Guest Appearance.

Ok, I have a guest BLOG over at http://horrorwritingdaddy.blogspot.com/?zx=38a68a4e389b4864 If you are brave enough to scroll through the mess and read upwards to 3,000 words. Enjoy.

Friends and Relations

                One of the blogs I read this past week was about friendship, well not really about friendship. It was more about someone trying to understand friendship and it got me thinking about relationships. This particular blog hints at three types of friends, and they are, reason, season and life. I don’t think I can address all three in one blog, simply because I have a lot of thoughts about each one of these classifications to go into here.

                You see, I don’t really classify my friends in the manner I read about. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the point the writer was trying to make, it is just that I don’t have the same view. You see, and for those of you using google plus will understand this, I’ve always looked at my friends by how much I could tell them about myself without them freaking out and running off to live in seclusion or to the nearest sanitarium to get someone to commit me for the rest of my life. In other words… circles.

                That is how I keep track of how close a person is in their relationship with me. And the smaller the circle, the more you know about me or the more I will reveal about myself to you. It’s just the way I work. Now, are all my circles/friends in the same category? Nope. My mental picture of how this whole thing works in my life looks more like a VENN diagram done by some sort of schizophrenic paranoid sociopath. But it works for me.

                Sure people can move in and out of my life through the difficulties of time, space and death, but do any of these factors detract from the relationship we built? Nope. It does not. You, my dear reader, should know this of me by now, just through the way I’ve written about some of my childhood friends, Navy buddies and even my current chums. None of those people mean any less to me now that I am older, as a matter of fact, I would go so far to say, they actually mean more to me today than when we were running headlong into our respective adventures. And just because we’ve lost touch with each other, moved away, had disagreements about things we don’t even remember does not mean that they are any less close to me now than when we said our last fare thee wells.

                I know this is not the case for everyone, it can’t be. We as humans are programmed to not always be nice to each other. We hurt people who are close to us, we betray them, we ignore them, and we treat them like three day old meatloaf and then wonder why we sit alone at night in an empty apartment drinking wine straight from the bottle. We hurt each other out of fear and ignorance and occasionally malicious intent.  It is the way of the world.

                But as time passes and our pain fades to a dull emotional scar whose origins have been lost in the ether of our memories we yearn for the companionship we once shared with those who have moved on in our lives. Our brains lie to our hearts and the soldiers of our IDs whitewash the past into a sparkling glorious fun filled time of frolicking and remembrance. I for one am glad of this.

                Once we reconnect and stories of our conquests and misadventures are re-hashed we end up growing even fonder of our past friends. Sure, we easily lie to each other, we are older, wiser, less likely to make the mistakes of our past simply because we are too tired and our bones creak and ache. But we know, deep down inside we know that we truly can’t remember the trespasses that separated our love for one another at an earlier time in our own histories. We try as hard as we can to be good people to each other and in some cases we succeed, in others we fail.

                In the end, we all have friends of varying levels, degrees or closeness. These friends are in the same situation as you and we are all trying to make meaningful connections while trying to move forward in a society that is moving forward at a pace no one can be expected to keep pace with. After a week, month, year or even decade we forget the pain others have caused us and weep at the loss of friend we once had. Our existence here on this mud ball is linear in nature but not all of us are on the same path so it is nearly an impossibility we will maintain the same set of friends throughout our lives. Besides if that were the case, our lives would most definitely be boring and unfulfilling. New people in our lives mean new experiences and new stories that flesh out the chapters of our individual lives. And I for one want an extremely large novel at the end of my existence.

                Have a great week!

Special Guest

     Today I am going to do a guest blog. Unfortunately for me the guest is going to have to speak to us from the grave. And, while he has been dead for over three years, the points he made then are just as relevant and funny today. Also, they are scary and very true.

Enjoy.

But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever, EVER be fixed.

It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got.

Because the owners, the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.

Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want.  Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want: 

They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.

That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!  You, and I, are not in the big club.

By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you….they don’t give a fuck about you… they don’t give a FUCK about you.

They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL.  And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day, because the owners of this country know the truth.

