The Inner Turkey: Life is Gravy

My first “Happy Thanksgiving” text came at eight-thirty. Hungover or not, my first response to any inconsequential communication that awakens me before I want on a day off will always be replied with “Fuck you, Satan”. For a little holiday spirit this morning I added “I’ll be thankful when you don’t have my number anymore”.

What I hadn’t expected afterward was a hundred and seven more minutes of uninterrupted sleep. This surplus of time allowed my brain to catch up on its processing, which included an episode of Heroes, a Cole Porter album and a Claire Danes interview which had all been consumed recently. They appeared in my dream in incarnations integral to the plot, which was fine by me as I love a random dream as much as the next sot. Unfortunately this was no random dream. It was a moral dream and I very much dislike moral dreams.

The abridged version:

The time traveler said I could travel back and change any one thing I wanted from my past. I was more excited than a nerd nailing the head cheerleader. In fact, I considered going back and nailing a cheerleader myself. This was it, old heart of mine. My chance to right a wrong, right a left or right whatever turned me into the sour old bastard I had become.

Then I woke up. Not literally, but you know what I mean. I stood there before the man who would help me alter my destiny and was paralyzed. Some people would know right away what to do, saving a life or ending a bad night before it began. The rest would be confused about where to begin, which butterfly flutter to affect and wondering if it will change things for the better. I harbored those ideas too, but they were not what kept me back.

It was obvious my jump back would be an attempt to prevent one of the ones that got away from actually getting away. Only I had spent the last few years coming to terms with those mistakes and adapting to the bed I made many years ago. I learned to accept all realities, understanding everything changes constantly in an organic creation such as our world.

Were I to go back in time, what could I possibly do that would help me now? I was never going to keep a woman longer than she wanted to be with me. The few that I left would have outgrown me sooner or later.

My lovers have all moved on to better lives since me. Now I had the chance to make myself happy but at the expense of their current and possible overall happiness. Long nightmare short, I told him “Thanks, but no thanks” and decided to continue fighting through life the hard way.

When I rose at eight-thirty I thought to myself, What is there to be thankful for? The thousand blessings upon my back have dwindled to six or seven.

When I rose at ten-seventeen I knew something had changed. It was the first time I had seen my life so objectively as the naked, vulnerable substance it is. I made the good choice, which is not unusual but never had so much been on the line.

I grabbed the phone and texted a Happy Thanksgiving back. I was thankful the sleep assassin had shaken loose this afterschool special for me to chew on along with breakfast. I was thankful for the breakfast itself and everyone over the last thirty years, including those I have loved and lost, that had a hand in my reaching this meal in one relatively sane, healthy piece.

Tonight I raise a Boddingtons to everyone in my life past and present, to your health and the health of all you love. To say I was thankful would be an understated injustice to your infinite love and patience. I live this life the hard way for you.

An Open Letter To All News Services

Dear News,

I apologize in advance for my tone and abruptness, but this letter is already ten years overdue.

News, you have been allowed to run helter-skelter through our mediums for too long. The reigns must be pulled hard, once and for all. It is past the hour of reform, no time for apologies or justifications. You must cease this tomfoolery and start fulfilling the purpose you were created for. It is time you begin reporting actual news again.

First, keep in mind this valuable nugget: Celebrity opinions DO NOT matter. They have no idea what is happening outside of their set trailer, tour bus or wherever they convene to burn money we will never see in a lifetime. They are vapid, narcissistic monkeys that already float through the day with an inflated self-worth. Leading them to believe their thoughts on an international military strategy have any value whatsoever is just unnecessary.

Have you noticed how the eloquent, philanthropic performers are not on TMZ discussing politics? It is probably because they are doing something about it. Bono, the Pitts, Clooney, McCartney, Winfrey: Doers. Actions far outweigh any opinion.

Point being, if Chris Brown shows his true psychotic colors, and we would know instantly because there are 3,000 cameras surrounding him before and after every car ride, why would there be any valid possibility Usher, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Will Smith, Gayle King, Roseanne Barr, and Angie Stone have valuable input on the subject? Pretty sure there are no psychological or sociological PhDs in the bunch.

When did the Entertainment section become the Gossip section? Perhaps I’m one of few people left in the world who only wants to know what programs are on the telly and which moving pictures are playing in the theater without being inundated by menial facts regarding an overpaid ingénue’s personal life.

Here is a second nugget, free of charge: If you are going to refer to someone as a “celebrity” because their terrible behavior or tragic life has been inexplicably documented, nay exploited, by your colleagues, then you must find a new term for people that possess actual talent.

The fifteen minutes of fame should never have been extended to a three season reality show. Perhaps the word 'reality' in the moniker confuses you. However, for the same reason uninformed citizens do not realize the Federal Reserve is not an actual federal institution, it is high time we segment this information from real news so as not to confuse the general public between what is important and what is entertainment.

Do you think we laymen do not understand what your mission as a news source is? You have turned your integrity over to the sponsor, selling your soul to tug-of-war with the rest of the crap outlets over viewers who have resoundingly asked you to dumb-down your efforts to catch up with our rotting educational system.

Yes, remember how a large percent of America’s public schools are producing below average children and burnt-out teachers because our government has systematically funneled needed funding away to squander frivolously on wars and other freedom stomping activities? Where was your story on that? Rihanna hadn’t had the spit beaten out of her yet. Michael Jackson was still kicking the air and screaming. Where was your sense of duty?

Of course we want to know when a celebrity passes away. If proven truly entertaining, they become part of our household and we would like to have a day to mourn the loss of their entertainment value in our lives. But what happens to the family after the death is strictly none of our business or yours. This is no longer a curiosity with the famous; it is an outrageous exploitation and should be prosecuted as such.

You have the damned nerve to say, during a five-hour telecast about the person’s life, rise and fall, criminal allegations, live coverage of the family, children, mansion, neighbor’s mansion, street full of news vans and photos of the childhood home, that you believe it must be incredibly difficult to mourn with all the attention. You? That is tantamount to poking a tired bear with a stick while expressing sympathy that it isn’t sleeping well.

News, your sensationalistic ways have perverted true journalism, raping it mercilessly against our flat screens until it is now nothing more than a bloody pile of catty, objectifying, morally crushing hearsay performed nightly by soulless, smarmy louts. Because of your shady practices and soft news, America feels it should be more concerned about the President’s personal habits and body than about his aspirations and accomplishments.

