagining what it would be like to push a woman face down across a table or desk, pulling down her pants, or up in the case of a dress or skirt, and then the panties. Imagining her face in excitement but then it's just a fantasy and like most fantasies, it peters out pretty fast
Pushing myself into her then shoving her top up to her armpits in order to explore her breasts, leaning over her back listening to her pants of excitement and fear as we thrust in rhythm to our heartbeats.
This particular fantasy is triggered by tight-fitting skirts, dresses and pants/shorts exposing a well-rounded butt. It takes about 10-15 seconds to flash through my mind before I quickly remember what it's like to be forced down on a table by some bully and the sheer terror that runs through my veins as quickly robbing me of any pleasure I would have received from that fantasy.
I feel, apologetic and sick at the same time.
I am one screwed up person, in short.
It's the kind of thing you never get over.
Or at least, I have yet to get over it. Rape fantasy lasts as long as it takes me to remember the fear.
This is not a fact. Just some thoughts.
It's all trapped inside my imagination anyway, like so many other things in my life. I can only imagine sex or live through some watered down version of it since my chances of the act, in actuality, is unlikely. Sometimes I feel that my life is like a relationship in Skyrim where whenever I find someone compatible to fall for, it takes time for her to admit her feelings for me and then just when we are about to get lucky, the screen goes to black and I wake up beside her, not being able to touch or even kiss her. Only what I have imagined stays real for me.
I fall in love with fictional characters all the time.
(this will be another blog....one day- don't worry I'll pepper the blog with Outlander pics for the Ladies and Playboy pics for the men or sports or something.
I fall in love with fictional characters from movies, tv shows, books and even poems.
I imagine the relationship with them.
I wonder what sex would be like especially if I am a character in the fiction with them.
Ironically I am more myself than I would like my imagination to picture.
for instance....
Wonder Woman strolls in to find me waiting for her. She is Amazonian (Amazing)
and then there's me.
I look at my imagined self.
I facepalm.
"Really, that's who I am in this fantasy?" I say.
Imaginary me looks back
"What were you hoping for?" He says
"Something amazing...."
"I don't see the problem." Wonder Woman says as she crosses over to kiss Imaginary Me passionately.
He gives me the thumbs up as I gawk.
"You're dreaming again aren't you?"
Kate asks me.
We're in the coffee shop. I have a stupid smile on my face.
She's pretty.
She knows it.
She is also unavailable.
This is the story of my sex life.
All the women I have ever wanted to have sex with are unavailable.
My biggest problem with sex is...
Hell if I know.
it could be one of the following.
1. The Ferris Bueller defense.
watch it from 2:45 to 3:30 for the speech. Sex has become, in the abstract, an end all, be all for me. But thanks to Ferriss, I was forewarned of this possibility so I guard against it. Ironically, this very argument has kept me from getting laid, however, I have no crazy ass girlfriends like some of my less wise and unfortunate male friends who settled for that course.
2. I have the IRISH Curse
I blame genetics... also I am only like 1/5 Irish... I only have a comparatively small penis.
Any guy who claims to not have compared his penis to the penthouse size charts or surreptitiously glanced from one urinal to the guy in the other to check how his dingaling stacks up is lying or incredibly well hung and thus has had us lesser dude sneaking looks and cussing to ourselves at the unfairness of the world.
I probably have an average penis but having watched way to much porn, I have been brainwashed into believing women want monster phalluses to be rammed into their bodies at high speeds. It is 100% bad internet porns fault...
that's my story anyway.
Sorry, no graphics on this.
If you must know Goto 4chan and ruin your life.
3. I'm fat (my mother mostly blames this)
Dinner conversation: "If you only lost that weight than the girls would line up."
I look at the guy who is as fat as me sitting a table over with a very attractive female wife. My mother refuses to see the contradiction....
Then the pretty friend who I used to have the hots for ("secretly") leans over and tells me confidentially that the real reason she wouldn't have sex with me is that my bodyweight would crush her. Later she introduces me to her muscle-bound boyfriend - who paradoxically weighs more than me- but it's all muscle because that makes a difference.
4. I'm too smart.
Sure intelligence is sexy, but only as long as it is a MEME and not the nerdy uber geek sitting at your workstation fixing your computer. Let's not forget the now stereotypical but charming sociopath from the real 50 shades of coincidence that all women really desire. I am very smart, quite possibly a genius of sorts but it has NEVER gotten me laid, so how smart am I really?
this one is doubly ironic, of course
So why put it here. Here are 2 really creepy romantic heroes with desperately needy women who worship these two guys share sophisticated styles in the new wave of sexy intelligence based on such rampant falsehood that it makes my IQ spin.
Inside jokes aside. These 2 stories (linked) are portrayals of intelligent men who are deeply sexual and yet are neither intelligent or sexually desirable save for the imaginations of the women and girls who ignore their glaring monstrosities finding them ideal romantic subjects.
In short, sociopaths who prey on all women through bad writing (ironically done by women)
If you happen to have missed my point read it all again or give me the stock response I usually get.
"Mike, it's not about you."
but it is.
