The appropriate time

I'm that kid. The kid that wants what he wants right now! There's no rationalizing with that kid; he doesn't give a fuck. I'm him, he's me. The kid throws a tantrum and screams. Fuck you for saying no and fuck anyone who stands in my way of what I want now!

That's me. The only problem is I'm naturally quiet; I'm quiet on the outside. Anger is not tolerated in this family. Anger is an emotion I'm not allowed to have. So what do I do? I stuff it. I stay quiet. I stay alone with Ny thoughts. I'm an island. I let no one in. This is my life, the grown version of the kid.

When a kid gets angry he looses it. Kicks, screams, cries. But the 5 minutes later he's happy and seemingly forgets what the big deal is. He got all the bad emotion out of him. But as we train this kid to live in society he learns to shove down those emotions until no one can see any of them. Good boy. This is me the good boy.

The problem is I'm so good it fucked me up. There was too much too stuff. Dad leaving at 5 and then then dying at 12. Mom crying to a fourth grader about how hard life is. Her search for father figures for me. My search for father figures for me. Stuff it down. Don't feel, don't express.

Now I have kids. Now I'm the father. My oldest kid is 6 so I beat the record for staying with the family. Now I just have to live passed age 12 and I'm on top!

What happens after years of stuffing these things down? All I can say is that everything comes around. Deal with it now. Most of my problems come from the inability to do or say the appropriate thing at the appropriate time. As a result I deal with life at innapropriate times.

At least today I honestly want to face things.

You saved my life

I don't know if you can tell by looking at me but I experimented with a lot of LSD as a young adult. The first 2 or 9 times were really fun. I fell in love with it. Then I got arrested with 50 hits blah blah blah... Ever since then it wasn't really fun. I would take it and then just start thinking about my life and how it was going drastically wrong. It became the opposite of fun.

There's a place called the nude bowl in Palm Springs. It's an abandoned pool in the middle of nowhere. Someone planned a party, 10 bands, beer, drugs and chicks. They made fliers and passed them out at school. My band was on the bill. The school found the flier and made an announcement that they were notifying the police.

All the bands backed out. Fuck that. Not my band, we went. We drive two hours and make it to the spot. Cars everywhere. The band sets up, skaters are skating, the suns setting and me and the guys drop LSD right before it's time to start playing. Not one minute after we take the acid about 5 cop cars pull up. The band didn't play one note. Everyone just dropped acid and we had to leave.

Where to go? Camping. We drove for an hour or so and ended up at the Wildemar camp ground. 30 kids frying on acid in the middle of nowhere. All kinds of crazy crap happened that night but my favorite part was staring at the fire. It kept turning different colors, I maybe saw it turn 20 different colors. I could of stared all night. It was all I wanted to do. Stare at the fire and drink cold beers from my cooler. Keystone light, a bottled taste in a can.

Someone had a bright idea to bring an axe to cut firewood. If you have a large group on acid in the middle of nowhere the chances are that some might be a little crazier than others. We had one that was definitely off the deep end that night. Somehow or another he got the axe. He was slowly walking around us looking very creepy with a distinct evil in his eyes.

I looked in those sinister eyes and I heard him mumble to himself,"I'm gonna kill somebody." What the fuck! I just wanted to stare at the fire. He eventually killed my cooler. That's when I thought it might be a good time to move a few campsites down.

For what it's worth I ran into this guy a few years later and he gave me a job working construction. He had quit drinking and doing drugs. I looked in his eyes remembering the evil but all I saw was love.

That guy saved my life.

The feast

The journey is fine it's the arriving that scares me
The searching is open but the finding is blinding
The looking is important to me and seeing what's there
Beyond the cloak and into the universe
Of inner realms and being
The journey is what I always wanted but holding on to
Things that seem normal holds me back
Frozen in time with only a chance to thaw
But breaking is only a thought I can call
Come with your tired feet and hungry hearts and feast in the
...

