The Kimble ViewPoint

Topping off at The Dixie House Cafe

2019-07-15T20:02:00.000-05:00

Recently my wife and I have been getting burned out on the usual places we eat around town. I happen to have a very forgiving palate but my wife can't stomach much. Over the years I have learned to accept her simple tastes in food so we've frequented some of the same places again and again. Sometimes we leave in disappointment, others we leave thinking "At least we ate today". I am a google contributor so I have an extensive list of places I want to visit so I decided we would try one out on a Saturday afternoon.

We were looking for someplace to eat that was different yet familiar. I looked into some of the southern country cooking places on my list and settled on the Dixie House Cafe. Crowded into a busy retail area near the Hules mall Dixie House Cafe is relatively easy to find South of 30 on Hulen next to the Half Price Books.

If you're looking for intimate or booth dining look elsewhere. From what I saw the place is all a jumble of tables. The wait staff all work together to make your dining experience pleasant and very efficient so the one who seats you might not be the one who takes your order or the one who brings your food or refills your drinks. I can say that this set-up did seem to make things move along rather quickly on a busy Saturday lunch rush.

The Staff was kind and unobtrusive and they take pride in their work. From what I saw of the cleanliness of the store and restrooms the folks at Dixie House Cafe keep their business up to par.

At first, the menu can seem confusing but there is a simple 4-5 special dishes for each day, smaller portions for kids meals, a list of sides, desserts and other options. I ordered the Pork Chops and Eggs, my Wife got Chicken Fried Steak and my kiddo ordered a Grilled Cheese Sandwich on Texas Toast with Mashed Potatoes. Even though my eggs were slightly overcooked from what I ordered the meal was very good and it hit the spot.

For 3 people $34 isn't bad especially since we were all happy and there were leftovers enough to quench our late-night munchies later. I give The Dixie House Cafe out of 5 stars. Check them out.

If you are looking for some old fashioned Southern cooking this is a place that will give you exactly what you desire. You can find the Dixie House Cafe on the Westside of Fort Worth in the Hulen area near the Mall.

Truth Bomb

2019-04-02T03:37:00.000-05:00

Ok. There are these lists of questions going around the internet these days. I figured that I would finally fill one out. This one is in response to a sister I didn't know I had until about two years ago. That's another story. Not one I'm sure I want to share with y'all yet. So, for now, catch this Truth Bomb.

This version expands on the original.
* How old? 43. I think. Ask my wife.

* Piercings? Not anymore. Back in the day though ... It was just ears. Well and that one time I got my tongue pierced. That was a mistake.

* Tattoos? Yes. They are all very personal and require explanation and a follow-up Q&A. I try to keep them covered.

* Ever hit a deer? Yes. I was in a fully loaded Semi-feed truck at the time. Luckily I was only going 55 and already downshifting.

* Ridden in an ambulance? Twice. The first time I think I was dying. It was a long time ago and I was sick as fuck so ... The second time I should have been dead but I escaped completely unscathed. Don't drive on Saint Patrick's day even if you wait until 3am for all of the assholes to die or get locked up.

* Sang karaoke? Hell yes. And I've done Rock Band karaoke too. I play 🎸.

* Ice skated? Not exactly. I put the skates on. Stepped on the ice and 🐱. Not my most gangster moment.

* Ridden a motorcycle? Yes. Well. I held on for dear life while some dude drove. I did this willingly, by the way. Not my most gangster moment.

* Stayed in the hospital? Way too much as a kid. Not so much post whiskey and weed.

* Skipped school? Lol. Yeah. A lot. Some of my favorite memories are of fucking up the block when I was supposed to be in school.

* Last text? I don't text. I Messenger.

* Watched someone die? Unfortunately yes. Too often.

* Pepsi or Coke? Yeah. No.

* Favorite pizza? There used to be this place called Romanos. Unfortunately, the Old times are over around here. Kids these days. Ya know?

*Favorite season? Summer. I'm a pure 🌞 sign.

* Broken any bones? Depends. Had a knee injury. Broke a lot of bones in my hands fighting. The first year I knew my wife I walked around with a broken finger. Nothing you can do. Keep living, punch shit if you have to. Hands heal. Shits get like concrete.

* Gotten a ticket? Yes. Never paid one. NOT ONE! Fucking extort me? Fuck you.

* Favorite Color? Blue. WNRSGC fa life Cuzz.

* Sunset or Sunrise? Sunset. Yeah, I'm busy or asleep at sunrise.

There ya go.

Peace.

I Can Dig It. but, see here's the thing ...

2019-03-29T02:38:00.002-05:00

This is going to be potentially very controversial. If you are easily offended by free thought bail the fuck out right now. Trust me, it's for the best.

Click Here to back away slowly

Still with us? Okay well then.

A few days ago I ran across one of those lazy memes that get passed around every few years or so. I've seen this one before, but this time something struck me about the message. I would like to share the meme as I found it.

See here's the thing. I want to congratulate you on your ability to feel some kind of way about whatever you want. That's human rights and shit. I can dig it. BUT. Hiding from those who are trying to reach out to you is the recipe for utter loneliness. Yes, your fear of approach and openness comes from a place of deep fear and loss. Yes, it hurts and it binds your heart. It doesn't have to.

Trust and Faith are not one-way streets. Trust is a breezy country road on a spring day if you let it be. Faith? Well, faith is an interstate. Faith is what we must have in ourselves and if the little girl is still hiding in the dark corners of her life, maybe it's her imagination and not dark forces come to snatch her from her hidey hole. Maybe it's the savior, the bright light you pray for in the dark of the night alone with your bottle.

She pushes the light away because she feels safe in the dark with her demons of deceit and lust and lies. Murders of lies like a cloud of flies, blinding the truth. The truth? Maybe you were lost and abandoned once upon a time. Many of us were. That's no excuse to refuse to grow. Work to be less shy and less fragile and maybe the people around you won't judge you like the ...

The "Strong Stoic Woman" is a mask she wears to feel important in a world where she feels weak and alone. In a world that marginalizes her. It's a mistake. Nothing wrong with strong. Nothing wrong with stoic. Combine those with the lost little girl in the closet and wear them as a mask, disaster awaits. Take it from a Black male in America. Shy and fragile and in the closet isn't the way to go. If you want to be heard you have to be seen. How do you want to be seen? That's the question you have to ask and if your equation doesn't include that little spark in your heart ... What's the point? So, you can be a sarcastic cunt whenever it suits you to do so and then have the nerve to tell people to deal with it or fuck off. Charming. I wonder what your little soul spark would think of that. The world may never know because you keep her locked away in the dark, afraid and alone.

In the end, it's the fear that's killing you. It's not the nightmares or the people you judge so harshly from your strong and stoic high horse. It's the fear that drives you. You are afraid of everything so you misjudge everyone. The only people you can allow yourself to be real with are the others who share your guilt and shame. You are wallowing in it and asking for us to understand the little light of your soul. None of us have ever seen it. From over here it's a myth. All we get is

"Strong Stoic Woman"

Yes, I know you're a strong woman. But you must look beyond, woman. Learn to see that someONE may be reaching out to lend you a hand up out of that dark corner where the little girl still lies, afraid. All I'm saying is if you love your light so much let it truly fly free. Allow it out of the darkness of fear and maybe it will symbiotically bind itself with the Strong Stoic Woman and make her less of a fucking bitch.

I'm just saying.

Peace.

Bitch you don't muss me up no more
I don't share your business in the streets because I'm not an attention whore.

The Changing Face of American Beauty

2015-05-19T15:14:00.001-05:00

The face of beauty standards in America is changing and I love it. Over the centuries, the ideal model of feminine beauty has changed numerous times. Our current model of ideal beauty has been slender to waifish. Women so small the look fragile and sick. I don't know where the idea that voluptuous feminine beauty was something to be considered undesirable, but I've never agreed with it. I find women beautiful for more than just their shape, but there is something about wide hips, thick thighs and big asses that turns my head every time. I love women and that's no secret. My desire for them has landed me in more trouble than I care to admit. But in my interactions with women from around the country and the world has led to my understanding that no matter where they are from, or what size they are, they are beautiful.

What's really great is that the way beauty is seen in our nation is changing as our generation and the generation following break free of the chains of multimedia influence. Ours is becoming a nation where we are exposed to a depth of diversity that is almost unheard of elsewhere in the world. Race, gender, sexual orientation, disability and yes, size are all differences that are these days less important than your attitude toward your fellow man. It's not okay to drag people down because they are different from you. It's better to lift them up.

And that's alright with me. I want to see your stunning beauty in whatever form it takes. We all have a little sexy in us and it should be okay for you to feel it in yourself. Stand tall and proud and know that you are stunning.

Madeline Stuart - is an 18-year-old model with Down Syndrome who has found her beautiful self.

Tess Holiday - is the largest plus size model to ever be signed to a major agency.

These are just two stories of the thousands I am sure are out there. Share your stories of the changing face of American beauty.

