Bobby Joe Thorazine: Editorials For The Apathetic

My Friends Are Getting Old pt.2

     I can't decide which is worse, the fact that I feel that I never see my friends enough or the fact that when I do I find myself liking them less and less. I watched one of my friends beat her boyfriend the other day for no reason. She was drunk as a bucket of squirrels and began assaulting him in a hospital parking lot. She really didn't even have a good reason, she was just screaming incoherently and throwing punches. He just took it. If she'd been a man and he'd been a woman, I would have called the police...or just hit her in the head with a bottle. But, she's a woman and, though women are equal, it seems that they aren't that equal. Go figure.

     About a week later she apologized to me and offered to look into getting me the therapy I'd been wanting. This is because she works in public health services. It's also, I later realized, because she didn't want me to have a bad opinion of her. Well, too late. Every other time I've spoken to her lately she either talks bad about other people that we know or picks fights with me for making jokes about people I don't. Personally, I'm getting tired of it. The older she gets, the more of a bitch she becomes.

     Speaking of bitches, there's this guy who I used to consider my best friend. These days I just consider him a condescending jack ass. I swear the guy is doing coke. You know, the drug that makes you feel like the most important and popular person in the world but, makes everyone else think of you as the most irritating and obnoxious person in the world. This guy has cut off so many of his friends lately. I have yet to run across one mutual friend who hasn't gone, "Yeah, he's really becoming a dick". He's a musician too and that's not the way to get ahead.

     His band is pretty popular, maybe that's why he's so full of himself. I don't know. What I do know is that as a producer and engineer he's lost countless gigs because nobody wants to work with him any more. It's a shame because, not only is he very good but, working in the studio is the only time that he's easy to get along with. The last time I spoke to him I was just making conversation. He criticized my guitar playing and I was forced to point out that I'm better than he is. Suddenly I felt like a dick and just decided to stop talking to him all together. When someone's company makes you dislike yourself that's not a good sign.

     More and more I realize that I just need some new friends all together. Maybe I just need to start dating again and inherit the lady's friends. Then again, I've always hated every one of every one of my girlfriends' friends.

     I do have one friend that I haven't lost respect for yet. She's debating on whether to stay with her boyfriend at the moment and, just between you and me, I hope she dumps him. She's the type that could bring me out of celibacy. Not to mention, she brings her roommate in to her and her boyfriend's sex life. That wouldn't be to bad of a way to inherit friends.

     Kidding. I have a feeling that I'd spend to much time waiting for the other shoe to drop. ...Or pair of panties...

     I still hope she dumps her boyfriend though. I've coveted her for some time. The main reason for that being that I really enjoy spending time with her. Don't get me wrong she's pretty hot but, it's her company that I like the most.  She's also managed to grow up without changing for the worst. You gotta admire that.

My Friends Are Gettin' Old pt. 1

     Am I the only person in the world over thirty who thinks that it might be nice to have more than three regular friends? There are people that I have known for fifteen years who met a partner, moved in together and/or got married and now never spend time with ANYONE other than their significant other and the two other people that they and their partner both approve off. They never really go any where. They cook out about once every two months, go to a movie every oth er one and watch t.v. the rest of their off time. Talk about settling down, wearing out is more like it.

     For a while I began to wonder if it was just me. Maybe I'm spending lots of time alone because nobody likes me. Still, these people aren't really spending time with anyone else either...and it's so wide spread. I'm beginning to think that it comes down to the security of routine. Plus, the smaller your comfort group, the easier it is to manage. Why hang out with all your friends? Then you'd just have more people to care about. That takes effort.

    & nbsp; Maybe I ought to just break down and get married, embrace the socially minimalistic life. There are plenty of girls that would have rolled around in pig excrement for a chance to land ol' Bobby Joe. At least, there were. Those girls are all women now and most of them are married...or institutionalized.

     Who am I kidding? The next woman I get involved with has a ridiculous number of hoops to jump through, not to mention I ain't all that I used to be. Besides that won't really solve the problem. What I want is to be able to see and spend time with ALL my friends, not be limited to a select few. I don't want to become one of those assholes who smiles and asks how things are when they see you on the street saying, "Let's get together sometime", only to be too busy when you try.

     If my place were big enough I'd throw a party. Maybe I could find some social hall to rent out. Of coarse that would require money and I have less dollars than friends now. Hmm. This is going to take...some effort...and time.

