feel good

I just want to feel good. That's all I've ever wanted. I just want to feel OK. How can someone who wants to feel good feel so bad?

Worry, anxiety, fear, negative self talk, shame spirals, deep depression, loneliness in a crowd, and a million other things that sum up the bad feeling inside of me.

When you do something that's right then somehow the world seems right. I've experienced glimpses of this. I've tried to bottle this feeling and save it for later but the feeling is fleeting.

I used to think that if I just went to church and cleaned up my act then I would have nothing but smooth sailing. Doesn't work for me. What people tell me I should do doesn't work for me. Never has. I want to be great. That's part of the problem I guess. I can't just be a worker among workers. I have to stand out. I've been made to feel wrong for it.

That's me. I'm different. There's something a little different about me. I guess that's what everyone says about themselves. I've spent years trying to tell myself that I'm not different but I can't shake the feeling. Trying to fit a circle into a square peg is the perfect analogy for me. I don't fit. Where the fuck is the circle?

This is the question. Find the circle and find the secret to feel good.

I don't want to write

I have all the time in the world right now and the last thing I want to do is write. I want to surf the Internet for hours accomplishing nothing. I want to jack off. I want to fucking get out of my body! I want some fucking escape!!!

I'm in Arkansas in the middle of nowhere. Sitting in my hotel room with nothing to do. Work was canceled.

Great! I'll work on my screenplay, which I haven't started. No.

Huge panic attack hits me. What the fuck body? I'm alone in a safe neighborhood in a safe room. (It's a pretty nice Holiday inn actually) What the fuck is up with my body? I get depressed when I get a panic attack. Isn't that weird? Getting depressed when your anxiety kicks in.

Panic attacks make you're body believe it is in a life or death situation. Your body thinks you are about to die!! At any second!!

I don't know about you but I don't like my body telling me we are about to die.

When I was young, age 15, I first started getting these attacks. I had attacks at three different periods when I was 15 and I can't remember which one was the first but I think it was this one.

I had a best friend that lived three houses up from me named Jason. We used to hang out every day from 1st grade till 6th grade. We stopped hanging out as much when I started smoking pot and he didn't. We would still hang a little after junior high but it was becoming less and less. (I'm not sure how this is pertinent to the story but fuck you) Another unimportant thing that I'm remembering right now is when we were in maybe 3rd grade I remember noticing that it was me that called him everyday. He never called me. I remember asking him why he never called me and I don't think he really gave me an answer. (once again, doesn't really matter to the story but fuck you anyways)

When I was 15 I heard that if you hyperventilate while moving your body very quickly up and down and then have your friend choke you, you can pass out. So one day we were doing the "Let's make each other pass out game".

This, by the way, was after I had fallen in love with LSD and after I was arrested for it.

So I thought it would be similar to tripping if we made each other pass out while listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the moon. So I turn on the music, we're in my bedroom, and I start hyperventilating. Jason chokes me and I pass out onto the bed. I come back and I'm feeling a little out of it. I'm trying to get into my body like when you trip on acid. I'm listening to Pink Floyd. I'm thinking this is awesome!

I'm perfectly relaxed and then out of the blue my body is slammed with a rush of adrenaline. My heart starts racing and I'm turning white. I jump out of bed and I see the devil next to the wall. I tell Jason, "I think the devil is trying to enter me."

Keep in mind that I'm fucked up on religion. My Dad died when I was twelve, I'm fucked up from that and I'm obsessed with the fucking devil.

I tell Jason, "I have to tell my Mom." He's begging me not to. I run into her room, she's half asleep and I back down from telling her that the devil is trying to take me over and just spit out something along the lines of, "Uh....I don't feel well." I think she just told me to rest.

I come back in my room and I'm still freaking out. I turn off the music. All of a sudden in my mind the music is evil. The fucking church imprinted the gnarliest fear of evil into the core of my being.

By the way when I was in 9th grade me and my friends were into conjuring up spirits. We used to go around the corner of the lunch hall and play light as a feather, stiff as a board. Supposedly you were getting spirits to help lift someone up and you could lift them with your finger. I remember tripping out as a 15 yr old when we would lift up one of our bigger friends with our fingers and it just felt easy.

