Joe The Peacock's Blog.

The Only Moments You Know You're Alive

2013-05-13T09:41:00.003-04:00

You're in the moment.

You're right here, right now.

Your eyes may be wide open, surveying all before them. Or, they may be slammed shut, and whatever's happening outside is playing like a movie on a projector, shooting through smoky light the events life on the backs of your eyelids. You may be afraid. You may be happy. But you're here. Now.

You're no longer thinking.

You're not processing and responding.

You are alive.

You move with agility you never knew you had -- and you don't even realize you're doing it, because you're not thinking about it. Everything you say comes straight from the heart, bypassing the brain and exiting the mouth before any filters dilute the message. Every action ends with a punctuation reserved for only the most important of statements, both expressed and spoken.

You are scared out of your mind. You are happy to the point of full release. You don't just feel the air rushing into your lungs, you feel the life that the air you breathe gives you. You feel it coursing through your veins as each blood cell rushes, as fast as it can, the oxygen you're drawing in to the furnaces it fuels to make you do what you're doing right now. You can feel every single artery contract and release, pushing this life through you. You can feel every vein drawing out the impurities, making room for more fire. You exhale and it almost screams.

Everything glows.

That moment -- that period between thoughts, whether it be minutes or seconds or even nanoseconds -- that moment is when you know you're truly alive.

This is not a dream.

This is not a fabrication.

You're feeling what you feel. You're doing what you're doing. There is no time for regret. There is no time for planning. There is only time for being exactly who you are, exactly how you are.

It is a shame, then, that we often only know these moments in hindsight. Looking back on them, whether they just happened or they were years ago, we realize we were not merely living; we were alive. And it's also a shame that more often than not, we treat these moments like mistakes.

These moments are NOT mistakes. These moments are quite possibly the only moments in your life you're not making a mistake. You're living true. You're living honest. You're ALIVE.

Trust THESE moments to tell you who you are. Not the rationalizations ex-post-facto. Not the second guessing. Not other peoples' opinions on what happened. Look at the moment. Look at how you acted.

That. THAT. Is who you are.

The moments you know you're not merely living, you are alive... These moments are the only ones that matter. Everything else is just a response. It's spin. Your brain will get in the way and try to run interference. Don't let it. Don't allow it to attach definitions and explanations and rationalizations. Trust these moments.

Hide from them, and you'll continually regret the moments your brain turns off and your body takes over and does whatever it does when you're truly alive. If you dismiss them, you won't be able to live through them. You'll continually feel regret and pain and hostility toward yourself. You won't be able to use them as tools to know who you are at your core. And that will lead to a life filled with disaster. Pain. Shame.

Embrace them, and you will find yourself. You will know yourself. You will know that, at your core, beyond the voices whispering yes's and no's into your mind's ear, who you really are. You will begin to see the framework that makes you. You can then trust it. You can release, slowly, the contrary thoughts and rationalizations and second guessing.

And when you lose yourself in the moment and wake up from it, whatever took place... It was you on display. The real you. The you you've come to know and to trust to be you.

And you have nothing -- NOTHING -- to be ashamed of.

"Write What You Know."

2013-05-08T13:18:00.001-04:00

"Write what you know."

That was the daily inspiration that I got this morning when Day One, my favorite journaling app, reminded me to write something. It's a great feature, but most days it gives me the equivalent of a fortune cookie -- something cute that I don't mind reading. But every so often, it actually fulfills its purpose: it jogs my brain and gets me typing.

So: I know that I am happier now than I've been in a long while. I know that my happiness isn't tethered to anyone or anything. I know that I am beginning to do good work again. I know that I am beginning to train hard again. I know that I drew something for the first time in two years yesterday. I know that I've come through an exceptionally hard time the past year (and more, really). I know it's not over just yet, but I've made it this far, which tells me I know I'll make it the rest of the way. I know I have the courage to face ANYTHING. I know I also have the courage to walk away from the things that, despite my desires to help them, hurt me.

I know that I have some of the most amazing friends on the planet. I know I am loved. I know that, for the first time in my life, that love is equal and not overcompensated on any end. I know that that love is how I was able to make it through this storm, and will make it through any other.

I know how to ask for help when I need it. I know that even though I may be experiencing weakness, asking for help is not weak. I know that it takes a tremendous amount of strength to ask someone to prop you up while you walk your path, especially if you love them and don't want to burden them. I know that helping others isn't a burden.

I know myself. I know that I've been learning myself for quite some time, and as a result of the hardest part of my life so far, I've put those lessons to the test and passed. I know I didn't pass every single test, but those I failed, I know I learned from.

I know where I am going. I know the destination is happiness. I don't know each individual stop on that path, nor where "happiness" actually lives, but I know the path I'm on is the right one to get there.

I know that I hardly know anything yet. I know that that thought excites me more than it scares me. I know that it does scare me, though, and it's the kind of scare that entices, not threatens.

That's what I know… So far.

Don't Want It Shared? Don't Share It.

2013-04-30T16:58:00.004-04:00

As is par for the course on the Internet, someone got wronged and some other someones got upset. As is also par for the course, I have an opinion on it.

The guts of the story: A woman shared a photo of her children playing with their tablet devices outside, on her Facebook page:

Someone else took the photo and turned it into a meme:

The woman got upset. Enough people agree that this was "wrong" and blog posts were made about it and blah de blah.

Look: If you don't want the ENTIRE internet to see it, don't put it on the internet. It's not that anyone has the right to reappropriate every single image on the internet. They do not. This use does not fall under the guidelines of Fair Use. This is theft.

But it's also how the internet works these days.

Two months ago, I posted a cute picture of a German Shepard puppy at the airport on Instagram:

I've since seen this pic on multiple peoples' news feeds on Facebook and on meme sites all over the place. And I don't care.

Sure, I used to care a LOT when something I wrote or did was taken and used without permission. These days, I simply contact the source and tell them I'm the original owner, and to attribute me -- but if they don't, I don't care. I did feel a slight ping of "Man, I wish I'd gotten some credit." But then I realized, I POSTED IT ON THE INTERNET.

It doesn't matter what's right and what's wrong by any old definitions these days. It's not about how people are SUPPOSED to behave. It's that they do this, regardless of right and wrong -- and you are the ultimate arbiter of the risk you are willing to take.

Sure photographers, musicians, artists and everyone else owns the copyright on what they produce. The reality is, owning the copyright is not the same as enforcing it. and in this day and age, all the harping about copyright ownership does nothing to stop the reality that laws and rights aren't preventing people from behaving how they're going to behave.

My point is not "Don't share."
My point is "Get okay with sharing, because that shit ain't changing anytime soon."

The developers of Game Dev Tycoon figured this out and played to the strengths of this sea change. The game is a "Tycoon" series, where you start a virtual game development studio and grow it by releasing better and better titles. The real life developers of the game knew it was going to be pirated. So, they added some code to teach a lesson to game pirates. If you are playing the pirated version of the game, in your virtual game development studio, sales will plummet and eventually you can't continue due to piracy:

Genius.

You cannot legislate nor enforce morality. It's just plain not possible. Instead, understand it and get okay with it. You'll go much farther in life.

And if you don't like it, fine -- keep sharing and be upset all the time. But your blood pressure will be better served with understanding that this isn't like a child stealing from the cookie jar. This isn't individual behavior that can be corrected. This is social change. The sooner you realize that, the happier and more productive you will be.

Now, when Disney steals artwork and uses it to make money, that's enforceable. Sue the shit out of them.

But when the payment is just attention? Well, you can choose to get hurt, or you can choose better what you decide to share on the internet. Again, I'm not saying it's RIGHT. I'm saying it's HAPPENING whether you care or don't.