There is More to this Story

2014-11-26T03:14:00.000-06:00

I understand why people feel the need to protest over what happened to Michael Brown. The people are angry. The people want to see justice done. We live in a society that says, "you, as citizens of this great country of ours, YOU, have the right to, peacefully protest against your government". However, as we've seen over and over again throughout our history, protests don't end well here. And in this, our ultra HIgh Definition instant served world, protesting is more dangerous than it's ever been because they know what we are capable of.

(AP Photo/Sid Hastings)

They know what can happen if a populous gets out of control. They have seen the fall of the great Empire again and again, and it starts with the people being fed-the-fuck-up. People are fed up but not necessarily over the death of another young man in the streets.

I will posit this, in the silent midst of this ongoing disaster, that the people and not simply angry over the death of one young man, instead, we are furious at the ongoing injustice and increasing police state we are ALL subject to. We are incensed by the continual political misdealing and lewd indiscretions. We are sick and goddamned fed up with continual corporate greed and their political niggling. We are tired of the Military interventions and utter lack of care for our Military men and women. We are angry because our leaders are not putting the best interest of this country at heart. Our entire country is arguing the merits of gun control and concussions in the NFL when there are bigger issues to deal with. like putting people back to work. Getting the homeless off the streets and back into society where they can contribute. Opening our world up to new ways of thinking about energy and food production. Granting people the right to expect security in what they have worked their entire lives for. Giving people alternate options for medical treatments beyond pharmaceuticals.

(WHITNEY CURTIS / NYT)

Stop criminalizing minor crap like parking tickets and possession of marijuana. Stop terrorizing us with the threat of jail for every little thing and turning our Peace Officers into an occupying force hell bent on cramming us into corporate owned prisons. I don't know a single person who would be completely relaxed during a traffic stop. Stop threatening our families, our freedoms our security. Societies are built on a unity that begins with security. And the plan for that unity is supposed to come from our government. Instead, all we see is constant insecurity and instability. We see a focus on the answers to Liberty and Peoples right to CHOOSE, when those shouldn't even be questions.

The people are tired, and they are afraid and they are unsure about who we are as a nation and where we are going as a Country. People are divided and our government is drawing out the sides, compiling a strategy, posturing and finger pointing and slandering and bickering and lying the whole time. And we peer out at each other through our smog smeared windshields and over our ergonomic cubicles and we question, and we judge and we wonder what side you're on. It's a fucking tragedy. It's the saddest thing. And people are fed up. So they protest, and some riot.

And it's not going to end well here either. It never does. I will suggest a few things for you who are going to continue to march up and down the streets in your fury.

Protest on the sidewalks or in other designated areas.

This will prevent you from being maced by the police or run over by a car for blocking public streets.

If you are going to block public streets have some semblance of a plan.

Block particular streets, or streets that make a political point, or streets near the offices of those you are trying to draw attention from. In this particular case you could block the streets surrounding the main police station in your area.

Develop some sort of message.

This is usually accomplished through impromptu chants and spontaneous street speeches bellowed into megaphones.

Talk to the media and do so with some sort of class.

As much class as you can muster. If you are protesting for social change your message cannot be incoherent and full of hate speech and shit you read on Reddit. Know why you are there and be capable of giving an elevator speech about it should you be asked. If you are never asked, don't volunteer information. Volunteering information is always a bad idea.

Do Not Under ANY Circumstances Break or Steal Anything

This is just a bad fucking move y'all.

Do not frighten your fellow citizens

Some of us do not have the time. Some of us do not have the inclination. Others of us do not have the GAS MONEY to sit in the street while you march up and down screaming. If we choose not to participate we should be allowed that right and it should not be taken away from us by folks marching for rights. Please stand aside so we might freely pass without fear. Refer to points 1-5 for details.

.Photo: AFP

Please be angry. Please take a stand for social justice in this country because there is a problem. But don't narrow that problem to one incident and one solution. The problem is the continuing division within a unified nation. There is, now, a stretching at the seams that is beginning to rear. It has to be fixed. Try to be more focused in what you do and how you do it.

For Love and Writing

2014-10-21T16:22:00.001-05:00

Love.

There is still a part of me that believes that love is a mental dysfunction. The term ‘mental dysfunction’ is used to describe conditions that cause people to have disturbed thinking, behavior and moods. Let me ask you, what sane person would go through the trials we go through for love? Only love can cause the mental break that would allow one to forget themselves in favor of living for another. And after love is lost … Do we find ourselves as we were? No. We find ourselves irreparably altered broken and distorted in the image we have for ourselves. But we love anyway. Rarely by choice do we find ourselves drawn and compelled to love. Love, some say, is like God; omnipotent, all encompassing and larger than our understanding.

Writing.

There is still a part of me that thinks the drive to write is a mental dysfunction. Let me ask you, what sane person would go through the trials we go through to produce a good piece of work? Let’s not even debate a GREAT piece of work. Writing causes a different type of mental break than love does. Hell a mental break is almost required of you in order to write and write well. We take ourselves outside of reality and into a world that exists only in our minds. Then we torture ourselves translating what we see in that world onto the page. Once is never enough. Once we’re done with one piece, like addicts, we begin another, sometimes more than one at a time. It’s a lonely suffering but we write anyway one keystroke at a time over and over. It’s the definition of insanity, but we write anyway. Rarely by choice we find ourselves drawn and compelled to write.

Love and Writing

Love and writing are like alcoholism, or drug addiction. They are mental dysfunctions that we find some sense of peace, some solace within. They make us feel both terrible and terrific at once. They fill us with dread and with desire. They are states of being that we both cheer and despair.

I write for love and I write of love. Love inspires my writing and writing leads me to understand love. In order to be a good writer you need two essential elements, love and truth. If your writing is done in anything but love the reader will know it. If you fudge the truth your readers will know it and all your efforts will be for naught. Writers suffer for the love of their work a dual mental condition. I think I’ll coin it … Lufian Writian. Add it to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Afraid of Ebola

2014-10-20T21:25:00.001-05:00

“Aren’t you afraid of Ebola?” I’m asked.

“Sure,” I said but no more or less than I am afraid of anything else people carry. It’s why I don’t go out as much. It’s why I don’t date and mass with the collective and such. It’s why I Namaste instead of shake, why I nod but don’t touch. I have seen the way you live. I have witnessed you leave the bathroom stall, facilities un-flushed, and waltz on by the sink bank as if it were nothing but a wall. You don’t even bother to glance in the mirror long enough to see the wedge of toilet paper behind your ear, stuck there when you were wiping the meat sweats from your neck. So, no, Ebola isn’t one of my biggest concerns. What I am concerned with are bigger things like …

Watching the world around me descend into madness. I feel as if I am witness to the collapse of a civilization and as Democracy burns on a sinking ship of endless greed and bottomless need all I can do is play … because I see no salvation.

I am afraid that the same people who fear Ebola more than the war machine that’s selling tanks to our police are going to be the ones that hand all of our rights over to Johnny Law. Because all I can see is you parasites sucking the tainted information that the media has running through the veins of our nation and you have grown bloated to bursting on the bile of lies. Truth is … The police are killing us out here, with impunity and with very little in the way of repercussion.

I fear what they are stripping away little by little because of your righteous belief in an invisible god. Today it’s the hard fought and hard won women’s right to choose what she does with her body. Once that cotter pin is pulled and he castle nut works its way loose of the bolt, what disaster awaits while Justice travels 70 down I35 at night in the rain? She is already blind.

Though, she is not as blind as you. That’s what I fear. Not a virus that an insect can give me just as easily as my neighbor on the public transit. I fear your blind staring eye that is only capable of absorbing the lies that they tell you to eat. I fear your panicked rush when those with power push your face from the teat. I fear that you do not know you are a slave so you do not see the cage and when the structure collapses you would rather eat me, than meat.

I fear your lack of education and I fear your passive procrastination. I fear your passing of ignorance to your kids and your utter lack of passion for their futures. I fear the signs of the times that tell me Orwell wasn’t just a writer but instead a prophet. The all seeing eye isn’t just a symbol its a message that the slope we’ve slipped on is already too far gone. And the pyramid upon which it rests isn’t a symbol of strength is a scheme that’s become a theme in all things profitable. I fear because these days the rich don’t just get richer they also get to paint the picture that history will record as truth while the rest of us simply fade on the page like poorly erased pencil marks.

“Aren’t you afraid of Ebola,” I’m asked?

“Sure,” I replied, “sure I am.”

Your Debts Young man, Your Debts and be FREE

2014-05-20T23:28:00.000-05:00

"I'm sorry sir, but you can't say that."

Wait a minute. Part of the fucking program, as I understood it, when I agreed to show up to this bitch and pony show was that you were going to shut the fuck up and let me speak. What you said was:

Pay your debt young man, pay your debt and all will be forgiven. Forgiven?