Hail Satan!

:twisted: Rock n' roll is, in fact, the devil's music. Don't let anyone ever tell you different. I used to be a very devout Christen until I started playing and in no time I was up to my armpits in Satan. Real rock n' roll is only about a hand full of things: girls, drinking, dancing, fighting, what a bad ass the songwriter is and, of coarse, rockin'. U2 can try and change the wold all they want but it'll never be they same as AC/DC preaching "Dirty Deeds...". This is why I was so happy the first time I ever saw Marylin Manson. After the previous years of sad guys in flannel, whining about their problems it was nice to see some Satanic drag queen scaring everybody's parents.

     Before I began my quest to "Rock out with yer cock out!" I never drank, I'd never even seen drugs, I had only had sex with one girl and planned to keep it that way and my art was usually very clean. Once I started to channel pure evil through my cheap stratocaster I was drunk constantly, high just as often and girls became the spoils of war. All of it was rock n' roll.

     You're in a club setting up and the bartender comes over and says that you and the rest of the band are allowed all the cheap beer and well liquor you want. You decide not to indulge because you want to stay sober enough to play and because you want to behave. Mid show some adoring, female fan brings you a shot to show her admiration. Not wanting to be impolite you take the drink and down it. The next thing you know you're waking up at her apartment, hung over, wondering where your underpants are.

     If all this weren't enough, there's the self-administered pressure to behave badly in rock n' roll. If you're a drummer you're supposed to be turning up bottles of whiskey where everyone can see you. If your a singer you're supposed to be grinding 17 year old girls in the bathroom. If you're a guitarist you're supposed to fall off stage from all the heroine you've shot up. If you're a sound man or roadie, you're supposed to break chairs over frat guy's heads when they spill beer on the equipment. As a bassist, you're supposed to do it all so people will notice you instead of the guitarist soloing between vomits. You're supposed to look trashy, act wild and make no excuses. That's just part of the game.

     Well, after a while you get real tired of the game. You get real tired of the hangovers. You get real tired of coughing up blood. You get real tired of the doctor saying things like, "You'll need this ointment and a small comb to get rid of them". You get tired of a lot of things. Too bad you're hooked. The devil has you pinned beneath his cloven hoof and all you can do is say "OK, we'll play Freebird, just bring me another gin and tonic."

     For me, girls were always a bigger addiction than drugs or alcohol. Still, all where addictions. So, what to do about it? Bigger, badder rockers have cleaned up and gone on to do great things. It's possible, right?

     Well, we're gonna find out. I have been actively celibate for three years now. I couldn't tell you the last time I bought drugs. Today, the final vice became too much of a burden and I contacted A.A. We'll see.

     I don't expect my music to become real sappy and castrated, but you never know. That was always one of the things that made it hard to walk away from the natura l temptations of the trade. How can I play "the devil's music" when I live like a nun? Maybe I'll start sacrificing goats. Hmm.

     Rock n' roll will eventually get you into trouble. How you handle that trouble is up to you. If you're like most guys you'll embrace it and go down screaming "Banzai!". Me, I think I'm gonna go get a haircut. 

After Work I'm Buying A Spear

     There are days when I wonder how I ever got along without a computer and there are days when I'd rather be reduced to making stone tools out of flint. Today is one of the later. I can't get the copier across the hall to work. I can't get into the training site I need for my new job. This is the second time I'm having to type this entry because trying to add an emoticon erased it. I can't even find that site that had simulations of Gillian Anderson and Nana Visitor "gettin' it on".

     ...Okay, that last one doesn't really exist, to my knowledge. But hey if it did I might appreciate modern technology more.

     My new job is not the first "real" one that I've ever had but, it might as well be and dealing with computers eight or more hours a day is not something that I've got a whole lot of experience with. The computers coarse that I took in college is completely obsolete. The majority of my experience with them comes from sending e-mails, making fliers for bands and, of coarse, looking at nekid chicks. All in all, none of it really looks good on a resume.

     I will get it. Truth be told I'd rather have a trial by fire than carefully and gradually ease into it. When I learned to swim my Dad just tossed me into the water and I caught on real quick. ...Getting out of that sack was kinda hard but, ...

