One More Day

Good Morning

By: Michael James Greenwald

It’s a melancholy day, here in Chicago, inside and out.  Drizzle and wet, white-gray clouds linger over my damp drive-way.  Water beads my sister’s windshield, blades of sprung grass.  I feel it in my head; maybe like an old man feels the cold weather in his arthritic knee, I feel a somber day in my depressive head.  Winter has found its way back, there’s a hard chill in the air; birds that had returned, perennials that had poked heads above the dirt–this morning, believe they’d somehow erred.

NOT me (thank God no one had camera phones in my day)

But I’m not nineteen anymore.

The option of smoking a bowl and/or cracking open a bottle of suds, sitting on my couch and thumb-wrestling my MLB “The Show” all day has been over for a while.  Dad no longer pays my freight.  I can no longer pick up co-eds.  I’ve graduated to the world, unprepared, possibly, but thrust out of a collegiate womb filled with pot smoke, beer bongs, video games, Oscar feeding, laying college girls with no performance or procreation expectations and hopefully no STD’s.

The world is a cruel place.

Probably.  Yes.  I think at least three million people today agree with me.  But infinitely more interesting?  Probably that, too.  Because there’s something utterly interesting about a winter haze hanging over a winterized forest, and nature, caught unawares, unsure of whether to spring forward, unterred by this sudden regression into the heart of winter, as though the seventy-degree, sunny days of the past two weeks had been a terrible tease, an elongated April Fools joke, an unfunny frat prank on us all.

Yet, I can’t help wondering how many people died yesterday (I tried to look it up on our wonderful Internet, but evidently unless you are notable or a celebrity, no one seems to record your passing).  How many people would give whatever they own for One More Day, even a lousy, overcast cold day like today.

And if that doesn’t clear my head of winter, then possibly nothing will.

Come on chemicals!  Adjust!

Hello, Dopamine?  Time to rouse and face the day!

I’m going to force my tired body and aching head out from slumber, fold my sheet crisply over my comforter, brew a strong pot of brew, and plant myself at my desk.  There, I will click open my The Rainbow Child file and allow my fingers to wiggle this depression away.

The best part of being who I am is using what I have, for the greater good of the world, and more importantly, the greater good of me.

Write, You Fingers!

Write!

–MJG

HORNS!!

Michael James Greenwald fights off his daily dose of depression with his fingers.  He’s a student at Story Studio Chicago, applying for a Ragdale Residency in the fall, and considering allowing UT, Austin a second chance at deliverance, by accepting him into their MFA program for 2011 (HOOK ‘EM HORNS!!).

For now, he works in his family business of owning and operating bowling alleys in the South Suburbs of Chicago.   He is also a fiction writer, with a short story collection Stories from a Bowling Alley and a novel The Rainbow Child due to be published in the next several years. You can read his blogs at sleepsunshine and his confessions every Sunday on his group blog at parkinglotconfessional.com. Venture to his Facebook page or feel free to email him with any comments or suggestions for further topics, or if you had any interest in being a guest blogger on either one of his sites.

Oh Fingers, Don’t Let Me Down Now

Listen to this song before, after or during reading this post.  Or don’t.  I don’t give a crap either way.

So, I haven’t been on here in a while.  I know this because I tried to log in several times then had to have the site send me my login and password to my email address then realized that the email attached to this account is in fact my OLD email address so I had to do five tries on login and password with my OLD email address, unsuccessfully, and have the password and login sent to my OLD OLD email address, which I knew I had no clue in remembering the login for that dinosaur post.  Shockingly, I knew that login and password…the name of the girl I lost my virginity to and what she called out when she climaxed.  WICKED PEACHES.

I’m drunk…duh.  Had a brush up with Knob Creek this evening courtesy of my new favorite bartender at Rosie O’Boyles.  Check her out Tuesday nights from 3-11.  She’s gentle, gentlemen.

