Richard S. Oliver's Disposable Reader

MY ALL GROWN UP NOW!

2012-11-13T09:49:00.002-08:00

All my old content from this, and NEW content, can now be found on http://richardsolivermythsmith.wordpress.com/

Thanks!

EATING CROW

2012-05-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

Eating crow is a U.S. colloquial idiom,^[1] meaning humiliation by admitting wrongness or having been proved wrong after taking a strong position.^[2] Eating crow is presumably foul-tasting in the same way that being proved wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow.^[2] The exact origin of the idiom is unknown, but it probably began with an American story published around 1850 about a slow-witted New York farmer.^[3] Eating crow is of a family of idioms having to do with eating and being proved incorrect, such as to "eat dirt", to "eat your words", and to "eat your hat" (or shoe).^[2]

^{Well, what a winter! Back in education. More later...}

2012-05-05T19:53:00.001-07:00

BEST. VIDEO. EVER.

2011-12-17T00:33:00.001-08:00

Hardcore or die from Radio Soulwax on Vimeo.

MOCKING SOLEMNITY

2011-11-25T13:38:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving day, November 24th, 2011. God, I've always wanted to say that!

If I ever said that I don't need God's other kids, then I am a liar...
Thanksgiving day began at the place where it all began for me in Southern California, the UnUrban cafe on Pico. Standing there was a prospect with two days and within a few minutes it seemed that he was willing to be closed on the dictates that have saved my life.
My current un-manageability's were still there, but I just did what I set out to do that day, find someone who would take the tools, and offer to show them how I learned how to use them.
I wish I hadn't gotten into that verbal altercation with the guy who started talking about how righteous anger was good and how therapy had shown him that he needed to have a certain amount of that, but I did. Loving and tolerant - failed that test today...
Later, about 20 minutes North of Palmdale, California and Thanksgiving dinner with Louie's family. Weird uber desert out there forever and a walk through the tumble weeds and the coyotes out there. Later Louie would bust out his rave lights from E-Bay and the green and red lights would cast a glow that was as big as Santa Claus' bounty...

As I was standing out there looking at the freezing cold desert, I pondered up and it hit me like a gorgeous molten nail, up there was the ceiling of the universe and the stars never looked so great. I remembered the first time I ever noticed them in my second life, rehab, January 2003, Seafield out on West Hampton Beach, Long Island. The light of the universe had refracted a million, trillion times in those meager, almost nine years ago, but I had changed to an extent that was amazing. I had done that by the Grace of God and the help of hundreds of people. 'Who are you to say that there is no God...' Look at that ceiling, look at this universe, look at the indisputable fact that I should not be in Southern California now becoming a writer, if that's what God wants to be my day job, I should be a carcass on the Southern tip of Manhattan, strewn in the harbor at the South Street Seaport. I should be drunk and high and done and doomed, but I am not, I am in the Southern Californian desert under the shelter of this Universe, ready to be guided and ready to help God's kids. How is this possible?

I don't know, I just wanted to not die and stop hurting.

CAN ANYONE HELP US DISTRIBUTE 'SPORTYS' - A GREAT KIDS VID, THAT SHOWS KIDS HOW TO PLAY SPORTS?

2011-11-20T12:05:00.000-08:00

Currently seeking a distributor for a really interesting series of kid's 'how-to' dvds. The first one features the voice of Michael Clarke Duncan, and this series is a largely un-mined one, it helps kids learn how to play different sports through an animated cast. This series has a built in market of children, their parents, and the numerous little leagues of various sports. The first one, released in 2009, can be purchased here.

Imagine the magnitude, merchandising potential, and branding possible with a series of animated how-to dvds for kids with live action portions done with current sports stars?

We are currently seeking a distributor and investors that can see the magnitude of this series, and who can see the potential for building a really powerhouse kid's sports brand. Please contact me directly with any inquiries,

Richard Oliver

(646)483-9803

richardsoliver@msn.com

We are really excited about the potentiality of this series! We are looking for others who can help us get this done. We have the sports contacts in place already, we need a method of distribution and others who can see the potential for this market.

A Crazy Little Poem Called Eleven Months

2011-11-13T15:31:00.000-08:00

Sitting there watching the clouds like I had so many millions of seconds before
And you were there too, boo, who eleven months ago did not figure into my NY whirl
One month from now, minus a year, and eleven months of doing my wars and chores
3000 miles of icky goo and the view - could you be my under same moon girl?

Electricity and the charge of wing flamed foil called us
An ex-lush and the whole South whispers hush...
You cut my cue ball, caring, oh so close
Eleven months and now just one teeny little coast

The hairs you cut, back to the brick faced earth to reconvene, my love
It is the moments like these that I wish wouldn't race- they are never enough
Remember thousands of texts, our novel, and passengers I wanted to shove
All the thousands of miles for seven months that was so impossibly super tough

Electricity of every movie that becomes ours, my love
The Californian place that I'm really quite proud of
A place where two lives have purged then merged
For a future of words and Colorado yearning urge

Eleven months of this Jackie Gleason and Alice worlds of Now
Two persons at the edge of the edge of 'this just might work...'
Mommy and daddy and Baby Cake's makes her meow
Here's to eleven months, your smirk, my quirks, right now perfect...

SUPPORT WEST DEVANEY'S FILM (IF YOU WANT TO SEE ME ACT AGAIN)

2011-11-10T07:54:00.000-08:00

HERE

Peace be with you... DONATE TO THE FILM YOU SHIRKERS!!!!!!!

MY TYPICAL EXPERIENCE WITH THIS INSANE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM CONTINUES

2011-11-09T08:11:00.003-08:00

I think it's fairly amusing (for you) that even the incredibly small fragment of my life that remains in the educational industry is still further reason why this insane system sucks eggs royally forever and ever. Case in point, I got a job with 1 on 1 Academic Tutors in Los Angeles, all the way back in July. They have what must be a HUGE contract to provide free in home tutoring through the LAUSD, 27 hours, per child, based on reading and math scores. Great, right?