It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

George Carlin (May 12, 1937-June 22, 2008)

Networking

First there was Friendster, then MySpace, next up was Facebook and now there is Google+. It seems, since 2002, at least, people have been using the internet to “socialize” with each other, create groups, obscure cyber-friends and even “hook-up” in an attempt to feel better about themselves and their lives. Hell, I’ve even overheard conversations from people as to who has the most “Friends” on their social networking pages. (This makes me really question the insecurities some people seem to carry with them throughout their lives.)

     So, where is all this leading? Simple, you see I missed out on the “Friendster” craze, and I was there to see Myspace fall to king Facebook and now I’m witnessing the exodus to Google+. All this makes me wonder what sort of social interactive website is in our future. I mean think about it, do you remember what a pain in the ass it was to learn how to upload your photos and customize your Myspace page only to have to relearn the process for Facebook and now Google+. I can only assume things will become easier and more instinctive for us humans as our interactions with computers and the “blue nowhere” merge to a more cohesive understanding in our future.

     It seems anyone anywhere can upload photos, blogs, vlogs or status updates anytime they choose with the smart-phone technology available to them. Or, if they have a “tablet” computer, the options are almost limitless. Where is all this information sharing going? Who is monitoring and sorting this information? Can one group of people manage the metric tons of drivel that are constantly thrown onto the internet? Or, is there some master computer somewhere doing all the sorting for them?

     I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know. I don’t think anyone can know. Knowing information like that would not allow any of us to sleep at night. Of course if the general public did believe there was someone, somewhere, sitting in a bunker with a score of supercomputers spitting out sorted data on everyone in our country, I believe there would be a revolution of epic proportions.

     Or not. Maybe the public would just shrug their shoulders, pick up the remote and change channels to the latest comedy, drama, reality based show for an hour of mindless entertainment. And this entertainment has only one goal in mind, and that is to turn our brains to pabulum and make us as compliant as possible to the will of the master controllers. (This is me being paranoid)

     But I have faith in our country, less in our countries leaders, but faith none the less.

     (I’ve left twitter out of this diatribe simply because the format in which it is built reminds me of the early chat rooms the internet used to have. Only now, you can pick and choose who you are talking to and sort them through different types of platforms. )

     And all of this ranting leads me to three questions… Who here is leaving facebook for Google+? And when the time comes are you going to be jumping off the Google bus to the next social networking program? Also, what ever happened to good old face to face talking?

PS, the book "Death, be not Proud" that has my story "Cindy's Condition" in it is on sale at Amazon.com as well as BN.com. It's only 9 bucks, go buy a copy or three! PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU!

Death, Be Not Proud (But I sure am!)

Death Be Not Proud

By John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,

And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt not die.

Hello folks! It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce the release of “Death, Be Not Proud a Zombie Anthology” featuring 13 writers. Some of these writers are veterans of the publishing industry, some are journeymen, others are rising stars… then there is ME a complete and utter neophyte to the world of writing and publishing. (Yes, this is fiction we are talking about, not my Blog.)

Here is the list of writers in no particular order:

Gord Rollo

Joseph Mulak

Joe McKinney

Gregory Hall

Lucy Snyder

Rick Hautala

Steven Shrewsbury

Scott Christian Carr

David Dunwoody

Sheldon Higdon

Skip Novak

Dave Brockie

Jonathan Maberry

I highly recommend you go out and buy a copy of this tome of deliciousness. I had fun writing my story and I know some of the other writers had a blast with theirs. The book is available from as http://www.amazon.com as well as http://www.barnesandnoble.com. (Please remember, orders of 25 dollars or more get FREE shipping so buy two copies and save yourself shipping costs. As for what you will do with the extra book, simple, give it to a friend as a gift. Send it to me and I’ll sign my story for you and send it back. Use it as a door stop. Or, in the case of a real Zombie apocalypse, you can use it to keep your mind occupied while hiding in your zombie proof bunker!)

Have a great week! (Now go buy a couple of books)

I Am

Once again I sit down and write a blog in response to a question posed to me by Kelli Owen. Now, if you don’t know who Kelli is then your life is just not as full as it should be. Here, let me do you a favor by posting a link to her blog right now, http://kelliowen.com/, now click the link and read. Then come back and read my blog. This response is written for her August 26^th posting.