My life here

I'm tired but still I dance
I play my song and see beauty
I'm scared to break the trance
But still I'm searching

I'm a Dad, A husband, and a seeker
I seek truth and look inside
What I see is freakier
Than if nighttime strangers collide

Holding truth and loosing grip
To all things old
Is the cup of life I sip
As paths unfold

Illusions create choices
So strong they work
And as I find the hidden voices
I tackle the ultimate jerk

So this is life as I am here
To cooperate with circumstance
And walk through fear
Giving meaning to seeming chance

It's not so easy now

They say that youth is wasted on the young. Sometimes it's all right in front of you; you think you need to get to some other place but really all you need to do is look around because right now all is well. Look inside and seek truth. Follow your gut and a path will develop. When you're young it doesn't matter, you've got nothing to loose. This is why fear in the young adult is such bullshit.

Don't listen to people you don't respect. The difference between those who make it and those who don't? The one's who don't make it were told they suck all the time and the ones who make it are those who were told they suck almost all the time.

When you're young you have nothing to loose. Maybe you think you have time to loose. If you go for something you desire and fail then you've wasted those years. This is the fear. So you listen to mom and play it safe. The years fly by when you play it safe. You get stuff. A lot of luggage.

And then one day you wake up to realize that playing it safe was really what made you loose the time. Playing it safe is like time travel into the future. And when you wake up regret starts to seep in. Then you try to overcompensate but life has tied you down. You realize how easy it would have been when you were younger.

It's easy to go all in with nothing but the clothes on your back but what happens after the time travel? What if you wake up mid life and still want to save your soul? It's not easy. It's kind of like that camel through the eye of a needle shit. No one does it. Except me.

I've had the house, the care, the income. Those three things have vanished. I have a wife. I have two young children. I have things to loose. But still I hold on to my guns when I say that nothing is worse than loosing your soul. I think that winning your soul is number one. What kind of husband am I with no soul? What kind of father am I who doesn't follow his own truth?

So you've got to do it. There is a way out of hell but you've got to turn around and start walking out. I choose to leave my situation, I choose life and choose to be a man. I choose to be an example for my kids and I don't care what I have to walk through to get there.

A love story

There's something missing. Something familiar yet lost. Something deep inside. Something locked up. The key is missing. This key is the key to make you complete. It's the key that makes life worth living. It's the key that opens your eye's in a way that allows you to see beauty. With the key you can see beauty you never saw previously. This is the key to the kingdom!

Without this key you experience loneliness beyond comprehension. Anxiety, depression, emptiness and pain. Mostly all of the different kinds of suffering are in your immediate perspective. Life is meaningless. Life is dark, scary, pointless and meaningless.

Then one day you look up and you meet someone. Someone who holds the key. They give you the key and you unlock something wonderful. Words cannot describe the feelings you have towards the universe. Everything makes since. Wonderment surrounds you. Not only does the magical new world become available to you but you have someone to share it with. Life means something at last.

Movies, bike rides, long talks, and late nights. You're growing spiritually at an amazing rate and never before have you felt so alive. Your muse has also come to visit you and the heavens begin to use you as a vessel for beautiful poetry, music and art. You can't remember what life was like before you had access to this key.

Then one day your someone with the key takes away the key and leaves. Colors immediately turn to black and white. The darkness reappears. Your soul goes back into hibernation. You quickly become a shell of a human. You get lost in your mind. You don't see the world at all anymore. All you see is hell. A hell within your mind.

This goes on for years until you hear a Neil Young song. You search for someone who is turning and when you find this person you begin to turn.

If you are lucky (and this journey doesn't kill you; as it does many who dare to embark on it) then you learn something. You have the key. It's just a matter of opening your eyes, find someone who's turning, and hold on to your focus.

These are the good times

I used to ride motorcycles to the movies with my old mentor and drink large bottles of Dr. Pepper and stay up very late. Whenever it was time to ride our motorcycles he would say, "Are you ready for the good times?" It felt at the time that those were times that would be remembered as the best. They were definitely times that have been put on the permanent hard drive.