At the interview, they hired me on the spot, conveniently they had a outside provider on-site that day to do the DOJ fingerprinting, to the tune of $75.00. Apparently this is a much cheaper deal when done on your own, but they didn't inform us of that, and why wouldn't you just want to get it done right there? Also, even though I was an employee of the NYC DOE for almost four years, I had to get a new TB test, to the tune of $40.00. Okay, not a problem. Understandable completely.

We were supposed to start tutoring in September and apparently LAUSD stalled and stalled as most insane, faceless public sector entities are known to do. I didn't start tutoring until the tail end of October. But before that, I had to sit through a day of on-line training modules that can best be described as either the WORST movies in the history of man, or the MOST EXCITING Power-points EVER. Okay, well worth it to get a sizable second income to supplement your own, right?

When they sent me the contact info for my new students, I was expecting the amount of kids I asked for. I mean there has to be virtually THOUSANDS of kids that qualify for this program, right? At least three or four... No, two. In the valley... Did the pre-test with the first girl, a lovely eighth grader, mom busily frying fish, not speaking a word of English. After sitting there for an hour administering the test, I made arrangements for our weekly sessions. It was at this time that she told me, (translating for her Mom) that her Mom would rather that she be tutored by a Spanish speaking female. Ouch!

The second kid worked out fine, but this company makes a HUGE DEAL about paperwork being correct. I had an issue with the second kid because I would never be able to deal with the Mom directly due to work schedules, so I would always have to give the paper work to the brother, sister in law, or aunt, to be signed by Mom at a later date. The company makes you personally drive to their location to submit paperwork once a month, although all other paperwork that they don't deem as important can be submitted electronically. If paperwork isn't EXACTLY correct they deduct 10% from your earnings for the month!!!! So I would have to make an extra trip just to get the paperwork from this one kid for the month, and then drive all the way the hell downtown to submit it.

I had e-mailed them to see if another relative that will be with the child could sign off on the time sheets from here on in, and I have yet to hear anything...

When I complained about the lateness of the start, the amount of money I had to put up front, and the lack of kids that I had asked for, the guy said, 'Oh, I looked at your resume YOU ARE highly qualified... Sorry we couldn't give you more kids...'

So, I'm prepared to look at this from an entirely new angle... I'm irritated by 1 on 1 Academic Tutors, because:

They promised to start in September and they didn't start til' LATE OCTOBER.
I had asked for MANY MORE students than the two they assigned me.
They are not supporting me with my issues with communicating with Spanish speaking parents and through the rigors of paper work submission.

It affects my self esteem because I am the consummate educator and I really don't like being treated like some schmuck!
It affects my pride because this company should treat me special due to my amazing credentials and experience!
It affects my ambitions because I need money to supplement my income and I hate jumping through hoops to get it!
It affects my security because I can only be okay if this company gives me what I want and need!
It affects my personal relations because REAL tutoring services don't cheat and rip-off their employees and make false promises!
It affects my sex relations because REAL MEN don't have to jump through hoops and NEVER have students taken away from them!
It affects my pocket book because THIS COMPANY should NEVER mess with me with their stupid rules and regs, don't they know who I am???!!!!!

What's the fears? I'll always have to jump through hoops! :( I'll never get what I need. I'm not the consummate educator. I don't have amazing credentials.

Have I ever screwed with people like they have me? Yes, I have led people on. I have messed with people. Have I ever promised to do something and then not followed through with what I promised? OMG, THOUSANDS of times. I have done the SAME THINGS this company is doing to me. The exact same things... So how can I be irritated with them?

Therefore, this irritation is a lie. It's self seeking because I'm trying to tear them down to make me feel better about a system I can't do anything about.
It's selfish because I'm expecting to be treated differently from everybody else.
It's dishonest because I didn't even want to tutor at all!!!!! I didn't want to do this, and I PLACED MYSELF in this situation, and then the expectation I placed on them caused me to be hurt.
And it's frightening to me. It fills me with fear because my finances are not stable, so I am going through with this tutoring, even when it's not what I want to be doing because I have little to no faith that God will provide me with what I need...

Ug. Thanks for letting me share. :)

THE SECRET OF SUCCESSFUL SALESMANSHIP

2011-11-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

THE SECRET OF SUCCESSFUL SALESMANSHIP
True salesmanship means finding out what your customer really needs, and supplying him with it; or if you cannot furnish it yourself, advising him to go elsewhere. Such a policy will not mean loss of business. On the contrary, working in this way you may lose one order but you will get half a dozen in its place—and you will have peace of mind. Any one particular sale does not matter; it is the annual turnover that counts.
The policy, the Golden Rule, was taught by Jesus, the wisest and most practical teacher who ever lived. Salesman treat your customer exactly as you would like him to treat you if the positions were reversed. Tell him exactly what you would like to be told about the merchandise, if you were the purchaser; and if you will do this the whole universe will cooperate to make your business career an outstanding success.

IT WORKS, IT REALLY DOES...

2011-11-07T07:36:00.000-08:00

Through the darkness of futures past
The Magician longs to see
One chants out between two worlds,
"Fire - Walk With Me"

What keeps the illness at bay? What cures us from the alien taking over, and the Ego slithering all over us and causing us to believe the giant lies? What stops our souls from being inhabited by the dark beasts? With an illness that so clearly affects our bodies, mind, and soul, we need to take a cure that will help us on all of these fronts.

For the body side, that is represented by Unity. 'Bring the body and the mind will follow.' This is the meetings, the fellowship, new friendships made, going to the diners with your new friends, hanging out, being a decent member of your family and work team again, just showing up and suiting up - having faith that simple actions will lead to great rewards later.

For the Mind side, that is represented by Service. Service is actions that help one's mind get away from one's self. This is working with others, and all the other services that we need to do to become of Service to God's other wayward kids.