Now you're telling me that none of it was true. Now you say that freedom is a fantasy and that none of us is ever truly forgiven for anything, ever. That someone always remembers. That someone always asks the question, someone always thinks there is one more remembrance necessary, one more debt to pay.

Pay your debts they said and you will again live free, but there are no such things as freedom or debts. Freedom costs everything. We describe ourselves as free. Freedom costs everything and everything costs something.

Mistakes cost you little bits of your life. One small lesion at a time we are scarred by the relentless burning sands of our days and our nights. We are carved and forged and moulded into the people that we are and the people that we love. We are the monuments of a humanity and human potential that future generations will remember or wish they could forget.

We are either the last free generation or we are the first. I was promised freedom. From my youngest days I was promised that what's right was right and that what was bullshit got shoveled.

Instead what I get is a fucking mule driven mile of Pure-D-Bullshit. The real bullshit, not that watered down manufactured bullshit.

It often these days starts with:

" Good afternoon, uh, sir, do you know why I pulled you over today?"

The answer in my head is always, "Cuz I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low? Do I look like a mind reader sir? I don't know."

If I'm lucky you are just doing your civic duty and keeping our city streets safe. If I am unlucky, well -
The sky has just become the limit hasn't it?

"Did you know that the registration on your car was out?"

Yes and it's remained that way because, fuck you. If I can't settle that "responsibility" I'll just carry on without it and cause way less trouble than the average Joe Citizen. I get it though, it's a debt to be paid for the "privilege" of driving these weather ravaged streets. Streets you designed to be easily driven. I am not all that inclined to be tied to your city streets any more. Keep your registrations and your warnings and your fines and lies. And your excuses to police my actions and my goings and comings.

I go where I please and I come when she does.

" That's good sir, Do you have your ID?"

"Uh, well I bailed out of the house real quick on my way ... I had to (Beat the Beer Clock) swing by my sisters (the weed mans house) and pick something up. That's why I am in my paja-"

"Do you realize that your registration is out? Have you been drinking tonight?"

"Yes, I mean no. Yes I know that my, but I though, I thought -"

Yes, yes as a matter of course, I do keep my ID on me at all times because I know, I know that I can be mistaken in so many ways. I could be hauled downtown right now under suspicion of something involving a black male fitting my description. I keep the legal entity known as DAVIN KIMBLE in my pocket at all times when in public. If I for one moment realize that I can't identify myself immediately as the legal entity DAVIN KIMBLE, I panic just a little bit. Really. I always keep an ID and a mutha fuckin' alibi.

"Do you wanna step out of the vehicle sir?"

No. I always feel like I'm giving up something of an advantage when I step beyond the safety of my vehicle. As long as I am in my vehicle and my hands firmly grip the wheel I can't be beaten and shot to death.

But I got my ID10T's a long time ago. I sat courtside at a prison execution that I had signed off on. Dude was an ass. He was making business hard. No, things aren't always black and white but thats why you have to have rules. He broke them. We never gave a fuck that he didn't bother to learn them first.

So, yeah. I got your Ideal. We'll trade the debtors prison for perpetual debt from the moment you can physically tap into a completely manufactured system. We are just fucking debt gerbils running on the money generating machine. But still broke for all your efforts.

There is a great fucking siphon down the line eating your soul. It's waiting for you with cyber links and hashtags. It's demanding you activate, vote, crunch, dance, decide, deliver, change, breathe, pay attention, sing, point, laugh at kittens and above all else, hate Mondays, revere Hump Day and Friday, bemoan the end of Sunday and generally find a reason to humbly complain about the fact that you have every day. Do it with a positive attitude, seek your higher potential, breathe, meditate, sing a song, dance like no one is watching and remember that as long as you still draw a breath there is always a chance.

Hey!

I said, "shut the fuck up and answer my questions."

"Ask them properly."

Why then is there always?

There is always some undereducated punk ass copper. Pushing his badge and gun around. Fuck his weight. With a gat that size he doesn't have to run. It's we who have to be deft of foot. Jumping from juniper bush to juniper bush, hopping fence to fence, through yards, and alley's. Isn't it us who run?

I say fuck that copper. With his badge and gun. Waking us from our sleep with his demands for obedience and recompence.

I say fuck that copper with his deviance and his disregard for those he's sworn to serve and protect. Murder and neglect.

Plying us with his compliance weapons. Trying to make us afraid. Trying to stir our spirits with his fear tactics and jack boot thuggery. Fuck the copper I say and piss on his suppression, shit right down the barrel of his fear stick. We are supposed to sit idle and afraid while they murder our children in the streets. Fuck those coppers I say. Fuck 'em good.

American Gestapo!
American Gestapo!
That's all they are.
American Gestapo!
American Gestapo!

Police Force.
Police State!

We know that we must protect ourselves and so we demand and fight for our right to PACK A PIECE! Even those of us who are all about peace feel the need to pack a piece and be sure everyone in the house learns it's proper operating procedure. Our neighborhoods are becoming armed camps. Not against the threat of roving gangs of young derelict rapists bent on anarchy but instead, from the very government sworn in to represent our best interests. They think that their higher interest is in our best interest. So we pack a piece because we have to fear the Pirates and the Po-Po's. What kinda freedom is that? What kind of justice locks up a gardener because he chooses to grow an herb?

What kind of Justice locks up a man defending his garden? What kind of society forces a man to defend a garden in the first fucking place?

Because the only guns in my house, devil, are Airsoft and BB. Because as much as you might like it you will never again see me within your institutional walls. I like pussy walls better. You will never see me in your dining halls, I like dance halls better. You will never again see my bitter face, my Refuse to bow, bend or break face.

You will never find me again haunting your cold halls and back alley's waiting for my next moment to take your advantage away. Because you have make it so that I will never again find myself willing to dip so low as to draw your hated attention.

That means, "FUCK YOU".

Do what's right by us dear country.
Do what's right by us dear Lord that this country prey's to, and on.
Do what's right by us you Rulers of This OUR HOMELAND!

And I swear by all that is in me I will let you pass.

But if you continue to fuck us ...

$#$$%%@^&@&*@*#(&#%!!!!!!!!!!@**%$%$%$*($U)!!!!!!^^%&$*$*$*

I will goddamned ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Your ass.

Bruddah Preach.

Looking Back

2014-04-30T16:22:00.001-05:00

One thing I loved about Photography and Photoshop as a hobby was that I got an opportunity to show things as I saw them. The whole idea for The KimbleViewPoint came from my experiences learning how to shoot and manipulate photographs.

And I shot everything from hoppers:

To Nuns:

In looking forward I thought I'd take a moment to look back. In this blog I wanted to share the art and images that moved me then. These things that I created as a personal remembrance of what is possible.

So, enjoy. Tell me what you think.

Welcome to Toy Land

This is one of my favorites. There were always so many little toys and stuff scattered all over the house. They made perfect subjects.

Hero

Satan was a recurring subject. At the time understanding the adversary was an important part of my life. He's featured often and I as him.

The Devourer

You know, eating souls and what not.

Angel of Mercy

And then there was the other side of the coin. I find all religious imagery fascinating and I created a series of "Lesser Gods" to go with this one.

The Piper

I also really enjoyed shooting people. Like the Nuns I prefered the subjects never know I was there.

Native Man

The Unmasking

And then there were the self portraits. I took a lot of these and often turned them inside out.

Sides

See more Here.

Michelle M. Shows No Fear

2013-01-21T12:45:00.002-06:00

Description:

Haunted by memories of her murdered twin, Keely Morrison is convinced suicide is her only ticket to eternal peace. But in death, she discovers the afterlife is nothing like she expected. Instead of peaceful oblivion or a joyful reunion with her sister, Keely is trapped in a netherworld on Earth with only a bounty-hunting reaper and a sarcastic demon to show her the ropes.

When the demon offers Keely her ultimate temptation--revenge on her sister's killer--she must determine who she can trust. Because, as Keely soon learns, the reaper and demon have been keeping secrets and she fears the worst is true--that her every decision changes how, and with whom, she spends eternity.

Chapter One:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for they are with me.

I repeated my version of the psalm as I watched the ribbon of blood drift from my wrist. I’d hoped it would be a distraction—something to stop me from wondering what my sister’s dying thoughts had been. Exhaling slowly, I let the emptiness consume me.

Jordan had kept my secrets and I had kept hers. In the end, it came down to just one secret between us that took her life. Now, it would take mine. I should have said something, but nothing I said or did now could bring her back or make anyone understand what she meant to me.

Are you here, Jordan? Are you with me? Tell me about heaven...

I told myself Jordan was gone, never coming back, but her memories continued to haunt me. I had no idea if there even was an afterlife. If God existed, I was convinced he had given up on me. Not once did I sense he’d heard a single one of my prayers. I wasn’t asking for the world—I only wanted to know if my sister was safe and at peace. What was so hard about that?

She should still be here. It wasn’t fair.