My 6 year old woke up at 2:30 am asking if it was time to open presents. That went on for a few hours. My mom showed up at 6am and the kids bolted downstairs. I woke up and immediately had a panic attack! The kids had a pretty good Christmas. They're both crying and in a terrible mood now that all the festivities have drained everything out of them.

Sometimes it's tough to see the beauty of the forest when the ugly trees are staring you in the face. Ugly trees being screaming and crying accompanied with uncomfortable thinking. But I stop that thinking as soon as I notice it and focus on my awesome wife and how cool it really is spending time with the kids.

There's no better feeling than making the kids laugh and we've definitely been doing a lot of that lately. Even with the bad this truly is a wonderful life when I just make it a point to open my eyes and see with my heart.

Time to eat

Christmas is tomorrow and all the gifts I got for the family aren't good enough! OK let's not stress out here. Calm down. Be cool man!

I got out of a Christmas party that has a bunch of people I would never see unless I went to this party. I'm having panic attacks. My kids are whining. I'm locked in a head of thoughts. I'm tired. I don't have a talk show. I have over half of a screenplay. I don't know what's going on.

Pull it together man. Think of something good.

My wife is beautiful. She's cooking dinner right now. I love my kids. Life is good when I stay cool. Stay cool man.

Focus on others. Focus on what you can give to the situation. (I'm talking to myself here.) I'm rambling thoughts and posting them on the internet like a crazy man. Ok be cool man.

"Daddy time to eat!"

Speak up

It's rained for a week in my neck of the woods; flooding, closed roads, the whole nine yards. The big water run off drainage canal like the one from the Jack Nicholson Movie China Town was raging with rapids. I heard there was a 6 foot stationary wave at the end right before the ocean.

The rain stopped today. My sons and I walked down to the beach; it was trashed. The water is brown and muddy and the beach is covered with bamboo sticks and tennis balls. My sons like to get the bamboo sticks and play Star Wars; I usually have to stop them from killing each other.

I found an old basket ball and I was kicking it like a soccer ball down the beach. My son and I were kicking it back and forth to each other. Sooner or later my son gave up on soccer and went back bamboo Star Wars fights. I continued to dribble the ball with my feet down the beach. Another family approached us coming from the opposite direction; A Couple with two sons. The mom had a big bag of tennis balls she was collecting she said to me, "I told my kids there would be a ton of balls here, they didn't believe me." I smiled at her and continued to dribble the ball past her. Then her son comes up to me and picks up my basket ball and runs over to his mom saying, "Look mom I found a basketball." Then I said nothing.

I was thinking that I should tell the kid, "Hey that's my basketball!" But then I thought what do I want with an old basketball. It's not that big of a deal Duke. Let it go. Then I thought fuck that little kid I should say something. Then I thought no I shouldn't. This thinking continued for a long time as my stomach increasingly tightened up.

For one thing, why do I care? Why do I dwell on such a thing? But it's a symbol of my problem. I don't speak my mind up front. I push it down and then years later it comes to the surface in messed up ways like panic attacks.

So this is just a reminder to speak up for yourself even when it's not a big deal, who knows maybe you can avoid cancer.

Thoughts, words, and intentions

What I think, what I say, and what I intend to have happen. I say these three things everyday after my home yoga practice to remind me of something.

My mind can really get me, and not in a good way. If I decide to go asleep at the wheel my mind takes over. It takes over with self obsession, with jealousy, with envy, greed and the rest of the 7 deadly sins. It's repeated thinking based in fear. There's no need to have the same thought twice unless you enjoy having that thought.

The way I talk is what builds my world. The way I describe my world is what leads to perspective. It's all about perspective and this life has a full spectrum of perspectives from negative to positive. My words are powerful.

My intent. This is where it starts. I can think it through. What is it. Become aware. Be awake and act out your true intent.

We are judged on our actions and not our intentions.