The base of the triangle is the Spirit side, which is the legacy of Recovery. We Recover through our relationship with God and having a Spiritual experience as a result of the steps, which allows us to live by Spiritual principles.

When you live your life somewhere in the middle of the triangle and incorporate all three sides, it is impossible to fail. The circle is the wholeness we again start to experience. However, when you subsist solely on one side of the triangle, (a common manifestation of this is someone who just relies on meetings, or is a service junky, but little else, or a person who drifts away from the herd toward religion, but doesn't stay involved in the other two sides) then a great analogy is a three legged stool, which will not be able to stand if one of the legs is broken, or a little too short.

I'd like to give a shout out to my Spiritual sister, Chris, great example of this. She just celebrated 9 months. If you want to recover from this, follow her around for a few days and do what she does. Incorporate all three sides and you can't fail.

GOD IS EITHER EVERYTHING OR HE'S NOTHING

2011-11-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

"Now the next premise is that God is either sufficient unto all our needs or He is not. One or the other. If He is not sufficient, there's nothing to worry about, because in that case life is not worth a candle. The sooner it's over, the better. We might as well knock this thing off and go down with the bus and fill it full of liquor, and shack up and drink 'til we die! If God is not sufficient unto our needs, the sooner it's over the better. There is nothing to recommend life. So if He is not sufficient unto all my needs, there's nothing to worry about. But if He is sufficient into all my needs there is nothing to worry about either, so I've got you both ways! Got you both ways, because all I have to do is act like His kid, and prove that I am. And that's written like this, " 'Act as though I am, and I shall be,' says the Lord." Act as though I am, and I shall be. So that's all I have to do, to act as if it were true and prove that it is true; that's what we do in this program of ours. There's nothing else to do. There's nothing, because we have already lost. We've already tried with human power." (Chuck C.)

HALLOWEEN 2011

2011-11-01T10:26:00.001-07:00

What is it about Halloween? The darkest night of the soul? The night before we celebrate all those recently departed souls? For me, this Halloween has been about that darkest night of the soul and the acknowledgment that many more parts of my self have to die...

My ego can literally kill everything that I know to be true, my ego can literally kill God. No, I am not that powerful, but it can appear to do that in the beat of a heart. I have a deeper appreciation for that decision I made almost 9 years ago every day. Where my life goes from here is none of my business. For my human mind to try to envision where that Power, which is God, will take me, is foolish. And to think, I have only just begun to scrape the surface. There is a limitless well beneath us all if we just kill our egos, or try to, a little bit every day. I ask the One who has all Power to show me the Truth, so that I can start moving toward that egoless place, and walk toward where He leads me...

I started to realize it the other day, moving to LA is easily the hardest thing I've ever done. My day job has been ridiculously hard to adjust to, living with another human being, new cultures, writing, new everything. It has been harder than getting sober, harder than going back to school, harder than becoming a teacher ever was. However, I have been having flashes that when I get through this, and maybe this is the Grace of God, or maybe it is sadism, but when I get through this, it is going to be the the greatest, most satisfying accomplishment that I've ever been able to experience. I'm going to go with the latter...

On that haunted hayride last night, actors dressed as monsters came up to us and tried to scare the shit out of us. I've let the fears of my life, which turn into belief systems, do that for most of my life, but I'm starting to outgrow them, by the Grace of God. They are all lies - all lies.

I'm starting to believe that I am here to outgrow my fear, because how many experiences have I not had because of it?

No more bleak Novembers for me... No more hating the die that's been cast. That's a lie. God makes that possible.

THURSTON AND KIM - CAN'T YOU WORK IT OUT?

2011-10-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm a little slow on the uptake for this one, but the specter of Sonic Youth not being as much a part of my middle age as they were for my adolescence and early middle age, (late adolescence?) for lack of a better term, really sucks. I still believe in the power of love and of the power of the Green Light, and I always will!!!

THE USUAL MIDDLE OF THE ROAD MESSAGE

2011-10-29T01:27:00.000-07:00

Why wont someone give our lil friend a real answer?
by: undergroundspeakers

THE HOUSEMAID AND A FML

2011-10-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

See this film! Seriously unnerving and surreally gnawing. Like a Bunuel farce. Another kick ass Korean film of real quality.

In other news, I started tutoring this girl today for this tutoring service I got a job for, and after an hour, which included an administration of a pre-test, meeting the parents, (who didn't speak a word of English) the girl informed me that the mother had said that they would prefer a female tutor, who speaks Spanish - FML! Oh well, just another crazy day of adjusting to Los Angeles...

Brandye's Southern cuisine helped much after that punch to the stomach...

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

2011-10-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

Thought for the day...

CHECK OUT ROXON, VIDEO DIRECTOR, AND YES HE'S ON OUR TEAM

2011-10-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

This cat, Roxon, is gonna melt your universe with his reel. So dope it hurts. Yes, he's on this team of ours.

ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE OR ASTONISHLY AMAZING? I'LL TAKE THE LATTER!

2011-10-23T10:58:00.002-07:00

Last Call Program from heystac on Vimeo.
http://www.drinklessnow.com/dln/index3.php
The problem with the treatment industry and all marketers, like the link above, is that they will never understand what this second act has allowed me to do. It wasn't about the symptoms - drugs and alcohol, it was so much more about that 'hole in my soul' stuff. That grand chasm that never allowed me to experience my fellow humans and that Power, the Power of living in The Now.

You might think it's all words, but if I'm lying, I'm dying. It might be all nice to do this in the comfort of your home behind texts and Facebook, but isn't that the largest symptom of this world today? Isn't that the point? The biggest cultural difference that I've noticed in Southern California is that the socialization is so different because people are always in their cars and they don't have to rub elbows like we do (or I did ;p) on the East Coast.