I’d been the difficult one—much more than Jordan. For a while, I’d even gotten into drugs. Mom and Dad had worried I’d get Jordan into drugs, too. But I wouldn’t. Not ever. Besides, that part of my life had been over long before Jordan’s death. A small gargoyle tattoo on my left shoulder was all that remained of my previous lifestyle.

Mom and Dad started treating me differently after Jordan’s funeral two months ago. She and I were twins, so I understood how hard it was for them to look at me and not see her. Sometimes, they wouldn’t look at me at all. Mom went to the psychiatrist, but no one asked if I needed to talk to someone about what happened. No one asked if I needed sleeping pills or antidepressants. Yeah, sure. Don’t give the former addict pills of any sort.

Not one person saw the all-consuming suffering that gnawed at my soul. Why couldn’t anyone see? Jordan had been more than my sister—she’d been my Samson, my strength. I would have done anything for her, and yet, I’d failed her. I wasn’t the one who’d killed her, but I might as well have been. How could I ever live with that? My heart had a stillness to it since her death.

I shall fear no evil.

I couldn’t very well recite the first part of Psalm 23 because it said I shall not want, and I did want. I wanted to go back in time. I wanted my sister back. Clearly, goodness and mercy were never going to be part of my life ever again. In my mind, I saw myself walking through the iron gates of hell with demons cackling gleefully all around.

I didn’t want to die. Not really. I was just tired and didn’t know of another way to stop the pain. Doctors removed a bad appendix. Dentists pulled rotten teeth. What was I supposed to do when my very essence hurt, when the cancer I’d come to call depression made every decent memory agonizingly unbearable?

Before I’d gotten down to cutting my wrist (I managed to only cut one), I’d taken a few swigs of Dad’s tequila—the good kind he kept in the basement freezer. I’d used another swig or two to chase down the remainder of Mom’s sleeping pills in the event I failed to hit an artery or vein. Then I’d set the bottle on the ledge of the tub in case I needed further liquid encouragement. Instead of using a knife or a razor, I attached a cutting blade to my Dad’s Dremel. The Dremel was faster, I reasoned. More efficient.

It would have been easier to OD, I suppose. But I felt closer to my sister this way, to suffer as she’d suffered.

I recited the line from Psalms 23 again. It had become my personal mantra.

The words resonated in my parents’ oversized bathroom. I’d chosen theirs because the Jacuzzi tub was larger than the tub in the hall bathroom. Jordan and I used to take bubble baths together in this same tub when we were little.

Innocence felt like a lifetime ago. I searched the bathroom for bubble bath but came up short. Soap might have made the laceration hurt more so it was probably just as well. Besides, the crimson streaming from my wrist like watercolor on silk was oddly mesmerizing.

The loneliness inside proved unrelenting, and the line from the psalms made me feel better. I prayed for the agony inside me to stop. I argued with God. Pleaded. But after all was said and done, I just wanted the darkness to call me home.

I tried not to think of who would find my body or who’d read the note I’d left. I blamed myself not only for failing Jordan, but for failing my parents, too.

My lifeline to this existence continued to bleed out into the warm water. Killing myself had been harder than I’d imagined. I hadn’t anticipated the searing fire racing through my veins. I reached for the tequila with my good arm but couldn’t quite manage. Tears welled in my eyes.

Part of me foolishly felt Jordan was here. The other part feared she wasn’t.

Give me a sign, Sis. Just one.

I imagined seeing my parents at my funeral—their gaunt faces, red-eyed and sleepless. How could I do this to them? Wasn’t the devastation of losing one child enough?

No. Stop. A voice in my head screamed. Don’t do this. Don’t. Please...

I shifted my body, attempted to get my uncooperative legs under me. I could see the phone on my parents’ nightstand. I could make it that far. Had to. The voice was right. I didn’t want to do this. I felt disorientated, dizzy. Darkness crept along the edges of my vision. Focusing became difficult. A sweeping shadow of black caught my attention. Someone stood in the bathroom—not my sister. A man. Had I managed to call 911? I couldn’t remember getting out of the tub. And why’d I get back in? Did I use a towel?

Mom is going to be pissed when she sees the blood I’ve tracked all over the bedroom carpet.

“I’m sorry,” I told the man in black.

“It’s okay, Keely. Don’t be afraid.” Not my father’s voice. It was softer, with a hint of sorrow. Distant. Fleeting. Later, I’d feel embarrassed about this, but for now I was safe from the nothing I’d almost become. My teeth clattered from the chill. My eyelids fluttered in time with my breaths. The tub water had turned the color of port wine. The ribbons, the pretty, red watercolor ribbons were gone.

Dull gray clouded my sight.

A voice whispered to me, and my consciousness floated to the surface again.

“—okay, Keely.”

Cold. So cold.

“I’m right here.”

There was no fear in me as the man bent forward, his face inches from mine. He was my father’s age, and yet strangely older. His eyes were so...blue, almost iridescent. The irises were rimmed in a fine line of black, and the creases etched at the corners reminded me of sunbeams as he gave me a weak smile. The oddly. Dressed. Paramedic. A warm hand reached into the water and cradled mine. My fingers clutched his. I sighed, feeling myself floating, drifting. Light—high and intense exploded before me. No! Too much. Too much! I shuddered and labored to catch my breath, but it wouldn’t come.

Finally, the comfort of darkness rose to greet me.

Links:

B&N

Tim Minchin's Storm the Animated Movie

2013-01-05T17:13:00.001-06:00

Taken Out to the Wash

2012-11-11T18:27:00.000-06:00

Taken Out to the Wash

A Critique of the short film “The Laundromat” by Timothy Melville

By Davin Kimble

“The Laundromat” by Timothy Melville is an interesting take on the “guy gets duped by a pretty woman” story. Men are fallible. We focus sometimes on what we want or what we expect to happen to us instead of seeing what’s right in front of our faces. At least once in our lives a beautiful woman takes us all for a ride, and if we are lucky we’ll get the chance to take that trip more than once. In this story a normal human interaction that can often take months to play out is a lesson told in a few short minutes. Don’t trust a big butt and a smile.

The scene is a Laundromat. The players, an attractive young lady, an attractive young man and an oblivious dude in the background; the snow globe is a gun. The gun changes everything, the gun twists the plot and gives our antagonist some sense of power over her victim; her poor dumbstruck tango. Here we have a woman, standing in a place one might expect a woman to be standing, reading a magazine you might expect any woman doing her wash to be reading, in a place you’d expect a woman to be. The setup is perfect, the visuals in place. We are all thinking, “romantic moment ahead”, grab your tissues or heartstrings or whatever you pull out during these boy meets girl movie moments. But the gun, now the gun changes everything.

It’s a brilliant if dangerous scheme but it works on this guy. But why wouldn’t it? I would be thinking, “There is no way I am handing this gun over to this chick. It’s obvious she put it there”. I would have at the very least unloaded it first. But this guy … this guy is seeing what he wants to see. All he is thinking is, “this is a chance to get to know a beautiful woman” to his detriment. The story stresses this. He continues to do what she asks thinking she is flirting with him. He dances, unsure of himself. He hands over his wallet and makes excuses for the value of his watch, unsure of himself. He has no weapons, no power. Even had I made the mistake of handing over the gun I would have, I believe, come out of that situation a whole lot better, or dead, but I wouldn’t have danced to her tune. She would have had to dance to mine … or kill me. Women love a man with a gun after all but what this guy missed is that he didn’t have the gun anymore, she did and he had no other weapons to work with.

In a way this is a very empowering feminist tale of the balance of power. This woman, slight of build, seemingly soft and potentially vulnerable has balls bigger than a chimpanzee. Buy itself being ballsy is a hell of a leg up, but having a gun to boot, now there is a tipping point in the balance of power that cannot be denied. But she continues to play coy, sweet, teasing him along with a promise that only he believes is real. She holds all of the cards and she is the only one who realizes it. How easily he hands over his wallet, his watch and his heart if he had been given another half a chance. He even offers to go along with her as a hostage, handing her all of his cards, his “guns”, knives and his dignity. He had no guns left. He’s lucky she left him his manhood. Her position and his desire set him up to be robbed in a public Laundromat.

I think that there are lessons in this tale that speak to the human condition. For instance, what about the guy reading the paper in the back? Did he not even hear the word gun? Why on earth did he not look around now and then? Who sits there never once taking in their environment? Too many people is the answer. This guy is the representation of the ignorant bliss so many walk around in. He witnessed a brazen robbery but the sad part is he will never know it. The robbed man witnessed an brilliant scheme but he will never recognize it. I can hear him telling the story. I can see him thinking on it wistfully, wondering if he’ll ever see her again, longing for it, masturbating to it. She was right. Woman love a man with a gun. They love a man with confidence, a sense of brazen fearlessness, a depth of focus and an innate awareness. This film showed me how you can visually realize a depth of emotion, character and sense of story in a very short frame of time. You can leave your audience wondering what came before and what might come after. You can teach them to wonder who these people are and encourage them to create the rest of the story to their little hearts contentment.