Behave accordingly.

Nowhere and Nothing

2013-04-25T21:38:00.001-04:00

There are times when you look around and realize: you are absolutely nowhere. You recognize nothing. You know nothing. You feel everything, almost all at once, as if every emotion is a voice in a room yelling at you all at once.

Fighting is useless, because where do you go if you win (or lose)? Yelling is useless,
because who's gonna listen? And even if they do, what the fuck can they do? Running away is useless, because you're about as away as you can possibly get. You're nowhere.

It's at this moment where the one thing you want to do is the worst possible thing you could do. And that's nothing. You want to sit down. You want to disappear. You wish like hell none of this ever happened and you weren't here, in the middle of this nowhere that you never saw yourself ending up in.

You will do all of these things. Everyone does. And you'll stay nowhere until you do the only thing that gets you out: take action.

All of what I described isn't action. It's flagellation. It's thrashing. Action is when you stop all of the above, point yourself in a direction, and start moving.

It may not be the right direction, you say. Sure. Fine. Whatever. But when you're nowhere, any direction is the right direction. You can change course anytime after you start moving and figure it out as you go.

But get the fuck up and go. Until you do that, you're nowhere.

I Just Hacked Zen Buddhism And/Or The Zodiac

2013-04-23T21:35:00.001-04:00

Remember those General Foods International Coffee commercials, where you drink it and the screaming kids shut up and the laundry can wait?

I always wondered what would happen if you drank one of those in a Calgon bath. Remember those? "Calgon, take me away!" Again, the kids and the chores can wait. In fact, they can just plain go fuck a football, because YOU deserve to relax and THEY are the reason you need to.

Anyway, imagine drinking one of those relaxing General Foods International Coffee beverages (Irish Cream, perhaps? Or something with hazelnut in it... Housewives and other overworked / under-appreciated people go NUTS for hazelnut, and no that pun wasn't intentional but I'll take it) in a Calgon bath.

I'm pretty sure you'd lapse into a coma vortex to oblivion and suddenly be able to put predicates in front of subjects and divide by zero. You would achieve Nirvana and / or Foo Fighting. You would hack the entire zodiac and skip from Aires to Pisces without living the other 10 life cycles.

Or, you'd just be a consumer whore. One or the other.

The Truth About The Truth

2013-04-19T20:39:00.001-04:00

The truth is not your friend. It's not there to help you and guide you to a better life. It's not going to greet you at the door with flowers when you decide to face it.

It's also not your enemy. It's not trying to tear you down or punish you. It isn't malicious or evil.

The truth is agnostic to your happiness and/or pain. It doesn't care. That's because it doesn't like or hate you. It's just here to do its job.

And that job? The truth is Reality's enforcer. It will ask you nicely to listen. When you don't, it will smile, nod, kick your teeth in. And It will keep escalating until you finally pay attention, no matter how much blood it has to draw or who gets hurt in the process.

It's natural to want to think the truth (and its boss, Reality) is a sadist; that it gets off on hurting you. But that's not even remotely true. If yoi keep getting beat up by the truth, you're actually just a masochist.

Don't feel bad though. We all do it. That's what being human is all about: thinking we are smarter and better and more agile than reality. But we aren't. Eventually, reality gets sick of your grandstanding and sends it's goon, the truth, to teach you a lesson.

Ignore it, and you will feel pain. But if you listen, it will help you. Because it's only role is to show you the rules. And once you know those, you can actually play fair.

Not to say you'll win. Again, the truth isn't your buddy either. But both the good and bad news is that it's fair. And that's something.

...Still hurts like a motherfucker though.

Hey Ladies - Let Me Fill You In On A Secret

2013-04-17T15:07:00.000-04:00

Today on Facebook, I shared a link to the new Dove "Real Beauty" campaign, featuring women being drawn by a trained forensic artist as they describe themselves, then comparing their version to a drawing as others describe them (AKA, reality). The results are exactly what you think: women are FAR more critical of themselves than they should be or deserve to be, and are shocked to find out how beautiful they really are.

This article I wrote a few years ago speaks to the reasons why. I feel that this article is something every woman on earth needs to read. If you know a woman who knows how to read, feel free to share it with her.

* * *

I just read Dorothy Snarker's writeup, Six Packs Are For Cans, about the fashion industry and beauty magazines and one particular model photo (Possibly NSFW, if your boss is a tightass) that's causing some stupid uproar. And she makes some incredibly good points in that article. And while I HIGHLY encourage you to read every single word of her article and take it in and understand it and live it, naturally, you're probably going to wonder what dudes think. And since Dorothy's a chick, and you're chicks, and it's hard to take a chick's word on what dude's think of chicks, I figured I'd let you in on a secret.

Fashion and "beauty" magazines Photoshop models to look like some overly-aggrandized ideal figure. This is not the secret. Anyone whose spent any time on the net has seen the bazillion or so sites that reveal model retouching with before and after photos, showing everyone from Halle Berry to Beyonce to Megan Fox being retouched from "human" to "super OMG beauty goddess whatever."

The secret:

They, the magazines and make up manufacturers and clothing creaters, do not do this because this ideal is what we men find beautiful. It's not.

They do this because they want to convince you that this ideal is what we men find beautiful - and that ideal they're pitching is so realistically unattainable (or, rather, is attainable, but only through 8 hours a day at the gym, a professional nutritionist, and many, many sessions at the plastic surgeon's den o' cuttery).

And it forces you to go out and starve yourselves on fad diets and buy stupid heaps of ugly makeup and magazines that teach you how to be what you never could (or should) be and expensive clothes, making you hate yourselves when you look in the mirror to the point where, in my own simple polling at the gym last night, eight out of ten women - all of whom I find devestatingly beautiful - said that they wanted some sort of body enhancement or reduction surgery.

Not "would consider" - WANT.

That's such complete bullshit.

Do you realize how little attention men pay to the tiny imperfections you've been psycholocially abused into thinking we care about? NONE. Except for those jock meathead fucksticks in New Jersey who can't even see past their own tiny dicks due to having their heads shoved all the way up their own asses. And if you're caring what a guy like that thinks, you're already broken to the point that I can no longer help you.

Regular men - REAL men - don't see that. Beauty is in humanity. To have curves and shape and form is to be human. To be without those things, to hold yourself to an impossible ideal... Men won't ever tell you this, but when they see women like that, there's a subconsious event that triggers that immediately makes them uninterested. They may be ATTRACTED, but ultimately, it's just to the glint and glitter of the smooth thing in front of them; a fleeting thing at best. They're not actually interested in pursuing anything meaningful with a woman like that, because after all, she's broken to the point of caring more about what other people think than in being confident in herself.

You're beautiful, naturally. Take good care of your body. Eat right and exercise. But do those things for YOU, because you love how you feel when you do it and because it's just right to protect and nurture yourself... Not because you think some dude wants to see a six pack. And for chrissake, stay the hell away from the surgeon, unless your condition is a detriment to you physically.

Stop reading any magazine you can buy while you're checking out at the grocery store. Quit holding yourselves up to some retarded social ideal of what you should be. Be beautiful by loving yourself. Confidence is one thousand times sexier than any physical attribute.

Gay Marriage: I Don't Get It.

2013-03-28T17:34:00.000-04:00

(This post was originally run May, 2012. With the Supreme Court reviewing the topic of gay marriage this week I thought it was appropriate to repost.)

I consider myself a smart guy.

I actively seek understanding and knowledge, and to that end, I read (a lot). I ask a lot of questions. I talk to a lot of people. I watch videos. I listen to talks. I try to pay attention to as much around me as I possibly can. And I feel like I do a pretty fair job of accumulating data, parsing it and drawing at least somewhat educated conclusions about things.