That's not what my life is about, I want the engagement, it's what always scared me about life. That's not what I want my recovery to be about! It's about helping someone else, it's about rubbing elbows with another one of God's kids. The most duplicitous thing about this particular campaign is that it is just that fear of socialization that it appeals to, and if you miss out on that, my friends, then you are missing the whole point.

As I get deeper and deeper into this wonderful experiment called life, I love all of my fellow kiddie travelers on this little green pea, more and more, my ego isn't so sure, but my Heart of Hearts is...

Screw the data, jump into the pool AND SWIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMAR FROM 'THE WIRE' - BEST TV CHARACTER EVER?

2011-10-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

Brandye and I spent most of September and October intermittently watching all five seasons of 'The Wire', and I have to say that, again, it annoys my ego that we were such Johnny come lately's to pop cultural phenomenon, however, for those of you who watched the show, wasn't Omar easily one of the greatest characters in TV history? If I could ever write a character that good, well, shit that's the goal, y'all...
Discuss...

CHECK OUT MY MAN'S T-SHIRT LINE - GOOD LOOK!

2011-10-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

http://losangeleswaste.tumblr.com/

THIS IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

2011-10-22T19:44:00.002-07:00

TIME TRAVELING, AN EARLY BLUEPRINT FOR AN IDEA I'M CALLING, 'UTOPIA'

2011-10-22T15:01:00.001-07:00

 One of the really fun things about writing is that you can use different parts of your life to tell stories, first and foremost, and to allow others to experience things that most people will never experience. Well, sir, I did keep a journal in early treatment, in early recovery, and what comes out of the wash with that will be a concept I've been calling, UTOPIA, First and foremost, because Utopia is the place that we all strive to get to, whether we are wayward or not. Secondly, because Utopia is the block I lived on for most of my life, and thirdly, well, those of you who know the third reason, know the third reason...

Out of that alloy of early recovery journal and inspiration, came this essay, from 2006, which can give you an idea, somewhat, of what the screenplay will be like, although, for all I know, by the time it comes out of the cycle, it may be a TV series, who knows?

Here's Time Traveling from 2006 

Time is stuck. It has been stuck for a long time.

I   sit here in the detox psych ward, Kaufman MICA (Mental Illness Chemical   Abuse) unit, and I know three things: I am thirty years old, my life is   over, and my life until now sucks. It is January 2003.
 On  my  fourth fully sober day at the hospital my sister brings me a  notebook. I  feel the imperceptible rustle of time beginning to move  again slowly.

I  sit there in the meeting room of the  psych ward, while the group meets,  greedily doodling and writing, just  as I had been doing since I was  seventeen. In my barely week old  cleanliness- still befogged from  detoxing, “quaking and baking” as they  call it in early recovery- I  begin to draw. Of course, it is a drawing  of me.

I’m a  middle-aged pocket protecting schlub. One  of my arms is a lobster claw,  hulking, huge and clumsy. The other hand  is sharp and pointed, not  unlike Wolverine’s from the X-Men. My legs  are rooted in the soil,  unable to move. There is a flag sticking out of  the ground, imprinted  with, “Kaufman- a wonderful place to visit.”  Embedded in the soil that  bounds me (or helps me grow) are all the  usual suspects; Jesus Christ,  Satan, Kurt Cobain, Superman, and William  S. Burroughs. Some of these  men I love, all of them I worship.
 William  S. Burroughs is my  reason for being, if there is anyone’s moral  thunder I follow, it’s his.  Spiritually, or perhaps,  anti-everything-spiritual, I simply make the  man the way I do business,  for better or worse. As a junky, he is my  Higher Power.
 How  can I give you up, Mr. Burroughs? Your death  meant more to me than my  own father’s. How many Lower East Side drug  buys did you protect my  vacant-assed desperation through? Struggling  across the Williamsburg  Bridge in Pop’s ‘91 Nissan Sentra, bubbling on a  coke and weed high and  praying to you that there wouldn’t be that  sobriety check point  Charlie just past at the Kosciusko Bridge.  Remember, this is the  mid-90s, when all of it was still fun-- lame and  hopelessly horrible,  but still fun. Is it any wonder, Mr. Burroughs,  that of the first  things I write in this notebook I invoke your name to  protect me? I  know that you helped me out of an insane amount of scrapes  while I was  bartending at Jeremy’s. Why would I think you wouldn’t be  there for me  now?

The other thing I keep through my rehab is a   Superman story I read once. In the story, the world is a dark place,   where all the superheroes have turned to killing and crime. Finally,   Superman and the rest of the Golden Age heroes return to save the world   from itself. I love the vision of the slightly grey haired Superman,   returning to Earth, for a great second act- older, stronger, wiser.

Why   am I clean now? Because my 20s sucked so hard. They sucked because I   had done about everything short of sucking dick and selling my soul for   coke. Are my 30s to be the moment when I don the cloth of the   responsible and heroic? If the Superman of that misbegotten age could   come back and hit his stride, why can’t I?

September  2001—9/11  didn’t make me freak out too horribly, at least not what I am  cognizant  of. I am actually on an upward trajectory; the July prior to  that, I  made my third or fourth forage back to the gym, and by  September I am on  my way to another 100 pound weight loss. By February,  I move out of  Mom’s, for the third time, and in with a friend from my  never-finished  film school days, Gavin, in Sunnyside. Sunnyside is in  the Guinness Book  of Records for having more bars per capita then any  other municipality,  anytime, anywhere

December 2001-- I  am feeling so good due to  the weight loss, I decide inexplicably, out  of nowhere, to quit drugs  and beer cold turkey. It is a real  renaissance for me, spending my days  as a gym rat, and working at a  healthy eatery; I am practically bleeding  wheat grass juice. I feel  amazing, as they say in the recovery rooms,  “I had arrived.”

Late  December-- I call Carl, my coke dealer, and  almost go over to his  house. He acts like such a jerk over the phone  that this resentment  keeps me deliberating until it’s too late.

