I haven't been dreaming lately...

my head hasn't been in the clouds as much as it was when I left Ireland...

and I just figured out why yesterday, at an Office Depot, on a laptop that wasn't my own (but one I really want to buy)...

yeah, I miss Emily.

A man named Michael

I didn't really want to write anything about his death. I felt like enough people had and enough people will. I've read articles and blogs everywhere from MTV to ESPN about the shocking tragedy that an idol has been claimed by the angel of death. When I first heard the news Thursday afternoon, I had only been awake for a short period of time and my brain took several minutes to process hearing, "Michael Jackson, age 50, is dead." I immediately changed the channel to MTV, and as soon as I saw "Beat It" playing, I knew it had to be true. My childhood idol was officially gone, and I wasn't sure how to feel anything but immediate sadness. But the worst part about all of this, worse than the fact that he's actually gone, is what I've heard from people who say things about his strange appearance, pedophilic accusations, and all-around insanity at the fact that he literally hid his children's faces with masks. It has caused me to speak a little about the King of Pop.

First of all, I must say that Farrah Fawcett's death was a shame. She was a beauty, a great pin-up legend (who in the 70s didn't have that poster--you know which one I'm talking about!). But my mind was blown when someone I know, a close friend, actually was shocked that Michael Jackson's death overshadowed her own. I mean, really? Are you fucking nuts? No, just uninformed of how huge MJ was at his peak. Sure, he didn't end his life on the high pedestal he reached after the success of Thriller made him a living legend. And I don't really feel like going over the numbers (the 750 million albums sold, the 13 Grammys, etc.) because the numbers game isn't what made him one-of-a-kind. But seriously, he practically owned the world for a very long time. He had the Guinness World Record for "Most Successful Entertainer of All-Time." Everyone wanted to be in his videos (Michael Jordan, Eddie Murphy, and Steven Spielberg were among those who were) and there isn't a producer on Earth who wouldn't jump at the chance to work with him, even today. Besides, do you think the Jonas Queers or Miley Cyrus will have an Oscar winner directing their music videos anytime soon (Martin Scorsese directed the "Bad" video for those who don't know)?

When I was very young, Bad was released and I've had it for as long as I can remember. Every week, at least once, my dad would pick me up from school with "Bad" or "The Way You Make Me Feel" or "Smooth Criminal" playing while I chewed a piece of Juicy Fruit on the way home. It's a fond but simple memory of my childhood that I consider one of those kinds of memories that might not come first to your mind but always reminds you of the innocence of youth. MJ played the soundtrack to my youth, as he had for my mother, but not like he will for my own children. When old people listen to Elvis, I wonder why. His music is outdated, if not stolen straight from black people, but now that the King of Pop is gone, I completely understand why Elvis fans still listen to Elvis. It may be about the music, but it's more about what the music means to them. To me, listening to Thriller, Off the Wall, and the other albums Mike made over his long career reminds me of my earliest start as an entertainer.

I was never a great singer, and I have never been a great dancer. I can do both, and I enjoy doing both, and I can say MJ influenced that. At one point, when I was the youngest person in my family, it was me who entertained the whole family during the holidays by doing the moonwalk. I had learned how to do it at a very young age, and even though I don't really remember this detail, they all swear I practiced many, many times on how to do the anti-gravity lean from "Smooth Criminal." MJ was important to my parents because--do realize this was before any of his child molestation trials--he was a terrific role model for black kids. His music was universal, bridging the gap between cultures as there was no place on Earth that didn't have MJ running from thousands upon thousands of screaming fans. Before him, black people didn't really have someone that famous to relate to. It's sad really. The Jacksons came up poor from Gary, IN to becoming one of the most famous American families in the history of entertainment, with Michael leading the charge. Poor black kids nowadays in the ghettos have to look up to rappers, who claim to sell drugs and shoot cats dead in the streets. Michael grew up in the same environment but sang about love, getting down, turning into zombies, illegitimate children from women named Billie Jean, making the world better, and how it doesn't matter if you're black or white.

His star fell when accused of the child molestation. I don't want to talk about it because I don't think it's a relevant issue in the point I'm trying to make. You can believe it, you can deny it, it doesn't matter to me. But to all you funny people out there--don't rub it in my face. It's not funny, it's not cool, and what does it do? Why do people love others being in misery? Michael Jackson became such a tragic figure of what stardom can do to people. Crazy or no, he probably wouldn't have been all that normal if he wasn't famous, but it's highly likely that his strange circumstances led to his demise. But I don't want to remember the demise of Michael, but more so the rise. And I would appreciate those of you who love to harp on the bad to harp on yourselves for a bit. If you want to remember someone who affected so many people for something that might have affected one person (or been an extortion scheme by that one person's parents) then go ahead and be my guest, but not around me. I have better things to remember.