Then somehow, and I don't know how I'm remembering this because I haven't ever really gave it much thought, we got a hold of some which craft spells or Satan spells or something that was supposed to allow us to connect with the dark side so we could get stuff that we wanted.

One day a friend of mine took me aside and told me to stop messing with that stuff. We were at a catholic school and we were young so I guess most of us just accepted that there were spirits or demons or basically weird shit out there. My friend said, "If you get too close to the dog he might bite you."

So here I am, after making myself faint and getting attacked by Satan, thinking of my friends words, "The dog might bite."

Fuck, he's biting me!

I went on vacation with two friends to Hawaii when I was fifteen. I started having panic attacks and I was sure that I was having acid flashbacks, or the devil was fucking with me. I remember telling my friends about it and we were keeping it a secret from the adults. We were in a skyscraper and I was having panic attacks every time I got in the elevator. It was the beginning of my mind trying to make sense of this and I was trying to avoid whatever was causing these attacks. I began to build up a fear of elevators. Then I started attacks while surfing. I developed a fear of the ocean.

They lasted for maybe 4 days and eventually went away.

I went to church youth camp and they kicked in again. I thought for sure the devil was fucking with me. I remember having them during the tug of war game, during the canoeing, and during the group picture. I had myself documented during a panic attack. I told my self that I wasn't having them whenever I was in the church and I sort of made that my place where I felt comfortable. I went to accept Jesus in my heart because I wanted these fucking acid flashbacks/devil getting me episodes to stop. They lasted the whole week.

Panic attacks were gone for a year. I forgot about them.

I ran for class president the following year and the activities director rigged the elections. My school revolted and a re vote was demanded. I won but the school faculty hated me. This is an entire ten blog story for another time.

At the same time I went to another church retreat in the mountains skiing.

When I was 16 I had been masturbating already for 5 years. I did it all the time but I never spoke of it and neither did anyone I knew. People were ridiculed for it at that age, that was something you would be made fun of for life if anyone found out. One of the friends at church camp got us all to admit we jacked off and we just talked about masturbation for the entire weekend. I remember how relieving it was to find out everyone did it.

When I masturbated (I know this is too much information) I would be able to start and finish in like 20 seconds. I could do it fast.

So I remember my friend telling me that he would masturbate for like 20 minutes. I couldn't believe it but when I got home I tried it. Maybe ten minutes in I started having a panic attack. I quit masturbation of a year.

That's how gnarly panic attacks were and are for me. I quit masturbation for a year!

So now I'm 37, I'm in a hotel in Arkansas, and I'm having panic attacks. When I was younger and had attacks I would lock myself in my room for a week, but after a week they were gone. When I got in a relationship with Les I had them for three months straight. When I started a talk show I had them for 6 months straight and on and off for over 2 years.

So when I get one now I can't think to myself, "Don't worry this will be over in a week." And that's why I get depressed. I don't know if the next week or the next year is going to be ruined.

On the bright side, when they get bad enough I seem to get motivation to do whatever I know I should be doing in life. Maybe focusing on spirituality, maybe exercise, or just getting out of my procrastinating ways that hold me back from being creative.

This blog is my new creative outlet as is my comedy. I'm also taking up a home yoga practice.

OK enough of the ramble, my work here today is done.

Blank head

I'm not sure what this blog says, no need to read. I did it on my iPhone on an airplane so warning: grammer errors ahead.

A blank mind

My mind is blank on topics at the moment.

Ok, what is good about a blank mind?

First off there is two types of blank minds. The first is the mind that went blank because the computer overloaded, crashed, and everything went blank.

My mind has experienced mostly overloads my entire life. The mind just turns numb.

This kind of a blank mind is bad.

A good blank mind is when you have all the neccasary data on external harddrives.  The ram is empty.  The mind is sharp.

There is no need to have the same thought twice, unless you enjoy having that thought.

We are all stressed out these days.  The amount of information is incredible.  We can't possibly take it all in, process it apropriately, and then function at a high level with out incorporating some type of system to help us navagate our way through this mess.