What's next

I've got a feeling that I'm flying
It's more than if I'm dying
I'm holding on to something great
I don't know but I can't wait
Singing in the shower
A voice that displays power

My luck is turning round
I'm no longer looking down
Cement is just for feet
And I'm walking to the beat
It's just a different type of way
And there's a place that I can stay
If I want to
If I'm so inclined
If I want to
The world wouldn't mind
Traveling through space
My time has quit the race
And all the circumstances stop
My problems I did drop

I'm in love with just a thought
But it's gone and all I've got
Is words that can't explain
And a picture that once came
With a sub text
and that's what's next

Aterations

Night time thinking
In thought I'm sinking
Controlled illusions
Turned delusions
Unspoken truth
A girl named Ruth
Hitting home
Sitting alone
Tired eyelids
Fired sky bids
Timely situations
Finally alterations

What haunts me

Beautiful mistakes, wonderful one takes
Upside down thoughts and a head of banging pots
Lipstick instincts and lost pattern pinks
Teary eyed soul and a shifting pole
A whirling ball and a lonely stall
A stand up freak and an absent mystique

These are the beautiful mistakes that haunt me

It's a comedy

A bromance cheater movie set to the backdrop of a zany world of a failed talk show host.

Duke wants a friend but what he has is a fan. Chipper has a BFF but wants a new best friend. Chipper is torn between his BFF and his new bromance with Ryan. Ryan wants to hang with Chipper but Chipper once again has a BFF. The next best thing is Duke. Duke leaves his fan to hang out with Ryan. Eventually Chipper leaves his BFF and Ryan leaves Duke for Chipper.

What is a hipster? What is cool? What is an outsider? What is true uniqueness?

These and so many more questions will be answered.

Goodnight song

Goodnight Indy, Goodnight Stone
Remember that Dad loves you
Goodnight Indy, Goodnight Stone
Remember that Dad Loves you
I love my Indy and I love my Stone
I will never leave you alone
I love my Indy I love my Stone
All that I have is love
All of my love for Indy and Stone
reaches further than the stars above
Turn out the lights
and rest your head
The dream tonight
From your bed
is good
it's good
it's good

Hate

What's up with these blog topics I'm coming up with lately? It's the first thought in the morning.

First off, before I get into the topic, I want to congratulate myself for writing and practicing yoga for 90 days in a row! Yeah for me.

I have no idea what I was thinking this morning.

Hate.

There's definitely a lot of that stuff to go around in this life. It's free to all of us. It's so easy too. It's incredibly easy to hate. It's natural. It also makes you feel alive. In junior high it was the only way to talk. "I hate Mr. Pearson, he's such a total dick!" "School sucks so bad; I hate it." It's talk like this that can lead to making out with your girl friend behind the baseball diamond during recess.

There's a few problems that go along with hate. Sure it feels kind of warm, kind of like a friend, and makes us feel alive but it hurts us. Like alcohol it's a poison; a poison that can get us high.

Side note: I love feeling high.

If hate is free and so easily available to us then I would have to assume that love is too. The problem is I don't gravitate towards love. I gravitate towards hate. Maybe this is original sin.

Maybe hate is the road of least resistance and the irony of it all is that it causes the most resistance and friction.

The path of the most resistance? Love. And ironically also it creates a life of less friction and resistance. It's so much easier said than done.

How do I get myself to walk on the same side of the street as love? My only answer is a form of hatred. I think I've found a loop hole, it's called revenge. Who doesn't want to get revenge for being wronged.

Here's the big jedi mind trick: Let love be your revenge.

You're always surrounded

I don't know what the fuck I was thinking when I wrote down that topic. I write down these blog topics first thing in the morning and I know I had a point but I can't seem to wrap my mind around it right now.

You're always surrounded? Who's surrounding me? People? Work? Maybe that was it. My company is big brother. They have people watching the people who are watching people. It's got me paranoid.

I'm surrounded by beauty if I want to be. I was driving in the middle of New Mexico for over 3 hours and the sky was beautiful. If I want to see the original creator I just have to look up. Sometimes I forget how much beauty is around me.

I have love surrounding me. Permeating my entire being. All I have to do is feel it. Sometimes I try so hard not to feel.

