On My Nomination For The Brainstorms Award

Thank you to the wonderful, fascinating, intelligent, beautiful, outstanding, great, fun, hilarious, engaging, charismatic, smart, intelligent, super, warm, talented, and outstanding Sophie at the Starting Today blog for nominating this page for the #BrainstormsAward.

To think that people actually enjoy reading fart and cum jokes in addition to my occasional thoughts on movies and football is truly an honor.

Rules to follow for the Brainstorms Award:

1. Thank the one who nominated you

2. Tag your post with #BrainsStormsAward and follow BrainsStorms if you are willing!

3. Display the Brainstorms Award logo

4. Display the rules on your blog post.

5. Talk a bit about your blog, why you started it, what you write on and your goal for your blog.

6. Answer the five questions you have been asked.

7. Nominate five other amazing bloggers.

8. Ask them five new questions.

A Bit About This Blog

I started writing when I woke up hungover, confused, and fearing for my life in the back of a Ford Probe in Mexico. The cartel decided to let me live if I spent the rest of my life humiliating myself. Thus, this blog was born.

I try not to confine myself to any one subject. If I have a story, joke, thought, etc. fall out of my brain, I try post it here. I don’t really think of myself as a “writer” or as an artistic type really. Nevertheless I have a ton of ideas that I would eventually like to translate into a novel, screenplay, or whatever. So I like to think of this blog as “target practice”, if you will, to keep myself in the habit of writing (before the cartel uses ME as target practice 😕)

Q/A

1. What is your biggest regret and why?

When I was a young man (back in the 1940s), I stretched myself too thin. I was trying to go to college, start a career, and be a party animal all at once (being shot at by the Germans was a problem too).

I wish I focused on one thing and not be worried about everything all the time.

2. Can you do a cartwheel?

When my arthritis isn’t acting up.

3. Are you a lone wolf? Or extremely sociable and outgoing?

I believe that it was Cormac McCarthy who stated that drinking is a workplace hazard for writers. When one commits to the blogging lifestyle, there are many such hazards and obstacles. One HAS to be a lone wolf, even in social settings…even at the cost of their own mental stability.

That’s the price of art.

But as to whether I’m naturally a lone wolf or social butterfly, I guess it depends on which drugs I’m hyped up on.

4. If you could start your blog over again what would you do differently this time?

Write it on an actual computer and not on my Nokia 8110.

5. Who are your three favorite writers of all time?

God (for writing the Bible), Charles Bukowski, and Cormac McCarthy.

My Nominees

I’ve only been on here for a couple of weeks but the WordPress community has been awesome. Unfortunately I feel like a selfish bastard for not getting acquainted with very many blogs since starting here due to my manic behavior (and being in and out of jail). But I pledge to be as supportive for this community as you all have been for me.

That being said, the following blogs have stood out for their perspective, creativity, and hard work. They’re an eclectic mix of poetry, creative writing, science, and language. They all deserve a shoutout:

1. Writer of Words Etc

2. Short Wisdom

3. yaskhan

4. Foundation Operation X for languages , cultures , and perspectives

5. SHE-ensya

(Additionally, being the kind of lowbrow blog that this is, if you choose to participate in this award, don’t feel the need to give thanks or reference my page. I understand completely 😎)

Questions For The Nominees

1. If you could go back in time to prevent any disaster in history, which one would it be?

2. Which living person has the greatest influence on you?

3. What is something that you find overrated?

4. If you had the opportunity to relive your life, correcting all your mistakes, would you take it?

5. What is the routing number to your bank account?

If you had to learn to play a new musical instrument, which one would you choose?

Once again, thank you to Sophie for the nomination and all of you for reading. I look forward to getting to know all of you. So feel free to comment or just say ‘hi’.

I’m not always a weirdo 😃

Can’t believe how racist my sponsor is

“I’m James and I’m an alcoholic,” I was told to say in AA. “I’ve wasted the last several years of my life. I’ve lost my career, my family, and respect…all because I can’t stop drinking. I’d do anything to get it all back. But it doesn’t work that way. Yet today is a new day, and hopefully coming here will be the first of many steps towards getting my life back together.”

“Thanks for sharing, James,” the crowd said back.

Then my sponsor said “I’m Jack, I’m an alcoholic, and I hate k——— and ——— and fuck the Dutch too.” He then gave a 20 minute racist tirade in front of 50 people.

“But Jack”, I said “My kids are Vietnamese. Do you hate them too?”

“I hate anyone who ——— then ———- and ———- my penis!”, he replied.

With the crowd stunned, Jack yelled “this is where you can stick the Big Book!” Then he dropped his pants and exposed his anus.

