NIMBLE TONGUES

Language seems to have lost its true sense and words are spoken with a second thought to what they truly mean. Is this because nobody reads anymore? Possibly, since television, video games and audio books have taken over what should be a staple in our lives. Words are more powerful than you think and spurting out easy words with no meaning or action attached to them is a twice told fool's tale of moronic incapabilities. Mean what you say because when you're on the other end of someone's pie hole you expect them to act accordingly to the proper verbiage they've chosen. Whether you're playing bridge with a hooker in Bangkok or seducing the pool boy, we have a right to believe what we're told instead of living a life of paranoia and doubt. Mel Gibson will not come to your rescue on this one.

"Thank you" Remember that one? Where are your manners? Unless you were raised by a pack of hyenas then you should be slapped across the head with a crock pot for forgetting these tiny words. The Napoleon syndrome has expired. Its shelf life is over. If Bette Davis caught you being ungrateful she would throw her whiskey in your face and demolish you under thirty seconds with her words, which I guarantee you she actually means.

"I forgive you" Are you a member of the Catholic church? Unless you enjoy killing people because you've been brainwashed into believing your neighbor should be murdered because he reads Stephen King, then you have no business judging others or deciding whether or not they've been punished enough. Tolerance is mandatory and if you can't handle it then I suggest you read "The Crucible" and throw your pride down the drain once in a while.

"I love you" My favorite! Nowadays, no one knows if they're loved or actually despised. With all the plotting and trickery amongst us who knows if you're living with Jekyll and Hide. Are you loved because of all the squats you've been doing at the gym or your bank account? I bet they mean it when they say "I love you" in Kenya. Maybe we should all live in huts where belongings and "nice racks" are a thing of the past and see who really loves you then. When all you have are some fava beans and chianti.

" I was wrong" Well, if you pushed your Aunt Myrtle down the stairs because she bought Legos instead of Nintendo for Christmas then of course you're wrong. It's not her fault you've decided to become a sociopath in the making.It will not be the death of you if you stop talking so much and listen more often. Your opinion and the action sometimes attached to it may only make sense to you and Charles Manson. So, go tell your girlfriend you're sorry and that you were wrong for cooking her poodle for dinner. Don't worry. I'm sure prison is homier then they portray it to be on "Prison Break."

" You are beautiful" Verbal seduction is the way to a woman's heart. I've said it time and time again. Make love to a woman's ears and you will be baffled with the results. Do you want a girlfriend who wears sweatpants all day and watches reruns of "Taxicab Confessions" because that's exciting as it gets for her ears? Speak up. Silence is not golden in this area and trust me, a dry slip n' slide is agonizing.

"I'm here for you" One would hope, except when the turnips hit the fan most people run for the closest bar, even the ones that are frequented by a potential axe murderer by the name of Larry playing darts alone. It's better to get chopped up then listening to some schmuck's problems, right? Funnily enough, when our little fairytale comes screeching to a halt and turns into a scene from "Aliens", we want the world to shriek with us and hold our hand. Sorry to burst your bubble of self-importance, but the day you put someone else before your pockmarked ego then Lana Turner will pay you a visit you won't forget. I guarantee your bell will be ringing ore than twice, if you catch my drift.

Some things are better left unsaid but others should be shouted from rooftops and heart-shaped jacuzzis. An agile tongue is worth a thousand "Taxicab Confessions".

Till next time...

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

Have you ever felt a certain way in relationships but after rummaging your brain for the right word were left unsatisfied? It's almost like reminiscing about a hearty meal at Taco Bell? You're left alone, in pain and in dire need of emergency services. Well, ladies and gents of this uncivilized Western world, there are actually words for these fleeting emotions that visit us from time to time, except they're in a different language. The foreigners do seem to be a notch above us when it comes to matters of the heart.

Yuanfen (Chinese) is a relationship which has been brought together by fate or destiny. Principles of predetermination are very important in Chinese culture. Jack and Rose from "Titanic" are examples of this complex concept. They were destined to be together, star-crossed lovers like Romeo and Juliet...except they pretty much all die at the end. If it feels like fate, should we run for the hills? Would it be safer to hibernate in a lion's den then to let cupid shoot his arrow at us?

Cafune (Portuguese) means to run one's fingers through someone's hair. When was the last time anyone did this? In a romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts? A hundred years ago when chivalry was still a popular attribute? It's a nice thought but this gesture is so rare, maybe in hotter, tropical climates it's common. The sun does make one mushy-minded and we tend to ingest too much alcohol and forget our inhibitions...perhaps it's time for a vacation. A desired gesture unless it's the serial killer you've let into your boudoir and he has an ice pick or a machete down his pants. Think of it as a Kinder's surprise.