What the hell are we doing here?  Anyone want to gesture a guess?  Any right wing nazi accusers want to register a guess?  See, ma’am, that’s just mean.  And ironic.  A hoe chasing a hoe chasing a hoe.  FYI.  You are going to die too.  Probably painfully, like most of us.

I know, news flash.  We are all going to die.  So, my question, to Touchdown Jesus, is why are we here?  What are we doing here?  I just want to beat my own face in with a blunt instrument because I can’t wrap my brain around what is the purpose for us being here?  Is it entertainment?  Is God up there sitting on his couch with a bucket full of popcorn (extra butter, extra salt, cause God don’t have to worry ’bout no fatty acids) and a 40-Ounce of Beast (cause God ain’t got no liver) laughing his ass off, watching us fight each other (sorry, HAD to do it again, cause that lady is hellafunny) and cry and scramble around in His maze looking for a bite of cheese; knowing all the damn time…THERE AIN’T NO CHEESE.  Matrix line, anyone.  Maxtrix, please.  Neo?

My name isn’t Neo, it’s Keanu: Dialogue

Thank you, Surfer Boy.  It all makes sense now.

See, we live, we die.  It’s as simple as that.  Those of us who live longer get the wonderful experience of watching those of us we love die, which in some way will define our lives for a short time.  Because the times when we feel the most alive are when we are experiencing love and experiencing death.  The rest, in-between, is non-reactive.

So, is that the big purpose?  Are we really living to accumulate loves, then die, to most impact those we love, thus shaping and changing their lives?  Cause I can’t comprehend a more complex vision.  At some point, our entire world will die, and those of us (or them, because one would hope that the ones alive right now will not get the opportunity to experience the death of our world) around at that time will feel such a sense of euphoria, such a feeling of orgasm of death…well, the rest of us will never feel those tingles on the tips of our fingers.

That’s why we are living?  To experience death.  That’s it?  Sweet.

OMG!!!!!!!!

Eureka!!!!!!!

I figured it out!!!!!

I love Eureka moments!

And, sign me the hell up.  Oh, that’s right.  I’m already here.  Cool.  Talk about being in the right place at the right M-Fing time.  Small pleasures.

So,

kill me then, already, kill me, cause I’m tired of waiting.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  TAke me.  Taje me.  Take me.  Take me TAke me take me take me take me tamt me take me tame me tame me take me tahe me mtake me tame me take me mtame me taje me at ake me takem ektamtatemacme metamtematematem tamek mteametemat tematemtetmeam

All Right, Already, Jacko…Just BEAT IT!!

I was totally and completely (adverb storm be damned) going to maintain radio silence on anything to do with Michael Jackson or Janet Jackson or Stu Jackson or New Jack City or the game jacks or Jack and Jill or John Paxson or bicycle or any other word or string of words that contain or rhyme with (hence the John Paxson and bicycle) the word or words MICHAEL JACKSON.  But alas, I’ve discovered that I am not above commenting about it.  I will state for the record I don’t understand the fascination or the outpouring of emotion…  at his death.

Okay, I’ll grant the point that just because I don’t understand doesn’t make it wrong, doesn’t make people’s grief over Michael Jackson’s death less real or silly.  It doesn’t.  I just don’t get it (nor do I need to, do I?).  Because at Michael’s BEST he was a great singer, song-writer (I may be stretching here), and dancer, but at his worst he might have been a child molester.  I know, I know, innocent until proven guilty, fine.  But did Michael Jackson feed starving people throughout the world?  Did he visit destitute villages in Africa and pick up a shovel to help dig irrigation ditches toward crops?  Did Michael do anything except quench his insatiable need for attention?

YIKES!!!!

Why upon his passing, are people mourning him as though he was the Most Interesting Man in the World…speaking of…

Now, there’s a cat I’m going to crazy mourn and pour out some Dos Equis (a whole lot of Dos Equis, cause that beer is nasty) in his honor.

Let me ask you, and I am open to convincing, what has Michael Jackson done to deserve our tears?  Please enlighten me.