I Am

By Skip Novak

I am a liar. I am a hard worker. I am fat. I am loyal. I am untrustworthy. I am a cook. I am ugly. I am a solver. I am a thief. I am a hard case. I am lost. I am sick. I am happy. I am an enemy. I am a friend. I am a consultant. I am an opportunist. I am over worked, over tired, over drawn, over extended and over it.

I’ve been up, I’ve been down and I’ve been around. I’ve traveled from Wisconsin to the other side of the world. I’ve had my heart broken and been drunk for weeks. I’ve been in love and sober for years. I’ve seen the beauty of life in the petal of a flower. I’ve seen the horror of the world in a child’s eyes. I’ve witnessed desperate men and women commit despicable, frightening and appalling acts upon each other in the name of love, in the name of jealousy and in the name of hate.

I’ve been to the edge of the abyss and became mesmerized by its beauty so much so that I almost jumped in and lost myself completely. I’ve stood on even fields of bounty with daggers of pain tearing through my soul and no hope on the horizon. Only to become grounded by the simple fact that with the end of the day comes the end of pain and the dawning of a new day gives birth to new hope and the fresh soothing pain of healing wounds. I bear the scars of life’s misery and life’s loves.

I have memories I wish I could forget and I have moments I can’t remember. Reflective moments in my life I know cause me unblemished embarrassment and shame haunt me when I least suspect it. There are days when the yoke of my humiliation seems almost too much for me to carry. There are days when my heart is filled to the bursting point with adoration and hope for the people in my life.

I’ve been embarrassed by my successes and awards and I’ve been happy in my failures and losses. I’ve been frustrated by my ignorance and foolhardy in my knowledge. I’ve been blinded by a woman’s beauty and fascinated by a person’s intellect. I’ve cursed God and Satan. I’ve prayed for death and life. I found salvation in a baby’s eyes and despondency in a friend’s suicide. As I’ve grown older I cherish what I once had and beg for more of an innocent age where I’ve yet to be filled with pain.

I’ve blindly traveled the world in a mindless state of confusion and self pity only to realize I was truly looking for a way to make peace with myself and the unmerited sense of self worthlessness I felt was instilled in me by others.

I’ve confessed my sins to strangers and kept personal revelations from friends. I’ve aided in the promotion of enemies just to watch them fail. I’ve plotted, schemed and been through the wringer to attain vengeance on those who have intentionally harmed me and I’ve forgiven people who don’t deserve my grace. I’ve made ghastly first impressions and virtuous last impressions. I’ve fought for what I believed was right only to find out I was wrong and no matter what penance I pay I can never fix those wrongs.

I’ve won minor battles only to lose the war and I’ve won wars by not fighting any battles. I’ve been mean just to be mean and I’ve been good for the sake of being good. I’ve alienated people because I don’t like them and I’ve tried to build relationships with others out of a sense of loyalty. I’ve taught eager minds only to watch them fail and have beat myself up for their failure. I’ve poured everything in my being just to learn a simple fact of life that seems to be common sense to others around me.

I am a lover of art that celebrates life and I’m fascinated by horror of tragedy that seems to end life. I am a lover of books and knowledge and I relish in certain ignorance of my failures.

I’ve been an atheist, deist and a Christian.

I know I will never know what comes tomorrow and I’ve been scarred at the prospect of the knowledge of the coming day.

I’ve faced my fears and won and I’ve faced my loves and suffered.

I’ve been selfish and selfless.

I’ve brought out the best in myself and the worst in myself.

I’ve been homeless and free.

I’ve been unbound in my orphanhood.

I’ve been chained by the weights of family and responsibility.

I’m a man who for the past 44 years has lived on this mudball and with a purpose of trying to survive. And, now with the grace of God and love of my family and friends I hope to live at least another 44 years.

I am Skip Novak.

(Edited for space)

Reaper Madness

“Have you ever had surgery?” the question came at me out of nowhere and I answered as honestly as I could.

