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I don’t discuss work much here unless I need to. I like to keep work, and this, this, this, um, THING exclusive to keep at bay the creeping edge of insanity. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Yes, I’m aware that my efforts are futile, contradictive and ironic. But I try.

Here’s what happened this week. I had two (two, 2, II) working campaigns that were approved, but in FDA review, trashed.

Trashed.

That in itself is like a one in a billion thing.

Then (time not represented in sequence) both were reinstated. After amazing hours of work. That in itself is a one in a zillion thing.

It’s been a week of major ups and downs. Thankfully, I work with a collective of bipolars. (How often does THAT come in handy?)

You wouldn’t believe how much pizza the agency bought for us. And not just pizza, but Bleeker St. Pizza, Arturo’s and Joe’s. Best pizza in the world.

When we got the news today that the second campaign was re-approved, we decided to go out drinking. We had client approval.

Our creative and account team spent the afternoon outside at a SoHo Irish bar soaking in today’s glorious afternoon sun. We had sunny sidewalk seats. We had love and empathy and creativity surging through our veins careening right along with a notable degree of arterial anguish. Burning blood in the process of cooling off.

And there’s still a Friday to get through. And relatives suffering cancer.

We locked bonds.

We traded war stories about the horrors of working for a living. There were many margaritas, gin and tonics, and Jack and Cokes. We laughed for many hours, waiting for the sun to set over a facing skyscraper. I swear, that sun took a break from its westward drop for an hour or two, hung in the sky and just beamed warmth and positive rays upon us.

After we were done I went back to the office to shut off my computer. I had a revelation.

Traffic

In times of trouble, we sometimes revert to our vicious nature. Few revert to the smile, the compassion, the awareness of fleeting time.

One of my best friends was let go by our employer today. He is one of the rare who reverts to the smile, the handshake, the hug, when lesser people would revert to finger pointing.

He came to my office in the middle of the day, as he often does. But he was prepared for the weather and packed for what seemed like a long trip.

His eyes were red. He was fighting the nature to cry.

He just strode in and, without fanfare, said, “They let me go.”

I thought he meant to the Met game.

That’s how dumb I am.

Then I saw the tears.

Ow.

Insert awkward silence here. Insert hidden tears and open compassion here. Insert inability to speak for the rest of the day here.

He has a totally cool son (a son that inspires ME to want to do the fun work with a woman and then raise a child.) He has a really bad knee from an old football injury. He has the coolest of cool dispositions.

He smiled and said there were no worries. His eyes belied him. He was terribly sad.

I stopped working, made my rounds, went home.

So did he.

Come Monday, one of us is gonna have a new take on things.

Bad Nuclear Bomb Writing 101

We were on the Belmar boardwalk, kissing, when it happened.

At first it was a flash, like the post second blink of a sun stare, then the sensation of waiting for your eyes to adjust from dark to light.

A 3-ton fishing boat whistled by my head, its occupants cascading along its side like birds circling a kill. They were all on fire. I think I heard screams. It happened so fast. It was hard to hear.

The calm, soothing summer night fog flashed into to a seething, skin-blistering sauna, and the immediate sea evaporated into steam, revealing an ocean bottom cooking and twisting with near-dead life. Skin begins to drip off our bones like melting popsicle. An eyeball blink, and our fate is gooey.

Within this span of two seconds, all beach sand melted, curled, and shattered into a hailing curtain of sailing, sharp shards of razor glass, whipped into an amazingly fast frontal force of hideously charred surfers, sunbathers and seagulls on fire. A tornado of limbs, splinters and breath taking suffocation.

We looked toward each other, still mid-kiss. The metal pipe fence that served as a leaning point from boardwalk to beach was molten and unstable. The paint on our bench peeled and our skin turned into firey tissue, our muscle to melting mystery and memory.

The molten fence piping broke loose and that’s when the blast wave hit.

(With a heavy nod toward the Douglas Coupland book Life After God)

I tried to pull her down, but we were one foot too far above sea level, hence, well within the screaming latitude realm nuclear shot gun debris.

The fence pipe hit us and we died together, technically, of blunt head trauma. Our atoms went with the wind.

A Heart-Warming Pulitzer Finalist

Do I have a knack for picking books and authors or am I just amazingly lucky? I will admit that I do know this author from Might magazine (an early 90's gem); the McSweeney's web site and publishing concern; and The Believer, a contemporary, literary-esque/pop culture periodical in the newstands that is printed on a nicely weighted paper stock and seems to often come bundled with optical media.

The book is an outstandingly tilted (tilted, not titled, though the tongue-in-cheek title is enviously on target) memoir of seemingly uncherry-picked stories and--more importantly--alarmingly calm insights. It affirms my ideal of living day-to-day with some vague lofty ideal somewhere over the proverbial rainbow. With the rainbow being an ever changing horizon. Sometimes life is about excuses, favors and daydreaming. Actually, if you ask me, that pretty much sums up what we sometimes mistake for acceleration, or at least momentum.

I feel like my tank of potential is half full.

Spinal Tap ain't so bad.