You can feel when you want to; look for the love.

Meeting the comedy old guy

So I'm hanging in Albuquerque and I somehow meet someone. Don't ask me how I do it because I don't know. People never believe me but weird shit happens in my world. I met this older gentleman. I like older people by the way. I used to work as a waiter in a retirement high-rise. I had the bowl cut; my favorite haircut. I loved the Beatles in high school. I remember the old people loved my hair. They would always comment on it and I would prepare myself for something like, "Get a haircut sonny!" but instead I would get, "Hey son, I would give anything for your head of hair." They loved it.

Older people have wisdom. At least that's what I like to believe.

So I met this 83 year old man who worked in show business for 60 years. He was a comedy writer and performer. He wrote jokes for famous comedians, was a writer on a show called laugh in (which gave Goldie Hawn her big break), he wrote for Bill Cosby and all kinds of other shows and cool people. I told him I was an aspiring comedian and he said we should have lunch.

We met at the Frontier which is a cool restaurant right by the University of New Mexico and he bought me lunch. I got to hear his story, ask him for advice, and listen to a very cool man for an hour. He watched my comedy and he said that he liked it a lot. Then he asked me how I came up with the technique pf repeating everything that I say. He said it was very unique, he'd never seen it done before. I had no idea what he was talking about until I figured out that he pushed play twice on my youtube video and that's why I was repeating everything.

So the lesson here is that I'm very funny if you play two of my videos at the same time for an echo effect. Thank you sir.

Where is your noise coming from?

Is it the little screaming?
Is it the pretty dreaming?
Is it the friendly comments?
Is it the working audits?
Is it the TV?
Or is it me?
Is it in the outer?
Coming through the router?
Or in between my ears?
Multiplying fears
Deeper till you're lost
Further down and what's the cost?
My life?
My wife?
My friends? My work?
No end? To become a jerk?
Questions stare like stardust
Till we smash the final bust
This is where the trip begins
This is where what once was ends
And after that it's unexplored
But that's what this life is for

Loneliness

I'm in my hotel room after work half watching a Sandra Bullock and Josh Brolin movie while half writing this blog while ignoring the thought that this lap top is giving me lap cancer. When I was 20 I was lonely beyond belief. I was one of those guys surrounded by friends who felt like he had no friends. How is that possible? Don't quite know but I seem to pull off stuff like that.

When I quit drinking and did some internal work on myself things in the loneliness area began to change. I became comfortable with myself. I met my wife. I really haven't been alone since. I've been the opposite of alone. I became surrounded. Too loved. Is that possible? I seem to pull these things off.

But now I've got this job that leaves me alone for weeks at a time. I'm tasting the loneliness again. The one comforting thing is that I have a family waiting for me. I love them.

I think sometimes you need to get away to see what's underneath it all. What's there when all the music of life stops?

You don't know panic attacks!

Ever since the TAL episode came out I've received a fairly good size of responses from people. I seem to be fairly polarizing. I've got a lot of positive responses but I've also got a lot of negative ones too. Here's a comment on my website I received the other day:

Comment: I just got to say Your pretty funny guy. Sorry but only about 1/100 th of the amount of funny required for television success. Cant understand why it took so long for you to see that? Also dude please read up on panic attacks. You haven't a clue as to what a true panic attack is. It is just a bit irritating to hear someone talk about having 1/2 hour or 6 month long panic attacks when I have had REAL panic attacks. You'd probably last about 10 seconds before screaming in horror if you ever were so unfortunate to experience a REAL panic attack. hmm Maybe that is the problem you don't really know that much about people. Probably necessary to be a successful talk show host. Take care.

End of comment

First off I want to say this, I never said that I thought my show was at the level of quality to be on TV. I also never felt that my performance as a talk show host was ever really a level that could compete with the big boys. There's a difference between a) seeing something that is and claiming it to be brilliant and b) having a vision for the potential of something to be brilliant.

