Scratching My Brain

On my way home today I saw a dead dog on the side of the road. It was at the northbound connection between the 91 and the 110. I don't know if the dog had caused an accident but there were two cars stopped just ahead of where he lay and at least one of the travelers was emotionally distressed in a way that seemed incommensurate with a minor fender bender. It was a singularly awful image.

The dog appeared to be a large pit bull but I can't be sure of that. I think rigor mortis had set in and there wasn't a lot of blood visible. Just one bent paw hanging off of a straight front leg and the head bent at an impossible angle. The neck was clearly broken but it might have happened after the dog died.

As I made my way past the death scene I became aware of a gross little coincidence. A Florence + The Machine song with the hook, "the dog days are over," was playing on the radio station (98.7FM Rockoholics station). I felt like puking or like I was on the cusp of vomiting.  It was sort of like a headache but instead of pain there is an itchy hollowness, a thorough discomfort and sadness. I don't know of any way to assuage that feeling. It's the same thing I felt while watching Magic Mike. If there had been a tall building to jump from I might have taken my chances.

I listen to the radio sometimes while I drive. It feels a little anachronistic now but I didn't have a cable to connect my phone to the stereo. So there I was with a song I was unsure of my feelings toward and was trying to make up my mind until I saw that dog's appendages suspended in the early evening air like a broken tree branch. I lost track of the song until I was past the corpse.

Some things make me really hate being alive. It's not shame or anger. On some level I like both shame and anger. It's a hopelessness that sets in from time to time that makes me really wish that I could be ripped apart molecule by molecule and spread across the universe. Not to be dead but to just not be at all.

I feel horrible for animals in a way that I can never feel for an adult human. Tragedy with people makes more sense than some dog that, perhaps if I had known the dog I would have hated the dog, really doesn't have much say in what goes on with its life. If the dog's owners had trained it (or not trained it, depending on the circumstances) to live close to a feral state in its manners it still wouldn't know any better and would be exploding inside as it got tossed off a truck bed (or whatever vehicle) by the one being the dog really knows to love. That just bothers me in ways I can't own up to.

I'm not really a total sucker for the Sara McLachlan commercials because I just keep thinking, "this song is painful," and, "Sara, how about you chip off a few mil and leave me the hell alone?" But the animal faces do get to me. Somehow I ended up driving home thinking about how easy it is to see through the matrix but how hard it is to actually fight it or leave it behind. I have an unfathomable amount of debts that I'm currently scared to pay because it would mean eating a lot less and maybe even moving into a more dangerous place. I have my dumb comforts that aren't very comforting and the dead dog punctured me for a few hours. I'll be fine. I'll probably wake up back in my normal haze tomorrow morning. My string of self-loathing came to a head when I remembered Jessie Bernstein saying, "just because something disturbs me I like to think it is important." Well, the weird air still pervades my being. But I'm not as sick as I was earlier. I still want to scratch and smush my brain until it stops itching me.

B.I.G.

So I'm here, not sleeping, chasing internet nothings and I somehow ended up reading this thing from Complex about Tupac's murder. I'm not an avid conspiracy theorist and I'm not much of a gossip hound. As much as I enjoy hearing and propagating gossip, I don't seek it out habitually. But there was something in there that really caught my attention. I didn't know this video existed until now:



I don't know who it is that actually shot this footage so I can't attribute it to them. This is the cleanest version I could find. It's pretty weird to see it. I feel like this should be a bigger deal but, then again, it may already have been a huge deal and I missed it. Leave your messages in the comments trying to sell dick pills or brides or whatever.

Sigh. I don't have much to add. I've always been a bigger Tupac fan than a Biggie fan. I'm too old now to care about what is and isn't authentic in music, I just like the attempts at higher understanding from Tupac a little more than the storytelling from Biggie. Those are intentionally reductionist readings of their work but I'm not trying to solve anything. I'm on a little nostalgia kick, feeling old, and wondering how much of a spiral I could put myself in trying to figure out the who's, the what's, and the why's of these guys getting killed when they were so young.

I want to post videos here but there isn't a video for Long Kiss Goodnight. That song, Hit Em Up by Tupac, and Drop A Gem On Em by Mobb Deep (which also appears to lack a video) should always be played together. I'm gonna go buy a copy of Murder Rap and go to sleep.

Turn Off The Internets

I'm a bad writer. I'm bad at a lot of things but most of them are meaningless. I think I have some kind of desire to fail in my life. I have had a ton of time to get something done and make a direction for my life but I've never sold any of my own ideas. The stuff I have sold were adaptations and the one thing I wrote for Marcello Thedford, the horrible movie that I never got paid for, the basic premise was his idea. I wrote that stack of shit paper in 3 days, though, so it doesn't need to take that much time to bang out a draft. I'm using that as a challenge. I've got til Saturday night to finish another draft of my werewolf script. I mean it. Really I do. Shut up, Tori Amos.