I want to remember the glove, the moves, the songs, the hooks, the videos, the things that everyone in pop music has tried to emulate for 30 years and that no one will be able to achieve. I danced because Michael taught me how to dance. I sing because Michael taught me how to sing. I began saving money when I found some not-so-terribly-scalped tickets for one of his shows in London. I've never told anyone about this, but I was thinking about just flying over there by myself, finding my way through the city on a very small budget and enjoying a concert by one of the greatest entertainers we'll ever know. But it's not going to happen anymore. So I'll just hit play and let "Rock With You," the first MJ song I ever remember hearing, play in the background while I work on getting that moonwalk back.

With his death, my childhood dies with him. Rest forever in peace, my friend. My idol. Michael.

for those who read the last post....

...I had to delete it. I can't talk about that stuff anymore, and I can't live like that anymore. I've got too good of a thing going on for that.

--Fin.

dans un etat rêveux...(Part Two of Eleven)

Okay, let's set up the scene again: we're in a very old townhouse, flat, whatever the French call these things. I want to say one of Napoleon's cousins lived in this place, and I have the feeling Sofia Coppola stayed here for a short time before filming that random ass Marie Antoinette movie. There's a certain word for this kind of weather here in Paris--well, I can't really think too much right now about fancy words, so I'll just say "perfect." I'm pretty intellectually-minded out right now, as I've been pretending that I'm a little more sophisticated than I would consider myself. Despite a slight language barrier, there's this beautiful girl that I've been having over since B,S, and I flew into Paris six days ago. Her name: Monique. Her look: hot. Her deal: artist/model/musician/jaded/faded/whatever. But I can't get over her Icelandic eyes, which glow when her cheeks permeate. Besides, she fucks like it's the last time she'll ever be with a man, so you gotta love that.


The French Open is not nearly as exciting as I hoped it would be. Yeah, we've seen some athletes and stuff but they're mostly dudes...eck. Roddick was kind of desperate, Nadal was kind of suspect, and Agassi could match me shot-for-shot when the bottles of Johnnie Walker broke out on the first night. There's not really much else to see as far as people at the French Open parties, unless you don't mind random models. Yeah, that's something I have to kind of get used to since editing for the film has had me stuck in Kentucky until we decided to take this excursion. Unfortunately, I brought my daughter over with me for this trip and I haven't seen her in three days. Maybe I should call her, but I figure that worrying is a two-way street. Besides, she did the same thing when we went to Austrailia and the only thing she came back with was some Aborigine piercings in secret spots.


The tennis has been good, and I can't complain about that. Since taking up the sport, I'm a little more into these matches, picking up pointers and mentally watching myself play and realize how I give up so many damn points. Funny enough, I've only been watching the women's matches. The Williams sisters (by the way, their father is a cool asshole, if that makes any sense), Sharapova, Jankovic, even some of the ones I can't pronounce or spell are teaching me a thing or two. Monique has a friend in this tournament that's been doing pretty good all week, some girl from Romania that's supposed to be coming over tomorrow night. Maybe we can do something French together, like a ménage à trois...it'd be pretty cliché, but Paris has me feeling the love for some reason. It's really Europe in general, and I think that B & S would agree with me. I should consider getting a place over here somewhere, maybe in South of Spain. I might steal a little Woody Allen momentum and start filming things over here in Europe. The amount of culture will drown you, as will the number of women. Despite my minute affection for Monique, my eyes have been open and my tongue has been busy, especially on days when Monique goes out and spends a couple of Euros I throw her way for a new dress, new shoes, new dog.

The French women have shown that there is something stewing beyond the beauty at the times--madness. S had a run-in with a woman, one he is currently hiding from--hence why I was pissing on his phone this morning when I went to the bathroom, or the lue if you will--who is gorgeous (I'm indifferent when it comes to her faux-hawk). However, she does tend to throw objects in times of anger, more often than not these objects are knives, and it doesn't take much for S to set her off. I've seen this madness in Monique at times, but it's way more subtle within her. Monique has the tendency to just say things that are out of this world ("There is no such thing as bad art;" "I would give up all of my Versace for the love of a cat;" "Megan Fox isn't that attractive;" etc.) and it weirds me out at time, but because of my fear of getting hooked on psych meds, I just decided to take start drinking early each day, including today.

I met B yesterday morning, just she and I, for some breakfast and at the cafe was a girl who looked absolutely to die for.....she wasn't working there, she was eating there by herself, practicing poor French to herself. Maybe she was traveling alone, and maybe I'll back to the cafe today to see if she's in there again. It wasn't the first time I had seen her since arriving in Paris (maybe she lives on the block somewhere), but it was the first time I didn't think of her as French. She blends in well, but something about her made me think differently about her. Maybe because she didn't look French or American is what draws me to her. Maybe I'll see if she wants to accompany Monique and me tomorrow night over some dinner, some wine, some Casablanca maybe--I've been in a black & white mood lately, even wanting to make a film in black & white...do some effects, make it look like it was actually made in the 40s.....maybe a science fiction film, since that's kinda how life has felt lately....even my vision is in black & white--and maybe get them both in bed. It would be a nice night to do so, but not tonight. We've got a party with Kanye West and Chris Martin and his wife Gwenyth Paltrow. They'll be fun, as will my special edition Original Imprint Adidas tracksuit be. It goes well with a pair of Air Yeezys.