The Laundromat

Love Actually

2012-08-27T13:50:00.002-05:00

This is a comment to an article I read in The Atlantic some years ago Read the article here.

Love Actually

The Response follows.

There is a huge deep and dark hole in this whole discussion. There is a balance that no one really seems to care to talk much about. In this article, and it would seem this book, everyone is focusing on the plight and woes of teenage girls. No one considers the other side of that dynamic, the teenage boys. And that, is truly a bigger part of the problem than all of your nincompoop about these girls.

But, since you brought it up, allow me to address the young ladies. On the whole they have completely discarded the FRIEND part of the boyfriend experience. They want a boy who will fall into all of the fantasies of the boyfriend idea. Twilight teaches our young girls that the angry, loner cute weird guy with a whole family of issues is the one that you should skip school for, the one you should chase all over the northern territories, the one you should place yourself in mortal peril, even commit suicide for because nothing is more important than love. These girls all expect some tall, dark and handsome to wrap them up in this fantasy. The truth is, that guy is usually the one who cajoles, seduces and threatens your daughters into those locker rooms in the first place. He is the prime beef cake and the girls are expected to compete for his attention. Hollywood teaches them this. The very tales you cite in your piece as bringing our young womens head out of the gutter are social lies that give them no more freedom from attachment to a man than the 1950's did. And with attachment to a man comes sex.

And the boys are entirely rounded up in sex as a thought. At 12-15 years old our young men have less than no guidance when it comes to relationship issues. Things are handled, in boy world, with violence of action whether it be fighting or fucking; the most direct route to conflict resolution is a physical one. Maybe if the angst ridden vampire boy in Twilight had received some communications classes he could have just told the stupid mortal girl what the deal was in the first place. Instead he moaned, and whined and enticed her and led her on. And people completely missed that he's a VAMPIRE, and evil being bent on human destruction. On one hand boys are still taught to respect a women and treat them with kindness and care; but on the other we are also taught that there are things a woman can't handle and you should keep them out. The real sticker is, and it begins around junior high when the girls "harass the boys with their endless flirtations" is that the women control the whole game. Just because it may seem to you that we didn't notice, or care, we did. Those of us you shoved aside in high school so you could go blow Donny rock star in the bathroom. Even if you had no intention of blowing him, why did you follow him in there in the first place? It's unseemly. But they did, we watched the girls do these things. What the boys are taught, by these ceaseless images of masculine attractiveness is that unless you are one of these guys, hot, rich, sexy, you will never be happy. And as one of those guys, the girls are going to expect you virile.

There was a time in my middle and early high school years when I believed that the only way to have a girlfriend was to make a friend first. I made a lot of friends but I never had a girlfriend. I was told that you had to woo a woman. I was told you had to do little things to let her know how much you cared. It would be a long time before I had a girlfriend. I watched the other guys, the guys I knew were jackasses, get the girls. Being a friend to females got you nothing and I soon learned that making them desire YOU changed the game. I became the desirable man and I believed I had it all together, and I was still in high school. During those years we had a lot of sex with a lot of girls and not one moment of it was forced or coerced. There was little conversation from our parents about sex at all so what we learned we learned from experimenting, and in my generation we experimented all the time, every weekend and twice during school if we could. But it was all to learn the please the ladies, who were coming for the sex anyway.

There is something in this idea that these girls are the only ones deluded here, that the fantasy is all theirs and when they stray from it they become victims. It is also the burden of the boy who doesn't know what to do with the information he's given any more than she does. Think of that kid who stood by and watched the girl he loved throw herself into the midst of those wolves in the first place. Maybe he tried to talk to her, but would she have heard him? Her message is follow the meat, his message is lure the girl. No wonder they come to some physical head, for good or worse, and it's usually worse.

The voice of the boy is a mute one, shrouded in violence and secrecy. yet we are held responsible for the state of the girls that ignore us. Because there is a sex culture that borders on the destructive, it does not mean that the onus lies with the male. For every bald faced jerk out there, there is a man just struggling to figure out what the hell women really want. And for every woman that makes a male friend there is one who simply wants to spend some time naked in a locker room.

The boys, and we all know boys, are putting it where they can put it and they are not thinking about it because no one told them they should. They have no control over it because no one told them how. The boys aren't to blame here, the boys, like the girls, are lost in the same sea of emotion and misinformation we were lost in. And those candid conversations about sex they are so upset by are the ones we need to be having with them. We have to step in where everyone else is failing and talk to our kids about the realities of sex and relationships. I promise you, the "Boyfriend" culture isn't going to fly just because women are having a change of heart. No one thought to ask the boys if they wanted to engage in a new sort of game? What if we want to focus on education, physical fitness, skills, talents, and power that you'll some to suck up when we're thirty.

4th in Photo's

2012-07-04T20:09:00.003-05:00

Hey ya'll. I hope your 4th of July has been a great one. Before I give you my little bit of my day I want to ask you to do something for me. Read this. Remember why we celebrate this day.

The Declaration of independence

And now without further delay. Enjoy a bit of small town celebration.

I am Ready to go.

All the Fire Departments from 4 counties were in attendance.
So glad we have them. Hate to ever have to call them.
Thanks guys for all you do.

The prerequisite band.

These guys were pretty good.

And the Flag Corps!

Our local Motorcycle Club.

These guys rock.

This guy REALLY ROCKS!

I salute you sir!

Dublin Represent!

American History right there.

Remember where where we came from.

Tiny milk truck.

This is Dairy Country!

USA! Who was this?

Damn my camera sucks.

Support Local Roller Derby!

You'd better, or I'll come after you!

My baby celebrating.

Celebrate baby!

The Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy.

It is a part of our history ... sigh, like it or not.

Horsies!

Happy Independence Day!

Timeless Lost and Utter Stagnation

2012-05-25T14:21:00.001-05:00

When people talk about the moments in their lives they often relate the success or failures of those moments to timing. They bemoan the fact that this or that missed opportunity came down to poor timing. Timing is relative. When it comes to human relationships and timing,time is nothing more than a construct that depends on too many variables to be … well depended on. Humans have survived on instinct, and loyalty and love, not the timing of it all. We stuck, and stick, together because in order to survive we had to. Timing is irrelevant to the whole thing. We forget that in our self centered drive for our distant desires. Down the timeline is where our heads are but the rest of us is still right here, right now, disconnected from ourselves.

If I wanted you in my life I would take you right now, as you are lock stock and barrel and I would walk with you, and I would love you with my whole heart because my instinct tells me you are worthy. Timing? Bah! This is the time. It's the only time we have because the next second exists just as much as the last second does. Only as constructs in our muddled minds. I could be dead by morning. What does time mean then? Nothing except to those I've left behind me. Before this time I was there. And after this time I wasn’t. But it still means nothing to the right now. That's how I see it. I have always seen time that way and thereby live lost in the linear. I live in a linear world because it's the world forced upon me. If I could just live and write. Time would mean nothing.

I could go on having crazy conversations over the mad strains of Duke Ellington about the irrelevance of time, the frustrations of love and the fact that in my mind I am smaller than I have any right to be, but in the minds of others I am bigger than I deserve to be. Wanted by so many. Needed by so many. Understood by so few. Forced in this Xian world to compromise and dance and live in a linear circular meaningless cycle of 8 hour days. Forced into the human constructs of the past and the future. Time and space and money and politics and hope. Not just live in the right now. Not just live in love and passion and need. Why? For what they call survival. So we can afford to buy twenty dollar meals that are bigger than we should ever eat. So we can discard more than we ever deserved to have in the fucking first place. Survival they call it. So we can fill a house that’s bigger than we need it to be full of shit we never use. Survival is a pile of discarded junk on a street corner mouldering in the summer sun. Even the home free man passing it as he pushes his cart squeaking and clanking with aluminum cans knows that pile has no value. It never had any value. It was always misdirection. Even he refuses to dig through the refuse of your nugatory, trifling lives. His survival depends on more important things.

Survival has itself become a corporation that bleeds us as sure as a jugular slice. We dance on the strings of greed and needless needs. We follow the folly and work for pennies better left strewn in the streets. We are addicted to our addictions. We are led by our bullrings. Piercings that we inflicted upon ourselves. Masks that we wear and fucking chastity belts we locked and threw away the keys to before we even knew the importance of what we were doing to ourselves. Killing ourselves, destroying ourselves and doing it gladly for what we term a “Higher Moral Cause”. Fucking ourselves up the ass with a rigid corporate cock. Moaning in delight as we make them rich off our own blind desire for more. More corporate cock, give us more, we insatiable greedy whores. And doing it gladly for the next steaming pile of discarded junk. Dancing on our puppet strings, we our own puppeteers. Dancing not to the unholy Devils tune, or to the holy strains of some fucks forsaken God above, but dancing to the discordant tune we have created and modified and ruined in our mad dash for uselessness. A cacophony of lost souls screaming in the fires heedless desire. What shit music they make.