I look forward to a day when journalistic integrity is renewed, when truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability can overpower the conflicting sponsors and crush the politically slanted owners that manipulate the words. A time when stories will be chosen for their importance to American life and not through calculations of potential viewership. A day when squeaky-wheel attention seekers are left out all together, no longer littering the front page with poor choices and amoral behaviors.

When that day comes, I will read your papers, peruse your sites and watch your newscasts once again. Until this renaissance is realized, however, do not bother factoring me and the thousands of intelligent Americans like myself in the viewership numbers you boast to potential sponsors.

Sincerely,


Atticus L. Winston

P.S. Tell your networks that their programming sucks harder than the hooker in Charlie Sheen’s dressing room.

Phallacies Of The Gay Tendency

With all the gays marching on Washington and the inherent shit storm of media dildos barfing up stupid on their polarizing TV shows, it was only a matter of time before I lost enjoyment in my bowl of Blueberry Morning due to something said that confused and incensed me simultaneously.

Seriously, what the fuck are “gay tendencies”?

Tendencies are defined as “an inclination, bent, or predisposition to something” by that smut-filled tabloid Dictionary.com. All of those descriptions are pert for the pun but all invariably contradict gayness in terms.

This seems more of a witch hunt word than a specified collection of behaviors depicting homosexuality. It is so broad in reach that it paints almost any act not saturated in machismo as gay. Boys are taught from a young age that playing with dolls is wrong; they are for girls only, along with the EASY-BAKE oven and the Skip It cankle building set. In retrospect, we all realize this mentality was meant to suppress the embarrassment of parents who may have a gay child. Little did they know that he would grow to be more successful that the football captain, head cheerleader and stoners combined.

Since when did gayness include tendencies beyond same-sex sodomy? Well, I did what any other American does when they are stumped by life’s little puzzles: I took to the internet.

Lo and behold, there were many others tickled by the gay-tendency giggle stick. Unfortunately, most were women anonymously asking strangers if their boyfriend/husband was gay on account of previous experimentation, metro-sexual style or cross-dressing fetishes. The resounding answer of all twelve-year olds trolling Yahoo Answers: He’s gayer than a sitcom.

Do you know what a gay tendency is? When I hear the phrase I think of my overwhelming need to mount any person, statue or ass-shaped object for the sole purpose of laughs and/or pictures. It brings to mind my rap sheet of pointing out every phallic symbol I see. But these are not gay tendencies. These are douche tendencies for when I’m experiencing a not-so-bright feeling.

I holed up in my apartment for a weekend and watched six movies. Two of them were romcoms featuring Hollywood’s hottest guys learning to find love or define love with one of Hollywood’s hottest actresses. These viewings could easily be described as gay acts. But I rarely watch these types of films, so it wouldn’t be a tendency per se. Is this event really grounds for questioning one’s sexuality? I also watched zombie and action flicks. Plus, the collective three hours were spent with my hand in my pants, whiskey in my glass and a tacit hope for gratuitous nudity. Can the paradox be thicker?

As far as I’m concerned, labeling anything a gay “tendency” can only perpetuate the stigma that homosexuality is a choice. If a white guy acts black, you don’t say he has black tendencies because black is only black and there are no exceptions to its beholder. A wigger doesn’t cease being white just because he kicks his hat sideways and listens to rap music.

Just as well, gay is gay, and no amount of tanning, chick flick watching, college experimenting or Manilow loving will ever equate to the good old fashioned need for dude-on-dude action.

Dating And The American Expectation

Due to the sage advice of friends whom I may learn to hate as a result of the advice, I have taken my first stab at online dating. This digital hook-up pool of youngsters and angry mothers is a sea even Nessy would think twice before swimming in. But I’m already ahead of myself. Let me recap, as a caveman would scribble in powdery stone on a cave wall.

Atticus single. He look at people in vicinity. They look away. He too far away to dig up bodies from past. Atticus in city of collegians and gays. He only know taken women and girls with inflated self-worth. Atticus settle with VoyeurWeb.com and Puffs Plus with Aloe.

Back to the lecture at hand. Erection is deflected, so I'm 'a let 'em understand.

Before I dove into the new American dating scene of Craig’s single-fish-harmony-match dotcom’s cyber world of promised promiscuity and masseuse killers, I figured it prudent for a bereft thirty-something clamoring for familiarity to venture back into his old stomping grounds, a lush garden of primitive emoticons and staccato video feeds.

If your only internet experience to date was Yahoo chat rooms, you would pretty much assume there are no humans left in the world. Like Signs except slightly more exciting and with Mel’s anti-Semitism onscreen.

I visited the Yahoo chat room world for the first time since I was eighteen. Alright, maybe I peeked early in the new millennium, but I assumed things had been cleaned up some Times Square-style. Right away I was inundated with cyber whoredom (or as we used to call it, drive-by sluttings). Seriously, not a single fucking human there. I felt like an extra in a Terminator 3 future scene, where the world is a landscape of crunchy bones we use for sod in our turf war with constantly evolving robots.

Perhaps the captcha upon entering the room set my heart temporarily at ease, as if no porn purveyor had found their way around that Mexican border fence. Luckily for the economy, it has. A veritable skankfest instantly exploded. I had more fembot IM windows open in my first thirty seconds of entering than I did chubby freshman IM windows opening in my first three months of college in ’97. Before a sixtieth cyborg could ask me to “chk my (their) profile fr nu pics” because “ur (I am) 2 kewt”, I ran screaming from the chat window and back to my desktop.

The place I was advised to explore was the free PlentyOfFish.com, which boasts “900,000 Daily Active Members… (that) will go on over 18,000,000 dates with other users this year.” Now, I’m no mathematician, but my calculator is and it is telling me that through this dude’s Chemistry Test I should be averaging 20 dates a year with the various women its twenty-six algorithms churn out in that time span. Not a bad average at one or two a month.

Here is the reality: I’m certain there is a curve; however, that curve would not be in my favor.

Here is why: a few questions they asked and a few they do not ask in the profile.