WARNING!  WARNING!  MJ’s Napoleon-stepping onto his high horse!

What bothers me isn’t a mournful nod to a great performer, but the weight that is attributed to his death versus Joe America.  What about Donald Thomas Casteel of Ooltewah, Tennessee, who wanted everyone to call him “Donnie” or Ruby Sumner Cope of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who was married to her husband Fred for fifty-two years before he passed, and who volunteered in the nursery and library of their Brainerd Baptist Church or

Warren L. Goad, of Glasgow, Kentucky, who was a retired banker of fifty years and a proud Veteran of World War II and a member of the Glasgow Rotary Club and Glasgow Country Club, or Billy Kinds, of Orland Park, Illinois, who introduced himself as Jeff and made hundreds of model paper airplanes and married four times and had eight kids and volunteered as an usher at Second Presbyterian Church for thirty-six years?

Are these people and all the others who died last week not as worthy of our respect as Thriller-Man?

And the Little Frenchman Just Dismounted Into A Pile of Le Doo Doo…

Mr. Jacko, sir, just hear me out.  See, I for one, am sad to see you go, King of (Weird) Pop, cause without you, Britney’s antics are the strangest we got livin’, and really, the girl ain’t creative enough.  I mean you went from Black to White…literally.  She went from Barbie to G.I. Jane.  Uh, hundreds of hours of plastic surgery or three-minute haircut.  Who’s the Dedicated One?

But for real, Mr. Jackson (I’m sorry Miss Jackson, whoo), the boy long dead inside me might remember the first concert I attended.  It was in the old Chicago Barn in 1988 and I left that stadium and couldn’t hear for at least twenty four hours, which was the coolest thing ever for a boy of nine, especially when his mother became hysterical with the thought her son may never regain his hearing.

All I’m saying is please, moon walk your way off of the homepage of Yahoo News for ten minutes, find yourself a pet…

…wait, who? what?, that’s Webster (boy, I forgot how cute he was)…and chill with some carnival rides and feed your pet flamingoes and drink Coca Colas, and allow Warren L. Goad of Glasgow, Kentucky and “Jeff” Kinds and all the other deserving people in this world who passed away this week to take unshadowed curtain calls.

Hey, when I’m right, I’m right (and right and right and right).  Right?

–MJ

 

The Death of Dreams

Do you have dreams?  

I guess we all do or did, whether the dream was to make it to outer-space, create a unique math formula, become a Hollywood actress, eat a forty ounce t-bone, run a four minute mile, make a million dollars by thirty, marry a supermodel, live in Brazil, become a father, make it to the Big Leagues, become a writer or a train conductor or an accountant (not sure if someone ever dreamed of becoming an accountant) or a gym teacher or police or fire or mother, what happens to those dreams when they slip away?  What I mean is, we all can’t be professional baseball players, in fact most of us won’t be, but our dream to become a professional baseball player is as real to us as anything else, so what happens when we don’t reach our dreams?  Is there a scrap-yard where discarded dreams go or are they put out to pasture to run with other unachieved dreams?  Do we bury these failures deep within ourselves along with all the other multitude of failures we accumulate in our lives?

I have dreams.  My dream from conception (my mother swears it so) to twenty-four was to play professional baseball.  I worked hard at this dream, too.  I built a batting cage in my basement consisting of a mattress and sheets and a batting tee.  I woke up every morning an hour before I needed to get ready for school and hit in that basement.  I studied professional players stances and batting and fielding techniques and emulated them.  My brother and I practiced pretty much all day, everyday.  I showed up early to school to hit and work out with a couple buddies from my high school baseball team.  Ultimately, I quit halfway through my freshman college season to smoke pot and hang out with my friends.  Two years later, I tried out for Illinois State University’s baseball team and made it to the last five walk-ons standing before I was cut.  I’ll never forget the feeling of knowing I’d never make it to the Big Leagues.  I can feel that pain in my heart as I type this blog.  I compare the feeling of losing baseball to a marriage breaking apart.  I’ve never felt more comfortable then I felt on the baseball field, never felt as right as I did in the batters box, just like love, I guess, which gives you an intense high but when it breaks up you feel as though the world’s gonna quit spinning and toss you off.