I'm dreamy.........................

it's being dreamy (part one in an eleven-part series)

The scene is laid out: we're under an immaculate blue Kentucky sky with a bright sun and powder white clouds few & far between. It's spring time and there's a breeze keeping us from being hot but it's still warm enough for me to wear my thin white Armani Exchange v-neck t-shirt. I'm listening to something weird today, something like Royksopp (Norweigen house/pop music...I guess), but weird is what you'll hear in the car with me anyway...so we'll something say something normal is playing. I don't know where I've come from, but judging by the time of day (about 11 AM), I would say that I've just had breakfast or brunch with some actress who wants to be in one of the upcoming films and I'm just toying her along, more than likely because I'm trying to fuck her. Well, let me rephrase this--I'm trying to fuck her regularly. She wouldn't be talking to me now if it was any other way.

The road I'm on looks a lot like US 42 once you pass through Goshen. You start to see that typical Kentucky landscape: white fences to keep the horses in, rolling fields of bluegrass, farms with Ford F-150s and red barns. Shit like that. It's not my thing, but I've gotten used to the isolation the country offers. I can do whatever I want out here--make noise, race, do doughnuts, get road head while the top's down (well, if I was driving a convertible, I could). More importantly, I don't have to deal with the paparazzi. They have been getting on my nerves of late, always sitting outside of my L.A. condo. I have to time my departures around the same time Lady Gaga is leaving so they'll notice her and I can sneak off to the set. But it's post-production time after four damn months of filming every single day. In post-production, I gotta be relaxed and around comfortable surroundings. L.A.'s too busy, too much of a distraction. I'm too liable to go out and tailgate at a USC game to find a couple of undergrads who are feeling like doing something wild at the condo. Besides, I'm not in the mood for any coked-out threesome drama right now. I'm ready to get to work in the studio.

I finally make it to my sprawling 50-acre estate, make sure to enter the gate code--which I always mix up with my bank card pin number--and pull into the driveway. There are a million cars here, or so it seems, but none of them are mine. Apparently, the Fairmount boys are doing something out by the pool because I'm seeing some splashing of water in the backyard and I'm definitely hearing those annoying girl screams when girls act like they don't want you to rip their clothes off when in reality they've always loosened their G-string. Hey, at least it's early and they're out of the house. I park my M6 (the very same car I decided to give my main character in my first published novel) and take the garage's set of stairs to the basement. I figure if I sneak down that no one will convince me to act a damn fool today. And like I said before, I'm ready to get to work in the studio, a Mac lab where I edit all of my own films. First & final cuts of the film are worked on here in the Bluegrass State, where I can't pay attention to the industry patter. I don't care what they say about my film, and I definitely don't care about Robert Downey, Jr. complaining about a certain amount of time on film, especially since he's not starring. Sometimes that shit gets to me though...can't be around it. Bad vibes. I'm hiding in the Mac lab.

My most trusted editor, B, is waiting on me, looking kinda goofy. I think she's trying to show off some clothes she copped at a fashion show when we were in France for Cannes last week, and honestly, I dig them but not on her. Before I can even sit down and tell B about the brunch, my Blackberry's ringing with my brother's ugly mug on it. That lazy bastard's calling me from upstairs? I let the college boy have his fun; besides, he knows I'm working. Before I can even bring up Final Cut Pro, my Blackberry is ringing again. Ahh, this time it's the queer from Complex Magazine wanting to interview B, S, and me. Where the hell was S anyway? He had been upstairs when I left this morning and his 'rati was in the driveway...ahh, the pool. The girl he was with last night--one he had nabbed from Cannes and brought home with him, kinda like a souvenir--had said she liked to tan nude so she was probably catching some sun, probably catching some S at the same time. Ahh, he wouldn't need to be here for editing today. Anyway, so this really annoying flirty writer for Complex was trying to interview us about OI's growth and the rumored project with Pacino (it's not a rumor, we just haven't had the time to let the ink dry) and I've honestly been dodging the fucker. I don't have time for this. I can't interview just yet; I'm hiding.

I already hate this movie I've yet to edit. I'm trying to keep the optimism in my head, but I'll hate until I love it. The movie is made on the cutting floor, so I have plenty of time to make a movie I love. Until then, I hate it--it'll help me keep focus. The young blonde that just walked downstairs wearing, uh, nothing, so it seems, is a perfect example of a distraction. She asks me where the bathroom is, and I know she already has to know because I have like 5 of them upstairs. I'm hiding...gotta make this movie...gotta do work, gotta focus...but I also gotta hot ass blonde dripping wet with no clothes on asking me to show her where the bathroom is. I might be focused, but I'm not gay. Be right back, B, we'll start editing this thing in about, oh.........20 minutes.

I'm dreamy.................