(Bear in mind that, mentally, I live in a sick, twisted world where people tell the truth and that grey areas are best left rounded down. So basically, if your comments are all, You’re doing it wrong, You gotta lie, etc. then don’t bother commenting. I get the strategy of filtered truth. I just feel better knowing my cards are on the table. Someone out there has to respect that.)

Pigeon Hole #1
Body Type – answer: A Few Extra Pounds

If you have a picture posted, it should be a no-shit-Sherlock thing. What amazes me are all the chubsters out there claiming an “Average” body size. Compared to what, your morbidly obese friends? Pictures don’t lie. I put it out there that I’m holding some extra size and you should too. Besides, my fat face doesn’t exactly scream average, nor does the bacon restriction limit placed on me by doctors.

Pigeon Hole #2
Religion - answer: Non-Religious

This is the Northeast. All I can hope for are fallen Catholics, cutters and women too uneducated to ask why.

Pigeon Hole #3 & #4
Do you drink? – answer: Socially
Smoker? – answer: Occasionally

First off, Mr. Match-‘em-up-chemistry-guy, stop sending me profiles of people who are athletic and love outdoor activities. Between my photo, answers #1, #3 and #4, and answer #2 not being Wiccan, one of your algorithms should pick up on the fact that, aside from a nice walk and picnic, I’m not going to spin class or climbing a mountain with these chicks. Stop marching out all the hard bodies as faux prospects. Haven’t I suffered enough?

As for the vices? Again, just putting it out there. I have learned over time that true love is more valuable than any drug available. But until then, kampai!

Pigeon Hole #5
Do you want children? - answer: Yes*

I know, I know. It screams desperate. But I’m not looking to impregnate someone within the first few minutes of meeting them. I’m just taking the question at face value. Do I want kids? Someday. Just enjoying the practice sessions right now. If they had a “Not until we’re married or the condom breaks” option, I’d be all over it.
*recently changed to Undecided/Open after holiday flight experience

There are other stupid questions, like Marital Status, Profession and Smarts (education), but those are just for you to check if the married sales clerk you are fucking attended college or not.

Here are three questions I think they should have on the profile and incorporated into the matchmaking technology. It would keep results vetted and more accurate.

Great Question #1
Have you Ever Cheated On Someone With Their Friend?

Pretty much everyone has cheated in the eyes of a God or two, but this speaks more to integrity and respect. If you screw around with someone completely unrelated to your relationship, like a coworker or one-night stand, you are most likely blowing off steam accrued from a bad choice in mate and you are too stupid or afraid to walk away. If you screw around with your significant other's friend, then you are just a filthy, soulless whore undeserving of love.

Great Question #2
What Is The Worst Thing You Have Done Out Of Anger?

Called him a “limp dick ragamuffin”? You are adorable.
Keyed his car? Meh.
Urinated on his possessions? Hey now…

For even the greenest psychology novice, this simple question will grant you unmitigated insight into a person’s soul. Fifty different profile views later you could have a thesis paper on the human condition.

Great Question #3
Can You Be Attracted To Fat People Or Do You Have Aversions To The Bulky?

This is for all the marbles, folks. It’s elephant in the website. Granted, everyone wants to end up with the ideal mate; attractive, healthy, seemingly rich. You know, the ones on the commercials. But not everyone has had their ego beaten down with rejection. Not everyone has learned to let go of what I call the American Expectation, the indoctrinated belief that you can have what the people on TV have.

I feel this answer would clear up most confusion and help avoid embarrassing rejection. Hell, you could set up the program to filter these people to a special page you cannot access. Realize the value of knowing that the people you are matched with have stated they can look past your girth and get to the good times. That, my friends, is how you profile someone.

~ ~ ~

My newest suggested website is Craig’s List. I surfed it for a while today, between football and laundry. Not exactly the Promised Land but is land nonetheless. The advice came from someone who, in thirty tries, had yet to meet a normal person there.

Elizabeth Ann: “Worst thing that happens is you end up on a date with an ugly chick.”

Atticus: “Worst thing that happens is I end up chained to a radiator and forced to rub warmed cooking oil on the loins of a gargantuan, sweaty woman. That or meet a psycho like you did.”

Elizabeth Ann: “Well played.”

Atticus: “I don’t mind ugly chicks. It’s the dumb ones I watch out for.”

My Ideal God

If I could build God like a teddy bear from one of those factories in the mall, I wouldn’t make him in my image. No arms, no spine, no cock. He’d be a gob of lightning-web circulating around a purple orb of energy, whose only purpose is to make things nice for us. He would be intense but never violent. Just really concerned, like Mr. Belvedere. And educational, like Mr. Huxtable.

I would call him him because it sounds better and not because I’m misogynistic.

There wouldn’t be this crazy back-story full of holes about his younger days as a restless, destructive deity. You could ask him what happened to the dinosaurs but he would only waive you off, staring silently out of the window at a world he so indiscriminately crushed and rebuilt like Lego’s. Eventually you’d realize the past is the past and all that matters is the future.

He wouldn’t be angry at you for doing wrong. He would just expect you to do better next time. You may not improve right away, but the fear of disappointing him never lets you stop trying. Plus, pleasing him has its rewards, namely a soft little lightning bolt that reaches out to you and massages your scalp and rubs your back while you bask in his glory.

The world would still be full of terrorists, pedophiles and assholes. People would still shout at the heavens in confusion, How could you do this to us, which they would know why if they bothered to download the transcripts and liners of his yearly State Of The World address on sotw.gov. And even though the carefully chosen words laid out his natural reasoning of balance and utopian fallacy, the creed would still fall on the deaf ears of our “Me = Victim” society.

I’d also make God funny when he drinks, because so few people remain cordial in a blaze of sauce.

His SNL guest spots would be epic. His scotch would always be top shelf. Even his commercials would be entertaining. But the most important spec I would build in him: I would make him into a really cool dude.

You could ask him anything and he would tell you honestly because he knows that people grow best when fed truth and watered with support. If you were wasted, he’d float you and your car home safely. He would do anything for you, give anything to you, as long as you followed the simple rules he set that help make life gratifying for each individual.