Retrouvailles (French) is the happiness of meeting again after a long time. The French live to eat, drink, go on vacation or strike and have sex. Meeting someone of the opposite sex, unless it's a pimply Uncle or a hairy, opinionated grandmother, usually means you will be pouring Bordeaux down each other's throats and rolling around in your birthday suits at the Esmerelda Hotel (one of Paris's best kept secrets I might add). I think the last time I saw any of this going on was in "Love Actually" and that was... I can't recall when that was. I must have been at the Esmerelda when that came out in theaters.

La Douleur Exquise (French)..aaah, again the French have come to our rescue. This means the heart-wrenching pain of wanting someone you can't have. A favorite pastime for most, I think. Wanting what we can't have and then once we get it are indubitably disappointed and bored. Like the time you wanted to marry Sasha the stripper, fast forward one year later and you're the one who's barefoot and pregnant in the cell next to Hannibal Lector. How nice it is to be a sadist sometimes? In this case, love is blind and for the wrong reasons, or else you wouldn't be being spoon fed by a pissed off nurse. But you get what you pay for, at least that's what they say.

Koi No Yokan (Japanese) is the little butterflies you get when you know you will fall in love with someone. This is by far the most prosperous time in a relationship since you haven't slept together yet...make them sweat a little before you serve dinner people. Everyone has stars in their eyes and daydreams about the other, anticipating the moment when their bodies will come together, in both senses. A magical time unless you're Forest Whitaker in "The Crying Game" and Boy George is whispering sweet nothings in your ear. Go with the flow or jump out the window? Who knows, one zipper being lowered could make you discover all kinds of interesting things about yourself.

Ya'aburnee (Arabic) is a declaration of one's hope that they'll die before their loved one. This seems to be a popular one except the other way around. Wives seem to really enjoy putting arsenic or other innocent household items masquerading as cleaning products in their husband's dinner. Unless you're hanging out in Tibet with a couple of monks who don't fear death, you better make your own dinner. Wouldn't want that special someone to get any funny ideas now would we?

Saudade (Portuguese) is the longing we feel for someone who is gone or lost. Wouldn't it be nice if we were decent enough to feel this without death, kidnapping or hostage situations being involved? I guess it's true when they say "you never knew what you had until it's gone." Vampires and leprechauns seem to be the only romantic heroes left. They fight for what they love most and unfortunately I don't see any frolicking around in my backyard.

Till next time...

AUDIBLE CARESSES

As you all know, if there's one thing we've learned throughout history it's that we don't learn from history. The same old trials and tribulations are encountered over and over like a blinking neon sign in the middle of the desert. We want to change the world but make very little effort to change ourselves. We crave peace, love and understanding yet those concepts seem to lie dormant somewhere within us. It's time to invest in a flashlight and revive what many have written about. If they were still with us, this is the pudding some of my favorite people would serve.

Papa, also known as Ernest Hemingway, would tell us to forget our personal tragedies and start living!! Life is not a dress rehearsal and even though the play is badly cast take pride in knowing that there will be some applause at the end, if any. Even if it's only measly clap from a drunk one armed man in the back, take solace in knowing that you are at least seen and admired by one. Be proud of who you are and declare yourself the best at what you do and demand respect, even if a few egos have to get trampled upon along the way to Babylon. Start listening more...open your ears and stop obeying that little raspy voice inside your head which will usually point you in the wrong direction. Little voices have nothing to do with your gut. Little voices make you mistake movement with action. Breathing is not enough, even the Pope can breathe. Don't be afraid to get broken and scarred up. It means you've lived and survived. What will you have fought for when you're shuffling around your house looking for the remote or some Jello? Hopefully, it'll be worth a damn and others will remember your panache and persistence instead of your cowardly lion attributes. Get your hands dirty and play ball. Remember, "there's no crying in baseball"!!