Whips of the novel (From the Set, Part One)

For my novel, I gotta keep my characters riding fresh whips. I've thought long and hard about this, and I think it's important that they uphold a certain image of success and wealth and shallowness. This is what I've got so far:
















--Barry's BWM M6 Convertible

--Barry's Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder


--Clay's Lexus IS F

--DaShe's Range Rover Sport

--Keenan's Ducati 1098












--Michelle's Porsche Cayenne Turbo



















--Shooter's Mercedes-Benz CLK600





























--Odyssey's Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster





















--for the long distances, Barry's Gulfstream G450


Do realize that these are whips for 18-year-old high school seniors!! I think having a nice ass ride at any age is just one to slap a poor person in the face. Looking at this is a slap to my face, I who rideth in Ye Ole White Wildebeest. I'm gonna drop small updates for the books like this not only to get my mind of the monotony of word processing documents, but also to help visualize it. Think of it as press releases from the set that exists in my head.

gonna remix this one a little

I don't really feel like writing out thoughts today, but I feel like sharing my momentum. Over the last few weeks, my creative meter has been through the roof. The ideas I'm having while constructing stories and screenplays have been nothing but a beam from someone who likes me up in heaven. So far, I've:

• Written out three final updated outlines to the the three novels I've been working on since 1999;
• Written two different treatments for two different films, one short and one feature-length;
• Developed a concept for the first three episodes of the reality show I've mentioned in past posts (we're in storyboard mode, sort of, in order to help the producers gain perspective of what's going to be happening figuratively);
• And finally, I've found a writing contest to enter my comedy pilot into, with a grand prize of $100,000 if I win (it's a long shot, but why not shoot for the moon?)!!

Musically, it's been a boring month. Nothing fresh has come out, so I've been having to dig through old volumes to find something different to listen to. Shoot me some shit that I can listen that's fresh, if possible. I've been in more of an electronic mood, listening to Radiohead's Kid A and Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak lately, so anywhere in the neon realm would be cool.

I must say that I've joined the Twitter realm (twitter.com/theblackbear22) and I'm kinda addicted to it. I didn't think I would be, but it's really taken the steam away from Blogspot because with this, I have to conjure up clear and concise--well, I guess I don't HAVE to--paragraphs and give some clear thought. On Twitter, I write the most random one-liners on there, just whatever the fuck I feel like saying out loud or something. And because you can only put a short message, I don't have to explain anything I say. I just suggest you check it out and reserve judgment at first. I honestly think Twitter has cleared my mind of the junk that cluttered it, which is why I've been able to write fiction a lot better. We can thank sunshine for that too.

Lastly, I want to date a musician. Really badly. I just want to see what it would be like to date a creative person, but I don't want to date another writer. Lord knows that I wouldn't want to date a critic--because writers are so harsh to each other at times--and although I'm a very visual person and shit, I think I'd like to date a girl who can sing and play an instrument. Help me out, people.

--Fin.

all i have left

Sitting at my house in the spring time is pretty dope. Spring becomes tangible, with the perfect breeze flowing through the house throughout the daylight hours and the wild yellow flowers making the landscape look picturesque. It soothes, helps me think about the goal at hand, which is bascially hoping Original Imprint takes off. It's been on my mind all of the time, and focusing on it now that school is over is the only thing I can do to function, not just because it's about realizing a dream...but I also need to think about it to take my mind off of something else.

I hate my ability to give a damn about something I logically don't believe is worth my time, that being the fact I give a flying fuck about emotions, compassion, connections to another person. It's so lame and I wish I could be robotic about it, just turn off the emotion microchip, and keep going about my day. It would be ideal, so much so that I might never turn it back on again. Some could say that's a bad thing, that being emotionless would make me a little less human. I'm not one to complain there, but on the real, it's better than succombing to things like love and intimacy, infatuation and heartbreak, blah and blah. It's so funny because years ago, I embraced such ability to love openly and endlessly with a woman. Hell, I thought it was amazing. But to paraphrase myself, love is simply necessary for procreation. It helps to keep the species going. I'm not really in the procreation mood right now, so is it necessary to have a girl on my mind all the time? Much less two or three or however many I have such semblance of feeling for, whether they're old school or new news?

Worse part about it, I've done everything short of seeing a doctor (for my head) or getting hypnotized. I probably won't go to those extremes, but seriously, what else must I do? Women are fine and dandy and there will come a time when I'm ready to invest time and effort toward being with one. But not now...I've got too much to do. I'm trying to write movies, produce shows, start companies, be a young man and have fun doing it. Still, in the end, whenever the right girl calls, texts, e-mails, whatever, I'm sucked back in. It's almost like I lose control of myself and some alter ego does all the damage while I look on and am left to feel the results, which are usually bad. At least they have been lately. The problem is that I can't let go of the past, which is strange for a futurist, one who is consistently at what's coming rather than what's behind. Nevertheless, while my vision may be forward, I'm still holding onto what I thought I've left behind; it's no surprise that in the grand scheme of "feelings," I've really only had mad infatuation like twice in the last 8 years, love in that span maybe once or twice at best. Yet, those old relationships haunt my memory and perception. It's like I'm moving forward but looking over my shoulder, unable to turn away even though the past is blinding me. Maybe it's why I've taken a liking to sunglasses.