Mindless Entertainment

Nothing I said in this online customer support conversation is untrue. Still, I did it more for transgression than for any honest need for customer service. Sigh. Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf isn't gonna watch itself. So I'm gonna Eifling the shit out of the rest of this post. Copy and paste:
 

Thomas (ID: K8Y) (Responding)

Thomas (ID: K8Y): Hi, my name is Thomas (ID: K8Y). How may I help you?
Steven Starkweather: Can you figure out a way for me to not have to reset my f$#*ing g**$amn set top box every time I want to use the stupid watch anywhere features that your company sold me on to get me to sign a 2-year contract?
Steven Starkweather: My DVR appears to be offline
Steven Starkweather: Again
Thomas (ID: K8Y): I’m sorry to hear that you are having an issue with the web site.
Steven Starkweather: I just spent a damn hour and half on this stupid chat maybe 4 days ago for the same problem
Thomas (ID: K8Y): I know that this can be frustrating I have had this happen to me.  I’d be happy to resolve that for you Stevem.
Steven Starkweather: It's a hardware problem, not a website problem
Thomas (ID: K8Y): Sorry Steven.
Steven Starkweather: It really bothers me that I am being charged by your company in bad faith
Thomas (ID: K8Y): Yes you are correct it is the receiver doing this.
Steven Starkweather: If your products don't work as advertised then you are failing to live up to your contract and you need to release me from my contract with no penalties
Thomas (ID: K8Y): But that is because the soft wear has an issue.
Steven Starkweather: OK, then you need to do more testing of the software before you release it
Thomas (ID: K8Y): We know about this problem with this receiver and are working on a update.
Steven Starkweather: That doesn't do me any good until it is released
Steven Starkweather: That just tells me that your company is willfully releasing malfunctioning equipment
Thomas (ID: K8Y): I am sorry a new receiver will do the same thing.
Steven Starkweather: I get that. Again, that means I signed up for your service under false pretenses
Thomas (ID: K8Y): I am sorry that this issue was not told you.
Steven Starkweather: I need something more than instructions (for the third time) on how to reset the box. I need compensation for the waste of time and the aggravation that comes with this.
Thomas (ID: K8Y): We are hoping by the next update this will be fixed.
Steven Starkweather: Oh, come on, is there some kind of company rep who is going around telling people before they sign up, "This service we advertise and have built up out customer base by advertising doesn't actually work the way it's advertised. Hope that's not a problem!"?
Thomas (ID: K8Y): We do not have a time of release yet for that update.
Steven Starkweather: That's fine, but you need to credit my bill for the huge waste of time that trying to make this shit work the way it's supposed to work has turned out to be.
Thomas (ID: K8Y): The sales rep are told to sale they do not have access to this information.
Steven Starkweather: This conversation is kind of amazing. You're telling me that the company is knowingly selling faulty equipment. If we had some kind of regulatory commission who gave a damn about stuff like this I'd go make a complaint to them.

Thomas (ID: K8Y): The sling works the site has some issue and some receiver have some issues.  This is not release do to it will be fixed.
Steven Starkweather: But it's not fixed now and you've been taking my money for it under the guise that it works the way it's supposed to. That is a malfeasant act

Thomas (ID: K8Y): I understand it not work properly with your receive now.
Steven Starkweather: I know. You understand. Great. Make it right. Give me some type of credit or something
Thomas (ID: K8Y): The only thing you can do is return the Sling for a full refund if you want.
Steven Starkweather: But I would have to pay shipping charges on that. So I'd still lose money.
Steven Starkweather: And I'm still locked into a 2-year contract that was signed under false premise

Thomas (ID: K8Y): Once the update is release you can buy the sling back and be able to use the online service.
Steven Starkweather: Do you understand the saying that time is money? The fact that I have already lost x amount of time messing around with this means that I am not getting the service I am paying for whether it works or not (heavily siding on the not side) which represents a monetary loss to me.
Thomas (ID: K8Y): I am sorry that you had to spend a lot of time regarding this issue.
Steven Starkweather: Your apology is touching but doesn't actually mean anything. I heard horror stories about Dish before I signed on but thought you couldn't be any worse than DirecTV. I was clearly wrong.
Thomas (ID: K8Y): I am sorry you fill that way.

Steven Starkweather: Fill that way? Did you just call me fat?

Thomas (ID: K8Y): Feel that way.
Thomas (ID: K8Y): Sorry for the spelling error.
Steven Starkweather: It's ok.
Thomas (ID: K8Y): The only thing I can try to do is send you a new receiver but it will have the same soft wear.  But it might fix the problem.
Steven Starkweather: You already said it wouldn't fix the problem?
Thomas (ID: K8Y): Correct but that is the only thing I can do for you.
Steven Starkweather: Seriously? No programming credits or anything? The big problem is that is messes with my ability to use your products
Thomas (ID: K8Y): I am sorry no we do not charge for access to the website.
Steven Starkweather: Ah, well, what can I say. I hate your company. I'm not going to send back the receiver or whatever other b.s. because that's just running to a standstill and adds 3 or 4 more layers of aggravation to my already exceptionally dissatisfying overall experience with Dish
Thomas (ID: K8Y): I am very sorry about all this frustration.
Steven Starkweather: I'm gonna disconnect now and try to make my DVR sync with my online account again. Maybe I'll run into you again later tonight when that doesn't work or only works for 15 minutes. My hopes aren't high
Steven Starkweather: If you aren't my next c.s. rep, have a good night
Thomas (ID: K8Y): You too.

You have disconnected.