I had to get a spinal tap, a lumbar puncture, to see why I passed out and if there was abnormal cause of the headache. I thought I’d be cool for today, but I need to lie on my back for another 12-24 hours (as of yesterday). Turns out I’m absolutely fine. Not to mention horny. They just don’t want me commuting because of the risk of aggravation or infection—I can’t remember what they warned of. The doctor, not the one I was supposed to see, told me I should let my spinal fluid chill, literally enough, by lying down and drinking iced tea. I could probably do the same damn thing at work, if it wouldn’t look so odd. And if it were more like iced tea season.

More entries below.

Gripe out. (Casi qué sucedió)

Almost what happened...

Not bad for NJ. Right in my old neighborhood, too.

And, y'all, don't forget to scroll down for a better entry past the absurdly late 4:14 fold (can't sleep). Having said that...

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This is where I live Miss AZ! I think I'd rather be among cactus, my friend...

My crash looked like the one at about 1:40 in the vid time code. Except I didn't have the gigantic audience and paramedics on hand. Fucking stupid me. Experience dictated waves to be on the Manasquan side. I live(d) on the Pt. Beach side. Squan had the waves. Point had the Tiki Bars. That would explain a lot.

Most recently I was on the Sandy Hook side. North Shore. Cove. Sunset. Forensics attribute it to a bad fin. I attribute it to bad technique. My board is in the shop, getting sanded and yearning for a new fin track or two.

I think I might be relegated to watching for another year or two.

Treading spaces

How the fuck did I ever get like this? People have been coming to ME, of all people, for answers for way too long now. At least professionally, as in work. If I can’t answer my own questions, how can I answer those of others?

Good for me...I'm metaphorically elevated above all humanity. Yet I've been encouraged to venture untethered with nothing but a rudimentary steering apparatus and a self-contained breathing system. Not to mention zero access to a top-notch Manhattan martini, steak, pinot noir and port.

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I’ve been holding it together—admirably, if I might add—for a while now. Sure, I pop a 0.5 mg Xanax every once in blue moon (probably nothing more than placebo effect) but it’s probably the over-contemplation of my place in this place that keeps me in my place.

I use this medium to give my ideas, musings, rants and tales a sounding board with mostly positive effect. Three of you out there know for sure I’m not bulletproof, and I appreciate that. Your comments are priceless. One of you knows almost first hand of my varied experiences because you almost share my professional position and pattern. Others are seemingly silent and still others have found me from Asia. Odd, but cool.

Guess what I’m saying is keep the care coming. I’ve lost far more than I’ve gained with this tiny plot of web real estate. And I need to figure whether it’s worth continuing, or to put my brain to different use. I’m dumb, but I happen to be an ok writer. I’m just a little rudderless in a still sea these days.

The Lottery (bad odds)

Turns out it's a concussion and a little neck sprain. And even the neck sprain is negligible.

So that, hopefully, closes that chapter.

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I watched the A's baseball game tonight on my MLB Extra Innings Package. (Why? Because I saw them play a spring training game vs the Giants while in Phoenix.)

THE MLB Extra Innings package is a Comcast Cable offering of every baseball game, the whole 6-month season long, for under 200 bucks. It's a great bargain.

So, Suzuki, Tasha's favorite baseball player, got hit by a pitch, went to third on a single and scored on a wild pitch. Tasha's Suzuki chant from the spring training game in Phoenix was resounding in my head. In a nice way.

Tasha is the best date on the planet to take to a baseball game. She provides the chants, I drink a beer and eat a hot dog, we both get bored, make fun of people (like the guy who hair sprayed his hairdo for a fucking SPRING TRAINING BASEBALL GAME) and walk around the stadium, then I find the car. We then find a restaurant, eat and probably wonder why we're not making out.

We bought lottery tickets after that A's spring training game. At least we had a few dollars and a dream. Why the fuck didn't I make hay while the sun was shining? She is a stunningly beautiful woman.

Mr. Blue, you did it right

My Jeff Lynne essay is forthcoming.

Sling - Listening to: Old REM

I hate blaming this slog blog for everything. Especially my stellar social life. Like trying to type with one non-dislocated, free-of-searing-pain arm.

An arm just swinging at the side, barely attached to any nuance of gesture.

Good thing I'm ambidexterious. Still can barely hit 70 with the left arm on the speed gun.(Went to the boardwalk earlier tonight. A seashore convenience.) I dare anyone reading this, or within 2 degrees of reading this, to hit 70 with a good arm, let alone a rag. Yet I looze velocity by the moment. Fuck.

The aggregate of death in my family is right here, right now. Within reach.

You try typing while wearing a sling, screaming in pain and trying to snap your upper torso back into place. When one brick falls, all crumbles.

Trying to fill a sand seieve.

No. Stop. No way. I will stand up to any and all decay-- be it time, essence, paint, mold, erosion, limited warrantes, cancer in the family, beauty in a love afar, or alluringly slippery sounds (plural noun that describes emotive pussy.)

Consider the gauntlet thrown, Ms. AZ. Beautiful as you are. Either this or delete me.

Yes, even at this hour I set forth my own series of considerations. Silly as it seems, there are reasons why I draw lines.

Holy shit. The Foo Fighters video I saw on the 16th floor coffee shop during work at low tide today is blasting as I type. I can totally ID with the drums and the boots. Bad sign.