I once took the plunge years ago in asking one special lady out on a date and ended up getting turned down. I thought it would give me closure, considering it took literally years to gather the courage. Yet, the closure never came. It never did; it never does because if I'm willing to ask you out, ladies, it means I've debated on whether it's worth my time and the deliberation in my head can take many months. In fact, if I were to count, I think I've only asked five girls out in my entire life. The rest of them came to me first and I accepted the offers. But with those five, some aren't as relevant and don't even enter my brain anymore. Hell, I finally got over my last love about a year or two ago, a relationship that ended in 2006 for good. I could have really used 808s & Heartbreak back then, hahaha. Putting my own self-psychoanalysis to it, I would say it's just my habit in not letting go when I'm wrong. I hate losing anything, whether it be an argument or a battle of love, and it seems like I'm constantly in a losing battle. Maybe I'm just looking to win that battle just once, even if it's just for a short while. I'm on a 5-year losing streak and until I get out of my funk, I think I'm going to be overwhelmed with this issue even though other aspects of my life are going incredibly well. I will not lose in the end, this I'm sure of, but unforunately, I couldn't answer you properly if you were to ask when this battle will end. I tend to think of myself as larger than life sometimes, at least my ego tells me so in some cases, but this is one subject that's going to keep me grounded. It's bad that I have to sometimes beg and plead to God Himself to just let me sit this battle out to no avail. Instead, I sit, I reflect, and I stare at my kryptonite.

No Original Black Bear to save the day this time; I need someone to rescue me for once.

the lies of reality

When there's an idea brewing inside of the Fairmount home, it could run into one of two sharply different ends: one where it pretty much gets shat on by everyone or it has a snowball's effect of growing and growing, for better or for worse. Despite the very springy April we're having, we've had a snowball rolling down the mountain and it's got us all in the right state of mind. There's also a slight feeling of comraderie that I'd always hoped for since moving out to the farm in October. We'll always have our spots amongst each other where we're pissed off at one another over eaten slices of pizza or d-bo'd alcohol. However, it's no surprise that something potentially big has climbed up over the horizon, and I feel like it's going to be up to me to make sure that this snowball doesn't instantly melt on us.

Years ago, freshmen year in Murray to be exact, my group of friends/football teammates were about to take some shots before hitting up a party. A strange red bottle was passed around the room and we poured the red liquid into shotglasses. "Hey, guys," Demetrius yelled. "Fuck it; we're taking shots of it--we should just call ourselves Aftershock!" It was cheered and we laughed at it...and then it stuck for all four years of college. Our group name was Aftershock; we were known to peers and professors as being part of the big Aftershock clan. We were from different walks of life, mostly black, but all in all different. There was no one with the same points of view on anything, yet, we were able to coexist for years. It was the tightest group of friends I had except the guys I grew up with back in the old, old days. There was always talk about starting a company that encompassed all of our skills--music, law, film, finance, art, etc. We wanted to do something to keep the group going after college because, hey, we were having a blast and didn't want it to end. Unfortunately, it did, and it looks as though that dream of the old Aftershock crew sticking together looks more naive than anything, considering people are spread all over the country now, with some having kids and others thinking about marriage. A host of issues made me let go of the dream years ago...and then the opportunity to realize my dream returned.

Robbie blurts out one day, "our lives here are so random, we should make a reality show of it." Laughter followed and then ideas started flowing...and they didn't stop. They haven't stopped. A reality show posted on YouTube sounds fun, like something to keep up busy over the summer. But then I got to thinking about what this could mean. I don't expect MTV to call and say, "hey guys, you want a spot on our network?" However, this reality show concept, which mixes a little bit of stupidity with our reality, could be just what I need. Anyone who has known me very well for a very long time could easily say that I've always been interested in writing and production for film & television. I mean, what if this does work out? Then maybe my Aftershock/Imprint company idea could finally come into fruition...wow, a dream realized. Of course, I worry that I'm hyping myself up for failure. But I don't want to fail at this, so I imagine my effort will be ever-increasing to avoid the obstacles that come behind dealing with producing something/dealing with my roommates. Hey, say the show fails and no one watches it on YouTube. Okay, fine and dandy. But what would the next step be? Ahh, a vast canyon of ideas have come into my head where I'm dealing with publishing, music, fashion, all kinds of art projects. Music videos, movies, epic shoe design, non-profit charity work, the possibilities are endless.

Good Lord, have I found direction? I've been so lost without it for years, like in a holding pattern. Now, it seems like I know where I want to go and even though I'm not positive if I'm going to make it, the whole point of my new attitude returning from Ireland was to do what I wanted to do. It's all about being free to do what I can while I can. I expect plenty of naysayers and doubters, but that's okay. They can be useful, helping me to make sure that I prove them wrong. That's part of the fun anyway. Gosh, imagine what could happen if this whole idea in my head--which I haven't explained very well, I'm sorry, but I'm saving details and trying to keep from throwing all of my ideas on here where anyone can read them and steal them from me!--blew up and got me to the level I want to be on. It's way bigger than having lots of fame and fortune; it's about being able to reach people. I think that's way more important than the accolades of being famous. I don't care what people would think of me and I don't care for being a celebrity. It doesn't seem terribly appealing. However, the ability to say, "I'm Rocky Williams and I've got a project (let's just say film) that I'm going to make and in two years, it's going to be a box office hit." That means a lot of fucking people have seen something I've done! Maybe something good I've done! I don't feel like I necessarily have a lot of important messages to spread either, but if I have the opporunity to do so, I might as well try to get people thinking positively about charity or being healthy or being planet-friendly, and that's exactly what I do.