I am too smart for most relationships because I can recognize the intrinsic flaws in myself and all my potential lovers (of which there actually hasn't been many)
It would be easier for me to believe that I just haven't me the right woman, yet.
Chances are though, I have and she just dismissed me as another asshole- because that is easier than bothering to understand what I am trying to say.
Which leads me to my next statement.
5. I am a smartass.
Which is to say I have a very dry wit and most people do not get it. There are many reasons for this but mostly I forget that people take me way too seriously way too much.
I wisecrack and people, many of them women get offended.
I am macabre and many people decide I am a monster
I am ironic and several women have come after me for being to fatalistic and "you can't joke about that."
I am honest and there are proverbial screams of horror.
I am serious and there is laughter, a bit late as I have been banned from yet another social circle where no one got the joke (family included).
Social media is the worst for this.
Apparently, you can no longer joke about sex.
also if you're a man, you aren't allowed to tell a joke about the pickle slicer to women and small children.... Okay, I can see the children not needing to hear that until they are seventeen.
6. I believe too much in fairytales.
I do, I want the fairytale romance. happily-ever-after might be overrated and cliched but it doesn't make it less true. Love can be the best thing to happen in life. It might be a sweet illusion but at the end of the day, the damsel in distress can rescue me and ride away into the sunset as long is it is for love. Hell, I will take love over sex in this case.... trick answer, love, and sex can and should be the same thing.... at least in fairytales.
7. My expectations are too high
Everyone has expectations. Everyone has fantasies. Everyone who is willing to admit it anyway. Nothing goes as well as planned, but the disappointment is game-changing. How many times did I come to the brink of sex only to have the woman or girl change her mind and leave me sitting there going WTF just happened?
Still, no means no.
But an explanation would be nice.
I didn't get an honest one, ever.
I mean it.
There were explanations, but studying for a test is a lie, not having premarital sex was also a lie, I am too psychoanalytical was a dodge, and it's too big was definitely a whopper (refer to #2 if you have already forgotten)
8. I was terrified of AIDS and STDs.
I was, I guess I still am, my uncle died from complications due to AIDS when I was in my 20's. This detail singlehandedly kept me out of the bar scene my entire life. Casual sex became sex roulette with 1 in six chance of blowing my head off.... if you don't get that one, we can't be sex partners- which puts you in the vast majority of people who tolerate me these days.
9. I am sexual.
I refuse to call myself a heterosexual because Americans are very weird about the gender decision that heterosexuality has become. I am kind of bisexual trisexual or something as homosexuality does not offend me and in some case I find it arousing. I also find a host of other sexual tastes desirable but none of them would set a romantic role in my life because it is just a sexual preference or arousal... people are sexual, different strokes and all. You cannot explain homosexuality on this basis. It's cheating. People are not homosexual or heterosexual for strictly sexual reasons... they are that way for emotional, psychological, cultural reasons. I just feel like we've missed the whole point somehow by focusing on gender qualification and attraction by forcing it all into easy to define (well apparently easy to define) roles that make the whole business cut and dried and avoid that glaring fact that it is so much more of a trainwreck then a gay versus straight thing.
Once again, this doesn't win me any friends- who tell me that unless I am one way or another I am a bisexual and should shit my trap as I don't know what I am talking about.
10. I love my own characters too much.
I pretty much live half my life inside my head. I write these stories about heroes and fall in love with some many wonderful men and women (and dragons and wolves- long story) and tend to forget at times that they only exist on paper or in blogs or my books and while they all have very real relationships with me, they only exist there where I can see them until they escape to literature so that those who seek them will understand that they are so special and their stories need to be told. I am currently writing the Spartan and the Amazon's story and am very much in love with Maggie Macdonald and Diana Prince right now, it's 1945 and WWII has come to it's awful end. Mike Knight and Diana Prince are headed home to be with Maggie on her farm in the Azores. If this sounds familiar don't tell DC, I hijacked Wonder Woman for my own imagination... it might become a book one day... it probably won't but it's been a blast to imagine it all especially the part where I am in love with Diana.
11. I cannot effectively communicate with women I like
If I have to explain this then you must have skipped to this one as I have pretty much explained it by explaining everything else. I get gum footed, nervous, and frantic when I meet someone I am attracted to and usually manage to come across as a complete jerk, dork or idiot or all three. Tongue-tied as my pent up desires suddenly run rampant like a million minions in a furor.
12. You don't really care anyway
In all fairness, you probably don't, you just had sex, are getting ready for sex, going to have it later this week or you're impotent and now hate me for bringing it up. In which case, Fuck you and you're Welcome.
13. What's the point of sex anyway?
A very relevant question. SEX IS OVERRATED
especially when you aren't getting any. Would people just shut up about it anyway?!
Jeez. I would sell my soul for just one kiss, just one kiss....
it was just one kiss
So that's my take on sex.... and life and love and fish 'n chips (gotcha)
next time on Life According to Mike, we will discuss Penuckle and why it is the game that will end the world...
This the Internet and America. There's a presidential Election and the mud will be flying between Trump and Biden in no time. Sorry, Bernie, the Democratic Party is throwing you off the bus again as unelectable. Anyway, that's another blog in itself.