I’ve never gotten over failing at my first big dream.  I don’t think I ever will.  I could look at it many different ways, it just wasn’t meant to be, timing wasn’t right, playing pro ball wasn’t your destiny, it’s not your fault, there’s something else out there for you, but in my heart I know that life is really short and you only get one go around (if only I could slip into the wonderful beliefs of reincarnation) and Ryan Theriot is playing shortstop for the Chicago Cubs and  I am not and I never will and all that extra effort, all those hours I logged in the family basemen slugging away were for naught.

My latest dream was to get into graduate school and earn my Masters in Fine Arts so I could become a college professor.  I received my ninth and final rejection this afternoon.  There’s a peace that’s come over me in realizing that no, I will not be attending graduate school in the fall; no, I will not begin the journey toward a career as a viable writer and talented teacher; yes, I am looking at another year, another ten years of slinging drinks and faking smiles as your local Scottsdale, Arizona bartender.  I know in this case, unlike when my baseball dreams ended (when I chose smoking pot and drinking with friends and chasing Capris pants), I did everything I could to attain my dream.  Looking back, I can’t see anything I could have done better or different.  But knowing that doesn’t give me solace.  

The food of failure, dipped in any sauce, tastes terrible.

I am curious to find out how other people deal with the death of dreams.  Is it easier for you to just brush it aside and move on?  Or is it something that you hold in the deep recesses of your soul, where you lock up everything other disappointment, all the other life failures, behind padded walls so they can’t hurt you anymore?  Or is it just not that important, am I making a huge deal out of something that shouldn’t matter (like I’m prone to do)?

Maybe life isn’t about the achievement of dreams at all; maybe life is about the striving toward them.  The journey, so to speak.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  I’d love to hear what your dreams are/were/will be.  I think it would be so therapeutic if others heard your stories, learned of your struggles.  Please don’t feel embarrassed to share.  We’re all fellow sufferers here!

Thanks for reading and commenting and sharing.

MJ

To reach me, you may email me at jonah14646@yahoo.com.

My facebook page is:http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=565105522&ref=name

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The Mike Greenwald Show

I’m reading a book called The Chris Farley Show, written by Chris’s older brother Tom Farley Junior and Tanner Colby (who wrote a biography about John Belushi).  I don’t know why I’m reading this book–I picked it out of the pile of books my dad brought home from the library–but so far I find it fascinating, though not for the reasons I thought I would upon picking it up.

The book is not funny.  Not one bit.  It paints a picture of the Farley family: prosperity and happiness on the surface, yet with crushing forces of fear and unhappiness and expectation underneath.

Tom Farley might have explained it best when he said: “We lived in a make-believe world.  We were living with the elephant in the room–the literal elephant in the room–that no one wanted to talk about.  My dad weighed six hundred pounds by the time he died.  But dad wasn’t overweight.  Dad didn’t drink too much.  Dad was just Dad.  We didn’t talk about it with ourselves, we certainly didn’t talk about it with anyone else.”

Tom goes on to explain that similar forces were at work with Chris.  How the family and everyone else ignored Chris’s obvious problems in order to not have to deal with reality of both Chris and his father.

I’m not here to talk about Chris Farley.  He was a funny guy.  It’s too bad he died.  I didn’t know him, didn’t know his family.  Through reading this book, though, my thoughts gravitate toward my family and maybe families in general and I think about how expectations of the American family have progressed to a point where no family or person can measure up.