Mid-  January  2002-- My friend Jack takes me to a recovery group meeting. I  don’t  like the talk of God. I don’t believe in God; I believe in punk  rock. I  do like the idea of getting a coin for a period of sobriety  though,  but I am resentful that I am too far past sixty days to get one  coin,  and too far from ninety days to get another one. I won’t return to   these groups for exactly one year.

February-- I move in  with  Gavin. On the eve of my first night there, Gavin picks up a girl  on the  subway. In the kitchen, I see a pack of Marlboro red cigarettes  in her  purse. Even though I haven’t smoked since the summer, my brain  says:  “moving is stressful, have a cigarette- you deserve it…”

The next day, I am buying a pack of cigarettes.

February 9th-- I’m cashing in sobriety for a white Russian. It’s a good trade.

I   am out for a female friend’s birthday party. One of her male  co-workers  comes onto me. I’m a 29-year-old virgin, and I can’t help  but  contemplate his advances. I don’t drink until about an hour and a  half  into the evening. I think to myself, “I can handle it, I didn’t  drink  for almost 80 days…”

March 17th-- St. Patrick’s  Day: I call my  coke dealer, Carl. I tell myself that this time will be  different. I  still go to the gym and eat pretty well. No big deal, just  a fifty. My  sweaty desperation is back.

I am back to doing the shit a few times a week.

April-- I finally manage to procure a girlfriend. Hundreds of years of inner turmoil and loneliness come to an end.

It is not enough.

May--   I finally lose my virginity; the 29-year-old virgin is dead, long live   the twenty nine year old virgin! It is not wonderful; it is just sex.

June— I   exchange working at a health restaurant for a dingy, hellish bar on  the  southern tip of Manhattan called Jeremy’s. Both of my dead father’s   brothers patronize the place. The bar drips with remorse, death, and   alcoholism, along with the screams of three thousand souls, who died a   few blocks away.

July-- I start eating irregularly again.  Health  food for bar food - hello again, fat. I become a daily drinker  and cash  in my dreams one by one. Becoming a writer seems a Herculean  act, as  does walking those few blocks to Gavin’s office on Broadway to  finish  any of the film scripts he is begging me to get off the barstool  for.  Get off the bar stool and “come get the keys to the fucking  kingdom!” He  says.

I can’t get off the bar stool, though.  They told me when I  started I can drink all I want for free. When I  get off of work at 3:00  PM, I merely walk from behind the bar to the  front of the bar.

June  29th 2003—I am six months sober. I  begin my day at six o’clock on my  knees in prayer to the Creator. I am  living in a way I never thought  possible. Perhaps only the insane  beauty of late June and the promise of  summer can describe how much I  appreciate my life now. I am in the  Roman spring of my life. It’s no  small wonder that I dress like the  18-year-old kid I feel like: Skater  t-shirts and baggy pants.

My  mother allows me to move  back in with her again. I begin my day by  following the advice that I  will ultimately chalk up to being the source  of my success: go to as  many recovery group meetings as possible.

We  sneak around  like some secret sub-sect of society, looking both ways  before  descending the stairs of some church basement. We are those who  are  willing to give in to the magic of recovery.

Today is the   “big meeting” at the New York Hilton Hotel, it’s an assembly of   thousands of sober drunks and addicts on the 78th anniversary of the   recovery group I attend. I take the bus from my cramped bedroom in my   mother’s house.

A speaker at the meeting says one of the  wittiest  retorts that I have ever heard. It sums me up perfectly. “I  only have  three problems,” the speaker says, “success, failure, and the  obvious.”  It is a LSD-like epiphany.

July 2003— I get a  ride from Tommy  Cupcakes- the recovery groups are not unlike the mafia  with their  importance of nick names- and buy some new sneakers with a  new ATM card.  How has my life changed in the six months I have been  sober? Along with  the peace between my ears, banks are willing to do  business with me  again.

March 2003—Two week’s out of rehab and I get a job, a miracle in itself, with Gavin’s girlfriend’s father. He dries houses.

I   get to know Westchester, Putnam, Connecticut and Long Island. I haul   the most Sanford-esque assortment of machines to dry out the moisture   from fire and floods. I explore gutted-out rich people’s homes. The   white noise from the air movers lets me dream of my future. I take   readings with a moisture detector; I see the progress the machines make.   It takes time for the houses to completely dry out, like me.

I   find a little hippy store in town. It is Easter and the time seems   particularly poignant to me, blasting Coldplay and nursing my first   crush on a girl named Eileen in the recovery group. I find a little   pouch that I can affix to my belt and is perfect for keeping my sobriety   coins in.

I am alone with the gutted-out emptiness of  the rich  folk’s house. I cut open a stack of wires with a rusty knife  and plunk!  The knife is at a 90 degree angle in my arm. I’m all alone  in a burnt  out mansion with a knife dangling from my arm.

I  am calm. A year  ago, any drama would send me on the subway running to  my coke dealer,  hoping to get high and stop time. Anything. Now I find  an emergency room  and my sole concern is making sure that Novocain  isn’t similar to  cocaine. The nurse assures me that it is not.

June  2003— I leave  the Hilton hotel and it is still beautiful out. I call  this girl from my  new job. I can never forget how pretty Tori looked  that first date; so  adrift in low self-imageness, that she didn’t even  realize it was a  date. Damn that saunter down 54th street in denim  skirt and those cute  little black glasses that she just refuses to wear  anymore.

We go  to see The Incredible Hulk, a movie that  I’ve only been waiting thirty  years for. I tell her too much about  myself, and I have garlic-mashed  potatoes for dinner. Since I had been  hauling around a skateboard with  me all day long, like a tool, I forgo  the bus and skateboard home. I  have just met my soul mate, and I don’t  even know it.

I remember  looking up at the stars while I  was at rehab. Theyhad an enormity that I  hadn’t noticed in years. E  train back and forth. West 50th street to  Utopia Parkway and back - the  sky above like some great forgiving  canopy.