But I have to come clean: There's one thing I just plain cannot understand, and that's why anyone gives a shit about gay people getting married.

Why is this a thing? Why does it matter? It makes NO sense to me whatsoever.

Two men or two women decide to tie the knot. What happens? Why are religious people and Republicans (usually one in the same) so up in arms about it?

To try to wrap my head around it, I've analyzed it step by step and see what effect it has on you (or anyone who isn't them).

1) They love each other. They have found another person on this planet -- a planet housing nearly 7 billion (that's 7,000,000,000) people -- that they not only get along with, that they not only feel emotions toward, that they not only share a bond with, but that they feel safe around and unified with. They love each other. Just like you love your spouse, fiancee, or significant other.
Who does this affect? Their friends, who are happy for them. Their family, who (we hope) support them.
Does this impact your daily life? No.
What should you do about it? Mind your own fucking business.

2) They exchange vows. They promise to love, honor, protect and support one another.
Who does this affect? The caterer, the event planner, the hosts, and the attendees.
Does this impact your daily life? No.
What should you do about it? Mind your own fucking business.

3) They hand each other rings. They place a band of metal (or string or what have you) on each others' hands as an external symbol that they are in a monogamous relationship with another person.
Who does this affect? The jeweler. They've made a little money.
Does this impact your daily life? Well, are you the jeweler? No? Then no.
What should you do about it? Mind your own fucking business.

4) They consummate the marriage. However they see fit.
Who does this affect? Unless they're particularly loud about it and you're in the next room, no one except them.
Does this impact your daily life? It shouldn't. If it does, you're overly concerned about the private lives of other people and seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY need a hobby that isn't counting rosary.
What should you do about it? Mind your own fucking business.

5) They live together. They decorate their home. They watch television or listen to the radio or knit or play video games. They cook food. They eat.

Who does this affect? Retail outlets in the community who benefit from increased domestic goods sales (because, let's face it, couples consume more than individuals in just about every regard).

Does this impact your daily life? If you work at a retail outlet where they shop, sure.

What should you do about it? Mind your own fucking business.

6) They share benefits. House, insurance, 401k, cars. Just like a man and a woman would.

Who does this affect? No one that isn't already affected by the union of a man and a woman.

Does this impact your daily life? Are you impacted by marriage by a man and a woman in the same way? Then yes, and you should seek to abolish all marriage. Otherwise, no.

What should you do about it? Mind your own fucking business.

None of this computes for me. So I have tried to fall back on my early "churchgoing" life (which is code for "My parents dragged me somewhere I didn't want to be for two hours every Sunday, except when they didn't feel like going"). And in this attempt to understand based on past recollection and current explanation from my religious friends, it boils down to the following:

"The Bible says homosexuality is a sin. The Bible is the word of God. We are God's adherents. We must honor and respect the word of God. This means we stand against the union of people of the same gender."

I will share here a link to a fantastic resource which lists, with excruciating detail and research, the contradictions and fallacies in the Bible. The word of the almighty, the perfect, the all-knowing... Filled with contradictions. But ignore the actual facts for a minute.

These points are from a rather fantastic response to Dr. Laura, an ~~openly Christian~~ Orthodox Jewish (corrected, sorry) "therapist" with a nationally syndicated radio show who routinely quotes scripture to help callers with problems. They highlight quite a number of issues that "God's word" speaks against, and yet in our modern society, we've found ways around:

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?
I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
Lev. 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not Canadians. Can you clarify?
I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 10:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

And here's Dan Savage's take on the matter, which I implore you, regardless of your religious beliefs, to watch -- if for no other reason than to take in data on the other side of the argument and actually have some information to form your points:

So yes, I don't get it. I don't get the hypocrisy, I don't get the insistence on putting your morals on other peoples' daily existence, I don't understand how beliefs -- which by nature belong solely to you and pertain only to whats in your mind, regardless of who else could relate to them -- can manifest themselves in actions against other people's lives WHICH DON'T IMPACT YOU WHATSOEVER. I don't get it. Please, explain it to me. Give me a reason that doesn't start with "my beliefs" or "the Bible says" because neither of those things matter when it comes to the daily lives of people. Give me reasons. Give me plausible, fact-based logical reasons why homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to bond themselves in legal union and share their lives. Just one. I beg of you. Because of all the stupidity in the world, even the stuff I cannot relate to one bit, this is one thing I simply cannot get my head around.

Grace

2013-03-22T01:00:00.000-04:00

(Note: this post was originally posted Sept, 2011. I'm reposting it because I want to.)

My favorite word is Grace.

It means so many wonderful things. It can mean forgiveness. It can mean beauty. It can mean goodwill. For those who believe in the divine, grace can also be the blessing of God. But there's an element to the word that strikes a chord within me; which makes me shudder and sometimes even cry at the sheer beauty of the meaning of the word. It also happens to be my favorite Jeff Buckley song.

Grace is a presence; an elegance. It's a manner of being which shines when the chips are down and life is its most difficult. It's the way you hold yourself and speak and act when you're no longer paying attention to how you're holding yourself, speaking and acting.

It shows up in sports all the time. It's actually the reason I love hockey so much -- when you watch a hockey game, you're watching athletes at their absolute prime, performing moves on ice that most people can't perform on dry ground, with a stick on a puck three inches in diameter, against equally skilled players doing the exact same thing. There are moments in every hockey game where I marvel at what the human body is capable of.

And when the game wears on and the body wears down, you begin seeing some real magic. The 3rd period in hockey. The fourth quarter in football. The moments where every practice and every drill for months on end become instinct and the body simply acts at the peak of its ability, and an athlete's grace is on display.

It also shows up in art, when the mind is no longer focused on mechanics and the beauty is allowed to flow. Painting, dancing, music... Art begins to show when the mind is turned off and the hours and weeks and months and years of practice and rudiments and exercises and sketches and writing begin showing their importance. The body becomes graceful and the soul begins to speak through instinct.

The same goes in life. When you're at your most exhausted is where the real magic shows up. When you've pulled your seventh all nighter in a week and you're now no longer thinking through code or presentation briefs or client requirements or the ghost of your art teacher explaining how you're doing everything wrong, and you let go and your instincts show up and take over.

Art is grace. Presence of mind is grace. Confidence is grace. Live your life with grace.

Grace is not mechanics. Grace is not perfection. Grace is actually imperfection; the human aspects of creation and existence made manifest in moments that show who you are, not who you have been. And we all know there is a gracefulness in painting and drawing and dancing and music, as well as in beautiful athletic endeavors and well prepared speeches. But grace is also in our work and our speech and our actions day in and day out, and especially in the hidden moments where our lives are most strained. When you're tired and beaten and bruised and you're worn down, your character shows up and you show the world and yourself just what you're made of. And if you're a pessimist, you'll succumb to defeat. Hell, you'll welcome it. If you're lazy, you'll fall down fast. If you never explore and research, you won't have the presence of mind to come up with answers and solutions. You will be without grace, and you will receive none.

That which you do most, and most often, is what will show up when the cards are down and you're facing a fourth quarter situation in life. Live the rest of your life like you're practicing for that moment. Show up, do good work, think, read books, exercise that mind of yours. Work out and run and keep your body in shape. Speak with eloquence like the words you say matter. Keep your head up and look forward, never down. Walk with purpose. Love yourself.

Have Grace.

Because when the shit goes down and you're no longer capable of thinking about how to handle it all... You'll handle it.

On Fucking Up

2013-03-20T22:53:00.001-04:00

Look, you're going to fuck up. It is an absolute certainty. No one can avoid it.

No one is perfect. We are all human, humans are flawed, and that's what makes us all so very special: the mistakes. The mistakes contrast and highlight the great things that make up the best parts of who we are.