My God would be so much better than all of the other gods being churned out at the factory store in my mall. After I built him and paid the angry teenager working the register, I would reward myself with a cheese steak and chocolate malt in the food court. Just God and I; he across the table in the Build-A-God box with the receipt stapled to it, and me with my beard full of crumbs and a destiny fulfilled. Two buddies at the beginning of an amazing journey.

It’s too bad I’d forget him in the theater when the movie let out.

Dropping Bombs Like Your Moms

This beautiful holiday weekend is finally in motion, thanks to my consumption of food rich in fat and beer rich in self-retardants. This holiday is a time dedicated to celebrating our victory over Japan (thanks to a couple well-placed atomic bombs) thus ending WWII and letting us all get on to greater things, like Urotsukidoji and Ichiro.

In homage to this great event, I’m going to drop a few bombs of my own.


Not everyone is like you.

During the early eras of civilization, it would make sense that limited education and sparse scientific understanding would ultimately lead humans to assume that anything else deemed intelligent must be, well, human-like. Worst yet, we’ve perpetuated this senile anthropomorphism for centuries, and there are no attempts to slow our species-centric ways.
Think about it this way.

God made humans in his image = A tree shaped like a cock

Aliens with homo genus characteristics, such as bipedalism = Your cat saying “I love you”

In each equation, the unseen factor is A, which is equivalent to how bad you want to believe something is true.
Here is another example.


The artist who rendered this beautiful portrait near my breakfast joint shares the same pathological ideologies as most of the world. Although the intent was to create an alien, they simply couldn’t imagine a creature being semi-intelligent unless it has two arms, two legs, saucers for areolas and cock and balls. This is simply a drawing of an unfortunate human with a crazy eye and antennae. Where is the blob-like torso above the cilia that are shuffling it along while one of its seventeen tentacles itches its retractable nose/ass?

If something greater than humans exists, give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it doesn’t look like we do, built with the same flaws and susceptibilities as we have. Use your imagination, since that’s the part of you that lends credibility to all the gods, aliens, angels and faeries you believe in. I personally believe God has mega-supersized areolas and that Florida was made in his penis image.


Nobody cares what you think.

I’ll keep it simple. You are surrounded in a multitude of mediums that beckon for your input; your MySpace/Facebook status, your Twitter tweets, your forum threads, call-in shows and the comment box following every single thing you read and use. These are all relatively healthy communicative aspects of our new Web 2.0 lives. Our unprecedented ability to process and share information sets us far apart from the goldfish.

What I hope you keep in mind is that nobody cares what you think. Not your friends, not your parents. Nobody. And this isn’t my opinion; this is a fact substantiated by how little you care about what everyone else thinks. That is what makes this “everyone has a voice” marketing ploy generation flawed. 100% is talking but only 20% is listening. People who love to shove their opinion in your available holes rarely make an effort to hear other opinions, even regarding the same subjects.

I post opinions everyday knowing that not one person in the world truly cares. Try it. It’ll sand down that destructive ego of yours.


You are not cool.

First off, the word “cool” was violently ripped away from hip blacks by jealous whites, pummeled like Jodie Foster in The Accused and is now a bruised, stretched out shell of its former descriptive self.

That being said, you still do not fit the definition because the definition is going to change again. I’m taking the word and running off, reintroducing it back to the Earth so it can heal and find its true meaning.

Coolness will now be defined as your ability to be yourself. How much you don’t act like someone you’re not and how little you spend to be accepted by others are just a couple of the qualifications for the new cool. It will be revolutionary. We can change the world one independently strong outcast at a time, and you better believe I’m starting with that man in the mirror.


Have an amazing holiday weekend and get your own personal VJ this Monday.

The Modern Plight of the Newly Single Thirtysomething

Seems lately many of my friends are saying goodbye to a partner. Marriages, long-term live-ins, short-term freaks. Most are doing so late in life, sometimes for peace, sometimes to return to school or pursue dreams, but always for freedom from a relationship hollowed by pain and miscommunication. They have given up on trying, on caring. They have given in for the last time and are no longer willing to give.

I am sensitive to this trend because I am currently embroiled in the slowest, most gut-punching, childish, mentally tormenting breakup I have ever experienced. Although none of my friends are tolerating the ridiculousness and despair I have endured, they nonetheless have their reasons and scars. The more I speak with them about their experiences, the more I begin to understand the modern plight of the newly single thirtysomething.

Although breaking up is always difficult, rarely is it the same experience after twenty-seven as it was before. What complicates things more are the millions of invisible strings you have tied between yourself and them, strung throughout your shared possessions, your habits, your friends, and even your memories. This is why a clean break is better; the time and energy needed to untangle each strand will painfully, deftly siphon your faith in humanity clean from your bones.

By the time you reach thirty, you have already lived a few years as the “you” you will retire as. Your habits are set and ideals are in place. But when you are coming out of a long relationship you find yourself back at square one, like a confused teenager. All that has defined you, from your partner to your mortgage, is gone. You stood on a mountain years ago and screamed to the world how you loved this person, perhaps even let them put a ring on you and change your name, and now have to climb back up that mountain, with no help and a hundred people asking you how they are, just to reach the top and scream that you’ve made a mistake, a mistake that cost you years of your life and all of your identity.

It’s almost no wonder why our thirty-and-up dating pool is filled with the bitter and the angry. If you are fresh from a separation, your bitterness and fear will take much longer to clean up than you think. If you have gone most of your thirty years bouncing from love to love, then you are probably doing something wrong and will no doubt be angry from the constant frustration and failure. There will never be a shortage of advice on where to go and what to look for, but facts are facts, and the fact is that you do not want to be the creepy old person or the sexual focus of the creepy old people in the bar. Nobody talks to each other in a library and singles attend church with either their parents or parole officers.

Dating is extremely hard late in the game because you have lost your identity and faith in love, plus you have social handicaps, like children or desperation, preventing you from wandering through the crowd with needed confidence. You are so entrenched in your routine that you are either forced to wear your needs on your sleeve or become someone you are not just to bait interested parties.

I’m not going to bother delving the new “American family” and how our collective societal values have rotted marriage at its core because, well, you already know why and how and what. It’s not hard to see the influences reflected in our media; however it is extremely hard to identify people that are going to be more prone to drama than others.