But they don’t understand. They don’t see while they walk the streets the work that’s being done in the minds of mad poets. They don’t see the that infusion of thought fed to them came from the tip of a rigid shaft bleeding onto the page. Screaming in your fucking faces. Choice is a lie! Free will is an illusion! You are conditioned, instinctive creatures. You are dirty groveling animals simply trying not to fucking die and trying not to miss a chance to fucking fuck so you can make more dirty groveling animals. Look at your beloved histories and see the men and women who truly changed the worlds we live in. They are your gods. They are the lasting forevers of human history. The lifted you and have kept you from the morass and they continue to do so. Rest on your dried up bloody laurels you worthless mass. Weep for yourselves for you are stagnant and in stagnation every species is doomed.

The Stand

2012-04-27T14:42:00.001-05:00

I wrote this some time ago for my short lived radio program. It seems to me just as relevant to me now as it did then. If you missed it the first time around now is your chance. So ... Enjoy.

I don’t believe I’ve ever struggled so hard over a piece of writing. For days I’ve pondered the approach. Should I be light hearted, or should I come straight down the chute? I started, and then stopped again. One attempt began something like:

“36 years and some months ago I came into this world Kicking and screaming.”

Really? I thought as I read that disaster over. You cannot begin that way. And by the time I read:

“I didn’t see the humor in it then, wide open mouth granting entry between the thighs of the laughing fat lady.” I’d decided I had to begin again.

I knew I wanted to say something that would catch and hold your attention. I knew that I wanted to thrust you into, and leave you deep in thought. I knew I wanted to surprise and stun you and leave you wanting more. I was aware that my delivery had to be eloquent and articulate and that my voice had to be deep and strong and it had to resonate out over the airwaves and touch your ears like a gentle whisper, and be pleasing.

I considered writing this in the rhythmic staccato of the spoken word poem. A delivery method I am familiar with and good at. I could say something like:

Words are like air to me
Everywhere and possessing all things with meaning
Giving the day a name and making death a pain
Words are like air to me.

But, I’m not a real poet to begin with and it all sounded so forced. I decided at one point to take the easiest road and give you an hour of my music art and stories. I thought to regale and entertain you with my greatness, talent and skill. Live raps, and stories and poems, all wrapped up in the silky sheet of my voice. Internet radio as a shameless vehicle of self promotion. And don’t doubt that selfish self promotion will play a part here, over time, never fear. All good things in small doses I told myself as I crawled back into my humble pie.

I struggled with how to tell you who I am and with how to make this a moment you remember and long to return to week after week. I want you to love me, I want you to tell your friends about me and why they should love me too. Stories about my childhood I decided were trite, boring and only relevant from the perspective of who I am today. And who I am today is your humble host D.K. Renaissance man, friend, lover, and father. What I am today is a man with a radio show. What I was yesterday was a man with a radio show to write. What I will be tomorrow we can only wait to see. That is truly in your hands.

This show is not just about me; this show is also about you. This show is about dialogue and discovery. This show is about exploring the boundaries of reality and truth as we know it and should we find them lacking, tearing them down and casting them aside. This show is about bringing the things that affect our lives out into the harsh light of day. And in this world, vampires don’t sparkle. The minutes following this dialogue are where you, get a chance to find your voice, to state your viewpoint, to shout out at those things that frustrate you. Everyday we are surrounded by so many lies, half truths and misleading leaders there is a feeling that no one can be believed. Our jobs are lies, our coworkers are lies, our television is a lie, or politicians, teachers, police, judges and ministers are lies. This is the time when your moral compass must be your guide and this is the place to stage your war. I ask of you only this in the end:

Stand together with me! Raise your voice so that they might hear our cries and understand. WE WILL NOT GO EASILY INTO THE DARKNESS!

The Compleat Libertine

2012-04-02T13:26:00.001-05:00

Clearing up the Libertine Confusion

I am a Libertine. Not because I’ve read much of the famous Libertines, not because I am a fan of the likes of John Wilmot or the Marqui de Sade, or the 2nd Earl of Rochester. Not because I love the movie “The Libertine” starring Johnny Depp. I am a Libertine because that’s what I am. I choose to live a life free of the social and moral constraints that cause us to fear and doubt and question the one thing we should never hold in doubt … ourselves.

Now I know that many of you are shaking your heads at the thought of having no moral constraints. Well that’s why I am here to help clear the fog from your heads. Being a Libertine is not about having a LACK of constraints, it’s about NOT subscribing to the social and religious moral constraints that make no sense. But, before I get into why I am a Libertine let’s look at just what a Libertine is.

Libertine as defined by dictionary dot com::

noun
1. a person who is morally or sexually unrestrained, especially a dissolute man; a profligate; rake.

2. a freethinker in religious matters.

3. a person freed from slavery in ancient Rome.

adjective
4. free of moral, especially sexual, restraint; dissolute;licentious.

5. freethinking in religious matters.

6. Archaic . unrestrained; uncontrolled.

Synonyms
1. roué, debauchee, lecher, sensualist, amoral, sensual, lascivious, lewd.

This translates to me as FREE.

Free to live my life as I see fit. As an example: For you, dear reader, the idea of having more than one sexual partner or love interest may be immoral or indeed amoral. For me it’s a natural course of human existence. We are social creatures and, especially in this age of super connectivity, our lives are largely defined by the social connections we make. The people we keep in our lives speak as much to who we are as the people we dismiss from our lives do. For me those people are important and I am not one to hinder the growth of the relationships in my life based on some ideal of morality dictated to me by the church or the state. Instead my morality says, “Make, and strive to keep, friends. And if you get the chance to fuck one, do it”. “Where is the morality in that, “you may be asking yourself? I prefer to earn and retain friendships based on the people involved and not based on their personal lives. Just as I am free to live as I please so too are you. I will never judge or hinder you in your existence because no one but you can live it. Where is my right to judge you or ask you to change so that I can feel justified, or justify to the nay sayers in my life, knowing you? That wouldn’t be fair to me or to you.

So, what are Libertines really like? Let’s break it down shall we?

Libertine Morality

Dare I continue along this slippery, rocky, narrow, steep grade? Yes, why not? Let’s begin by definition.

mo·ral·i·ty
[muh-ral-i-tee, maw-]
noun, plural -ties for 4–6.

1. conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct.

2. moral quality or character.

3. virtue in sexual matters; chastity.

4. a doctrine or system of morals.

5. moral instruction; a moral lesson, precept, discourse, or utterance.

The definition itself is a moral stricture. Words like virtuous and chastity are used to describe something that comes down to holding a personal stance. Maybe your stance is virtuous, maybe it isn’t. Maybe you are chaste and maybe you are not but sliding into debauchery does not make you an immoral person. The so called “rules of right conduct” are dictated by those who hold to certain values and so those values dictate morality. I say pah, pshaw, and humbug. Morality is a personal thing that begins with one idea:

And ye harm none do as thou wilt; let that be the whole of the law.

Morality is a personal stance. Personally I would never place any moral stricture on another person. That alone, to me, is a moral stance. Some people wield the rod against their children, committing violence against a being that has no hope of recourse or retribution. To me that is reprehensible and worthy of a like punishment and so completely immoral. Some feel that it’s their god given, and state given, right to harass, harangue, and abuse people for the choices they’ve made in their lives. Some feel that subjecting their families to years of missionary work and closing them off from society at large is a perfectly moral thing to do. I call it social abuse. None of us will ever agree completely on what is right and what is wrong. Right in my world boils down to leaving people to live as they please accepting them, or not, for who they are and leaving the rest to the tests of time. I expect the same in return. If you are going to be a part of my life then the fact that I can be a rapscallion and a lothario are just part of the package.

You live yours, Let me live mine.

Libertine Sexuality

Sex. We all do it we all love it. Sex is a natural part of human existence yet somehow it’s become a complicated morass of emotion, morality and plain foolishness. Some seem to think that sex and sexuality should exist in one dimension. For these people sex is one man, one woman, missionary in a bed in the dark for the purpose of procreation only. Now, tell yourselves the truth, while this happens now and then, how many of you do this every time you have sex? Only this and nothing else? The crickets are chiming in. I can hear them but not a single hand is going up. Why?

Because sex is an experience. It’s designed to be enjoyable and full of feeling and pleasure and to bring people closer together. What better way to get into someone's soul than getting into their pants? When your bodies are intertwined, skin on skin, flesh slapping in a staccato rhythm, your breath in each others ears, and faces, sweat mingling and pooling beneath you as you work yourselves into a frothy climax … whew, that’s getting me hot. The sight, the sounds, the smells of sex are intoxicating, invigorating and familiar to us all. While designed to be pleasurable so that we propagate the human race, they are decidedly NOT there for that reason alone.

We should engage one another in the act of mutual pleasure and we should do it as often as possible. We should do it in many different ways, in many different positions and with many different people. We should engage in fantasies and fulfill them for one another. We should spank and bite and scratch and go hard and deep. Sex is an experience not to be missed or taken lightly. Like all things we are discussing here however there should be no harm done to unwilling parties. This isn’t about throwing all morality, personal responsibility, and caution to the wind. This is about experiencing your life, in the now, as you please and avoiding all delusion and self deception.