Paulo Coehlo once wrote that "the greatest lie in the world is that at some point we lose the ability to control our lives, and become the pawns of fate." People with a "laissez-faire" attitude should be shipped to a deserted island. This type of thinking doesn't get you anywhere. Do you really believe that the universe has you on its People to Please List? I don't think so. You are in control. Idle hands, idle minds and idle hearts should really have gone out of style a long time ago. No war was won by being emotionally lazy, a favorite pastime of most I might add. Fear of failure seems to be the greatest obstacle to happiness. There are people being massacred in African villages, children dying of hunger and poverty and women being burned at the stake in one organized religion I shall not mention. And you're going to complain that "you don't want to get hurt" or "they may not like me"? Man up and start acting like a warrior, well, try not to kill anyone, but like i've always said "navel gazing" is about as interesting as golf or late night infomercials. The drama of mankind is when we sacrifice fulfillment to conformity, when we know we can achieve greatness but deny to do so, and end up living a life of void. An empty house is not a home. An empty mind is worth a bag of bones. An empty heart will sink and be neighbors with Titanic.

As Haruki Murakami so brilliantly put it: “Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.” Just remember that
once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about. Take it from me, the hustle is worth it, this dance will awaken you and before you know it "Papa" may be writing a tale about you.
Till next time...

ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

I'm always fascinated at how much we end up despising one another, as well as ourselves, simply because somewhere in that tortured mind of ours simplicity and logic seem to have gone to the pub indefinitely. Here is my humble opinion on things we need to stop doing to ourselves. Easier said than done but then again so is everything else in life, except eating chocolate, drinking fine wine and sleeping with arousing people. Anyways, I'm in a generous mood so away we go...

1. Stop spending time with the wrong people.
Why do we surround ourselves with people we don't even like? Do their opinions really matter? We tend to do this because they're attractive, they have money or you need them now or somewhere in the future. Remember that all the people we have admired throughout history couldn't have cared less what others thought of them. Winston Churchill had it right when he said, "You have enemies ? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life." The right people will want to see you succeed and prosper as a person. They won't drain you like a dishrag leaving you void of anything useful at the end of the day, except zoning out in front of reality shows. If you have the slightest doubt about someone...move on and stop wasting your time. If they're overlooking your worth then do yourself a favor and run for the hills.

2. Stop trying to buy happiness.
Aaaah, an old classic that always seems to pop up since we started deteriorating as a species, probably when power and money became daily staples. There's no mystery to this golden oldie and it'll probably never go out of style, unless aliens take over and turn us into nutcrackers. You can't go chasing happiness...this isn't a fox hunt. It's plain and simple: find someone to love, something to hope for and something to do, preferably something you don't loathe. You won't find it in a Beverly Hills mansion, or at a bar surrounded by supermodels or in a treasure chest. No matter what they're force feeding us you cannot buy happiness. Happiness is stumbled upon not chased.

3.Stop trying to be everything to everyone.
We can't please the entire world. We never will. First, we have to love ourselves, which is something some never accomplish because their vision is clouded by false hopes and dreams. Accept who you are and don't apologize for who you're not. You're not trying to sell yourself to the masses. You're not a shampoo or a mattress. Start acting like you are different and bathe in what makes you unique until your fingers get all pruny. But being something to someone, whether it's a lover, a friend or family, is a wondrous feat. If one person thinks you're as glorious as the Sistine Chapel then screw the lot of them because there's one you, one Sistine Chapel and one Michelangelo...catch my drift?

It's rainy and cold here today and I'm not trying to appeal to your intellect or wit. I'm just trying to be a friend to someone, somewhere, somehow. Don't take life for granted and every once in a while just be yourself. Forget your flaws, forget society, forget money, forget pain. Tell someone you love them, crave the beautiful and as I always say..."feed your head."
Till next time...

"Shame" Movie Review

This is not a film about flowers blooming in the summer, romantic carriage rides in the fall or watching sunsets in an exotic far off land. This is a story filled with remorse, pain, anguish, desperation and massive amounts of self destruction and isolation. It's a shot of the strongest tequila, with no salt or lime to make its rawness sweeter. "Shame" is no picnic and if you're looking to watch a story that will give you butterflies or titillate your intellect you will be disappointed. The only thing you feel is a painful void, as if you've been punched in the stomach by a Viking.
This is the type of film society needs. We need to see what's truly going on in the world and the truth is most definitely revealed in this tale about Brandon Sullivan, a successful New Yorker, played by a brilliant Michael Fassbender, and his frightening sex addiction. Despite his rather cool and composed demeanor, he is drowning in a river of sexual torment and loneliness. His addiction has replaced the few important factors in life, one being Sissy, his self destructive sister, played by a disheveled Carey Mulligan, who only wants him to love her. Fassbender is emotionally crippled by his affliction and the only way he seems to feel alive is when there is zero intimacy involved. No pillow talk, no first date, no sharing common interests...just sex. And by sex, I mean a hungry, frantic, hard-boiled kind of sex. The kind you fantasize about yet are embarrassed to talk about.
With the arrival of his disorderly sister, he sinks deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of emotional deterioration. There is no solace for him anywhere in his personal life, except between the thighs of strangers and other "night walkers" like himself. There's a scene in the film where he goes running at night, as if he's trying to escape his curse. There's no running away from it, though. One glance from a pretty redhead on the subway, and as Kings of Leon so eloquently put it, his "sex is on fire."
I won't go into any details regarding the plot but I will tell you that this haunting film will leave you thirsty for someone to talk to. It may be too "European" of a movie for some, since a question mark replaces the period of the final scene and the sex scenes are brutally explicit but funnily enough possess an inexplicable grace, like that of a gazelle being chased by a ravenous lion.
There is no shame in this film...just truth.
Till next time...