So embrace the mistakes. Know – not think, but know – that you are going to fuck something up somewhere at some point.

What matters most is what you do after you fuck up. Miles Davis said, "If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if its's good or bad."

Step up. Take responsibility. Ask for forgiveness. Take action. Make it right (or, as right as it can be). Don't hide. Don't run. Own that shit.

The only thing worse than fucking up is running from it, and the only thing people love more than someone who never does the wrong thing, is someone who does the right thing. So do the right thing. Steer your ship into the storm, batten down the hatches, and cackle like a mad person as you embrace the suck of taking responsibility for your fuckup.

Or, you know, be a coward and run. I'm sure once you finally outrun your own shadow, you'll be very happy.

Sometimes, I Write About Why I Write. This Is That.

2013-03-13T11:00:00.000-04:00

Note: this post was originally written on Feb 22, 2012. I've recently been readdressing many aspects of my life and my work, and in digging through my writing, found this. I shared it with a dear friend and was motivated to share it again with you all. I hope it speaks to you and gives you some insight to why I have done and will do what I do.

* * *

This post is a bit of an experiment. So, I ask that you indulge me and do me a favor:

Play this song while you read this post. You'll want sound on, obviously. Pretty please?

You certainly don't have to. It's not required. But if you're playing it, thank you. It may seem corny. It is corny. I love this song. I've loved it since the first time I heard it. And the song honestly feels like putting your hand in someone else's. And because of that, I wanted to share it with you and use it as a soundtrack of sorts. It's what I want to do with this post, and I'm glad that you're willing to experiment with me. Because that's what this is, after all. One big, gigantic experiment. It has been since I started writing.

And lately, why I write has been a question on my mind. It's a question I feel I know the answer to, but it still comes up in my mind and in my heart.

Sometimes, I know exactly what I'm doing when I post something deep and introspective and heartfelt. I know what I'm feeling is what you are feeling or have felt. I am talking directly to you. I want to tell you how alone you are not. I want you to know that there's this guy living on this planet, probably in your country, possibly in your state or city or even town, who has gone through what you are going through (or have gone through) and that you are not alone. We may not be friends. We may not even like each other. But you have company on this journey through life.

Sometimes, I just want to be crass. I want to get a reaction from people. I want to see them gasp or groan or pretend they're civil and above you when they know fully right and well they're just as human as I am, and were thinking the same thing I was. They just didn't have the guts to say it.

Sometimes, I want to explore emotion. I want to poke and prod at the things within me; within us all. I want to see how they react when tested. I want to know if the response is a social requirement or a true, honest feeling.

Sometimes, I have something in me I just need to share. I want to open my heart to the experience of being both understood and misunderstood; to discover who feels what I feel and who doesn't. I want to dig into the human experience and find out just how alike (or alone) I am.

Sometimes, I want to call bullshit on what I, you and everyone else knows is bullshit. I want to piss on the posers. I want to point at them and say "you're a fucking faker." I want to call them on their unyielding need for validation and attention and mock them for co-opting something special and interesting and great for their own vanity.

Sometimes, I am scared. I am so very scared. And I write about what scares me so that it's no longer just in my head. It's out there. It's on paper. It's on the blog. It's in front of thousands of people. Things aren't so scary when they're not just in your head. It's hard to fight a thought. It's easy to fight information. And writing it all down transforms it from thought to information. And that is liberating on so many levels.

Sometimes, I just hurt, and I need to bleed.

Sometimes, I feel so much joy from being alive and I want you to feel it, too. I want you to read the words I write and go "you know, Joe's right!" I want you to really FEEL every word I'm typing; to internalize it and study it and put it into your heart and your mind and do something with it. I want you to learn to work out. I want you to learn to fist fight. I want you to stand up for yourself. I want women to feel beautiful because they are beautiful, not because they match the images on magazine covers.

Sometimes, I want you to laugh. Nothing more. Just laugh.

Sometimes, all of these things I do... Well sometimes, they conflict. Sometimes, they're meant to conflict and contrast one another. Sometimes, it's just the fact that my mood changes. I may post a snide comment on some peoples' inherent need to put themselves on pedestals and be contrarian so they can feel superior, either morally or spiritually, to others. Sometimes I celebrate the life of a man I never met who took a picture of himself with his cat, and I talk about how much that moment touched me.

Sometimes I'm a hypocrite. Sometimes, I hate myself for being one, because above all things in the world, I hate hypocrites (well, maybe child abusers more than that).

But always, I am a human being. I am flawed and I am broken in places. In other places, I am pieced together and held firm with the glue of experience. But in all cases, I'm subject to the exact same mood swings and difference in opinions and varying needs to reflect on or express my feelings as you are.

When you write things down, they take on a certain sense of permanence. There's a log. You can't just scream and yell and vent and then expect people to forget it ever happened like you can when you're face to face, speaking to another person. When you confide in the world with your writing, you commit your sins in front of an entity with a permanent, flawless memory.

This isn't my curse. This is my choice. It's what I do. It's what I must do. Because above all else -- above the fear of being pointed out and laughed at, or called a loser, or called a pussy, or called a hypocrite -- I must hang out for the world to see the things I feel and think and know.

Because it might mean something to you. Because we're on this journey together. Because I know that the writers I admire and love and read every day, or every month, or once a year -- they're with me on this journey. They've been where I've been. They're my companions throughout this time I spend on this Earth. They let me know that I am human. I am flawed and I am broken in places. In other places, I am pieced together and held firm with the glue of experience.

And it's okay. It's how it should be. That's why they write. That's why I write. It's my way of spiritually taking your hand into mine and saying "You can be brave, because I've been brave, and I know that if I can do it, anyone can do it." It's my way of teaching you how to do the things it took me so long to figure out; the things that once I figured them out made my life so much better.

Because we're all human. All of us.

And we're in this together. All of us.

Even if you don't want to be. Even if you are skeptical. Even if you've read everything I've written, and if you think that I'm full of shit. It's okay. I think I'm full of shit, too. And you know what? You are, too. We all are.

Welcome to life. Take my hand. We'll get through it together.

Never Chase.

2013-03-04T14:19:00.001-05:00

When you chase after someone, that means they're running. And just because you decided to chase them doesn't mean they're going to stop running. In fact, they usually speed up.

If you catch them, you may experience a moment's joy at the victory, but then you'll have to decide if winning them was worth the fatigue and exhaustion. If it's not, resentment instantly builds and the relationship equity is now in a hole that it's impossible to escape from.

Maybe it's fun. Maybe that's a fine reason to do it. And in that case, go nuts - just don't be surprised or hurt when the thrill of that chase is far more exhilarating than the victory.

To me, there's no upside. So don't chase.

The Manifesto of the Real Man

2013-02-27T17:44:00.001-05:00

A few years ago, I wrote a piece on Tough Guys vs. Real Men. Since that time, I've been asked "What do you think makes a Real Man?"

I contemplated writing a guide to being one, but I think that's useless. You can't really teach a guy to be a Real Man. You can teach him the mechanics and behaviors that a Real Man exhibits, but to me, it's far more engrained than simply knowing how to change a flat tire, or helping old ladies across the street, or shaking hands firmly.

There's a set of rules I live my life by. They're based on respect and honesty, to myself and to others. So here they are, collected and presented to you as a The Manifesto of The Real Man. Feel free to share them, disagree with them or add to them. I'm listening and will reply in the comments, and those points which deserve to be added, I will add.