Ahh, it could just be me California dreaming....but so many different pieces of the puzzle I never questioned before are being questioned now, and the whole Fairmount reality-show is just the baby version of the big picture. It's all starting to make sense...for the time being.

you haven't lived until you've loved life

One night a while back, Matt said something I thought was really stupid--that his passion was life itself. It didn't make a lot of sense to me considering how I had just explained what my passion was in life: writing, filmmaking, storytelling, etc. It seemed specific, thus easy enough for someone to understand. However, Matt's answer to what his passion was in life--life? really?--seemed to me like a copout, like he hadn't given much thought to a thoughtful question. Yet, after a little thought, Matt's answer might not have been stupid as once thought, if you look at the answer from a certain perspective.

At the tender age of 25, there are a lot of roads open for me to take: marriage, fatherhood, workaholic, starving artist, fashion designer, politician, skydiver, blah, blah, and blah. The doors are open. Life is huge, as Emily once said to me. When I thought about my life in Louisville as I left Murray behind in May of 2006, I wondered what I was heading for. I knew the party life of undergrad was probably not exactly going to be the same here, and I was right. I knew living with my parents wasn't going to be like living with Weave or DW, and I was right. But I didn't really realize how complacent I've been for the last few years until really this year. 2009 has started off right, thankfully. Usually my odd years are my most troublesome, but so far I've been fortunate to be living the way I want to be. Left and right of me are friends that are getting married, sometimes for stupid unexplainable reasons and sometimes just because they feel they need to be married at this age. More power to them both, but I'm thankful that I'm not in that mindset. I prefer the freedom I have right now. You'll never call me and hear me give an excuse for not hanging out because I have to take Easter pictures with my kids.

My roommates and I (along with the ol' boy, Mike) have been ballin' out of control this year, as we should be. We're all healthy mid-20s bachelors that have intelligence and wit, as well as healthy drinking habits and the money to burn on shots of Kamikazes. That, my friends, is life. A couple of weeks ago, Robbie and I got to hang with The Audition, one of my favorite bands. I envy the road band life. They get to see a new place all the time, talk to new people, and express themselves seriously on a stage. It's not glamorous all the time, especially in those long hours in a beat-up Ford van, but those guys kinda rock. We drank and partied with them like we were in the band ourselves. And for a moment, I guess we were, especially when we were singing songs like, "It's So Cold in the D." If you don't know about that video, look it up on YouTube right now!!! Anyway, the point is that I'm no rock star, but I feel like my life isn't very different than that of Danny Stevens, pictured with me up there at the top. He's a free man. I'm a free bear, because while I'm writing and dreaming and drinking and dancing and singing and kicking it to Cold War Kids while the Mets are on ESPN HD, I'm free to do that all of that shit anywhere I fucking please! And that is why I love life, my friends. I'm free, not boggled down and neither are you...unless you're married with kids and a house payment. Then you're boggled down, but you're still free enough to be able to do that shit, so in a way, you should love life just as much as I do!

This is a happy-go-lucky post, I know. It's kinda qurrr, but what can you do? I'm doing it big, beacuse my passion too is life. I just didn't realize it until I started living it the way I wanted to.

i will bend the light pretending that it somehow lingered on

I wish I could update this a little more, but time and opportunity allude me. Nevertheless, here I am. Even more, I wish I had more profound things to talk about, but I don't. When I kept a LiveJournal (haha, who didn't?), I always had something to say and something to question, but I was living on a college campus where I was constantly trying to figure things out. It didn't matter if it concerned women or the number of electrons in an atom, I was trying to figure things out. Nowadays, I'm done questioning and trying to answer all of the questions, perhaps because I realize that I don't have to waste a lot of time doing so.

Heavier Things, the sophomore album by my favorite playa in the game John Mayer, made sense to me in 2003. At the time, I felt like I was leaving the high school mentality completely having a full year of college under my belt. John was singing about mature love, carving a piece into the world and having a place to fit into, aiming for inspirations bigger than we can possibly dream to achieve and not caring if we fail to do so as long as the attempt was made. I understood that completely. I was over my high school infatuation (hard to call her love considering I've had that "mature love," yahmean?), I was trying to make the most of being a Murray State scholar, and I wanted to be the world's greatest pediatric neurologist. The album struck a chord, so to speak. Yet, John was 25 when he made Heavier Things, and after listening to it as soon as I turned 25, it struck a completely different chord.

