The Song Remains the Same; The List Doesn't

Just an note: the column I wrote a couple of weeks ago detailing my various musical tastes is now updated. Since first posting it, the list has quietly morphed into an even more impressive and unwieldly leviathan of my loves and hates.

Feel free to go back and take a look, as you'll no doubt find new reasons to either validate what you believe to be my stellar musical acumen, or deem that I should be sentenced to listen to the new Gwen Stefani album over and over until making the decision that suicide is the sensible alternative (for the record, it should take about a minute-and-a-half, two minutes tops).

Shut Up. Listen. Learn/11.19.06

37 Dicks (In a Row)

Alumni Visitation/Career Day, Pace High School, Miami, FL
December 11th, 2006
9:17 am

Uh, hey kids.

How's it going?

My name's Chez, and for some reason I'll probably never figure out, your teachers have asked me to come back here to my alma mater -- or at least the place where I spent a good portion of my teenage years sleeping -- and talk to you guys about your futures. Understand that asking me for advice on how to achieve success in life is like asking Ken Lay the best way to avoid prison time, but I suppose that if I can help one child avoid making the mistakes that I've made -- well, then -- there will be, uh, one fewer child who'll make the mistakes that I've made.

Don't do drugs.

Okay, so -- where to begin?

As it turns out, you've caught me on a hell of a day. Today is my 37th birthday. I can start by telling you that nobody "celebrates" his or her 37th birthday. Jesus, I had a brain tumor removed earlier this year, and I'm still not really "celebrating" this birthday. Don't get me wrong, I'm lucky to be alive and glad that the operation was a success, despite the fact that it rendered me a hormonal wreck who barely even recognizes his own face anymore when he sees it in the mirror. If I were a better person -- or at the very least more generically optimistic -- I'd be bukakkeing everyone I meet with gratitude and a general "Up With People" vibe 24/7; unfortunately, that's just not who I am, so maybe lesson one for you today is obvious...

People Don't Change

Kids, in spite of what Hollywood endings have led you to believe, people generally are who they are. Events can temporarily bend them and certainly alter their ways of thinking slightly -- sometimes even adjusting their core beliefs. They can learn from their mistakes and become wiser. They can adapt to their surroundings. For the most part however, the person you become after your formative years is the person you're probably always going to be. Being an adult isn't about changing everything about yourself that you believe to be wrong; it's about changing the things you can and learning to live with the things you can't. Someday, you or the kid next to you will go through rehab and all of that will be pounded into your head until you want to scrawl it on the wall in your own blood. It'll be the one thing you'll learn in rehab however that'll be right -- no matter who you are.

Speaking of which...

Drugs^tm: Making Bad People Feel Good (and Good People Feel Bad) Since 1427

A wise man named Marilyn Manson once said, "I Don't Like the Drugs, but the Drugs Like Me." Truer words were never spoken. If you ever wanted to know what drugs make you feel like, I can answer that for you: they make you feel like doing more drugs.

Chances are you're inundated daily with anti-drug messages warning you of the dangers of even thinking about lighting up that bong hit. Not surprisingly, this is nonsense. I won't broach the difficult question of why anyone should be allowed to have a say in what you do or don't do to make yourself feel good in the comfort of your own home, but I will say this: drugs are like anything else -- they become very bad for you the moment you let them consume your life. I happen to believe that there's a very big difference between using drugs and abusing them. I've done both at various points throughout my life. Admittedly, you need to be aware that doing drugs indeed can be like playing Russian roulette. They're enticing as hell, and you can wake up one morning to find that -- without even knowing it -- you've crossed a very dark little Rubicon. You need to keep this in mind at all times should you decide to even experiment. Anything can kill you in this world -- drugs can do it very quickly.

They can also do something far worse: they can make you wish you were dead.

While we're on the subject of death...