I will not cheat. On my lovers, on my friends, or at poker.
I will lose with dignity.
I will win with grace.
I will never betray my sense of self for someone else, no matter the potential payoff.
I will shake every stranger's hand that is offered to me.
I will never shake the hand of a man who has been proven a liar, cheat or thief.
I will respect women. In all regards, in all cases, both physically and mentally.
I will love tenderly and deeply. If I cannot love a thing, activity or person tenderly and deeply, for reasons my own or theirs, I will simply like them and save my love for something or someone who deserve the full deal.
I will not dye my hair just to hide my grey. Expression of self (e.g. Purple hair) is not the same as shame of age.
I will go bald with dignity.
I will speak the truth, even if my voice shakes.
I will never strike a man who does not deserve it. Should he deserve it, however, I will rain down on him a righteous fury that will leave him no doubt as to how much he deserved it.
I will never strike a woman.
I will not reduce myself and succumb to retribution or revenge, for I will not behave like someone I do not wish to be.
I will be strong of mind and of body, and work daily to maintain this strength.
I will acknowledge where I am vulnerable and face these vulnerabilities. Where I can strengthen them, I will. Where I cannot, I will trust my friends to help me recognize when they are being exploited.
I will keep only the secrets of the people who deserve protection.
I will NEVER force, cajole or manipulate anyone into doing anything they do not want to do, and I will punish anyone I find doing so.
Whatever style of dress I choose; whatever I choose to decorate my body with; whatever adornments or aspects I bring to my physical appearance: They will be for myself and no one else.
I will attempt to bend where I might break.
Should I break, I will not stay broken. I will take the pieces and rebuild myself, filling in the gaps that were there previously with something whole.
I will give freely of myself whatever I may, be it smiles, advice, compliments, help or charity.
I will not break any person. There is no joy or satisfaction in it.

I will admonish and clear from my life any man who does not abide by these rules, for they are false and undeserving of my respect.

"The Only Thing Worse Than A Bad Day..."

2013-02-18T22:55:00.002-05:00

I was digging through some old journal entries of mine. I wrote the following a while ago:

The only thing worse than a bad day
Is a great day you fuck up by doing something stupid.

I thought on this for a while. And I felt it was pretty true for a short time. And then, I started thinking on things I've done that were "stupid" to wreck a good day or a good thing, that actually ended up being positive. And you know what? I can't think of many that weren't.

"Stupid" is often a word we use when we mix bravery with hindsight. It takes a tremendous amount of guts to do something "stupid" -- because you often don't know what the hell its going to end up like, and you're taking a risk that it might end up exactly how you want.

It often doesn't. That doesn't necessarily mean it ends up bad, but often it's not what we envisioned. But that's the thing about vision: you can only see what's in front of you. And almost always, decisions that end up being "stupid" are based on what's in front of us. To berate yourself or make yourself hurt by lamenting not knowing what was going to happen is a waste of time.

Take risks. If things fail, so what? You're not dead. And if you can think back to five years ago and name a single mistake you a) still think about and b) feel now wasn't actually for the best, you're in the vast minority of people (or you're in prison).

When all else fails; when you're standing there on the edge of the high dive and wondering just why the hell you thought it was a good idea to climb up there and jump off, just remember, time is the only true currency we have in this life, and doing dumb shit is how we learn. Avoiding doing stuff is also avoiding an opportunity to learn about yourself, your environment and the people around you. Avoiding learning is the first step in ignorance.

So really, doing something risky isn't stupid at all. Not doing things is actually really stupid.

You Know The Future's Here When You're Scared

2013-02-14T23:43:00.001-05:00

It's been 17 years since the first time I set foot in New York City.

I was 19 years old. I was jumping head first into the dot-com world. I was scared out of my mind. I'd been sent up to New York City to help a client install some software. I was supposed to be here two weeks. I lasted about seven days.

I rushed through the job. I did the job, yes. But I rushed it. I didn't want to be here. I thought I did, but the second I got off the plane and had to catch a cab to go into the city, I realized I wasn't ready. I was terrified. I'd never left home before. This was the first time I'd set foot out of suburban Atlanta, GA and I was in the busiest, craziest, most hectic city on the planet. If it hadn't been for the fact that I hadn't eaten or drank anything in nearly 24 hours due to my nerves, I'd have soiled myself.

I lived in my hotel. I did my job. I went to work, worked, and went back to the hotel. I was terrified of the city. And if I had to be honest with myself, I was terrified of my life. I didn't feel I deserved it. After all, I was the poor fat white kid from nowhere, GA who somehow conned his way into a decent paying software gig that took him to the biggest, baddest city in the world.

New York City. The start and the end of so many things.

After I completed the gig, I phoned headquarters and let them know I was ready to come home. "Stay the rest of the time," my boss said. "It's paid for. Go out and have some fun."

"I want to go home," I replied.

"Nonsense," he answered. "Enjoy yourself."

"I want to go home," I said.

I managed to change the ticket and fly home on my own. Figuring out how to get through Times Square, how to hail a cab, how to get through LaGuardia... Those things feel trivial now. But at the time? Monumental victories. And I was proud of myself. I was proud that I figured out how to leave my hotel room and go home, on my own.

Little did I know, that half-a-trip was the start of a new life. It was the start of something powerful and meaningful that shaped me into who I am. I took a trip. I took THE trip. Since I was a child, I dreamed of going to New York City. I wanted to be in the city of blinding lights. I wanted to walk the streets and ride the subway and see a Broadway show and eat real New York pizza and meet real New York people.

And eventually, I did. A few weeks later, in fact, when I was sent back up for another gig. But that first trip? The one I always imagined going so well and being so amazing and changing my life? It went exactly how it needed to, and it changed my life forever.

I did it. I went somewhere. I got out of my small suburban town. I did work I was told I wasn't capable of doing. I saw some bright lights. I saw the big city. It scared the shit out of me.

But I did it. And I went back to write more code and meet new people and ride in a cab and take the subway to Union Square and visit the comic shops I'd only seen advertised in the backs of comic books and ate real New York pizza and made new friends.

And it changed my life forever.

I'm thirty six years old now. And I am back in New York City. I'm here for a while, housesitting and walking dogs. But I'm not here to housesit, and I'm not here to walk dogs. I'm here because I need to be here. I'm here because I have the most amazing friends in the world. I'm here because my life is starting over.

I'm staying at least seven days. And even though I've been here dozens of times before, this trip, right now, scares the shit out of me.

I'm not scared of riding in a cab. I'm not scared of the subway. I've eaten the pizza and seen the lights and taken in a show (or 20). I've met friends. I've worked in these buildings. I've met these people. This is hardly new stuff for me.

But my life? My life is new. Things are different. And now, I'm back where it all began. I'm back in New York City.

I am sitting in an apartment in Chelsea. The dogs have been walked. Dinner has been had with friends, as well as drinks. Stories have been swapped. Tears have been shed. And now, I sit here and I write this, because I cannot do anything else. I can't go out. I can't ride in a cab. I can't take in a show.

All I can do is think about the fact that 17 years later, I'm back here in New York City, staring in one direction at a life that led me back here, and in the other direction at a life I know is going to be amazing.

And it scares the shit out of me. Because regardless of where I've been and where I'm going, right here, right now, I'm in New York City. Hiding out. Disappeared. Away from all things. Away from myself, so I can find myself.

I don't know where this week will take me. I don't know where the next week will take me, or the week after that, or next month or next year. What I do know is that, for the first time in 36 years, I know who I am. Finally, I know who I am. And I know what I'm worth, and I know what I'm here to do on this Earth.

And yes, I'm scared. I'm scared to death. You know the future is really happening when you start feeling scared.

I've known that feeling for a while now. The past few years, I've felt a very slow, creeping fear crawl into me and overcome me. The fear that I'm being left behind.