LONGING TO RETURN TO THE REALM OF THE SOUL

The only way to avoid floating in a vacuum is to remove all the unnecessary clutter we cling to...especially people. Why do we need others to make us feel of value? Is it really that important what your neighbor thinks? Are you going to die a terrible death if you disappear from society to work on yourself or discover new lands? God forbid no one sees you every day at the gym to reassure you that your abs are"totally hot." This constant need for other people's approval drives me insane. We used to have icons like Socrates, Ernest Hemingway(whom I constantly mention), Shakespeare and Mozart that couldn't care less what the public thought. This is what made them great and stand out from the zombies surrounding them. Today, we seem to feel more and more insecure and our only remedy for our decaying self-worth is for applause from people that wouldn't take a second glance at you if you were starving on the street. We forget who really matters. We tend to neglect the ones that love us despite the darkness and poison within us that emerges from time to time. We take the Kings and Queens of this game called LIFE for granted and drench the common pawns surrounding us with our pleading eyes that read: PLEASE LIKE ME.
Make enemies...it's good for the soul and if you don't have any you've never stood for anything. I often say all my friends are dead.... because the most powerful men and women that are remembered today and idolized were the outcasts...the rejects...the flawed. Please dare to be different and flush this ridiculous appetite for the world's approval down the toilet. I guarantee you will be remembered if you dare to be different and piss off one or two people. Try to disengage yourself from useless pride, vanity and greed. The path less chosen bears greater fruit...but do you have what it takes?
Till next time...

HOW SOON IS NOW?

Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it
goes on flying anyway. What prevents us from being somebody? It's ourselves. From the moment we're born we are told what is right and wrong. What is good and what is evil. What society accepts and what it denies. All these ideas are pushed down our throats and sooner or later we feel like we're in an airport waiting for a plane that seems to never come. The eternal stand-by.

The mind is capable of many great things. We've imagined and created the impossible and the improbable. We've gone to the moon, sailed across oceans, discovered cures, climbed mountains technologically speaking and created wonders of beauty from cathedrals to symphonies to literary masterpieces. But why this nagging, downward internal pull that anchors us to the depths of our own fears? It's so simple to break the chains that cripple us. How can we let our minds prevent us from blooming? It's not about who makes the most money or who has the most enviable home. What we have shouldn't define our success yet we seem to constantly accumulate random things that fill a void that will never go away.

It's because we're not aiming for the right things. We aim low and assume that the best things in life like love, intelligence, growth, friendship even, are impossible so we might as well be miserable bastards and blame the world for our misfortunes. The day we realize that we are not victims but responsible for our own lives today will be our own personal Judgement Day. There's so much to accomplish yet fear blinds us to the point that we may as well have one foot in the box because we've stopped living... we're simply surviving.

Learn how to live. Feed your head, your heart and your soul. Be greedy when it comes to your internal fruition because no one else will do it for you. Sure they'll tell you what you want to hear and smile pointlessly but that's about as good as it gets. It's not a harsh realization it's just an observation. Have you ever been in a wheelchair? Well, I have and there's going to come a time when the nurse will stop pushing you, feeding you, applauding your daily improvements and holding your hand while you go to the bathroom. You better learn very quickly how to maneuver that chair and how to make yourself even more visible than everyone else. Unfortunately, it's only when are livelihoods are threatened that we stop and say... Uh oh... I probably should do something because Mother isn't going to pat me on the back and make my troubles go away with reassurance.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable and racked with sorrow,
but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. The phrase it's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything may sound cool coming from Brad Pitt... but you're not Brad Pitt are you? So stop waiting for life to eat you alive and bite it in the ass first. Don't just seize the day... seize your life. It ain't over till it's over...