So far our collective dating experiences have been a quagmire of annoyance, inefficacy, fear and stupidity. Those of us brave enough to swim the troubled seas of the dating pool leave with nothing, unless they popped into an adult store or pharmacy on the way home. And it’s always the same stories: He freaked me out, she seemed more interested in herself than me, he was nice but didn’t have time for me, she has a bad past and took it out on me, etc. Most of us are waiting for that Mayflower-type vehicle to float us to a new land of opportunity and single inhabitants, or a bridge that leads directly to a civilization of normal thirtysomethings we’ve been cut off from for centuries, which may or may not happen, but I’m not holding my breath. That kind of belief requires commitment and I’m fresh out.

I considered writing about my ex and the madness I have lived since February, but the truth is I am afraid to. For the same reason a person in a terrible car wreck doesn’t want to converse about the traumatic accident right away. The details are saddening and ludicrous, which gives way to embarrassment about the whole matter. Worst yet, we have been living together since February and, as of press time, she is finally leaving in four days. For me, these six months could easily be broken into a three-piece pie chart, each piece being two months long, with the labels Trying, Angry, and Done. I no longer bother with what-ifs and simply put my head down and walk ahead. I no longer argue my points or wish she would make better choices, and I have no energy left to be hurt that she has ruined some of my friendships and is dating a (now former) friend.

Perched at the end of the diving board and staring deep into the dating pool, sick with the regret and fear I ate less than a half-hour before. Like they always say: Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.

Your Friend, Atticus

I think I finally understand why my friends are my friends, why they stick by me no matter what comes between us and happens in our own lives.

I have a special brand of love. I had never considered it different until recently when it’s been put on shout by those who have received it and spit it back in a fit of defense. You see, it’s based completely in support and encouragement, however it manifests in the form of solution-driven advisement as opposed to sycophantical celebration with no acknowledgment of important next steps.

Growing up, there was no strong, silent father who gave me the old “tough love” talks like films pre-1990, which was when movies began removing their nutsacks to reveal a more sensitive side of the ideal patriarch. But that is beside the point. Frankly, I didn’t have a dad for the most formative of years and leaned mostly on my mother and grandmother for the core design on how to care for those close to me.

Now this would understandably lead you to believe I ultimately became a creamy puffed flagellum that waffled between seemingly gay, hormonal tantrums and tear-filled hugfests that quelled misunderstandings. And you would be correct up until my early twenties.

That’s when something happened. Were I to pinpoint the genesis it would resemble a third grader’s sloppy collage of hard knocks, lively sex and a bouquet of my compatriot’s strange life experiences. Although I’ve lived a myriad of madness in these neatly packaged thirty years, my personal adventures are skewed because my moral compass was always pointing south. At my penis.

What I have learned from my friends is a priceless archive of “How Not To”. I don’t want to insinuate they haven’t made good choices nor marginalize their existence. If they ever felt I had the malice to do so, they would be comforted by the Rock Island Arsenal of shit they have on me.

What they afforded me in unmitigated insight into the human condition I have invested into a deep, loving channel system of empathy, understanding and advice. Now, the later seems harmless by name, but this is where my brand of love makes its Nike-esque statement, complete with a child labor-type taste in your mouth afterward. Always honest, always with a smile, but never really what you want to hear.

Here are some examples:

Friend 1: “Woe is me.”

Atticus: “Woe will be you until you pull the tear-soaked, twisted panties from your scared ass and consider attempting to improve your situation. Start yesterday.”


Friend 2: “So, I don’t know if she likes me that way. I think she thinks blah blah blah ditty blah poopstuffingsaladdickcroutonjuice….

Atticus: “Well, considering the sniveling, dick-less way you are whining about it to me now, it’s almost no wonder fear consumes the part of your cerebrum dedicated to love and it’s no wonder she doesn’t want to fuck you. Look, give me her number. I’ll call her, plow my way from her twat to her ass and make sure I cover all the outlets in there to keep you safe from yourself.”


Friend 3: “Yay, this great thing happened!”

Atticus: “Awesome. Remember to < insert idea for success > and don’t forget < insert logical advice >. That is so cool. Now is a good time to start thinking about < insert future possibilities with potential solutions >.

Friend 3: “Can’t I just enjoy this? Why do you have to bum me out with all the stuff still ahead of me? Stop being a dick.”

Atticus: “I just figured that, since you’ve known me for awhile, in that time you’d realize that I’m not the person to come to if you want to get jerked off with false excitement over every tiny victory you claim. Life isn’t fun and to have any true success you should always be a step ahead and never lose sight of the goal. But, no, you’re right. Who can handle reality at a time like this? Here’s some champagne. Uncork it with your disillusionment.”


My friends are my friends because they, much like myself, are willing to hear things they may not necessarily want to, but know that they will only grow from hearing it. They are the first to congratulate and me and the first to remind me that there is more road ahead as well. I simply do the same in return.

Can all of the people I know handle my crazy love? No. That is why they have other friends to turn to for backslapping and bootlicking. Meanwhile, I live my life and look forward to when they contact me later that week for more advice.

As for my nearest and dearest, thank you for never letting me slip because you are a lazy friend. Thank you for never failing to give it to me straight, whether I could handle it or not. Your words did not fall on deaf ears and I can honestly attribute much of my survival to your successes as well as your failures. Because, if I didn’t use your examples and repeated the same mistakes that you made, you have an all-access pass to kicking my ass, just as I do you.

Once Upon A Bathroom Wall

While urinating at my favorite pub, I couldn’t help but notice that the only graffiti in the room had been responded to. Its placement is above the back of the toilet, marketing the defamation only to number ones, not number twos. Towering over the bowl, supporting my inebriated carcass against the wall, I noticed the faint penciled retort. “YOUR [sic] A HOMO!”

Let me back up a ways. In the fifteen months I’ve patronized Murphy’s, the bathroom has morphed from beautiful, “Under The Sea”-themed blue hues, to all black (above the tile half-wall), to white with a black sponged effect that, were it crimson, would lead to believe a murder had taken place and the killer was Bob Ross. These changes were due to the excess of drunken scribblings that were taking place.

Since the changes, there has only been one statement made upon the hallowed walls: SINKY IS A HOMO.

Let me be clear before I continue. I don’t know who Sinky is. We have never met and I would never attempt to slander a person who is already being smeared at one of the most public forums in town. All I know is that Sinky is obviously a homosexual and I hope he is receiving the support he needs from friends and family that he is not receiving in Murphy’s bathroom.