I had just returned from Ireland and had my awe-inspiring epiphany about life, blah blah blah. We've been through that. I also had my epiphany about friendships and what real friends meant to each other, blah blah blah. We've been through that too. So I popped in the album one day and it sank so deeply that I got a little emotional, you know? No crying, but I was moved nevertheless. From songs like "Clarity," where John has his own epiphany about the way life is going for him, to songs like "Split-Screen Sadness," where he pines for a distant lover he let go of, I related to every song and began to think about what I've been doing as a 25-year-old. It's only been a couple of weeks thus far, but it's more about where I am in the lot in life. I'm a college graduate who is not the world's greatest pediatric neurologist. I'm not learning much anymore either, even though I'm still in school. I haven't been asking questions anymore, which bothers me most of all. My quest to learn about all things that make the world go round simply went kaput and it seems if I learn anything, it's something I read on Cracked.com, which is a humorous website, but not really where the answers lie.

Most importantly, those days of learning helped me fashion together so many stories I'm thankful to have been able to tell. Most of my literary ideas come from me seeing things I'll never see again, not as long as I sit at a desk job working 3rd shift. This must come to an end, for it's beginning to drain me. I need to be up with the sun, where the light keeps my brain cells running a little bit better. It's more than UPS though; I can't blame it all on the job. It's gotta be about me and figuring out what questions I haven't answered. Some I never will--like why women are...the way they are--but sometimes, it wasn't about the answer itself but instead about what I learned along the journey of figuring it out. Hell, often, that was the best part! I'm not one of the folks in their mid-twenties that had even begun to think that it's time to settle down and get "the next phase" ready, where I get married and feel like starting a family is what I must do. If you do that so soon, aren't you really telling yourself that you've got enough questions answered?

All in all, I have just one thing I want to do--get back to that sophomore feeling where I felt like I had something to pursue. And I do. I have plenty trials, successes and errors to make with finding love, which I must admit is pretty important to me. I have to figure out why I was given the gift to formulate a story so well. I have to figure out why I'm able to do calculus problems in my head, like another form of mental math. I have to see why learning the piano so late in life is one of the easiest new things I've done in years. I have to see why logic doesn't explain everything and how it sometimes loses the battle against emotions. I've yet to carve out my spot in the world, and to quote my boy John, I'll go down in flames if a flame is what it takes to remember my name.

the other side of being dumped

I've been dumped quite a few times. In my younger years, it was pretty much me getting tossed aside because of shit I couldn't really help. For example, I date a girl who thinks I'm not ghetto enough for her St. Matthews lifestyle. Hmmm. But as the years passed, and I was dumped again and again, the reasons became more serious--personality conflicts, marriage or bust, long distance, things that aren't as shallow and that are true hurdles to a successful relationship. One thing I never used and had used against me was age, maturity, being at two different places on the road of life. Until 4 AM.

Of course, I haven't been in a relationship in a long while, but I would say that ending a friendship with a best friend is very similar, regardless of gender. I don't have but maybe three truly best friends and I've had my battles with each of them before, some more so than others. But I've never lost a best friend in battle unless it was the battle of time, where you grow apart from friends just because you both become different people than you were when the friendship began. That has happened numerous times with people, and there's not much one can do about it. However, I've never really directly said, "hey, I don't want to be your friend anymore." I've never really been able to do that because I think I give my friends more chances to work things out than the norm. I feel like I have been given several chances to make up for wrongs in my life, and I try to be open and do the same...however (and this is partly from what I learned about life in Ireland) I don't think waiting for people to come around and be who you want them to be is the way to go about it. And knowing Lindsey, the friend whom I've had to "dump," she's not going to be able to sit back and accept necessary change for the sake of friendship, not in the way I changed when Emily sat me down last May and told me I needed to make some changes.

This was something I knew that was going to happen probably a lot longer ago, back when we were roommates. There was a conversation that should have been a red flag back then, one about her choosing her man over her friends, and it really didn't sit with me well. I can understand picking your loved one over a friend in certain situations, but we were talking about when the loved one is in the wrong and that apparently didn't matter to Linz. Huh. Oh well. Things never got any better, really, because she began to change for the worst and really became a self-centered person that I was slowly hating day by day. I couldn't wait to move out of the apartment and free myself of the dark cloud that constantly over my head when she was around. It happened in October, and I thought it would help things, the space. But in fact, it has not. Each time I saw her over the last six months, it reminded me of this person she had become and even after she left the boring cocksucker of a boyfriend, it didn't matter--she wasn't changing back to the person I called my daughter.

What was I supposed to do? Last night, I pretty much put the nail in the coffin and it was like a breakup. It was the worst night out I've had in a long, long time, only because of the way I had initiate this breakup. It was cold and callous, and I wanted to be much more civilized about it--sit down and discuss matters. But Lindsey's a very hard person to discuss matters with without her getting defensive and fidgety. And even with that being said, I just basically told her to fuck off at her birthday party, which isn't the best way to go about it. I don't know, I just didn't like her attitude, and I haven't liked it for months. I was getting tired of it and I'm tired of waiting around patiently and allowing people to just do whatever they want to do while trampling me in the process. Fuck that, I broke free. And I'm sad to have done it but I'm also elated. It had to happen; otherwise, I would have been a friend who would have slowly grown to hate her. And who needs that? She doesn't need it, I don't need it...but could there have been another way to go about all of this? Perhaps, I just don't know how. I've never dumped a best friend.