“Yes.” I replied with a sudden wave of memories crashing into my consciousness of lying on a hospital gurney at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Green Bay Wisconsin as my mother read me the latest Readers Digest to calm my nerves and let the sedation drugs slowly lull me into a false sense of security.

I suppose I should rewind the clock for all you good folks out there who are sitting in your living rooms reading this on the wonderful world wide web.

The year is 1978, the Bee Gees own the radio air waves with little brother Andy coming in a close second and Paul McCartney and Wings are closing in on the title slot like a laser beam. In the theatres Grease, Superman and Animal House are raking in the dough to the laughter and surprise of everyone in attendance. On tv “The Incredible Hulk”, “Dallas” and “Taxi” are getting ready to premier. Home computers, cell phones, and the internet have yet to be invented let alone truly be thought of. And while all this is going on I end up with a bullet lodged in my mental tuberoses of my mandible (that’s a fancy way of saying chin.) All because Al Minnow (Fish) thought it would be funny to shoot me at close range in his bedroom with his Crossman Pump BB/Pellet gun.

That is the back story. Good Times.

Now, fast forward to 2011 and I am sitting in an emergency room in Suffolk, Virginia and some nurse who is barely out of nursing school is asking me about my medical history.

“What sort of surgery have you had?” she asks calmly.

I gaze over my glasses at her freshly washed face and into her ever so eager to help eyes and calmly say “I’ve had a bullet removed from my chin, on my right arm I’ve had my flexor/extensor tendon sewn together and above my left knee I’ve had my vastus lateralus repaired.”

I watch as her face slowly drains of color and her eyes become blank orbs of fear. I wonder what she is thinking for a moment but then the moment passes and I just enjoy the moment.

“Uhm… Mr. Novak, all at the same time?”

I would love to say yes just to watch her reaction but then I answer truthfully and say “No. Different times for the bullet and the tendons and muscle.”

The young lady lets out a nervous sigh and then starts typing on her computer.

The interview continues with such mundane questions like: Why are you here today? If you could gauge your pain level on a ten scale what would it be? Are you allergic to anything? And the list goes on and on. But as you may have already guessed, I have put my brain on auto pilot and am simply answering the questions from some primordial recess deep within my mind.

I’ve answered these questions hundreds of times. I don’t want to answer them anymore, I just want to get back to the semi-private room, have the Doc come look at the worst part of my body, give me a shot or pills and send me on my way. Because unlike the young nurse sitting across from me, I know I will never truly be fixed. I know I will always be in pain, I know I will never be the healthy strapping young man I was twenty years ago. I know that as my life progresses my health will decline and I will always have some sort of ailment that will constantly plague my system. This is the way of life. This is the chronic condition of deterioration we all face. I am comfortable with it.

When she was satisfied she led me to my examination room, handed me a hospital robe that was made for King Kong, asked me to change and then abruptly but politely left the room. But her questions, questions I have answered in the past and will answer in the future, got me thinking. I obeyed her commands and started to disrobe, and as I stood there in that stark, clinical room I stared at the mirror on the back of the door at the scars and age of my body.

Looking at them brought to mind some of the early railroad maps that I’ve collected over the years. Lines of tender pink tissue that started and stopped unexpectedly on my arms, legs and shoulders looked out of place but also looked as if they belonged. I tried to imagine myself without them and the stories they represented and the pain that caused them. I couldn’t.

I realized then and there, standing half naked with the threat of strangers coming to poke and prod me that my scars were as much a part of me as my sarcasm, wit and Polish heritage. I also learned I appreciate my life and all its difficulties, pleasures and familiarities better than most of my friends and colleagues.

You see, I have held hands with the reaper four times so far in my life and the S.O.B. has been cordial enough to let my hand go so that I may continue living on this mud ball for as long as my will sustains my love of breathing fresh air, smoking cigars and riding my bike. These scars are my memories of those lonely walks with him and I will continue to make my trek for as long as I can.

As for the Doctor and the nurse? They pushed, pulled, poked and prodded me to the best of their abilities then gave me some pills and sent me on my way. I’m healthier now because of them but I still wonder where the Reaper is right now and when he will come take me for my final walk.