I wouldn’t have to think very hard to come up with half a dozen secrets about my family which we all try and ignore.  When we are around each other, you can actually feel these secrets as ghosts in the room, to where it becomes uncomfortable sometimes to be around one another.  I think a lot about why these ghost have accumulated, why we refuse to talk about them, why we can’t exorcise them from the room, why such pressure has built up over the years where it’s hard to even breath.  I believe that has a lot to do with our expectations as humans, as Americans and the disparity that exists between what is true and what is real.  

I’m use myself as an example.  My role in the family is as the oldest child, the Together One, the Responsible One, the one who has it all figured out.   My role throughout my life has been to set the example: get good grades, be a good athlete, go to college, get a degree, go to law school, get a good stable job, have a family, etc.

Am I that person?  No.  Will I ever be the white, upper-middle-class law partner who plays golf five days a week and drives a BMW?  God, I hope not.

But am I expected to be?  Yeah, probably.  Not exactly that image, but something close.  Am I expected to be where I am?  A struggling artist?  I’d have to put a big NO there, see if a NO fits snug right there and it does.

My question remains, though, why should someone expect me to be something I’m not?  Where do these expectations come from that have such a corrosive affect on people and families?  I’m battling everyday.  I’m working on my work every single day and I believe that someday choosing the path that I have chosen will pay off.  I have placed myself in the best position to succeed in my chosen path.  Why, like Chris Farley, should I feel like a worthless failure?  Why do I need to fight this disparity between expectation and reality?  I shouldn’t have to put on this image that I’m something I’m not.  It’s dishonest, unhealthy, ridiculous, and exhausting to maintain.  

When I gain success someday as a writer, and there are books filled with my characters being read by real people, and movies depicting my characters being seen on movie screens and TV, will I suddenly become something different than what I am not when I’m struggling?  No, I’ll still be me.  But will the perception change, will the pressure mount?  Yeah, I think it will.  Just like it did with Chris Farley.  He was still the guy he was but suddenly when he achieved a little success he was expected to be this different person.  Not-flawed.  Perfect.  In-human.  And he found himself in the same position as his father had been as the elephant–quite literally–in the room.  And this killed him. 

I think one of the points of the Chris Farley biography The Chris Farley Show is to show the terrible consequences of both the disparity between expectation and reality, the pressure to maintain an illusion that is not who we are or how we feel, and the crushing effect of our inability to be true to ourselves and those around us.  

I believe the tragedy of humankind is our inflated sense of self.

Because we can’t measure up.  And those that appear to aren’t all that meet the eye.  Just like the Farley’s.  Just like poor Chris.

Life is about life.  That’s all.  Live it.  Enjoy it.  It’s the only one we’ve got.

Simple, right?

Thanks for reading.

–MJ Greenwald

 To check out the book that inspired this post, go to: http://www.thechrisfarleyshow.com

To check out Chris, go to: http://www.hulu.com/watch/4186/saturday-night-live-the-chris-farley-show

My Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=565105522&ref=name

My Myspace page: myspace.com/jonah14646

If you’d like to be on my mailing list, email sleepsunshine@yahoo.com or shoot me a facebook message and I’ll put you on it.

C-L-A-Y: The Difference Between Sculptors and Writers

Writing is hard…duh.  Yeah, I know.  I know.  I’ve written one complete novel.  I wrote most of it last summer.  I reached a point–where I spent enough time fantasizing about the story and trying to get to know the characters through day-dreaming and night-dreaming and all the information dealing with the story was swirling around in my head and all the stimuli from the world was being filed away in my brain–when I felt I had enough to write the darn thing.  So, I took Stephen King’s advice (from his book ON WRITING, if you haven’t read it…read it, and read it again, and again) and committed to 2,000 words a day.  For the first week (20,000 words for you non-mathletes) the writing came easy.  I logged my daily output on a calendar over my desk (starts and finishes, a running tally) and for the first fourteen days or so I’d reach 2,000 words and hunger to write more but I’d force myself out of the room and try my best to plug-in back into my day.  But it was hard.  All I wanted to do was get back in the room and strike while the iron was hot.  Write 3,000 words, 4,000 words, hell, write the whole darn book in one sitting.  When I wrote my first book, I allowed that impulse to win and I would spend hours locked in my home office pecking away, but I learned from experience that is the wrong thing to do (for me, at least).  The right thing for me is to cut myself off at 2,000 words, which had the effect of leaving the idea unfinished, so the next day I wasn’t starting from scratch but continuing from the previous days tangent.  Sometimes this works, and other times it doesn’t.