Libertine Lifestyle

Some of you might be thinking, “who is he to say what a Libertine Lifestyle” is? Good question. I am a self professed life long Libertine to begin. I’ve lived in the now and for the pleasures of life since I first reached down and realized touching my dick was fun. Fighting was fun. Fucking was fun. Drinking, smoking, dancing, driving, chasing women, were, and are, all fun. These things and more are what life is all about and the Libertine Lifestyle is about indulging yourself and others.

Some may say that life is all about the pursuit of a higher spiritual state or the relentless drive for material wealth or the passion for higher ideals and they would be right. Life is also about the things you do in between the spiritual, the material and the idealistic. It takes all of these things to live a truly fulfilled life and one piece of life shouldn’t be neglected for another. No one way of living should supersede another. To hinder and restrict yourself in this way is to lose in life, to miss much of what life has to offer.

There is a saying that goes something like, “slide into your grave sweaty, panting and apologizing for being late”. The thought is appealing to me. Not that I necessarily live my life hard and fast, well not THAT hard and fast, but I do tend to take the bull by the horns and drag that fucker into the dust, cut his throat chop him up, throw him on the grill and invite people over for a Barbeque, B.Y.O.B. of course.

Libertine Thought

The thought? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You’ve heard that before right? We live as free people, or we like to delude ourselves that freedom is a real thing. Either way freedom is ours to believe or disbelieve as we see fit. You may be a Liberal. You may be a Democrat or a Conservative. You might be a Christian or a Commie Bastard ( I love saying that). Gay, Straight, Unsure it’s all your right to be or not to be. This is my life, or in your case it’s your life, and individually we are the only ones who can live it, or them (the lives I mean). We are the masters of our own fate and the captains of our every moment. I can’t dictate the morality you should live by and you should not dictate morality to me, if you know what’s good for you. I am a Libertine and to the best of my knowledge that doesn’t affect you one bit. And I am not the only one. We are legion and we are amongst you. Educate yourselves and learn to accept it. We aren’t going anywhere.

The Kimble ViewPoint ... Yeah I said it

2011-09-28T16:38:00.000-05:00

Yo! What's the deal? THIS is The Kimble Viewpoint and Me? I'm ya muthafuckin host D.K. Yep that's right I am coming back ... and strong too. I am currently in development, first show is being written, but while you fans of mine waited on that I wanted to give you a small taste of what is in store. SO here, without further blathering is the new intro sounds for the show. 2 minutes of pure awesome. You are forgiven for not understanding

Enjoy!

It's about to be on!

https://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/understanding-author-platform-part-2-all-the-world-wide-webs-a-stage/#comment-27720

Drunken Gypsy Writer's Throwdown Pt. 2

2011-09-14T23:42:00.000-05:00

I warned you it was-a-cummin' and folks here it is!

The first Throwdown was Epic and I didn't think it could be topped but this month it has been. All of your favorite participants were in attendance and a few new faces were thrown into the mix for a gathering of differing but like minds, folks you miss and friends you love, birthday revelry, cream-sicle drinks and whiskey shots. Our producer the Rev. Laz turned 29 this week and his brother Crenshaw turns 20-something in only a few short days. In honor of them both we gathered, drank it up and threw the fuck down in the home of our always gracious hosts.

While many parties are thrown and had on this beloved property, this time it was reserved for the Drunken Gypsy Writers Throwdown. For those of you that don't know. The Drunken Gypsy Writers are a cadre of intellectual wanderers, literary revolutionaries, passionate pwon-ing pundits and devoted souls. As often as we are able we gather and challenge one another to present something spectacular, in twenty minutes, while wasted. The rules are simple. Get drunk, accept your prompt what ever it may be, and write for the cameras and one another. The final rule ... if it doesn't wind up in the video you can't share it. I will tell you this, at risk of being reprimanded, that some of our debauchery led to revelations and expansions of consciousness, friendships forged and fortified, bruised bottoms and borderline breakdowns, understandings reached and social walls breached. That's really why we gather folks. We gather for the comradeship. We gather for the inspiration. We gather for the passion and the pleasure of each others company but in the end, one and all, we gather for the love.

Rev. Russ said it best, but he says it at the end of the video so I'll let you hear it from him. Watch and learn. Watch and be inspired. But most of all watch and be inspired to gather for the love.

My Prompt: Star Wars

We live in the Dark

We live on the Dark

From us rises pure power

Through us achieve greatness

Only if you have the

Desire ...

We live in the Light

we grow from the Light

From us rises pure understanding

Through us achieve greatness

only if you have the

Love ...

Balance

There must be balance in the force

Domination

There must be an overwhelming power over all men,

Over all races

Even if eliminating all culture

all freedom

all understanding be the cost

Our arms sweep the known universes into our overwhelming embrace ...

Our arms sweep the known universes into our overwhelming love

Join us

We are the Sith

We are the Jedi

We are both the force

Two sides of the same face

Part and parcel of one another, at odds and at ends ...

We are the people

Pushed and pulled and goaded and threatened and FORCED

No matter what our choices,

Into choosing sides or being destroyed

Or occupied, or left with nothing but

WAR and DEATH and FEAR

Where is our release

Join us

Those are the choices we are given

Join us or die

The force doesn't care

Only we care, the multitude who suffer because of your war in the stars

Your Star Wars

The Drunken Gypsy Writers Throwdown Pt. 1

2011-09-11T17:32:00.001-05:00

Okay this is a bit late but I have to go ahead and post his now because there is a part 2 coming soon. allow me if you will to give you a bit of back story.

I met these fine folks many years ago at a Vampire the Masquerade LARP group in Stephenville. As it turns out they have become some of the best friends I've ever had. Through many ups and downs they have always been there for me without fail. Recently some of us got together and formed the Drunken Gypsy Writers group. Thanks to Derick Davis and the Reverend Russel Davis the group has flourished and grown to include many of the best people we know. Insightful and passionate they have much wisdom to share. We decided that at least once a month we would all come together and throw down. The rules are simple. You drink and then you receive a prompt. 15 or 20 minutes later, depending on who is holding the clock, you are required to present a piece for us all. It is fun but it is also a labor of love. We all have thoughts and words and meaning trapped inside of us and this is designed to release that into the world for us all to contemplate. Everyone involved is talented, deep, passionate and often profound. Some of us are way too drunk but still capable. Not one of us are sober. Like Bukowski we relvel and descend and love and dig and sometimes hate you all but we do this for us, we do this for you. We do this for love and the love of life. Afterwards we geek-out, we DnD, we dance and sing and drum and sleep under the stars. We are the Drunken Gypsy Writers and this was our first Throwdown!

Scars

2011-06-21T23:30:00.000-05:00

One of the first things we experienced together was the fantastic mauling of my dick. She had a birth control device that involved plugs and plastic wires, sharp little plastic wires. I had a demonic desire that would not be denied. I swallowed her, as I do, voluntarily thrusting home again and again, for days and weeks on end. The little wire, conveniently placed for easy extraction is not designed with the well endowed man in mind. And here I was hard as the Rock of Gibraltar and straddling, willing woman beneath; me, riding on that herbal cloud, I paid little attention to the inconsequential pain of a small prick. That rutting mauled my dick and left scars. But I love them.

I have learned to live with them and I know how they behave. Today I noticed that … those scars are healing. I can tell because the itch is deep. It’s fresh skin under there; it’s the scabs finally peeling off. I see this as I doctor my wounds and I realize two things at once. I acquired these wounds over three years ago and they have never healed, not like they should. And that I loved her even then. I loved her while with every thrust I voluntarily mauled my dick further. But now, I see improvement. I am sure they will leave deep scars that will itch forever but they are healing and so am I.

That relationship was … Hard and FAST, it was Deep and VAST. It was not meant to become volatile though. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like it did. I promise you that my friends I had no intention of creating the scars I created. Those scars are like the relationship deep and vast and though they may heal I am sure that they will itch forever and I hope that she’s healing.

One of the first things we experienced together was the mauling of my dick but one of the last was the mauling of our relationship. I know neither was intended and I know that the creation of one set of scars was more pleasurable than the other and I do truly hope that we are healing. And though we’ll always have and remember those scars, I hope they are the good kind, the ones that remind us why we were in love once.

I Am the Dragon King

2011-06-18T00:14:00.001-05:00

I am well aware that in some places around the web, people see my screen name and wonder what the hell it means. I have been accused of being self-centered, conceited, and arrogant. I've been called cocky, vainglorious, and overweening. Most of this is just because of my screen name. Funny though, nothing of the sort happens with davinkwriter.

Well, let me assure you that while I may be many or all of those things none of them have anything to do with my screen name. I am here, the great guy that I am, to help you better understand the name in front of the man.