I don't quite know when it happened, but at some point over the past three years, I changed into a person who simply isn't satisfied by the old ways. My old ways, that is. Constant information bombardment. Constant exploration of new frontiers. Constant stimulation. Losing myself in news, games, and data.

At some point, I stopped worrying about being the first to know something. Or rather, I stopped being the first to know something, and as I was called upon to provide information or insight, I had to rush to find out what it was about and then quickly come up with an opinion. Then, I stopped rushing. Then, I stopped caring.

At some point, I was posting to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and my blog somewhere on the order of 50 times a day combined. Today, I'm lucky if I get a blog post up every two months. Facebook has been set up to auto-post my updates to Twitter, which consist primarily of jokes and one liners and pictures of my dog. I've stopped using Tumblr, and Instagram is simply a cache of pictures of my cats and the occasional plate of food (which, I'm convinced, is what Instagram was created for).

And all around me, there are young, enthusiastic people who now know far more about what's going on than I do. When things happen, I hear about them second-hand. Just a few years ago, that thought would have given me hives. To not be the first to know… I might as well be castrated.

But now, I am not only comfortable not being the first to know things, I actually relish it. I don't need it. And that fact – the shift in behavior and desire – scares me.

I cannot sit and play video games for 8+ hour shifts anymore. I cannot lose myself in other worlds that way. I can't even conceptualize building a website. I can barely sit down and design something for my own company.

New technologies show up and I miss the announcement. Things which one enticed me and made me tingle with anticipation now barely get a “oh, cool” from me.

And that scares me.

My old self doesn't fit in to this future. It cannot keep up. It can't conceptualize what is becoming omnipresent. Social media does not hold the same enticing anticipation of meeting new people and sharing new things. Technology increments along and I'm not even watching.

And I think the fear that it creates in me is the fear we all get at some point in our lives: the idea that one day, we're going to die. And when we do, we will look back and wonder just how much of our time was spent doing something worthwhile.

And that's where my fear actually begins to subside. I don't know how much of what I've done was worthwhile, but I'm certain what I'm doing now has the potential to be – and I don't know what I'm doing. I'm winging it. And it's all new. The old rules do not apply. I do not show up, clock in, do what i'm told, clock out and move on to payday. I don't write silly stories and publish them and get a check.

I run a company. I'm in charge. It's all on me now. And it's all new and scary.

My marriage is over and I'm on my own -- completely alone -- for the first time in my adult life. Yet, I am surrounded by people who love me for the first time in my life, and they show me daily how much. This is my family. My studio. My friends. Not a drop of blood shared between us, no marriage certificates -- and yet, I wade headlong into war with them and love them dearly, and they love me just as much.

My instincts are the only thing that has kept me from freaking out. My instincts have always served me well. I've always been great with clients. I've always been able to predict, with remarkable clarity, what's next. It gave me a career four times over.

Make that five.

And when they told me life was about to start over, I questioned them. I thought I must be crazy. But lo and behold, I wasn't. I must NEVER question them, no matter who convinces me otherwise. Ever. No matter how much I agree with them.

Headlong I plunge into the unknown, filled with fear and wide-eyed with panic, excited for the first time in my life that I'm finally feeling what it's like to stop coasting and finally live. And I'm starting that life with some time in New York City. Beginning again, the way I did before. Only this time, the fear makes me smile. I welcome it. It's a fear I'm not hiding from. I welcome it, because it makes me realize for the first time in my life, I'm actually alive -- and aware of it.

I'm scared. And I've never -- EVER -- been happier.

The Insane Energy Drink Experiment

2013-01-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

(This was originally posted Sept 2009, but made me laugh when I ran across it again so I thought I'd repost. Enjoy.)

Sometimes, my energy drinks bore me.

The trouble is, I've grown accustomed to how all of this stuff works, and my "cycles" are just getting boring. So I figured, why not have a little fun?

	I drink Red Bulls in the morning. They've got a little caffeine, but they keep me riding strong into the day. This is the "long burn" energy.
	I drink Redline when I need a big boost, usually before working out - the extra energy while working out turns into more repetitions and calisthenics. This is a subtle but steady climb, followed by a slow and steady decline.
	When Redline starts to dull out (and I get tolerant), I switch to N.O. Xplode. This stuff is sorta like Redline, but the "shock" factor is way higher - you don't just soar up to cruising altitude, you fucking take off like a rocket. And you pretty much crash the same way.

And so, I mixed three scoops of N.O. Xplode into two cans worth of Red Bull, and finished off the water bottle with a bottle of Redline Xtreme. An energy drink cocktail of epic proportions. And what do you get when you mix these?

Consumed at 5:30 PM.

Immediate effect: At first, nothing (of course). But once it hit my system, it was like jumping off a roof, in reverse. I got into my truck, began driving to the gym, and within 10 minutes, my heart was racing. I was physically shaking by the time I got to the gym.

During the workout: Holy jesus mary shit fuck. I was sweating like crazy, and where I normally begin to fatigue and experience some muscle tiredness around the 25th rep in a high-rep workout, I went on to 30... then 35... then 40 and finally stopped at 50, with almost no real "pushing through." ON EVERY EXERCISE. I was still racing when done with the weights (about an hour or so) and went into my cardio session thinking "I'll run as far as I can until the juice runs down." I normally run two, and at the end of the second, my body is ready for me to stop. I'm not "winded", just tired and ready to call it a workout. Tonight, I ran four miles, and could have done five, but was just fucking bored on the treadmill.

After workout: Just about everyone I talked to commented on my "good mood." I was pretty hyper driving home, but not heart-racing hyper. Just... hyper. Called a lot of people, got a lot of conversations done. Saw God. Told him hi for my mom, since she believes in him and I don't. Nearly ran over a cop on a motorcycle. He gave chase, I just plugged an IV from my arm into the gas tank and outran that motherfucker something fierce. Invented two new punctuation marks. Divided by Zero.

The rest of the evening: No "jitters" - but I've been working all night. It's now 4:06AM, and I'm not even the slightest bit tired. I've written two new stories for my book's website (to go up closer for the book release date), invented Joetonium which is 100x stronger than Adamantium but only bonds to cartilage, and fixed a leaky toilet. Don't hate anyone. Like everyone. Love you. Thank you for reading my blog. I want an iguana. I had one when I was a teenager, but he was a bit of a mean fucker, he bit me all the time. I can totally do cartwheels, watch.

The taste: Like a fruit-flavored 9-volt battery. N.O. Xplode is already pretty "sharp" tasting, but mixing it with the carbonation from the Red Bull made it practically shock my mouth with every sip.

Will I do this again? You're goddamn right I will.

If You Want It To Heal...

2013-01-23T18:43:00.001-05:00

...Stop picking at it.

Art and Artists in the "Real" World

2013-01-21T12:30:00.001-05:00

For most people, art is magic, and they lost their belief in magic as they grew up and joined the "real" world. It's hard to hear ad nauseum things like this:

- "Why don't you get a real job?"
- "My kid likes drawing too."
- "You 'make' video games? That's a job?"
- "Painting is a nice hobby..."

And so on.

But when you realize the simple fact that they're tied up in a reality made up of rules set by other people, you no longer resent their questions and attitude. You instead pity them. You realize that they are playing a game called "how life is supposed to be according to everyone else" and unfortunately for them, they're winning it.

Artists, on the other hand, are too busy making art to play such silly games.

Stuck in the mud

2013-01-12T07:43:00.000-05:00

Knowing that you are in the middle of something that hurts, which won't be over for a while, has its value. You shouldn't wallow in the pain like a pig in mud, but don't try to sprint through the mud the nearest shower to wash it all off either. You'll just tire yourself out.

It's pain, dummy. It's supposed to hurt.