Early Summer  2002— Dinner with Mom, Sis and Toni Anne to  wish Sis a great trip and  good luck. I try and try, but all I want to do  is to get high. I don’t  give a fuck about her trip. Having her car will  be cottage cheese  curdles of convenience—easier to buy drugs and drive  drunk.

“Mom,  I gotta go to the store,” I say. I vault to my  sister’s Saturn,  purchased one month before my father’s horrible death  from  complications due to lung cancer. Father’s death: new excuses to  sniff  coke.

I go to Deli Bizz 24 to buy a lotto ticket and then I   call Carl. I swerve over to his apartment half a block away and ring   the buzzer for the one millionth, four hundred and seventeenth time. I   stare at his last name attached to the buzzer and I wonder how much I   have personally enriched this man. It’s a staggering amount, no doubt.

The upstairs is a cascade of cats and chemicals. My body language says I’ll do any damn thing for a free bump.

“Just one, please, Carl…”

I   know damn well that I have to plunk down fifty bucks and that I can’t   get credit or hooked up for anything less than a hundred. How many  times  have I thought of coming back in here to rob this fool of all  that cash  and coke? But I need him there on that chair, sullen in his  kitchen,  making those little bottles for me, because at the end of the  day, if I  robbed him there would be no more coke.

When I  get back, I hand  my sister the scratch-off ticket, good luck for her  trip. Good luck sis!  Like that makes up for me being a junky.

After  pretending like I  give a damn about my surviving family members more  than the coke for a  few more hours, I get Sister’s car for the summer.  That little bottle in  my pocket is calling me.

I drive  Toni Anne home. She asks me to  sleep over, and it is at this moment,  that time stops completely. This  is the night that I, who just recently  entered the having sex population  after 29 years, do something that  only an addict can understand.

I chose coke over the sex and love that I have craved my whole life.

October   2002— The Brazilian hooker is gone- wait, wait… The Brazilian hooker   was never here. Toni Anne’s dumping me causes an almost joyful descent.   “Cheese and crackers!” I say to myself, hours later. My aunt and uncle   let me crash at their place since I have no where else to live, and I   leave the cooking spray on my uncle’s bedside table.

The  more  daunting tidbit about the   ugly-not-worth-the-$150.00-that-we-paid-for-her-hooker is that it   doesn’t really bother me that I can’t bring myself to be with her. The   coke dick is a symptom of an advanced addict’s rooster coming home to   roost.

The astonishing thing is I only truly care that the  coke  is running out. My buddy, Pu Pu, however, seemed to be doing just  fine  with the hooker though.

Since I started at  Jeremy’s, Pu Pu, is my  hard and fast co-bartender and cohort. We both  don’t give a fuck about  anything other than getting fucked up.  Eventually in our six month long  tour, our world becomes solely the  front of the bar and behind it; we  toy with the possibility of dealing  out of the bar.

Everything I  am is savage and selfish.  You entrust me with the keys to your apartment  because you’re a drunk  like me and feel bad for me? I bring a fucking  charnel house into it  and sniff coke off your counter top. Out of the  kindness of your heart  you give me a job at your business that has been  decimated by the worst  terrorist act in history, and am I grateful? No,  I’m paging Carl at  every cigarette break and conspiring to deal the shit  while your back  is turned. I charge up sex calls to the tune of  $600.00, and then don’t  pay the bill.

Thanksgiving 2002—I  remember glancing at  Mom. She asks me,“Please don’t drink so much  today…” In a matter of  days, I will be estranged from my family for the  first time.

Mid  January 2003— Psych ward, Kaufman unit, and  several things occur all  at once. I get medication for my now diagnosed  depression. People from  recovery groups arrive at 7:30 and tell their  stories. I identify with  them and realize that I am an alcoholic. My  earlier life starts to make  some sort of sick sense.

I start to  trust in my dreams  at night and for the first time in my life, they are  not dark and  endless. Maybe my brain is giving recovery a shot. I start  to play by  the rules of the institution and I get more privileges. This  is totally  new to me.

The entire staff has a meeting with me and   they tell me I am doing great, and I just shouldn’t lose momentum. That   has always been my problem and the reason time stops: lost momentum.

Pu   Pu, from Jeremy’s leaves me a message, “hey kid, hope you’re feeling   better…” He is the only one from Jeremy’s who calls. Maybe I’m still out   there with him; maybe this is just a dream.

My roommate,  Keith,  used crack and Ambien, and would leave his wife and kids for  weeks. Once  he shot his cat with a crossbow. None of that is really any  more or  less crazy than anything I did. At the time, I tell myself  that he is  light years worse than I ever was.

We aren’t  allowed to have  caffeinated coffee, or candy, at the hospital. One day  when Keith goes  out for an interview at a halfway house facility, we  plot to have him  run across the street from the interview and buy the  forbidden items and  smuggle them back in to the ward.

Keith  is escorted back to the  unit after being dropped off and he runs to  the side of the fence. I  never forget the frozen, slow motion image of  Keith throwing over a  brown paper bag of candy, coffee and tea bags.  His crack-weakened arms  don’t allow the bags to make it over the fence  the first three times.  Everyone gasps from the surreal-ness of it.

Another  patient,  Dina, a heroin addict from Brooklyn, pitches a holy bitch  because some  member of the staff is graduating and they are having a  pizza party.  Dina gets a whiff of this and whines about the indignity  of the staff  chomping on pie and soda pop, while we, the animals, have  to suffer  through the hospital food (which for her was pre-wrapped  peanut butter  and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off). She’s  screaming and  carrying on, while Keith runs back and forth from the  yard bringing in  two coats full of candy- it’s hilarious, it’s absurd,  it’s my old junky  life rearing its head and I know it.

Only candy and coffee- but what would be next? I look toward the heavens, and I can see William S. Burroughs hating me.