Despite what some women say, you really can't do more than one thing at once and perform it at a high level.  Our brains need to focus.  When you get to the point where your mind can be blank an you can focus on the task at hand then you can operate at the pro level.

Empty your mind.

Empty it on paper.  Catagorize it. Figure out what the next step is.  Put the next yep into a list of next steps for all your junk.  Do the best next step.

Cleanliness is next to godliness.

G.O.D. - Good Orderly Direction.

Your subconscious knows if you are fucking up.  You planned on doing something but haven't done it.  Your sub consciousness knows.  It beats you up.  You feel bad.  You get cancer.  You die.

For me I need to have the clutter gone. I want every physical thing in my life to have a place.  Everything goes somewhere.  If you don't know where something goes then it goes anywhere. When things go anywhere they build up.  They turn into clutter.  When clutter builds up our minds get over loaded and the creativity stops.  It all stops.  We cut ourselves off from cool shit happening.  From feeling good.  From having fun.

When we get like this we wanto ignore it because it feel insurmountable.  Let's turn everything off.  Let's run.

Turn on the TV.  I need to masturbate. Give me food.

I threw it all out.  I organized.  My home is in order.

I clean out a closet and I seem to get more energy.  It kind of like working out.  I don't have energy for it until I do it.

Start small.  Underwhelm yourself.  Take a small action and build momentum.

This blog is a little self helpy and preachy.  Who cares. I'm feeling good.  I feel like I'm heading in the right direction and that's good.

Do you believe in God?

I used to spend all my time asking the questions that are unanswerable. What happens when you die? Is there a God? Is the church fucked up? Or are they right? If my church is right are all the other churches wrong? Who is God? Who am I? What am I doing here? I don't get it. Nothing makes sense. Who made God? How did we come from nothing? I feel like my brain is exploding.

These were my thoughts all day, every day from about age 12 to age 22. My formative years.

I was fucked up. The sermon I remember most from Church was the one about hell. The pastor said, "I hear a lot of people say I want to go to hell because that's where all my friends are going and we'll just have a party. These people are sadly mistaken. In hell you will be isolated. You will not be able to see because your eyes will be welded shut. You can't move because your wrists will be welded to your ankles. You will burn for eternity.."

So much for the party idea. Don't you hate it when someone smashes a perfectly good idea of hell?

As a kid this stuff fucks with you. Satan was real. I was scared. This shit was imprinted into me all the way to the core.

I did a blog a little bit back about how I hate it when people are full of shit about something. I can not stand it when someone takes something that they don't know the truth about and starts spewing words as if they are an expert. I explained that I always seem to remember their words and then at the moment I learn the truth, and the contradiction, of what they were saying I put it in their face. I guess I love letting people know they are wrong.

Religion, the afterlife, and everything that goes with those two words is the ultimate playground for the bullshit artist. This is probably where I began to develop my bullshit radar. Maybe the church people are the ones that first pushed my buttons and maybe it's them that I'm really calling bullshit on every time I prove someone wrong.

The thing I hate about bullshit artists is that I can never prove them wrong in the moment. What a better place for someone full of shit to dwell than in the world of the after life.

How many people do you know that are dead?

None, because they're fucking dead, and when people die they tend to stop speaking.

My problem is with people who say they know, when they don't. Religious people claim they know, it's heaven or hell. Atheist people claim that they know, nothing happens when you die.

The point here is fuck you! You don't know. I don't care if you are atheist or religious, you both just suffer from wanting to be right. When people want to be right then they need others to be wrong.

I believe in God. God is a fucked up word. Too many people for thousands of years have used that word with the certainty of fact. These same people never came close to experiencing even a glimpse of the sacred. You don't know. Why can't we just all come together and agree on this one point? No one knows. This is the only truth, we don't know the truth and we never will until we fucking die, or not even then. We definitely will never know while we breath here on this dust ball.

There's a big movement to be atheist. I feel it coming down the pike in the years to come. More and more people are coming out. I feel it's the pendulum swinging the other way and I guess that sometimes when we need to change we need to swing the pendulum all the way to opposite end of the spectrum. But I feel it's obvious that we need to come to a meeting point which is in the middle and I believe the middle is "We don't fucking know."