Here is what I saw that night:







You can see the desperation with which Sinky scrawls his defense. Strong lines, all caps. Misspelled with passion. This is a person who has been beaten by fear, dragged down by depression, drained of any individuality left to define him as a U.S. citizen. He has been reduced to the most elementary of barricades, crawling deeper into the closet and denying his gayness, hurling the classical heterosexual response to deflect any more insight into his mind and bedroom.

Many of my friends are a part of the LGBT community, all of them with pride, all of them loved and supported. I hope Sinky has the resources available to him that many homosexuals, closeted or otherwise, may not necessarily know is available.

If you are a “Sinky”, or actually are Sinky, know that there are many organization and groups that can help you come to terms with your homosexuality. They can help you find happiness and protect you from the libel that screams hate at you and everyone that pisses before it. Please know there are options.

Sinky may be a homo, but he is a person first and foremost, and perhaps, if you look deep enough, you’ll find that he is correct. “YOUR A HOMO” as well.

Commercial Misery

Commercials kill. Like Peter returning home for Christmas and Folgers, which still brings a tear to my eye, although more recently it seems like a bad eighty's dick joke. Or the noir mouse tackle that left me breathless and no more interested in Doritos than I ever was. Even the ever-expanding Quizno’s lineup featuring R.O.U.S.’s and a sexually charged, ciabatta banging OILF has brought me to tears of laughter. These were life-influencing moments brought about because some white guy wanted to make a buck off of America’s obesity and the ad affected me.

Then along comes an ad that asks the hard hitting questions, and does so repetitively, haphazardly, and in a way that you’re surprised if it actually moves the product. But one day, the very day you realize life isn’t going the way it should be, that you have been held prisoner by your inefficacy, you see the commercial again. The day you realize that you are entering into your thirties in the worst shape of your life mentally, physically and emotionally, the question is asked again and this time you are forced to shelve the amusing retorts for a real answer.

Today, I answer. Where does depression hurt, Cymbalta asks? Grab a chair, you achy broad. We’re gonna sort this mess out. And by the way, the curled-up-on-the-couch-in-sweatpants look doesn’t translate to depression. Feminine-odor-and-itching claimed that nugget a decade ago.

For starters, in my wallet. Every time I go out to eat because I’m too tired to cook. Every time the boredom consumes me and I blow good bread on bad movies. Every time I sit alone in my head, not even driven enough to put pen to paper, floating in my mental shark tank with regrets and poor choices nipping at my feet, and I reach for the bottle and drink liquid money until I piss clear and think cloudy.

It hurts in my compassion. Now, to read my writings is to assume I hate everyone. This assumption would be correct. But along with my loathing there was always a balancing affection for kittens, family and people I wanted to wear like a hat. It kept me friendly and polite. This affection, however, seems to have gone the way of the buffalo, leaving in its stead an almost rabid narcissism and compulsive reclusiveness that, were I famous, my publicist would blame on “exhaustion and a vitamin deficiency”.

I have been bitter on and off for years, but this somehow gave way to a low-grade empathy and now manifests only as apathy. It is often hard work for me to care about anyone if there isn’t something in it for me. Maybe it comes with age. Maybe it’s chemical. All I know is that, throughout the years, one of the few appealing aspects about me was my compassion and ability to act on it. Now the world only has my dark wit and knuckle hair left to find endearing.

It hurts in my blind faith, worse than the day I learned God wasn’t real. And by “real”, I mean a mortal man behind a curtain actually righting the wrongs of the world and physically hearing my prayers. Blind faith is essential to our societal structure because our growing cerebellums eat questions and observations and shit intelligence into your brain. It allows us to trust our lovers, to not curse during dinner and to believe that not all black people will rob us.

My mind, however, is bloated from too many questions with no answers to help them pass. Not only do I barely believe in my fellow man, I pretty much only assume the worse. I don’t trust my lovers and I fucking love dinner conversations. I haven’t been robbed yet, but I’m sure it’ll be by a minority when it happens. Is all this my ignorance talking? No, because I’m smarter than you. Is this my self-esteem crying out? Maybe on the ‘lovers’ thing, but it doesn’t help to have painful references in your past. As far as I am concerned, it’s a deadly cocktail of bad judgment, failed goals and escapism I drink every night before I lay in the bed I have made.

The point of the commercial is not the problem but the solution, which to them is a pill, but for me may be more complex than fooling a few neurotransmitters. It hurts the sex-life, the nightlife, the easy life and blah blah. What they don’t tell you is that maybe you’ve been fucking up all your pathetic life and that your depression is being supported by your bad choices and is not the result of a chemical imbalance.

Where a rut kind of tickles, depression is a gaping sore that oozes needed energy. Although some people need your stupid drugs, Cymbalta, I don’t. I don’t need your bench-warming soccer mom stereotypically portraying an emotionally ravaged introvert. I’m not asking my doctor shit about you. What I’m going to do is work on it one day at a time. And the next time I see your commercial, my answer will be “in your wife’s black, syphilitic, gang-bang filled mouth”.

Man Of The (Bus) People

I am a man of the people. This isn’t new to me, rather it’s a rediscovery. Considering my history of traipsing city streets like the Scottish country side, and riding public transit into the sunset like a horse with no name, it’s become obvious that my recent years of comfortable living have rendered me socially infertile. I have pretty much driven everywhere I’ve needed to go for the last decade, save a car-less vacation. So, having not spent more than a collective hour a month on sidewalks, walking and stopping, watching and conversing among the common folk, my world has slowly rotted into a slimy, pessimistic bubble of me and mine only, justified through grave cynicism and enforced by walls of vehicular security.

I have recently shed myself of the financial burden my automobile and it’s weighty East coast insurance brought. Armed with a bike and a bus pass, I have forcibly thrust myself into the city’s loins to navigate my way to and from work and anywhere in-between without the comfort of a modern day transporter. The liberation has been thrilling, letting what little trepidation arises to be doused by waves of fresh air flowing through my mane while awaiting my transfer at Kennedy plaza.