Welcome to existing in the moment. Being aware of the self. Being in the experience and feeling it.

The only way out of it is through. Trudge on. Get to the other side. Try to learn something along the way to make it all worth going through (which is another reason not to rush to distractions, escapism and absolutes - when you do, you remove the possibility of learning a lesson and experiencing personal growth, which means the time you spent in pain - while shorter - was worth nothing, and you run the risk of ending up right back in the same pain again).

Simple = Hard

2013-01-11T15:21:00.003-05:00

"Get over it."

"Calm down."

"Win."

Simple things, to be sure. All you have to do to get over it is stop caring. All you have to do to calm down is stop being angry. All you have to win is be ahead of the other guy when time runs out.

Of course, it's not that easy. There's a ton of stuff you have to do to get ahead of that other guy before time runs out. There's a lot you have to get settled before you can stop caring.

It really is that simple. But it's usually the simple things that are the hardest to do. Never let anyone attempt to convince you otherwise. And if you really want to do those things, it's going to take work. You will not accomplish them without doing the work, period, point blank, end of story.

You can delude yourself into thinking otherwise. You can run. You can hide. But eventually you'll get caught. So instead of wasting that time, why not turn into the wave and ride it out?

It won't be easy. But it's that simple.

The Great Big Lie

2012-12-22T01:25:00.001-05:00

You want to know the Great Big Lie? The lie so big, it deserves to be titled with capital letters? Here it is:

I've been lying to you. Every single time I write. Every single word. It's all one big lie. Every Facebook post, every Twitter tweet, every InstaTumblrPinterest post. Crafted. Sculpted. Made to make you react.

And it's not just me. It's everyone. Everyone who writes, everyone who "shares", everyone who makes anything available to you, moment by moment. Mainstream media, bloggers and your Facebook friends. Poets, journalists, novelists and memoirists.

Liars. The whole lot of them. And I know, because I'm one of them.

I lie to you, even now. Every single word of this post so far, and every word after this sentence, is a fucking lie. I'm crafting this very sentence to illicit the maximum possible reaction from you. Leaving it so open and honest, it's bound to make you think either "There's no way..." or "That fucking dick!"

Either way, I win. Because you just felt something.

And that's the nature of the whole world now. Feel. FEEL. Feel deeper. Feel more. Feel at odds. Feel compelled. Feel connected.

Feel. That's all we want. We want you to feel. We want you to share. We want you to "like" and "retweet" and "tumbl" and whatever the fuck else, we don't even care about the technology or the platform anymore. Just fucking feel.

That video of the kid with autism who scored tons of three-pointers during a high-school football game? Carefully edited to make you feel. Aired on CBS to make you feel. Posted by me the other day to make you feel.

That interview with the kid at Sandy Hook about how scary it was that some psychopath came into her school and shot up everyone she knew? Feel that shit. Watch it and take it in and FEEL it.

Eagles scooping up kids. The funny Gangnam-style spoof of the hour. The Jesus-laden prayer post your friend put on Facebook. The meme picture of the cat and the sardonic statement.

Feel.

And when that wears off, don't worry -- we've got more.

I wrote the geek girl piece how I did specifically to draw a line: I made fucking sure it got the people predisposed to hate me hating me, and the people predisposed to love me loving me. In fact, that's every piece. Every time.

Your favorite writer? The honest guy who tells you how it is? It's all a lie. It's all an act. It's all on purpose. It's all to make you feel whatever it takes to get you to keep going. Keep reading. Keep subscribing.

Validate me. Tell me I'm worth the time it takes to read what I write. Let me know how much you really care. Share my post. Comment. Respond. Tell your friends. Buy my book. Promote my CNN and Huffington Post articles.

Welcome to the Great Big Lie. I am honest; yes. I use my honesty as a weapon. I point it at your head and I say "FEEL!" and you do exactly what I tell you. You feel. You share. You tell your friends "This guy Joe, man... He tells it like it is!" I share with you a story about telling a geeky kid that life is going to be great because he's learning far earlier than everyone else that being yourself is the most vital thing anyone can ever learn or do. You know why I share that with you?

Because you'll feel something. And every single time you do, I win.

I'm playing with your emotions. We all are. We, the writers. We, the crafters of your daily entertainment and information and intake. We, the puppet masters of your heart and your mind.

All day, every day. And for some reason, we think it all matters. And that's why we keep doing it.

And there is the core of The Great Big Lie: we think we matter.

If I don't write what you need to read today, who will? If I don't make a difference in your life, who's going to take up the slack?

If you can't thank me for awakening you to your own emotions, who will you thank? What will validate me as a human being if I'm not getting what I need, by giving you what you need?

And because it takes two for a lie to exist, you're going to have to face the fact that you're part of this. You're in on the gig. You love the lie. You know you do. You read CNN and watch Fox News and quote MSNBC and giggle at your favorite author because you know, deep down inside, what you just consumed was made just for you. It tickled your funny bone or incited your rage or otherwise made you feel because it was carefully crafted to do so.

And you know it.
And you love it.

You eat it up like Frito's, and you pretend it's nutrition. You don't question -- not because you're stupid, but because you simply don't want to. You want more than anything for it all to be real; for it all to be true.

It's not. Not a single bit of it. Not even this post. This whole thing is manufactured and carefully crafted to make you think "What the fuck?" and "Is he serious?" and "What a fucking dick" all at once. It's written in such a way to make you think I'm actually being sarcastically honest by breaking some sort of fourth wall.

That's exactly what I'm doing. Because that's exactly what you want. You don't want the truth, you want the "Truth." Packaged and designed and crafted and user-tested and alpha-released and beta-invite-only.

And I, and every other writer on the planet, are ready to give it to you in gigantic ladle-fulls.

Buy my book. Read my blog. Like my posts. Retweet my tweets. Tumbl my... Whatever the fuck Tumblr posts are. Just whatever you do, feel something while you do it.

Outrage. Anger. Happiness. Joy. Annoyance. You think I give a shit? The only reason I care is to find out if my intended goal was met. That's all. It's a metric, nothing more. If I set out to annoy you and instead make you laugh, you think I'm disappointed? Not even slightly. As long as you share and like and comment and react, I'm right as rain.

And there it is. The Great Big Lie. The one thing every writer wishes you didn't know, especially the "honest" ones. No one spends the amount of time we do crafting the things we craft without some sort of agenda. This is 100% true 100% of the time.

And you can trust me, because hey... Why would I lie about this?

The Best Compliment Of All Time?

2012-12-05T16:43:00.006-05:00

For reasons I'll get into next week, I've been severely distracted and away from my normal blogging duties. I have been ambling around with writing lately, hoping to return with something worthy of returning to you with, when this message appeared on my phone via Facebook this morning:

I've gotten messages from service personnel serving overseas. I've gotten messages from teens, adults, men, women and transgenders. I've been complimented on many facets of the things I've written, whether they be funny, serious, uplifting, controversial, blunt or otherwise.

But never have I been told my book is the greatest jail read ever.

I'm officially flattered. And with that, I'm officially back. Hope you don't mind.

Zombie Emotions

2012-11-27T14:56:00.002-05:00

Everyone experiences emotions. No one is immune. We like to think we are... But we're not. We get scared. We panic. We love. We hate. We admire. We lust. We're human beings. We feel, and that's not a bad thing. The problem is, people just don't know how to handle them. So they try to suppress them, or worse, kill them off.

And that's the problem. Emotions do not die. You cannot drown them in alcohol. You cannot shoot them down with thoughts. When you bury them, they turn into zombies -- they come back uglier and harder to handle, and the longer you bury them, the uglier and meaner they are. And they're nearly impossible to handle in large groups.