“Never   rat on your friends, be a member of the ‘Johnson family’”, he says, be  a  part of that cool club that keeps it all under wraps. But, I can’t,  Mr.  Burroughs, I need to get better. Earlier in the day I write, “I  wonder  if I will ever get so far from the horror stories that I will  sit there  amongst my wife and kids and think, ‘Who was that ghost?’” I  know now  that just like the millennium didn’t really start until 9/11,  my  millennium didn’t start until I got sober on December 30th 2002. I  drink  a caffeinated cup handed off to me and it feels good. Later, I am   brought in for questioning about the incident, and I rat on myself and   the others.

I feel free.

February 2003— I  am now, at the  urging of that staff and the social workers, at a  alcohol rehabilitation  facility out in West Hampton Beach. It’s a  twenty-eight day stay. I am  named the Big Brother, by my fellow  clients. I greet new clients and  show them the ropes of the place. It  feels great to help people. I  realize that the point of these positions  is to align yourself with  doing things you will do later when you  leave the facility.

I am among a great group of guys. Unfortunately, I am one of the few that will make it on the street.

Halloween   2005— My last day at Reilly’s car service. I don’t know it yet, but   getting my Taxi license is a revolutionary act, as far as figuring out   what I want to do with my life. Its funny- I always saw myself driving   for a living. I knew it would happen eventually. I find myself here,   today, on Halloween, leaving this place where I have worked at for a   long chunk of my recovery. I am leaving because I get a job in the city   as a chauffer for a great company, a block from the apartment that I   share with Tori.

I have driven all manners of human beings   through the time stream: college basketball coaches, junkies, doctors,   101-year-old lawyers, electrical equipment manufacturers, children  with  cancer, Jewish teens on teen tours, and grumpy moms just trying to  get  their kids to school on time. Sometimes when I drive them I feel  like  God is in the car with me as my co-pilot, guiding me and my  actions.  Other times I feel a snarling gremlin is inside me, but now,  hopefully,  less strong than he once was.

I loved it here,  hated it here, but  most importantly this is the place that drills the  point home that it  is time to go back and get my degree. On the day  after Election Day  2004, an otherwise dreary day, I receive my  acceptance letter. I will be  returning to higher education after nine  years. I will finally finish  my degree at Queens College

June  2004— My first day at Reilly’s  car service- a steamy morning in the  summer heat. Weeping willows block  my vision of a house at 5:45 in the  morning. A scared woman enters the  car and asks me to bring her to the  Long Island Jewish Medical Center. I  flash back to the Kaufman MICA  unit as I see her glance out into the  darkness. I will spend the  remainder of the ride trying to allay her  fears with my own experience.  She will leave the car, I hope, a little  lighter than when she came  in.

This will be my strategy; I will  try to be a force  for service in some small way. I will try to brighten  people’s days.  When I finished all twelve steps and was eight months  sober, I asked  the person who helped me through them-- what should I do  now?

“Go find somebody else to help,” he told me and I knew it is that simple.

Christmas Eve, 2002— I am eating deep fried turkey at the bar.

An   old friend from film school, Eggie, comes to call on me. For the first   time in months, I feel the steam of how small my world has become. I   open up, minutely, to how bad my drinking has gotten. We retire to the   streets of Brooklyn for 32-ounce Styrofoam cups of beer served by a   bee-hived female bartender with a Polish accent. I call the connection I   have in the neighborhood. I receive another call, but I don’t pick it   up. I’ll find out later that it is my sister, calling to see if I am   alive. I meet “The Man” on a dark side street. I snort to the tune of   eighty bucks on the eve of the birth of the Lord. The irony is lost on   me.

I come to. It’s Christmas day and I propel myself back  to the  neighborhood to smoke pot and eat greasy Chinese food by  candlelight  with Eggie again. He might be the only friend I have, and  the ice and  snow won’t stop.

For the first time in 30  years I am not invited  home for Christmas dinner. I will wait and wait  as we prowl the blocks  around Eggie’s apartment for a bar that’s open  on Christmas day as our  wet shoes slop through the slush. I’ll party  for five more days, finally  returning home at about 6:00 PM on December  30th. I will ask my mother  and sister for help; they will drive me to  the emergency room of Long  Island Jewish Medical Center. By 1:00 AM, I  spend the end of my first  sober day, in a bunk bed, in the Kaufman MICA  unit.

One year ago-- I find myself driving onto the tarmac of a small private airport. I am employable, useful, and teachable again.

It   is a little after 8:00 PM, and the plane had been delayed all   afternoon, a co-worker who is stuck here all day with me talks politics   while I reflect. I am still irascible, and sarcastic. My life has taken   on the character that permits it to be not unlike a Raymond Chandler   novella co-directed by Frank Capra and Rene Magritte- idealistic but   wary. I wear a suit to drive around my wealthy clients and I like that.   The small plane is about to land, as the airport worker in the big navy   blue coverall guides it down with authority and confidence. I know I   have that confidence as well. My life is getting bigger. Getting my   degree, this time in English, becomes only a matter of when, not if.

Just   as I cross from the electrified gate from the parking lot, I see   something streak across the night sky like a cloudburst. I miss it, but I   know it is important.

I won’t notice it again until this  past  February as I walk down the hill to begin my student teaching  internship  on a blustery, sun-drenched morning. Out there- in the Big  Sky above  Flushing Meadow between The Van Wyck and the Grand Central- I  see  something. It is William S. Burroughs, and my father, not fully  feeling  like he deserves to be there, but there, nonetheless. I ponder  up at  these great men for a second and smile.

“William, I think he’s ready…,” my father says.

“Good   to see the boy again.” Burroughs says, as he glances toward my father,   “Now go out there and work as hard as you ever have, kid…”

I   remember being promised that if I continued to do the Good Work of   helping others, no matter how far down the scale I have fallen; my   experiences will be able to benefit others. That is all I hope.