When you are in a place where you don't know, you leave yourself open to learn. When you know there is no room for growth, only room to let other people know they are doing it wrong.

It doesn't matter what you believe as long as what you believe doesn't matter.

Don't fucking push shit on me and I won't push shit on you.

That being said I will state that atheist are probably right. But they are a miserable group of people. Just as preachy as the other guys. I am glad they are there to tell the religions that they are a fairy-tail story and ridiculous. But I don't want to be the grumpy old man in the coffee shop talking about how God doesn't exist, it's not fun to me.

I want to be happy, I want to enjoy myself, and I want to have fun. Atheism is not fun. Religion is not fun. They're both fucking right and people that are right have a fucking stick up their ass.

Both of you, get away from me!

I believe there are some strengths in religion, different religions might even have different strengths. Atheist might even have something to offer. Can I just take the strengths from all the religions and leave the rest?

I want to be like Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee said, "I will fight anyone and kick their ass in less than a minute." (This is a paraphrase from something I heard second hand, but stay with it because it works.) Bruce Lee studied all forms of marshal arts. He knew all the strengths so he could fight anyone.

I want to spiritually kick anyones ass. I want the strengths.

There's too much to say and I am going to revisit this.

I believe in laws of the universe. I don't understand the universe but I think there is a system in place. Read the Tao Te Ching. This guy points out certain universal laws, obey the laws and reap the rewards.

I guess I believe in a universal spirit. I don't understand it, but I like to think it's there. If I want to play by the rules I do believe I can reap rewards.

More on this later.

Midnight ramblings (again)

It's happened before and it'll happen again. Late night mutha f'er!!

Don't read this!

Welcome to hell. Straight from the depths of hell.

Old creepy guy was looking at the girls underwear in the dryer at the dry cleaners. I read that text at my show.

I opened the night off while the guy running the show stressed out on the PA system. I was told to be there at 7:15 and when I arrived I was told that the show would begin at almost 9:30.

I did get to write jokes while waiting.

I'm learning. I see light but its probably a mirage. Just when you think you know something you get slammed with a little taste of reality.

I think I did good for a group of people not listening.

Listen hard.

I felt the flow tonight. I was waiting for a long time and I started to write. I was writing tags to premises and the words were flowing. I believe I am arriving to the door. You know what door I'm talking about. The door of inspiration.

There's a J Crew looking model who is just eyeing me through the peep hole of the door. She can't wait to start feeding me material. I felt it seeping through the cracks. I feel it coming. Sleep is urgent but my writing is important.

Yoga, meditate, write and sleep.

goodnight

Public Humiliation

If you are going to do stand up comedy get ready for public humiliation.

Two important things about life: It's not fair and you're not going to get what you want.

Understand this truth and you may pass the test young grasshopper.

A comedy contest? What the fuck am I thinking?

10 contestants. Four winners and 6 people humiliated.

Sound like fun? Get used to it.

The professional focuses on his craft. You can't get emotionally attached to the daily swinging results. The pendulum of my ego so quickly moves from one extreme to the next. So much so that I'm surprised I don't get sea sick. One minute I'm the greatest new comedian in the world and in the next everyone in the world wishes I was dead.

I can't be so attached to the results but I guess what I'm looking for is validation. I just want mommy to say that she supports me.

You can't get water from a stone. And you can't win contests with Christian judges while doing christian bashing material. (Just some life tips)

It's late, I've been sleeping 4 or 5 hours a night and it's catching up to me. I just want to live in the place where music is free. The best kind of music, the kind that no one has ever heard but they all want to hear. I want to live in a place where I take dictation from the Gods.

I'm sick of my bullshit. I want to make lightening with my fingers. I want to be a channel for some God fucking lightening.

I want some angels.

Stay in the craft. Write. Observe. Wake up. Look around you, the signs are there.

Again, wake up!

The signs are in front of you. Keep writing, keep making money. More is on the way. This is the Gods talking.

Ramblings from an angry madman. I can see wisdom when I touch it. I can tough it when I'm immersed in my work.

