“Oh, I can’t possibly imagine that you’d consort with pigs,” chided Thelma the Bartender as she brought over two bottles and two shot glasses.

Over the months that saw Absalom writing at this bar, he’d grown fond of Thelma. She was busty and acerbic and two tax brackets below most of the clientele. More importantly, she was most attentive to Absalom, having memorized his preferred drink-sequence.

Serving the public ain’t easy, and doin’ it well is damn-near impossible.

“Thelma, goddess of libation that you are, how many times do I have to warn you against eavesdroppin’? It’s not becomin’ of a woman like you. If you want to experience a life-changin’ conversation, you mustn’t resort to NSA tactics,” Absalom gave a shot-in-the-dark wink that defied his age, “just ask me out to dinner.”

“Oh yes, ‘dinner,’ that lovely euphemism for those too cowardly to just come out ask for it. Sex. Even if it were my greatest desire to bed you – and believe me, it isn’t – I simply wouldn’t be able to go through with it.”

“And why not?”

“Are you serious?” Following Absalom’s implicit instructions, Thelma set down the two shot glasses. One for a formely-respected, now lying-in-the-gutter-but-lookin’-through-the-smog-hopin’-to-see-a-star Writer. The other for a stoned-on-booze-and-slowly-realizin’-that-my-careerist-aspirations-will-never-get-me-high-off-life Intern. Between them, she placed a bottle of bourbon.

And for Absalom, a fresh bottle of Pepsi.

“By the gods, of course I’m serious! Why wouldn’t you bed me?”

“Mr. Fabliaux-”

“It’s Señor Fabliaux, Thelma, and you know it!”

“Whatever! Even if I wanted to sleep with you, I wouldn’t. And the reason? Your ever-deteriorating old-man body couldn’t handle it! Having sex with me would literally kill you.”

“Ah, but it’d be a most glorious death.”

Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! First, I give ya’ll a bit of fiction to get the mind warmed up! Then, I run through some of the ways I’ll be entertaining myself over the course of the workweek. After I’ve tired myself out, you hit up the comments section and share your strategies for fending off the Beasts of Boredom!

Yes, it’s basically the Spaceship OL way station.

Okay, let’s rock!

Read the rest of this entry »

The American Dream walks among us and we don’t recognize him. He’s not a weepy bootlegger, changing his name and spying on his babe from across Long Island Sound. And he’s not some punk-ass kid running away from Pencey Prep, hoping to bang broads in the big city and failing miserably. And he sure as hell isn’t some over-the-hill salesman who’s hopin’ that his suicide will save his family.

This is the fuckin’ future, so let’s pay it some damn respect. The American Dream is digital – aspirations have been converted to ones and zeros. The collective consciousness is uploaded and downloaded, torrented with the assistance of an Electrical Storm Zeitgeist.

You’re reading  MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE, the weekly post where I jabber pseudo-philosophy at you and then show you what I’ll be doing during the week. We all know the drill – the workweek sucks, so let’s find some refuge in the shit that makes us happy. After I detail my plans, you hit up the comments section and share yours. And thus, a dialogue is born.

Let’s do this.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s no denying the fact that the holidays are over. It’s now officially time to clear the house of any reminders of merriment. Toss that tree out the window, decorations. Mop the floors clean of all the champagne and puke. Sober up, shave, and get back to work.

Shit. I hate this time of year.

Well, since we’re all getting back into the arduous grind that destroys souls and smears smiles, we might as well celebrate those wonderful bits of reprieve. This is the Monday Morning Commute and it’s the venue for sharing those activities we hope will keep us from going postal in the upcoming week. First I tell you what’s on the horizon for me, then you hit up the comments section and tell me what you’ll be doing.

Got it? Sick. Let’s do this.

Read the rest of this entry »

Narrative is the most powerful tool on the planet.

From personal anecdotes to sprawling epics of adventure, storytelling is the means by which the human race has made sense of existence. Which is important, because the human condition, when one takes the time to really break it down, is nothing short of baffling. We are evolved primates, cruising around the sun on a space-rock that hits 67,000 mile per hour, using technology we don’t even understand, and participating in societies founded by our ancestors. It’s goddamn insanity.

And I love it.

But what really gets me amped is the idea that art can help dispel the notion that the universe is nothing more than a giant abyss of nothingness and meaninglessness. It might be — I don’t know, I’m neither a philosopher nor an astrophysicist. But as I get older, I can’t kill the feeling that there are greater forces at play than I can ever possibly conceptualize or articulate.

Before words are put in my mouth, let me forewarn: I’m not declaring a newfound belief in God or revelation about the afterlife or some shit. My agnosticism is strong. What I am saying is that it’s pretty heavy to think of how much our lives can be changed, directed, and enlightened by stories. And what’s even heavier is the fact that, whether by clandestine design or sheer coincidence, there are connections amongst the storytellers, the viewers, and the content.

I have ascended The Holy Mountain and can attest that it is a strange, wonderful place.

Read the rest of this entry »