Riding the bus is part of being a minority. This is my heritage. A custom, if you will, passed down through generations. There are hundreds of people riding the bus each day, many of which wandering this vast plaza that all routes pass, like an exchanging of pollen the buzzing buses require to survive. The riders, all unique and beautiful, almost none of them white. Those few who are caucasian fall easily into either the “college student” or “white trash” classifications. This is the place where we of pigment sometimes pass, sometimes nod, but always reunite for loud, busy-handed conversations, in the dialect of choice, regarding everyday trite.

Because I am way too tired from constantly walking to write a wonderfully descriptive parable, I’ll keep my newest insights concise and bulleted.

* It has occurred to me that some people talk merely to hear the vibrations their vocal folds make turn into shit. Loudly, because no one else talks on a bus, they force unnecessary questions at the other person to assert to the rest of the riders that they know someone and have what all doltish and mentally disturbed people consider a valuable commodity: company. I’m all for chatting randomly, however I rarely fling the poo sound all over others comfortable silence.

* If you haven’t worked out in a year, it’s harder to do things as easily and painlessly as you did back then. Thank you, new bicycle.

* Female back tattoos are alive and... alive. Americans have a long, storied history of getting stupid tattoos. This won’t be my soapbox for ribbing tribal wraps and cartoon characters. But, I must say, some people will put anything on their body permanently. ANYTHING. You see, your body is your business, but when your lack of clothing and tact force me to witness your ridiculousness, it becomes my business. So, instead of bitching I’m actually thinking constructively. How about a sudoku tramp stamp? Or a crossword puzzle lower back tat with clues drawn on your also-exposed side flaps? Just trying to make you more useful. Either way, I made a Facebook gift app to help come to terms with that which I can not control.

* The bus driver is not an authority, merely a tool. They vary in intelligence, patience and congeniality. Keep your words few and your movements behind the yellow line.

I am a man of the people and now I walk amongst the people, unprotected by the vehicular shell that I use to rely on quickly escorting me from these very places. Walking and stopping, watching and conversing. Sometimes passing, sometimes nodding. Always with my people.

Easter Reinvented

When I think of Easter, I think of the millions of people who believe that a guy who was dried out on a stick some time ago descended up to the clouds, broken body and all. This idea makes them hungry for a dynamite feast of slain swine and honey pastries. Their kids are kept brow beaten by searching for decorated eggs in a vain attempt to appease the gigantic bunny in the mall.

Frankly, I’m tired of thinking about these things. Passover, Eostre for equinox, Lent. So much is going on during this time, the last thing we need confusing the Christian flock is a colorful egg paint product display and a symbolic bunny sent by God to guard all eggs by any means necessary. Who died and made bunnies and eggs the symbols of new life and Spring anyway? Besides Jesus?

In an effort to make Easter less boring, here are three ways we can straighten the misguided path Easter has taken since its inception during the Cretaceous period when aliens began collecting Maiasaura eggs for experimentation and brunch.

1. We need a sweet Easter movie.

Basically, It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown is a homoerotic grab-fest with racist undertones and The Passion of Christ is, well, made by Mel Gibson. Both are equally as entertaining as when I clip my toe nails. We need a classic gem that has Jason Statham hanging from a fiery truck flying 100mph down a crowded city street, driven by a PCP-fueled Easter Bunny. It should feature Megan Fox nakedly seducing a naked Scarlett Johansson under a butterscotch waterfall by cracking eggs on her abs and pouring the runny goodness down her chest. Most importantly, it should end with a three-way battle between a resurrected, bloody Jesus, a gigantic Peep and Al Pacino that levels Houston and brings joy to the children in the form an epic Lindsey Buckingham solo.

2. Replace the Bunny with a Chupacabra.

Easter Bunny: skittish, loud-chewing fur pile that shits Cocoa Puffs.

El Chupacabra: a sexy mix of hairless dog, rat, and kangaroo soaked in mythos, mystery, and goat murder.

‘Nuff said.

3. Every tenth egg should be deadly.

Jutting spikes, controlled explosions, LSD coating. Anything to spice up the egg hunt while simultaneously thinning the herd. Just imagine dying to celebrate Jesus dying for our sins. What better way to show your love of God and family than a sacrifice to ensure fertility and healthy crop yields. The kids will love it!


Ladies and Gentlemen, I implore you. Take it upon yourselves to liven up Easter by re-embracing those basic Jewish and Pagan traditions, eschewing most of the stupid Christian twists, and really personalizing this holiday for you and your family. My house is going with a steak and crab dinner instead of the usual lamb or ham meal. It’s no Seder but it’ll be damned delicious. What will you do to not be a boring Easter loser?

Remember, the Bunny is watching.



By. Any. Means. Necessary.

Forget Columbian Gold, I Want Olympian Gold

Maybe I just never found marijuana to be that evil of a drug in any situation. It has not rendered any of my friends or family homeless, jobless, unproductive or lazier than they would be if drinking beer or eating Cheetos. In fact, hemp has quantifiable results in bettering health, replacing synthetic products and could even help solve our global fuel crisis. Nationwide decriminalization of marijuana has already begun, with Massachusetts being the newest state to lower possession penalties to a hand slap.

This is not an advertisement for the herb nor is it a wink to proud abusers. I delve this issue because Michael Phelps, the world’s greatest olympian and swimming master, has lost sponsorships and livelihood because pictures of him taking a bong rip have surfaced.

Steroid-abusing athletes. Crack-addled mayors. Wife-abusing entertainers. An American legend inhales the smoke of a natural, performance-dulling herb recreationally and we shame him? Well, shame on YOU!

Right now you’re thinking, “But wait, Atticus, it’s illegal!”

No shit. But did they ever really explain to us why? It was prohibited soon after Prohibition, which just adds to the conspiracy. Reefer Madness was obviously bullshit since most people that flip out have more than reefer in their pipes. So, where are the real statistics? Somewhere, I’m just too lazy from the scotch to look. But this fact is well known: Alcohol has killed more people and ruined more lives than any other legally controlled substance. If marijuana has had less of a damaging affect on our communities by running rampant behind closed doors, than why isn’t it a controlled substance we can purchase legally and use in the privacy of our own homes?

I’ll tell you why - because it can’t be controlled. If you could rustle up a tobacco patch in your basement and successfully harvest your pack-a-day needs, tobacco would be illegal too. Granted we can make whiskey in our bathtubs, Red Label is better and we’d all suffer from each other’s poor hygiene.