I'm half sleeping right now, while drinking "calm" tea.

People will show you. Circumstances with show you. The angels will lead you.

Go to bed and dream. Dream the dream of little truths that build into one. The most complicated ideas can be made simple with longs thoughts into one short sentence.

Call on no one else. Look no further. Funny is something within. It's coming to the surface, the wisdom.

Just fell asleep a little.

Fuck the typos let's roll this puppy out. And then let's buy a puppy with a horse and a pool.

Falling more. Must sleep.

This blog means nothing

In the Bedroom part II

OK part two is off the cuff. I'm in my car typing while I'm parked. I'm also spying on someone for work, as someone spies on me.

I told you my secret, something inside of me blames Lesley for the show not working.

I have worked for myself for most of my work life. I'm not good with autority figures, never have been. I had a company that grew to 24 employees and then failed. I took a miserable job, in a miserable office doing debt consolidation. I was depressed.

My beautiful wife was the one who said,"You need to start your own thing."

I heard these words and they rang true. I started a talk show. Very naive yes, sometimes naïveté works for you. Not knowing the odds or the highly probable pitfalls keeps you in enough denial to go for something that is really crazy.

My wife had a job at the time that was making her 6k a month. At the time our monthly nut was probably 8k or 9k. Sounds crazy, what the fuck were we spending each month? I can't even imagine it now.

I'm good at inspiring people. I tell myself that I'm going to give this talk show three months. I'm heavily deluded into seeing succsess right around the corner.

Lesley is getting bummed because I'm not making it work quick enough. I begin to hear comments in passing that basically state that she would have been a succsess by now if it were her who started the business. Meanwhile, I feel that things are going well for me. There's a buzz. There's somethig magical going on. At the same time I'm very stressed.

I've started this new entity that was taking on a life of it's own but it was also taking me over. I was becoming stressed out beyond my capacity to do a good job. The editing, the planing, the booking, the organizing, the promoting, the growing, and every other new obstacle that was hitting me from every direction.

This on top of having two crazy little kids. We had a babysitter to help.

I'm all about following your dream. This is my mission. In my head I'm thinking about getting to this place where I become successful and then deliver speeches of how to go from nothing to something great.

Lesley is having problems at her work. Her job is selling yoga and she is teaching also. She has worked her commission deal so well that she was earning way more money than the regular yoga teacher. She's an incredible sales person.

The problem is Lesley's work. The people in the pay roll department are seeing these big checks that they are writing to Lesley. They get upset. How is a yoga teacher earning double what they are making? They complain. The company starts to give Lesley a hard time. They don't want her to teach yoga anymore during hours when they believe she should be selling.

She's fucking selling already! Anyone selling "yoga teachers" should be a "yoga teacher" you stupid yoga fucks!! She's making a lot of money because she's bringing you business so fucking leave her alone!

Lesley has a sales partner. The company wants to get rid of the partner. Lesley is loyal, plus she sees the company turning corporate. Any company that turns corporate goes from being cool and relaxed to being uptight, micromanaging, and basically turns everyone into back stabbing pricks. Lesley's been through that before and sees the writing on the wall.

The company isn't even that focused on what she is doing, they just want to be the 24 hour fitness of yoga. My wife sells yoga to people at work. They don't care about what she does.

My wife sees that I have given the finger to the man. This is inspiring to her. She says to herself (this is me speculating her thought process) "I don't need to be in this job that's trying to hold me back. I can do what Duke did and start my own thing, but unlike Duke I will quickly become a success."

She asks me, "Is it OK if I quit my job and start my own company?" But she says it in a way that really means, "I'm quitting my job and you better say yes because you are 'Mr. Follow your dreams' and if you say no then that means that you don't support me."

What the fuck am I supposed to say? I'm at critical mass here with my show. Great things are happening, I have something cool. I'm trying to be delicate with it so I can keep it that way. I'm juggling too many plates. We need Lesley's income at this crucial juncture. Looking back I should have said no, but we were in a bad place at the time. I added stress to the family but this decision for her to quit her job was really pulling the roof down over our heads.