Since I haven’t seen Jack in weeks, I have to find a new sponsor. And without a sponsor, AA bylaws don’t require sobriety 🤷‍♂️

What a weird organization.

My Drinking is YOUR Problem

After crashing my 97 Geo Metro into a tree, my family staged an intervention. My mom cried the whole time, saying “your dead father would be disappointed in you”, and my ex-wife said that “if you don’t stop drinking, you will never see your son again”.

I sat there listening to this shit until it was my turn to talk. I said, “I recognize that I *might* have a drinking problem. But…and I’m just making a suggestion…have you guys considered that YOU might have a sobriety problem?”

The cops later arrested me for property damage and I was court ordered to attend rehab. They sent me to a Fort Lauderdale treatment facility where they told me that I’m a “manic depressive” and “have unresolved issues stemming from childhood trauma”. I told them to fuck off, that psychiatry has been proven to be bullshit years ago.

Nevertheless the judge told me to attend AA. My sponsor, Jack, said that sobriety sucks and that there’s nothing wrong with alcohol because it’s a natural product from completely artificial processes.

Besides, lots of great things were done under the influence of alcohol. Ever heard of World War II?

So no, I will not be taking my clozapine and naltrexone. Things like “mental health” and “science” is liberal bullshit.

So what if Randy’s been a public menace his whole life?

Look y’all.

So what if Randy “exposed” himself to an undercover cop or frequented massage parlors “owned” by known sex traffickers or “threatened” to shoot up a Home Depot or sold drugs outside of “middle schools”?

This is America. And in America we have this thing called free speech.

Ever heard of it?

But anywho, some of y’all make me sick. You keep saying that it “serves him right” that he’s been denied bail due to “being a flight risk pending an investigation into sexual relations with a minor and the disappearance of several women dating back to the 1990s” by the “Los Angeles Police Department”.

Do any of y’all have a heart?

I met Randy while hitchhiking on I-10 in 1992. He told me “Get in kid, I have something to show ya”. We pulled off into an abandoned rest stop and he told me there was “precious cargo” in the trunk of this Pontiac Firebird. He handed me the keys and told me to meet with a “Carlos” in Phoenix. He also handed me a Ruger 22 and told me to “get rid of the evidence”.

I met with Randy two days later in Barstow and I crashed on his couch. Then he gave me $1500 and said “you’re alright kid”.

So when I was down on my luck, Randy gave me a chance. He put clothes on my back and a roof over my head. Sure he came home drunk some nights and took liberties with my penis. Sure I cried about it every night. And sure it gave me a crippling methadone addiction. But come on! Every man has sucked off their best fried, right?

Randy is a good man.

So despite the numerous victims in the wake of his crimes and misdeeds, Randy deserves your sympathy. Stop being a heartless bastard.

Now as the Los Angeles County DA offers me full immunity in exchange for testimony, stop being a snowflake by moaning about “justice for the victims” and think of poor ol Randy sitting there in county jail. No man deserves that fate.

A Few Tips to Move Past Writer’s Block

People come up to me all the time and ask: “Jim, how did you get so good at writing?”

Which people? Mostly ESL. But still, the question needs answering.

My father would always tell me “Never trust a Spaniard”. Additionally he’d say “Damnit James, you’re 18 years old, it’s time you learned to read.”

So when I enrolled at Northwestern (State Community College) I went up to my professor and said “teach me to read.” So he invited me to his house, gave me a few beers, put on a porno and removed my pants. Afterwords, he took out a book. It was Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not”. I instantly fell in love with literature and I’ve been reading and writing ever since.

“But what do you do about writer’s block?”

Easy. For most writers, the solution is usually a bottle of scotch. But a couple of quaaludes don’t hurt either.

“Are there any writing exercises that you can do?”

Hmm. Good question.

I can’t think of any. Usually the only exercise I do is get in my car, go to the local truck stop, and ask if any truckers need “company”.

But every individual is different, and you have to go out into the world and find what gets your creative juices flowing.

“Are there any writers you turn to to find inspiration?”

Like I said, everyone’s different. You can find inspiration almost anywhere. Bathroom graffiti, for example. Call up some of the numbers, see where it goes. But whatever you do, never call a number from the bathroom stall at your local library . That’s definitely an undercover cop.

“Are some people just born to be writers?”

Ya know, probably.

I spent years in the Navy being a seaman. I was just no good at being a seaman. I’d often be reprimanded for various things like lurking in the showers, taking payments for special “favors”, etc. It was all bullshit. I just wasn’t suited for military life.

But don’t let that stop you from following your dreams. Some people may “judge” you, saying “that goes against the nature order of things”. Maybe your ex-wife might say “James, I hope someday you find someone that will satisfy you and will be happy together. I am leaving you.”

But never give up. Keep trying.

Never lose hope.