I quit my job after the first show. If you watch that first show and judge my actions by what can be seen on youtube you'll think I'm crazy. And with good reason; the first show sucked. But what everyone can see with their eyes is not always the truth. At least it wasn't my truth. What I saw was a vision of something great. The one thing that I wish I could have gotten across on that show was that I don't believe that I ever achieved my vision. I came short.

One of the things I learned is that it's hard to be funny when your not having fun. It's also hard to be funny when you are reading jokes off of a cue card written by someone else who just gave them to you before the show started while you are directing and worrying about cameramen, cast, guests, and audience at the same time. I still do believe I have what it takes. If I had half the support that a real talk show has and I had the chance to just concentrate on being funny I do believe that I have something special. I don't think that my true talent as a host is displayed on my talk show but I do still believe it is within me.

As for panic attacks this gentlemen has know idea that I have been through hell with an anxiety disorder. At age 15 I started to have almost paralyzing panic attacks. Heart palpations, a psycho feeling that something is terribly wrong, followed by thoughts and feelings of terror. I used to stay in my room for weeks at a time. I had to hold on to my moms shoulder to walk. I was ready for the fucking loony bin. I was fucking crazy and fucking scared. I had an MRI, I was checked by all kinds of doctors and psychologists. I would have two or three a day for a week straight and then they would go away for a year or two and then come back. Panic attacks are like the hiccups, when you get one more come and they're hard to stop.

As I grew older I learned ways to deal with this problem. One thing I learned was how to not be so attached to my thoughts. The thoughts were the scariest part of the attack, they made it worse. I learned that exercise and eating right were a big part of it. I learned that meditation was helpful. I learned that direct communication was good so I don't just stuff my feelings.

But the thing is this stuff is ingrained in me and I fall off the wagon. When I first met Lesley I had panic attacks worse than ever before. More frequent and longer. Eventually I had so much practice dealing with them that I learned how to act like they weren't happening at all.

To this day they still haunt me. I just want to say to this person who wrote me the comment that when I say all day long and six months at a time I am not lying. I am not exaggerating. Imagine those terrible real attacks that you have been victim to lasting every few minutes for a day. Imagine them leaving you for a few days only to come back 4 days later. Imagine you so called real attacks not going away. I have lived it. I do live it. So go fuck yourself with your little once in a while "real" panic attack and say something when you've truly experienced hell like I have.

Heaven is for people who are scared of hell; spirituality is for those who have been there.

Hotels

Some of the nicer hotels are not as nice as a notch down (that doesn't make sense). I'm really ADD right now. I'm listening to Bill Burr's podcast as I write this while I'm monitoring walkers out in the field. I just want to get my writing done before I get off work.

You can always relax better after you've done what you've agreed with yourself to do. I've made a commitment to myself to do yoga and write. My mind and my body and my comedy and my movie are included in those two.

I'm a little crazy right now due to a week alone in a strange town. Which brings me back to hotels. Why the fuck am I talking about hotels? I don't know. For some reason I wrote that down this morning.

My hotel is pretty cool; 47 inch flat screen, L-couch and wet bar area with a desk work area and then two queen size beds. It's clean, classy feeling, and nice. It also has a complimentary breakfast.

I'm not in the mood to write right now. I have no real desire to write about hotels.

I'm in Albuquerque. What to do here? I don't know, but I'm hoping I can get most of my screenplay finished. I have 47 scenes outlined and I've written the dialog for 14 scenes. I'm handwriting the first draft and will do the second draft in final cut.

That's all I have.

big brother

I'm watching you!

Please don't watch me.

I'm sorry but it's my job.

You have a job to watch me?

Yes they pay me to watch you and report back to the corporate big wigs the exact nature of all your doings.

I don't feel so good.

That's because it doesn't feel good to be watched; unless you're into some freaky sex shit.

I don't believe you.

You can believe what you want but the fact remains that I stand in front of you with this camera. Say cheese.

Please don't point that camera at me.

It's my job; I'm a professional.

You're distracting me from my work.

You're distracting me from my work too. If you wouldn't talk to me so much and focus on working then I can focus on taking pictures of you working.