I said , "Yes, I support you." But I didn't want to. Not because I didn't support her but because it was a terrible decision. It wasn't rational. I'm already being incredibly irrational so I felt that I had to let her be irrational too.

So eventually I become the bad guy for quitting my job? What about Lesley quitting a job with awesome income? Fucking bullshit!

OK, hindsight is 20/20. But I knew at the time it was not a good idea.

She quits. She starts a business.

Starting your own business with no base salary is stressful and has many more obstacles than anyone can foresee. She begins to see them. We are loosing money at an incredible rate.

Like I said, it soon becomes my fault, for quitting my job to "follow my dream." That is all that anyone seems to remember.

We are now both earning nothing. Credit cards are becoming maxxed out. We no longer can afford a baby sitter. I am with the kids all day. I have no time or energy to edit the shows anymore while caring for the kids all day. The magic begins to seep out of my fantasy, as if a bad decision pricked a small hole, and chemistry slowly began to leak from my balloon of a dream.

I become way behind on the editing of the shows. The magic of the first wave of shows carries us through the first six shows at the veteran's hall but my inability to focus and keep the train on track begins to catch up with us. Very slowly things begin to unravel, but it takes two years until the wheels fall off.

So I blame Lesley for pressuring me to let her quit her job and start a company when I was at a critical point in mine. She didn't see how much energy and time needed to go into this thing. She would give me shit for not editing her parts of the show quick enough, but never offered the time to help me do it. I felt she didn't give me the support that I needed.

On some level she didn't want me to blame her. Just like she didn't want me to blame her for the dream of being in a band getting smashed. But she didn't want me to succeed on some level. OK maybe that's harsh, but she didn't believe I could do it and because she didn't have the vision she didn't give me the support. She didn't try to contribute or get involved further than doing what I asked of her as a cast member. And she would always do that complaining.

I really thought I would write this article and it would become clear to me that I shouldn't blame her. But right now all of my secret thoughts and reasons seem to be backing up that thought.

Maybe I'm right, that she was the one that brought the momentum of the show to a halt. Maybe she didn't believe in me and secretly wanted me to quit from the beginning. Or maybe she is more comfortable seeing me fail so she can continue being a victim. Maybe she likes to point out that I'm wrong. I'm not saying that this is conscious.

Let's say all that is true. I still believe there is no place for blame. (After re-reading this I understand that what I was attempting to do was impossible, so it's hard to fault anyone for not believing you can accomplish the impossible. Maybe impossible goals should be kept to yourself.)

This is my new discovery. When you begin to blame anyone for anything, all it means is that you need to become aware and you need to look at the signs. (this is a Duke original)

It was this time that I was learning how to generate hits on youtube. I knew that the people who were successful were edited, short, clean videos. 98% of the successful videos on youtube were coming from just one person. Much of my stress was coming from organizing everyone together and at the same time getting the cameras in sync with everything. It was too much and I knew no one who was successful at doing such a thing. I could have focused on comedy, working on my act. I could have started making short, edited videos on my own.

A rich guy told me at the time that I needed to develop as a comic. He said he would help me. I didn't listen and became offended.

Maybe sometimes you need to listen to what offends you.

The blame only got worse. Not only did I blame my wife but I was blaming everyone around me. The signs were there. The sign is blame. When blame first enters your inner self it's not a bad thing, at least this is my opinion at the moment. The second blame reaches you is the second the universe is telling you to look around for the signs. What are your assets and liabilities and compare these to the signs. The universe is saying that it's time to make a change.

My wife is beautiful. She's a beautifully flawed human being. Just like me. I love her for all that she is. It doesn't matter what issues my wife is going through, the hard decisions are mine and mine only. When I say the hard decisions I mean the decisions of the soul. The decisions of your character. What is your truth? What is it that you were called to do? Doing it is turning from evil. Resistance from doing what you were meant to do is the real devil. That is true evil. Is it eating? Exercise? Meditation? Following your dream? Following the signs?

You know what you have to do, but no one but yourself can ever do it. Not following your gut gives you no one to blame.

When blame comes it's time to make a change. Change is very scary. Some people are so scared of change that they are willing to fail. Others are so afraid of failure that they are willing to change.