This latest book, after the fourteen or so days the writing became much much harder.  I’d originally sat down (for full disclosure, day 1 wasn’t page one, I’d been writing scenes and working with the idea of the book for a while–scribbling dialogue and creating scenes for months, trying to excavate my story) with my excitement and expectation of writing a novel fueling my words, and truthfully those first couple days, the synapses were clicking and my output was excellent.  I cut myself off at 2,000 words and couldn’t wait to get back in my office the next day.  Through rereading my work, I have discovered the writing I did in those first fourteen days was really right on.  I probably won’t have to edit it much at all.  Then came day fifteen (yesterday) and sixteen (today).  Suddenly, the writing became hard.  Suddenly, my writing tank went from a capacity of 4,000, 5,000 words to me coasting on fumes at 1,000, 1,500 words.  I literally was typing away on a scene and internalizing: this sucks, you suck, you’ll never finish, ugh, what are you trying to say, that dialogue is terrible, no one talks like that, YAWN, Faulkner can’t wait until you get to hell so he can laugh at you.  Not good.  But I stuck with it.  I wrote 2,500 words (violated my rule because I was off from work and bored) yesterday.  And just finished 2,217 words today.  In rereading my work from the last two days, it’s less consistently good writing.  Some parts are good, others I’ll need to tweak to make good, and other parts are really bad.  I found I really got into a flow on both days at around word 1,500, so the home-stretch is strong.  Don’t know why that is.  But that is okay.  I’ve reached my goal (and this blog is about 1,000 words, so I’ve surpassed my goal–presently, I’m weak with hunger–there’s chicken salad in the fridge!–and about to go blind) and that is what’s most crucial.

So, what have I learned.  When you make a commitment to a project, a 2,000 word a day goal is doable.  I will close the door on my office and not leave until I have typed that 2,000th word.  The important part of this writing equation, I think, is you have to be ready to write the novel (or screenplay, or short story, or whatever).  I spent a while (maybe a year since I came up with the idea for the novel) mining for inspiration, writing scenes and testing them out (in library groups, with first readers; focusing on characters or capturing a tone, a voice, etc, through which you find out what resonates with readers and with yourself…what rings true) to discover my story and my characters, day-dreaming and fantasizing and absorbing life, until I felt I had enough clay to mold my work.  (Remember, the difference between writers and sculptors, is we must create the clay).  Once I did, I committed to 2,000 words a day.  Not 2,000 brilliant words or 2,000 focused words.  Or even 2,000 words that will end up in the final product.  Just 2,000 words.  Because as writers, we measure output by content, not time.  Once again, not exceptional content, though some of it will be, and others will not.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but this is my formula (based on Stephen King’s formula) and so far it’s worked for me.  In ten to fourteen days I’ll have a novel-length manuscript (closer to a Sallis book than a Foster Wallace, mind you) which I can then edit, cutting or tweaking the bad or out of scope words and keeping the brilliant and focused words–and have a finished product.  It will be hard.  It is much like committing to exercising for thirty minutes a day.  Somedays the time flies by so quickly you can’t wait until tomorrow, other days your checking your watch every other stride, believing if you run one more step you’re heart will seize up on you and you’ll die and no one will discover you in the forest before your body is cold and stiff and has been ravaged by wild animals (maybe that’s only a personal fear when I’m running) but in the end, if you reach your daily goals, the end will appear around the bend, and take it from me (and what I created last summer isn’t even publishable) it is an exhilarating feeling!