In the end, I'd much rather say, "hey, let's take a break and work this out later." But does that ever work? I don't take breaks. It's either let's work this out or let's toss this thing aside with no worries. I took the latter approach and boy, does it suck. It feels no better to dump than to be dumped, that's for sure. There are no winners; yet we move on.

what you bring back by leaving

My first post on this new blog, known as BearNotes, is really appropriate. This isn't really a brand new thing, having blogged on LiveJournal, MySpace, and even on Facebook a little bit for the last seven years or so. However, this isn't really going to be a series of notes about how I feel about my feelings and crap like that, or so I hope. Instead, this is going to be more like freelance journalism, with you as a reader hopefully taking in something called perspective and comparing my perspective to your own. I'm not controversial in my thoughts, no radical in the way I believe the country should be ran or in the way I believe certain people should be treated. However, I'm very opinionated and I used to really enjoy making sure people knew what I thought about the world. But I return home after an excursion in Ireland and Scotland that has changed me significantly, and I believe this is an excellent start.

First things first, I knew virtually nothing about Ireland and even less about Scotland. I knew Ireland was very green, very small, proud of their Guinness, and didn't have a strong like for England. I knew Scotland was the home of Rowdy Roddy Piper, the scene for Braveheart, and the home of the kilt and the bagpipes. Beyond that, I knew I was going to delve into something very foreign to me. Yet, when I landed in Ireland, there wasn't much of a language barrier, just some slang I wasn't familiar with, and there was a general welcoming feeling of hospitality. Although the Irish airline Aer Lingus had lost my luggage, I wasn't really worried about anything when I arrived. I had made a friend on the airplane, a quiet gentleman from the northeast named Aran, and I knew that Emily wasn't very far away. Upon arrival, my temporary European life had begun and I did two things I wish I could do now: I let go of my most stubborn ideals and tried to open my mind to a degree it had never been open to. Honestly, it was the best thing I could have ever done.

Without really describing my entire holiday, I basically met a lot of great people who simply treated me as though I had always known them; I saw some great things that a lot of people from Kentucky probably don't get to, such as a 20-feet tall bronzed statue of Sir William Wallace of Scotland; and I was able to share how influential American politics can be on the rest of the world. All in all, I learned. The amount of Scottish, Irish, World history that I absorbed was overwhelming, better than anything you'd read on Wikipedia. But I would say that learning about the people there, learning how they simply took me in and just wanted to know what they know and transversely know what I know--amazing, hard to put into words.

In Edinburgh, I learned something very, very important that I didn't realize I needed to know. I needed to know about myself, which isn't really why I left. I simply left to go see Emily, who had complained about Ireland enough to make me worry about her. I quickly realized that she's alright but that she probably doesn't get to rant enough to release any anger or anything like that. So since I had traveled some thousands of miles, she decided to help me out with my issue, one I didn't even acknowledge until we had a conversation at The Elephant House, a teahouse where J.K. Rowling had actually written the first Harry Potter novel. Neat. Well, within the conversation, I learned I didn't really have my act together here at home. For the most part, I was living a content life without realizing it was really life in a rut. When you live as a bachelor in Louisville, there's two things most of men aim for--money and family, whether they admit to wanting a family or not. Some might call it companionship, love, maturity, but in the end, men want to have the money so they can have the fun and they also want a girl to eventually be serious with. Well, I wasn't necessarily doing either of these things, but I was living and my thoughts dwelled on such pursuits. Emily sat me down and broke it down, diving into why I wasn't really as happy as I thought. Without boring you, she basically helped me become an inspired soul, one who wants to write and one who wants to take care of myself. It's strange how some people know you better than you know yourself, and I can say Emily is one of those people who at least knows what the hell I need to hear at the right time. When I tell most people I'd like to write for a living, they kinda say, "oh, that's nice." That's basically because I've surrounded myself around people who have become complacent and they don't believe it's so easy to do whatever you want. That's the price you pay for living in Kentucky.

In fact, it's very easy to do whatever the hell you want. It's a lesson learned in Ireland, after seeing how big the world is even though at times, it can feel pretty tiny. So I plan to write. Fuck working at UPS much longer, and fuck working in bioengineering. It does make my scholastic career look like a waste of time, but hey, sometimes that's what it takes to know what you want. And in the end, I would love for all of you to feel the same way. I don't know if you can find what you want...maybe you can, but because I'm searching for a certain level of greatness, I know I can't do it in my current position. You may not have to go to Galway or Edinburgh or sit in a teahouse to figure it out, but if you haven't figured "it" out--it being that which drives you to the place you want to be when you're old and reflect on how great your life was--then I suggest you get up off of your ass and figure it out.