     The first six to eight weeks of any job are always tough for me. After that, something always seems to just click and suddenly, I can do it better than anybody. Making it through that initial period though, that's the challenge. In this particular case I'm working for a university. If I stay here I can make more money, get better insurance and go to school for free. I could finally finish that degree that I started back in 1988. That's the same one that I took a senior semester away from in 1993. What's even better is that I have the opportunity to show my daughter's mother that I'm not the total looser that she prefers to believe me to be.

     Technology. Realize it or not, it all comes back to that. Technology equals power and powers equals support. In other words, if I can master the tools of the day then I can provide for the need of me and my loved ones. Caveman knows how to make and use a spear, he can drag a mammoth carcass back to the fire for dinner. I do my job well, I can pay for my daughter's education and health insurance.

     Two months from now I will know how to work this stupid machine. Two years from now I will be eligible for a decent promotion and a raise. Two decades from now I will have something to offer that little girl that can genuinely improve her life.

     Two centuries from now I'll be dead and her mother will be burning in Hell, being poked by satanic monkeys with red hot pokers and the ability to fart battery acid into her face. Yeah, if I can become more familiar with my technology, a lot can happen. Until that time I will just have to keep clicking the "help" icon a whole lot...if I can get the damn thing to work.

What the hell is a blog?

 So, I was on the net yesterday, casually searching for more nude pictures of Anne Parillaud when I somehow came across this blog that caught my attention. It was the name of the author actually, that stopped me. The author shared his handle with a fella' who married my first girlfriend. Naturally I wondered if it might be the same person and I began to read the post. Soon, he mentioned his wife, a woman who's name was that of my ex. He refereed to living in Austin, TX. which is where they moved to. He mentioned her habit of not remembering to lift the lid when she peed. All where striking similarities.

     As I continued through the article I found a link to the wife's blog site. I hopped over and dug through it frantically looking for anything that might confirm my suspicions. Well, I found it.

     There were enough details to eliminate the possibility of coincidence and I realized that this was, in fact, her. Even more surprising is that there was a brief mention of me in her musings. Seems her relationship with me was the result of teenage, low self-esteem. Her secret desire was that she should go back in time and encourage her younger self to date other people and dump my sorry ass...not necessarily in that order. Suddenly, my self esteem took a dive and I had to fight my old habit of consoling myself with a several shots of Pine Sol.

     I am and have always been the classic, cardboard cut out of a starving, tortured artist. As a teen I wrote poetry. In college I pursued acting. After school I began writing plays and television scripts. Through all of it I have played in rock n' roll bands. I'm skinny, moody and crass. I smoke and drink more than most people blink. I go through women like paper towels. I not only believe that pot should be legal, but also that after graduation everyone should be given a knife, a jug of water and a handful of mushrooms; striped naked and abandoned in the middle of the woods for three days. Stacks of paper stained with ink, whiskey and the occasional drops of semen liter my home separated chronologically by which guitar case they were dumped on. My hair is still long, my diet is still bad, my wallet is always empty, my bedroom wall still sports a Theater of Pain era Motley Crue poster. All this and I turn thirty-five in a few months.

     Don't get me wrong, my life has been better than most and I know that there are countless wealthy, successful, sophisticated men who would love to trade places with me for a day or two. Guys who would love to strut through a local bar with a coed on each arm and a glass of Dickle in their hand or to pierce various body parts or to suddenly quit their job and go to work for a singing telegram service/stripper service. I've seized opportunities most people never even encounter. It's just that when you romanticize things, you often trivialize them in some way. My romanticized perception of my own life is starting to seem less and less like a Greek tragedy/comedy and more and more like a bad daytime soap that's been on for almost four decades. More and more I know that I need therapy.

     Ah, therapy, slapping down good money to have some jaded, over worked pseudo scientist listen to you whine. You anxiously pour out your heart, they absent mindedly examine their pen. You resiliently bare your soul, they coldly expose their apathy and ignorance of their own field. You valiantly exorcise your demons, they stoically charge you $85.00 an hour and send you on your way, merry or not. In the end, you spent money to get the same thing you could have gotten from a priest for free...or from a hooker along with the possibility of an accompanying hand job.

     Well, if therapy is just pouring your heart out, bearing your soul and exorcising your demons, hell, I can do that when I write. And this blog thing that my ex is involved in, this might be a good way to start. What the fuck? I can always delete it if I don't like it, right?

     Really, I can quit any time that I want.

     Really.