Career Suicide is Painless

I fell into a very good job at 22, which is a pretty impressive achievement for somebody who dropped out of college to join a band and basically figured he'd be doomed to work at Taco Bell until retirement age if his plan for musical world-domination failed (which it did). By 24 I had a gorgeous apartment in Miami Lakes, a BMW, and the title of Executive Somethingorother. It was all pretty kick-ass, until about six or seven years later -- when I realized that I hated what I was doing. Now, don't get me wrong. I fully understand and appreciate the fact that you're not necessarily supposed to love your job; you're just supposed to shut up and do it, get the check, and use it to pay your bills and buy things you want. I've known a lot of people throughout my lifetime who are fine with this way of thinking -- they're damn happy realizing that the end justifies the means. You may wind up being one of those people for all I know. Unfortunately, I'm not. Maybe it's the addict in me always wanting MORE, but I'm dangerous if I'm not being challenged -- and when I say that I don't mean, "Hey, let's see if I can put together an hour-long television show in twenty minutes;" I mean that I've always felt as if I were meant to do something other than bring you extended coverage of John Mark Karr's plane ride, the Lindsay Lohan OD-watch, or answer the important sweeps-induced question of whether or not your sock drawer can kill you (details at 11!). This could be the reason why I've managed to burn at least a few bridges at a good percentage of the places that have been unlucky enough to be saddled with me for any length of time. I've sarcastically referred to my idiotic managers as "The Brain Trust;" I've threatened to quit as a show of solidarity with people who were being fired; I abused authority when I had it and despised authority when I didn't; I've been labeled "brilliant and creative, but impossible;" In short -- I've been a fuck-up.

The reason for this -- now, finally, at 37 -- I realize, is that I simply moved up the food chain of a career which initially awed me with the size of its paycheck, but has never actually fed my soul in any way.

The lesson: forgive the stupid cliche' but, life is short -- follow your dreams. You won't be truly happy or fulfilled otherwise.

Then again...

R-E-G-R-E-T (Just a Little Bit)

Ignore what I just said. Life usually isn't short. On the contrary, as someone once put it so well -- life is very long, particularly when you've made mistakes. I've screwed up so many times in my life that if I started listing them today, you'd be out of here just after Christmas at the earliest. Whoever says that you should live your life never having any regrets is more deserving of being pounded into paste than the guy who invented Reggaeton. Misguided, idealistic crap like that is only proffered by early 20-somethings who are still using Dad's money to buy pot from their RA and whose biggest "mistake" up to that point involved a night in jail for drunk-and-disorderly or flashing a Girls Gone Wild camera at Mardi Gras. As you get older, the consequences of the mistakes you make grow exponentially. The pain lasts longer. More people are hurt. You yourself run the risk of never fully recovering.

Make no mistake: the unshakable belief that you are damaged beyond repair is the worst kind of life sentence.

For God's sake -- think.

Case in point...

Marriage is Between a Man and a Woman... and a Man and a Woman, and a Man and a Woman

Isn't love great?

You meet somebody and suddenly the world starts to look and feel like the first few minutes of that good mushroom peak, with everything turning all colorful and warm and fuzzy, and you just want to lie down in it and let it pour over you and drown you in its infinite, wonderful bliss.

Uh-huh.

Unfortunately, there's no way to convince you during this heady experience that it is, in fact, a hallucination -- and that it won't be long before you're coming down and trying to pick individual pieces of lint out of the carpet with your bare hands because, well, "everything just looks so fucking dirty." I have two ex-wives, both of whom can be thankful only for the fact that my name is so unusual that there's a good chance they'll never have to hear it uttered again as long as they live. One of them used to refer to this rapturous early-relationship phenomenon as the "Chemical Bath." We all take it. We all sit in it for as long as we can, because it feels so safe and warm -- but it doesn't last. The true test of love then becomes how well you and the person you've sworn to care about can deal with the banality of day-to-day existence.

Going back to what I was saying about regret, occasionally your mistakes will lead you someplace wonderful; they'll lead you right where you were supposed to be all along. There's no greater proof of this in my life than the fact that I'm now happily married to a woman whom I can truly refer to as my soul-mate. We've been through incredibly difficult times -- and incredibly wonderful times -- and we've never fully lost sight of each other. As much as I love her however -- and I do with all my heart -- I never forget that I got very, very lucky.