We can start simply enough. My name's initials are D.K. I have always carried that with me as far back as I can remember. In my circles, I was always D.K. before I was anything else. Further than that I have always loved Dragons. I love the mythology of dragons. I love the longevity of the myth, I love the pervasive depth of its hold on our psyche. I have always, like the D.K. moniker, carried dragons with me.

Forward through time and following a dozen Hip-Hop nicknames, some as fascinating as Ricochet 'The Bounce Back New Jack", I was again simply reduced to my name, D.K. I carried that with me and in my spiritual search, a search all too common when life is so uncertain, I rediscovered my dragons. I learned the depth and breadth of the legends and I associated myself with them. Turning back to the music I loved so much I spoke about a hustla riding solo taking on the world. My music and my dreads earned me a new nickname, one only relevant inside.

Screwface they called me, named after a Dark Man in a movie called "Marked For Death". I embraced it and created a catchy title, "Screwface the Dragon King." He was many things I am and he was many things I'm not. I became him for some time. Maybe it was a defense mechanism, maybe it was an escape. for a long while we, Screwface and I, were one and the same. We lived each other's lives. I don't know when Screwface fell away, but the Dragon King remains.

I wrote an album called Zen and the Ways. Originally it was supposed to be called "Rise of the Dragon King". I never quite got the Dragon King song done so I had to shuffle that idea to my sophomore effort. I did eventually finish the song. You can listen to it on my old ass music page.

In the end, It's a name I carry like all of the others I've carried. It's one I love and it says a great deal about me. I have been the Dragon King for so long now other people know me by it. So, excuse me if I use a name that means something to my life instead of MasterDomGiantDick1975. I am, always have been, and always will be The Dragon King.

Life ... Love ... Bullshit

2011-06-02T19:54:00.037-05:00

Life ...

It is what it is isn't it? We are supposed to have it all figured out by now but I know people twice my age, twice as successful, twice as smart who don't know the first thing about what I know. We are supposed to have a handle on this thing. Our relationships are supposed to be deep and fulfilling and for the most part the relationships in my life are, until they fall in love with me and then that is the beginning of a long road to heart break. Life is simply one tick, one tick, one tick and we can only live it one moment at a time. There are things I've never intended but they exist because in that moment I dodged instead of ducking or I walked instead of running, or a stayed when I knew I should have left. I know that none of us live alone in this life, we live together. I know that my actions have far reaching effects and i accept that and I live my life accordingly.

Love ...

This is the tough one isn't it? Love. I remember a time in my life when i simply didn't believe in it. I had no reason to believe in it. There wasn't a single moment in my life that taught me that I should. Everybody wanted something from you, first and foremost for me to be what they thought I should be; or worse what they thought they should be able to make me. Some construct, a golem made in their image of perfect. But I am already a perfect construct made in my image. I know what I am and what I want to be. No one can love me like me. No one can stand where I stand. This is not to say that I haven't learned a thing or two about love. I love my daughter more than I ever thought I could love anything. I loved and love my ex-wife. I loved "she who will not be named". Love brings pain, and disappointment.

Bullshit ...

You know what's bullshit? Let's bullet point shall we?

Starting a relationship one way only to decide to dance to a different tune when it suits you
Talking private business to your cronies
Allowing said cronies to bash the one you claim to love
Wasting my life that's bullshit
Changing the rules mid-game without consulting the other players
Never noticing
Being so caught up in your own misery that you refuse to live or love
Low balling or reneging
Thinking I m going to be anything other than I am ... that is total bullshit

I could go on but I think you get the gist. Live and love but know that there is a huge chance it will be a huge pile of bullshit.

Empty and Futile Words

2011-05-01T21:20:00.020-05:00

Words. I am surrounded by them every second of every day of my life. I read them, I write them, I play games using them. I enjoy studying words, and practicing the best ways to use them. My in boxes are littered with Word of the Day emails and one of the highlights of any day is reading those emails. I like to think that, while no means a master of words, word play and word usage, I am well on my way to becoming a great crafter and weaver of the words we use. So I wonder, why are my words so often unheeded?

This question has been on my mind as of late. I don't have any answers yet. I don't have a clue why some people hear me and heed my words, though I believe they are too few, and others ignore my words, or simply scoff at me with disdain as if I have no idea what I'm saying. I know what I'm saying. I rarely if ever say anything without knowing what I am saying. A hard lesson I learned the hard way.

"Watch your words young man," I tell myself, "because they are like bullets, once they are gone, you cannot take them back. Words kill just as sure, just as true."

I said something once that I regret saying more than anything I've said before or since. I threw a curse. I threw it with such force and elegance that it's been ringing around in my head ever since, it rings there even now. I regretted it the moment I said it and I regret it now. I wanted to take it back that second, but I couldn't then and I can't now and I know that because I know what I'm saying when I speak because I know the words. I know them well

Futile, useless and empty words. They seem to work best when used to sting, confuse and manipulate. People understand the words we use to hate because they strike us not only in the flesh but in the heart and soul with immediacy like the strike of a samurai's sword. Words of love and caring take longer to penetrate our hardened lives. They caress us and make us feel vulnerable so we trust them less. I love you, we question. Fuck you, now that we understand.

Some will say that I use to many words. They will say that I am effusive for no reason than for the love of hearing the words, writing the words reading the words back to myself. I listen to and read the great words I've written over the years and, while I can see clearly now the technical mistakes, the words themselves, the sentences and the power of my thought on paper thrills me. I recite my poems, and songs, I read my work aloud and memorize passages, I craft dialogue in the shower and I write responses to stupidity that I never send. I revel in the private elegance of my own heightened sense of self. But I know what I'm saying and my words should be heeded more often than they are.

It's an option. I would choose it.

Carpe Diem!

2010-12-28T14:35:00.000-06:00

Hard to hold sometimes.

This year has been a rough one for me. I've had to weather a few storms and I've had to suffer a few set backs but looking back over the whole thing in these remaining days I have no choice but to admit that it wasn't all that bad.

Back in the later months of 2008 I lost my job. Honestly I got fed up with the sales man bullshit and I walked. At the time I thought, "I've always been able to find a job, it won't be a huge deal to get something else". At the time I had no real concept for the economy and what effect it was going to have on me. I was simply optimistic about the future. I suppose I always am. I grumble and grouch my way through but I never stopped trying. During my extended unemployment I took the time to refine my writing. I dabbled in radio and was interviewed for a TV spot. I snagged a gig I am very happy with at Open Heart Publishing. And in the last few days I found a full time job writing web copy. I didn't make much money and it strained more than my wallet but the work I did put in, the lessons I learned have all made me a stronger better focused man.

Maybe the gloves came off now and then.

Being broke sucks on its own. When you add the social necessity all people posses being broke creates no end to questions, quandaries and crap. I wanted to attend every party and I wanted to bring gifts to every birthday, wedding, and holiday gift exchange but I simply couldn't. I died a little every time I saw a bill I couldn't pitch in on and it bothered me. No matter how hard I worked, or where I was living I felt useless. I am aware that the tension I built within myself over my guilt may have compounded, if not caused, the rough patches in almost all of my relationships. Everyone is short on cash flow and just as revved, just as ready to fight as I was and sometimes we let the fists fly. I argued with some folks this year I would rather not have and I hope that by now we have all worked through these misunderstandings and are moving towards stronger bonds tomorrow. If I've offended you and have yet to make amends, please forgive me. I am sure you are in my mind and on my heart. (The above only applies to those that deserve my forgiveness. You other punks can eat a dick and choke on it. You know who you are.)

It's been a time of uncertainty and fear. I for one am tired of the dark hole. and I am extremely happy to see some light. All of the hard work I've put in is just beginning to pay off. My Jr. Editors gig has gone a long way towards opening doors for me and I want to thank Debrin Case for helping make that possible. He gave me a chance when NO ONE else was willing. He gave me a platform for showcasing my talent and invaluable guidance in making it great. With that though I have also made in roads with my own work with different publishers around the country. Every project, every blog, every letter for me was an opportunity to be a better writer, and to learn something. I hope I conducted my self well and made you all feel as if you walked away with at least a greater clarity.

But, it's all worked out and it appears that 2011 is going to be much better for me. I've finally found a job and I believe I will be very happy there. There is a degree of challenge to the work and there is infinite room for improvement. I will be going back to school soon. I have a goal of getting my first PhD in only ten years. That means Bachelors by 40. I plan to stay with this job at least that far, if not longer. Many of my relationships are settling into comfortable and lasting familiarity. It's good to sit and get to know one another. I look forward to having opportunity to become better acquainted with the friends I have and to meeting new people along the way.

Some of you are friends of mine and you have been with me through it all. I want you all to know, as we move into a new year, that I truly appreciate your support. I hope your new year holds magnificent things for you all. At the end I want to share what I learned. You have to take every day as a day to do something. find something and do it. Start to finish, succeed or fail you have to try. In this day and age we have a million what if's right at our fingertips. Reach out, grab one and find out what mysteries it holds.