This job isn't as fun anymore now that I know people are watching me.

It's called work; it's not called fun.

I still like to have fun when I'm working, it makes me feel like I have a little sense of dignity.

My job is to take away your dignity.

I would rather keep it.

Sorry it's already in my camera awaiting shipment to corporate where they will then judge you and your worthiness.

I'm depressed.

Good I'm doing my job.

I'm numb.

Now you're getting the hang of things.

Shopping with Mom

There's something about shopping with my Mom that usually puts me on edge. I think she is the one that ruined shopping for me; in fact I'm traumatized. As a youngster just wanting nothing more than to get the fuck out of the mall only to be held hostage in the womens bra section. I was definately traumatized.

To this day I can't be in any type of a store without going into,"I've got to get the fuck out of here" full fledge panic mode. I suppose that's a good thing, I don't waste a lot of money shopping but I also married a shopper so I'm right back to square one.

Today wasn't that bad to tell you the truth, it's been much worse in the past.

I'm so fucking tired right now; sleep for me.

Hate Mail

So the radio show This American Life has a large listener-ship, I heard Ira Glass say it's 2,400,000. So 2,400,000 people were exposed to the Duke Fightmaster Show. I received a lot of encouraging emails but of course I dwell only on the negative. One person hopes that I die alone. Two other people say that I'm basically an egomaniac who doesn't care about my family.

You can get so much good and still only focus on the negative. This is life. My eyes are magnifying glasses and what ever I point them towards grows an enormous amount. If this is the case then the question to life is where are you pointing your glasses.

Mind like water. Water has the perfect response. If you drop a pebble into the pond the pond responds with a ripple. A perfect ripple. A ripple perfectly in proportion to the weight and speed of the rock at impact. If you throw a big rock, the water makes a big splash, again in perfect proportion to the rock.

How many times do we react out of proportion? That question is rhetorical but the answer is many. So place your glasses on the positive and remember Duke there were way more positive comments.

I talk to myself in the third person now.

Bored

Whenever I here the word or think to my self, "I'm bored." I here some adults voice from when I was a kid saying, "That's because you're boring."

OK. I guess I'm boring. That's what happens when you have no direction in life. No people in life except for the TV. When I was a kid I was able to tune out on TV for 18 hours straight. I'm not talking about watching TV and learning things. Complete tune out.

That's my life, a tune out. That's my nature, to tune out. A space cadet. It's not that I'm stupid, I think it might be the opposite (of course I would think that). If you're too smart, maybe smart isn't the right word, too "sensitive" then you are apt to take in more pain. More beauty too, but I tend to lean towards pain. You analyze, you see the worst, you feel the worst.

Who wants to feel the worst? Not me. So I tune out.

So tuning out is boring. It's no way to spend life. I'm numb, years of pain killing boredom has made me numb. I'm trying to break through the numbness, but it goes deep. Almost to the core. But we all have a core and that's where the real deal is. Some people spend their entire life ignoring the core. Others are knocked by life to wake you up. Maybe that's what the random bleakness of life is all about? To wake us up.

I choose being awake, but making the choice is not enough, you have to make a decision. The word decision is similar to the word incision and what it means is to cut yourself off from. To make a decision to not be numb you have to cut yourself off from all things numb.

Love

A feeling?
In your heart?
A vibration?
Maybe an act?
Between people?
Father and child?
Mom and Dad?
Friendship?
Husband and wife?
God?

All of the above and so much more. If you can believe in anything it might as well be love. Right?

Why can't love be a religion?

Think of others. Do for others. Give freely of yourself.

Give love. Don't seek but give.

And don't forget to laugh.

Screenplay

Screenplays to hot days
Always un-phased
sky's touched fists clutched
hatched down and turned around
eyes closed night time doze
undiscovered prickly rose
don't ask the thoughts are true
but so's your gut to steer the crew
I'm underground but over stated
Over loved but sense has faded
True to touch don't want much
Just something more beyond the system
Something for my hearts remission

Leaving the Family

I'm in Fresno or maybe you like to call it Fresyes. I'm away from the family again. I miss them. I love my kids and I love my wife. I wish I was with them. I wish I had the money to spend all my time with them.