Unless of course you believe in fate.

And maybe that's the final lesson...

Believe

Yeah I know, I'm a cynical prick. I've been one since I was a kid -- one who insulted a teacher in front of his class then taunted him while he paddled me; one who was a nightmarish combination of smart and subversive. But Bill Hicks used to have a name for people like me I think; he called us "Idealistic Misanthropes." I've got plenty of issues with the stupidity that I see around me every day, but that's only because I believe that things can be better. I believe in silly concepts like a love that never dies (now with a tiny drop of realism!) and a comforting inner-peace and a kind of redemption that doesn't have to come from a 2,000-year-old book or its supposedly divine author.

I believe that there are things in this world worth believing in.

And that's what makes life worth living.

Well kids, that's it for me. I'm gonna go now and let the guy from the class of 1994 get up here and tell you all about the joys of delivering water for Zephyrhills every day. Just duck if you see him reach into his pocket for any reason.

Oh yeah, and regrets or not -- the one thing I can say for sure about never growing up?

You don't have to worry about that mid-life crisis.

Sunday Sacrilege

This one's easy.

I don't even need to make the effort of photoshopping profane images having unnatural sex with sacred ones, or creating fake Catholic church signs that read "Sunday Evening Pot-Luck and Pee-Pee Touch," or writing at length about how you can't call any part of the world "civilized" if you can still be murdered in the streets there for drawing a cartoon, or even having ads for gay escorts mailed to Ted Haggard's home in Colorado.

No, this morning, someone else is doing all the defiling of the Lord's good name for me.

That person is Louisiana Representative William Jefferson, who last night won re-election by a wide margin by beating his fellow Democratic opponent in a run-off vote. For the uninformed, Representative Jefferson is currently under investigation by the FBI for possible bribery, after $90,000 in cash (cold, hard?) was found in his freezer.

During his victory speech, Jefferson proclaimed in regards to his win, "I'd like to thank almighty God for making it possible."

If you're claiming that God is willing to take time out of his busy schedule running the universe to back your corrupt, rotten, narcissistic, race-baiting ass -- well, that's pretty much "taking his name in vain" far better than I ever could.

First Katrina, now another Jefferson term. Louisiana had better hang on; if Biblical history holds true, there are another eight plagues still to come -- seven if you count the Saints.

The Kingdom

Prologue: Vanishing Point

"We're, like, gods," he says through a stupid smile. "You understand that, right?"

At this point all I can manage is a slow nod; I'm in no condition to argue this assessment one way or another.

He continues, his words a distorted muffle -- which is preferrable to the staccato jackhammer cadence that would be assaulting my ears were it not for the fact that he has a pacifier jammed tightly between his clenched teeth. I try to forget that he's twenty-four years old; he's a twenty-four year old man with a baby's pacifier sticking out of his mouth.

"This is great isn't it?" he says.

I wish he'd stop asking questions, particularly ones with such obvious answers.

"Man, I just had no idea that life could be so good. Everything is so perfect." He seems to drift off for a moment, then return. "So beautiful." His eyes close in slow-motion -- open again. "I can't thank you enough man, you know?" An apparent question again. I know. "You brought me into all of this. You got me the job. You taught me how to do it. If it weren't for you I'd still be a bank teller right now. What kind of fucking career is that?" he chuckles quietly.

I try not to look directly at his face -- into his eyes -- for far too many reasons to consider at length, the most pertinent at the moment being that the swipe of dark color that I assume is his head keeps morphing into shapes at once comforting then severe. I'm well aware that this parlor trick is a combination of the drugs currently coursing through my bloodstream and the dim glow from the dying candles which provide the only light in this room.

Somewhere there's music playing; its serenely ambient pulse seems to soothe its way through my ear canals and wrap gently around my brain.

I shift on the couch slightly -- feel the soft cushions give under my weight.