You cannot help how you feel. All you can control is how you behave. So allow yourself to feel what you're feeling, lest they come back and eat you alive.

Rethinking My Stance On "Fake Geek Girls"

2012-11-14T12:32:00.001-05:00

First, I want to thank everyone -- supporters and detractors alike -- for weighing in on the topic of "Fake Geek Girls", my MUCH discussed Booth Babes article on CNN, my other blog pieces, and the recent discussions around the topic of what I consider to be "posers" or "Fake Geek Girls." This is a genuine, heart-felt thanks. Hate it, love it, agree or disagree, the dialog has been not only necessary, but what I feel has been overall good.

When discourse takes place, we are forced to evaluate and reevaluate our stance, no matter how strong it is. At some deep emotional level, we realize when we've stood on hyperbole or our own personal predilections, and I think facing that truth -- even in silence by ourselves -- is good.

Yesterday, a friend of mine, Tony Harris, posted a rant on his personal Facebook page about Fake Geek Girls. Tony has spent his nearly 25 years in comics innovating and creating some incredible properties, characters, art and culture. One major aspect of Tony's art: he's one of the very few male artists in mainstream (superhero) comics who has ever outright refused to draw idealized / fetishized / objectified women in his work.

Tony Harris is genuinely a good guy who posted a spur-of-the-moment rant on his personal Facebook page. What he did was not what I did -- I went on CNN and writ large my disdain for a subset of the culture I find distasteful. He simply did what we all do on Facebook -- he posted a rant and moved on. The fact that this rant was screencaptured and then reposted all over the internet, which got national attention, was never his intention. Slamming it is not the kind of fair it was with my article (even though Tony is a strong guy and is taking it). Whether you hate me or love me, whether you hate my opinion, his opinion, or the mere fact that we exist, I'd really like to ask people to consider this before attacking the guy or reposting the piece:

Have you ever vented in the spur of the moment, something you wish you'd taken some time to really think out? Have you ever used Facebook as a catharsis for a burst of emotion? Have you ever felt your logical side peek out and say "Hey now, you know that's not what you really feel..." only to have your emotional side say "YEAH BUT IT FELT REALLY GOOD TO SAY!"

Ever regretted it? Not that you felt it or how you think, but how you said it?

Maybe consider that when you realize that this is what happened here, but instead of a bunch of comments and unfriending, the guy was put on an international stage across tons of blogs and Tumblr pages and news feeds and Twitter and cannot possibly respond to the volume of feedback (which has, as it did with me, coalesced into a tide of "You're EVIL!") much less reflect, explain or, if he wanted to, apologize?

Now, on to the point: I think that I need to update my viewpoint on the topic of "Fake Geek Girls" and "Posers". It's tainted with a lot of vitriol and anger (as is everything I rant about), and I think that the culture and the various abuses within it are actually much more important than just making scathing points isolating on one type of person.

From my own personal viewpoint, as the guy who wrote the pieces I wrote: I know me. I know how I feel. I know that intent of what I wrote was not to hurt women. It wasn't an attempt to put WOMEN in their place, limit freedoms, hurt anyone or anything.

The intent is to call out behaviors I find distasteful (even if you don't), namely using a culture you don't intend to belong to to further your own agenda. As a member of this community for the past 30-some-odd years, I have a love for it that I consider precious -- so when I perceive someone or something doing something I think is harmful, I react. I also point out personal accountability for consequences.

The unfortunate part: whether I meant to or not, I've touched a nerve where respect toward women is concerned.

I actually see now, with Marian Call, Wendy Hathaway, Liz Stricklen, Genevieve Dempre, Jessica Sides, Amy Ratcliffe, Taffeta Darling and all of these other incredibly smart, geeky females that I admire and respect (genuinely) calling this out and flat out saying "Look, you make good points but there's a bent here that borders on (or outright infringes in) misogyny" -- There's some reconsidering I need to do.

I have a policy: once I've written something, it's written. I don't revisit and I don't obsess. Very rarely do I readdress or post followups on an opinion piece, because I feel like once it's there, it can't be un-there. I can be sorry if someone is hurt or angry, but I cannot be sorry for how I felt -- and that's what those pieces are. So I just go "eh, get over it" as sarcastically as I can as my own personal defensive measure and I write the next thing.

This is too important now. I can't just let this flow into the stream of things I've written and move on to the next thing. I can't treat this the same as I treat all of my other "Joe The Peacock" type angry-funny things.

I think I'm going to readdress my article(s) on this topic, and then only after a bit of soul-searching to find what it is that is actually causing my concern. Or, in other words, I'd like to start attacking the illness, not the symptoms. And after that, I'm going to welcome ANYONE, supporter or detractor, to converse with me about the new viewpoint and help me to understand what I'm not seeing. Because let's be frank: if I'm this confused by the outrage over the things I've written, and I cannot possibly understand what is being misread or how to get people this angry... It can't be all of those people.

I've screwed up somewhere, either in being blind to the unintended message, or in writing it in a way that isn't clear.

I'm a huge fan of personal accountability, and that's what this is -- I'm owning up to the fact that, somehow, somewhere, I'm missing something where this topic is concerned. What I do know: there are entities in this newly-cool geek culture who are, in no way whatsoever, interested in actually participating in what makes it awesome. They don't come for the love, and they don't come for the fandom, and they don't come for the passion. They come for the money, or for what will inevitably turn into money. Or attention, which in some cases, is worse. And somewhere in there, I've muddied my viewpoint.

I want to thank you all for weighing in. Look for something in the coming weeks (not days -- I'm really going to work on this).

Black Cat Cosplayers, Tea Partiers, Freedom Of Speech and Harassment

2012-11-09T14:12:00.001-05:00

(Update 11.14.12: I've written a follow-up to this piece, as well as my other cosplay / geek girl pieces. Please check that out.)

IT'S THIS SIMPLE:

"Sexy" chick dressed as an overly-sexualized fetish-laden female superhero (complete with high levels of cleavage and booty-accencutaiton) drawn by socially-inept sexually-repressed men, going to a convention full of socially-inept sexually-repressed men, getting offended when those socially-inept sexually-repressed men act like socially-inept sexually-repressed men

IS THE SAME AS

Wearing a pro-Obama t-shirt to a public gathering of Tea Party supporters and getting offended when your politics are bashed and you are verbally harassed.

Do both people have a right to be there? Yep.

Do both people have a right to their opinion? Yep.

Do both people have legitimate complaints about the social fabric of the respective communities and their level of maturity and intelligence? Yep.

Do both situations suck? Yep.

Were both people fucking stupid to expect that this wouldn't happen? Yes, but only if they aren't mentally retarded.

It's that fucking simple. When you make a decision to make a statement in an environment where, before you even arrive, you know the reaction, and you make that statement anyway, you MUST accept the consequences. Freedom of speech is not freedom from concequence.

I'm not saying it's right, and I'm not saying it's fair. I'm saying it's reality. If you are strong enough to make a stand and take the abuse, wear a pro-Obama shirt into a Tea Party rally. If you aren't, let someone else do it. Same with being a beautiful women wearing an extremely form-fitting black leather/latex outfit accentuating and nearly showing her breasts into a convention full of men who LOVE breasts and are notorious for being socially awkward. There is a VAST difference between being harassed for being a female at a comic convention, and being sexualized and fetishized when you dress as a sexualized and fetishized character.

If you don't want to be eaten by lions, don't walk into a lion's den dressed in steak. You know better.

(And NO, this isn't the "she deserved to be raped" mentality. No one deserves that. See my points on the Tosh comments if you're not familiar with my prior writing, and if you are and you still try to make that connection, you're being willfully shitty just to make some stupid point I don't care about. So save it. You know the difference between "seen" and "touched" as well as I do.)