I could go on for hours about why I believe Mary Jane is still illegal, but instead I’ll give you my thoughts about the government’s reasoning for slowly decriminalizing marijuana versus outright legalization.

872,720 Americans were jailed for marijuana in 2007. Imagine how many people were jailed for it the five decades previous to last year. Now imagine you understand Latin and consider Ex Post Facto law, namely the amnesty law, that, were marijuana made completely legal, would ultimately release those wolves back into the wild. You see, cops don’t just book regular folks on weed charges, they also use it as leverage to collar some of the more heinous individuals that may not have better charges currently sticking to them. Eat this poo poo platter: Al Capone was only successfully prosecuted for Tax Fraud; therefore, if tax fraud were decriminalized during his sentence, he’d been back on the street shooting people instead of rotting in jail. This reason alone is why it must be done slowly, thoughtfully and not buckle under political pressure. We screwed ourselves by making it illegal, now we need a precise exit strategy.

Let me quickly touch on the gateway drug and addiction accusations, as they are always publically defended from a non-quantified standpoint. For example, saying 80% of people that smoke marijuana move on to harder drugs is like saying 80% of people who have drowned tried swimming. These same drug abusers probably also moved on from yelling at people to punching them. Not because of the drugs, of course, but because they have a punchy personality. They also have an addictive personality. Not in the “My dad did it, so I will” way, or in the “I’m genetically predispositioned to screw up” way, either.

Drugs are mood-enhancing, not mood-altering. If you like fighting, getting drunk will make you more likely to act on that hardwired urge. You see, it’s not the sauce telling you you’re ten foot tall and bulletproof, it’s the fantasy you remembered in your purple haze that makes you believe this nonsense. Fluid can’t put stupid thoughts in your head because I doesn’t have opposable thumbs.

Most people use drugs to escape; that’s what is so wonderful about those cloudy highs and blurry buzzes - you have successfully escaped reality. Things look better, feel better and seem better than they are, and you would have to believe life can really be improved upon in order to pursue constant escape. But, again, you would be addicted to the relief from reality, not the marijuana itself. You’d have a better chance arguing Diet Coke an addictive substance than weed. They are all just gateways to a day better than the one you’re living in.

If you feel that your life sucks, getting high will take the pain from the sting, but weed doesn’t kill people. Actually, people on weed rarely ever kill people either. Marijuana is not the source of evil or bad deeds, nor is it the purveyor of dysfunction. It is an escape hatch; the closet you run and hide in, finding Narnia just behind the wardrobe and falling in love with. Escapism is not just pot. It’s your beer, your television, your books and your food. It is the thing that makes you happy when life doesn’t. It is the action that protects you from fear, and we all live a life of fear... why not take the edge off?

Why does a stud like Phelps need it? Maybe he just wanted to get high. I’m drunk writing this. Or maybe being an international icon is not as easy as we think. Do you think there is any excessive pressure in being him?

So, Who Is Now "The Man"?

Congratulations to President Barack Obama on becoming the 44th President of THESE United States. I love how people say that, these, as if “united states” could describe anywhere else at this point. When you hear about Lebanon, do you think of Lebanon, IN, the "The Friendly City", or Lebanon, OH. No you don’t... unless you live there. Either way, these United States just regained half the clout they lost when draft- shoe-dodger gutted our constitution and military.

Obama’s inaugural speech, just like the one he delivered at the DNC, was as epic and memorable as any speech could ever be, and I said the same thing after each one. “We have waited years to hear this from a politician”. Where is this stuff coming from? We can’t get writing like that anywhere in today’s media. There isn’t a movie or tv script or book in the last two decades with the same fluidity of American machismo, the same breadth of unconditional acceptance and affirmation of true nationalism, the same realistic understanding and translation to American ears saying, “Yes, we are rich, spoiled bastards you had no actual choice in electing. But I get it, I see the woes and will not hide them from you as they did before. I will remove the wool placed over your eyes a hundred years ago and I will not let them hurt you anymore. Oh, and I’m black”.

As for all the people threatening him, calling for his head and wanting him out of office because he’s not, well, completely white, jump off of your dilapidated trailer onto a rail spike. Can you really not see that America will rebuild through him? You do know all them rich WHITE people on Wall Street are the reason you and your buddies are losing their jobs and houses, right? I realize most of you don’t have stocks and investments that keep you attentive to the evil market even though your precious Fox News has covered it thoroughly. Perhaps you were busy forming the militia. Yes, all this “Hope” and “Change” jive is just Democratic chanting and propaganda, but a white American can not sustain on chants and propaganda alone either. Every nation needs a strong financial, military, and fundamental base to succeed, even one run by the purest of races.

I watched the inauguration at the office with workmates, thanks to the boss streaming it online and letting us abandon our duties for a spell. Prepared to listen to it on the radio, I’m sure the experience was much more powerful live via video feed. It felt as though we were troops in another country, under a tent and weary from stress. We gathered around the 22'’ monitor and let the inspirational fire warm our weathered souls and fill us with an unfettered unity we only remembered from our childhoods, well before the social distortion broke our souls. On a much less romantic note, I don’t know if I was more miffed about my knees and back seizing up from standing for only an hour long or the millions of dollars spent for it to only be an hour long. More than all that, I was disappointed in the people driving by and walking around, working and sleeping, doing anything other than living and breathing this momentous occasion. It’s not about witnessing history. It’s about listening to the message and getting with the program. How can we all work together if only half of us are paying attention?

We do have a lot to accomplish as a country. Not me or you particularly, but the collective “we”. All of us need to become part of the solution, whatever that part is. You will know when it is your time, because you will hear the voice of... wait, that’s God. Um, You will get a text message as soon as he chooses the Vice Pres... er, damn. Look, just do what he says, for crying out loud. If for no other reason than he is willing to put his life on the line to right a history of wrongs. He stood on that stage and showed us all he understands us, that he relates to us, all the way down to our long overdue need for a public flogging of W and all the other greedy blowhards in attendance:

"On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

And they all clapped like it was someone else’s fault. Silly politicians.

Congratulations, President Barack Obama. Tomorrow, sober up and get busy.