I was depressed as usual on the airplane and right as it was about to take off I got a call from a producer that said they wanted my life rights to make a movie about me. I had to hang up because my plane was about to leave but my head was going crazy.

A movie? About me? Do I mind? WTF! No I don't mind, that sounds awesome! What does this mean? It could mean nothing. It probably means nothing. But if it means something?

What if it means when you let go something happens.

Fingers crossed.

You're a homophobic who's harsh torwards women!

I've finished my interview with This American Life and I'm told that the episode will air this Saturday. The reporter called me up for some fact checking to make sure that her story is basically true. She said she might have put a few of the events out of order to make the story come together.

I spent 2 and a half years trying to get publicity for my show, to build a fan base. I wanted to get fans to interact with. I had a segment called "The comments" where I read the youtube comments, which usually told me how much I sucked but I had some fans. It was cool.

I've been telling people the show is on hiatus but I think I'm finally realizing that it's over. And right when it's over I get to have my voice in front of over 2 million people. I've finally got my shot to promote something and I have nothing to promote. Isn't that exactly how this world world works? The moment you stop trying something happens.

The reporter asked me if I had a website or anything that I wanted to promote and I didn't know what to say. My best thinking was that this is an audience that listens to podcasts so I told her to say I'm working on a podcast called Duke's World. They say that a sign of maturity is learning your limitations and working within them. I think podcasting might be outside the realm of my limitations but fuck it I guess I'm not mature yet.

At the last minute I told her to say that I'm an aspiring comedian. She said, "Yeah I listened to your comedy and you're surprisingly harsh. You're harsh on gays and women."

Oh fuck! So not only am I going to be introduced to 2 million people but I might be labeled homophobic and chauvinistic? I told her I had a joke that had the word "homo" in it but it was me reading a youtube comment of someone calling me a homo. I wanted to say that I have a lot of gay friends but then I thought that is what people who are racist say. "I have black friends."

So there you go; I'm getting my publicity and have nothing to promote and have the possibility of being labeled "harsh towards gays and women."

I'm really going places.

Holding on for life

Some people can only get "good" for certain lengths of time. They're just wired that way. They're wired to fuck up. There's family dynamics at work; you've probably heard of the identified problem or the black sheep. I've been both. Then there's the Golden child. The one that can do no wrong. The savior. I've been that one too.

I'm an only child from a broken family. Just me and Mom, but Mom is mostly at work. So our little family has to work in the "identified problem", "Savior", "Victim", "Persecutor" and all the other roles into a family of two. I take on most of the roles at different times. My mom is mostly victim and worrier.

I have the deep seeded need to fuck up. I don't outwardly want to fuck up I'm just born with it embedded into my psyche. I want to be good. Being a fuck up is kind of like being gay. You want to be straight but you just love guys. You're born that way. The choice is easy. It's so easy for me to pick "fuck up". There's something fun about it; it's like I feel love when I'm fucking up. I feel alive when I'm fucking up.

When I'm good I feel numb. After a while feeling bad is better than feeling nothing at all. You can only try to be good for so long, if you're like me, before tearing the roof over your head. People like me have a knack for pulling the roof down at the perfect time too. Usually the time that's most inappropriate for ourselves and the people around us.

I guess I'm just trying to hold on. I'm holding on for my life; it seems that every time you open your eyes in this life something you thought was grounding you slips away. Maybe that's the reason for the "fuck up kid". When I see something vanishing I smash it in an inappropriate way so people can tell me that it exists.

If you see too much you end up seeing an unbalancing amount of perception and getting any reaction from the other patrons of this ride can bring you back. I think I need a shaman. That would be more appropriate, but then they're just fuck ups too, just like yoga teachers.

I'm holding on. I'm searching. At least I can say I'm searching; people who are searching are the best although not always firmly grounded.

Hold on people. Hold on.