And   with the speed of thought Burroughs and my father are gone from the   sky. I inherit the truth that everything happens for a reason. Just for   today, I choose to exorcise these thoughts and feelings onto paper for   the world to see and judge. Let God have no mercy on the artist who   chooses not to play his instrument. Just for today, I am ready.

Four   years, five and a half months ago, or one thousand five hundred ninety   days have passed since it all began. Time once frozen, thaws itself  and  flows normally again.

I close my notebook.

Time Traveling won the Leonard Deen prize for best personal essay in the 2006 Queens College writing contest

ALAN RADWICK - GONE A YEAR BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN!

2011-10-20T19:07:00.003-07:00

Alan and Rick, probably 2008?

Alan, me, Rick, and Johnny Oni, on our way to Boston in 1999.
Through my slurping and feverish lurch towards writerly prowess, I wanted to make a special mention of the man who allowed me to have a profound Spiritual awakening at the age of 25, Alan Radwick. It's been a year since Alan's awful demise, and I never want the world to forget that there are really good humans out there. Alan was one of the best.

Alan saved my life and I hate the fact that he died like he did, without much left in the world. I don't know exactly how he died, however, I know the Four Horsemen of alcoholism played their part, Terror, Bewilderment, Despair, and Isolation. I'll never forgive myself for not reaching out to Alan more, as he died in a room somewhere in Jamaica, Queens, pretty close to being destitute, and still recoiling from the turn that his life had taken from when I knew him the most, in the late 90's. He was car-less and would spend his days, from what he described, going to the library and voraciously reading, taking a bus to and fro from his room somewhere in that Southern Queens place where he lost all hope and died. Unfortunately, his nights were probably spent with trips to the corner stores, furthering his plight by spending his unemployment checks on cheap beer and the delusion that this was the only way.

I tried to mention God and the Program that has saved my life to him, but he unfortunately said that the meetings that he attended seemed to him to be all about the discussion of alcohol and others problems and not the Solution. I wish I could have taken him to some places I know where it is not about that, but I didn't, and I'll always feel guilty for not knowing that the scope of his alcohol problem had him in such a despair that he would perish due to some complications with his diabetes. Alcohol IS sugar, and for a diabetic with an alcohol problem, that is a terrible cocktail.

When I was 25, in 1997, Alan stepped into my life and showed me, long before the specter of me showing him that there was a better way. Long before alcohol and drugs kicked my proverbial ass as a sidebar, food had done the job quite nicely, long before those other things had ever entered the equation. Alan became my personal trainer in September of 97'.

About a month before that, at a Phish show in Maine, under the influence of rather good LSD, I had had the sudden Spiritual upheaval that I have achieved sober countless times through doing the work of inventory, rinse, wash, repeat, and see what comes out on the other side. Back then though, it was the sudden revelation that the Self was a costume and that I was not my big, horrible, obese body that had always betrayed me, I was, in fact, my Spirit, first and foremost. My Ego was the thing that was killing me. I rode that Awakening until Alan came along and showed my big, ugly, horrible self how to exercise and eat, and get that awful body under control...

Would I be alive today, to have gone on, like I did, towards Sobriety in 02' if Alan hadn't stepped in at that point? I don't know. But it happened exactly as it should have in God's perfect design and I never looked back.

I wish I could have returned the favor, Alan. As I ponder the first anniversary of your death, I have to wonder why it all happened, however I will never forget the significance of what you taught me concretely - one man, one woman, one human being can PROFOUNDLY alter the trajectory of another life, all it takes is a little effort. I carry that into my daily life. We're all God's kids and all God wants us to do is to help his wayward kids. Alan taught me that a full five years before I ever got sober and clean.

Around this time last year, and a little bit after Alan died, there was talk of a full fledged memorial service to some extent at a VFW hall or something, and it never happened for whatever reason, and I get that. Alan's besties were going to try to arrange it, maybe I could have helped just past the lame-o, 'Oh call me if there's anything I could do...' routine. I get it, times are tough and it is hard to organize something like that on the fly, but damn it, Alan Radwick deserves a memorial service! He changed my life and he was a great friend. all those Wednesdays racing after the gym to go to Crazy Scondo's comic shop in Bayside, Queens to get the latest issues of our favorite comic book titles. All the mirth. All the good times working together at Baybridge Italian restaurant. Sucks ass.

At least when you Google 'Alan Radwick', this blog is the first result. In perpetuity, humans for a million trillion years or until the internets runs out will know that Alan Radwick was one of the finest specimens of human being that that Jolly Green Giant called God ever created. Rest In Peace, my friend. I will always remember you!

Here's something I wrote in 1997, in honor of Alan's influence on my life:

Fear Of A Fat Planet

Their transcendent stares> Your grunted glares> Been years since they’ve had their effect> Your bullshit woes> Many caloried foes> Design a pill and go high tech> You all judge me> I take the heat> Fill that void again and again> Take up two seats> Eat assorted meats> Who wants to be my friend?> Pre-Judge-Adice> Societies remiss> Image obsessed and it’s sad> Knock me around> More than a few pounds> Show me a sign and I’ll be glad> Heart valve trouble> Or closed mouth on the double> Finally see it’s all in my head> Want my arms just like granite> Fear of a fat planet> No fucking way I’m winding up dead>

It forced me to care> My soul it bared> Reflect forever introspect> Always bigger clothes> Heart on sleeve acting roles> Fear of rejection was my sect> Everyone nudged me> 97’, joined Bally’s> Have gained and lost again and again> Led to shame at the gym> “I’d hate to be him…”> I go to the weight cage with the men> Self-centered-ness> I’m a mess> Think worlds looking at me> Protein arms astound> Push up dumbbells eighty pounds> With me, it’s the gym I must be> Now harder to lose> Solely foods I choose> Metabolisms like a slug> Flames I have to fan it> World can suck my man tits> My fucking grave has been yet to be dug>

THAT'S WHAT WE USED TO SAY!

2011-10-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Christin, my sister. Have a good and safe trip, sis!