"Do you realize how fucking cool we are?" Another question. "We control what people see and hear. We're the arbiters of imagination. We are the news. Two years ago you were delivering packages; I was working at a bank. We were going nowhere; we had nothing. Now we're --"

I cut him off.

"High."

I can't see the expression on his face, but for a brief moment the dark shape in front of me, perched on the edge of my coffee table -- the one vaguely recognizable as the best friend I've known since high school -- has stopped shifting.

I hear him laugh, and I swear I can see the soundwaves eminate from his shaking form and spread across the room like rings of liquid.

"Yes," he says. "Yes we are."

I turn my head away from him slowly and stare into empty space. I try to ignore the young guy sitting on the floor of my austere living room massaging the topless girl's shoulders (my co-workers). I try to ignore the other young girl silently curled up in the corner of the room, rocking gently back and forth (my girlfriend). I try to ignore the distant hissing of the shower and the knowledge that two, maybe three people are having sex in my bathroom (complete strangers?). I try to ignore the fact that I took my last hit of ecstasy a half-hour ago and still haven't heard back from Eric (my dealer). I try hard to ignore the lithe and stunning shape of the girl standing directly in front of the stereo, swaying her hips in time with the subdued beat of the music flowing from its speakers -- the girl whose eyes are unavoidable and whose body is irresistable (my inevitable downfall).

I try to ignore the distinct possibility that at the rate we're going, none of us will live past the age of twenty-five.

Then again, we're gods -- and gods are immortal, aren't they?

"I Love to Laugh"*

My wife tells me that most of what I've written lately has been on the heavier side, and as usual she's right. Unfortunately, being that it's a soul-chilling three degrees outside and my instinct to hibernate has kicked in, I'm going to take the easy way out and just post somebody else's excellent work.

First up, the only way to truly enjoy what is an otherwise worthless videogame...



And, well, this one's for the troops...



*Should you ever, at any point in your life, decide to try your hand at internet dating and come across a person -- male or female -- who lists this dubious personality trait as one of his or her most attractive qualities, please understand that from that point forward it's your sole responsibility to humanity to kill that person and dump his or her body in a river somewhere.

We Interrupt This Program...

I'm still trying to happily swim in a vast sea of self-imposed silence, but I feel obliged to stick my head up and comment briefly on something which has come to my attention over the past few days; it's something that can't be ignored, simply because it speaks volumes about the state of television news in general (God-awful) and local news in particular (unbelievably God-awful).

It quite simply demands that somebody say something.

A little background first.

I've worked in a number of newsrooms throughout my sometimes illustrious, more often notorious career; some were populated with bright people whom I liked, some were populated with idiots whom I loathed -- most were a workable combination of the two extremes. One however stood out and still does to this day for the simple reason that during the time that I was there, it was filled top-to-bottom with the finest, kindest, most professional and most dedicated staff I've ever had the honor of showing up to work with every day.

During the late 90s, the management and rank-and-file of WTVJ -- NBC's owned and operated station in South Florida -- seemed less to me like co-workers and more like family. The quality of the work we did was unsurpassed, and the bonds we forged while doing that work remain to this day. I've never been more proud to be able to count myself among those whose journalistic standards were so exactingly high, and I've missed working with that particular group during that particular time-period every day since making the decision to leave in 2000.

Occasionally though, even during those ascendant years, a decision would come down from on high which would be stunning in its apparent lack of foresight. A change would be made; someone would be hired or fired; a news story would be over-hyped or overlooked -- it was simply the nature of the business that, well, "dumb happens" from time to time. It was also the nature of the business that more often than not you picked your battles, kept quiet, and went on about your work.

Not this time.

As I haven't been an employee of WTVJ for some time, I'm under no obligation to keep my big mouth shut about a decision which has recently been made there that's so patently and unforgiveably stupid as to seem almost incomprehensible. I have to admit, it's empowering to realize that for the first time, I have both the means (a website which I happen to know is read by at least a small portion of the television news community) and the will (I couldn't be more furious about this) to voice my opinion about an injustice which hits me so close to home -- that home being the memories I carry with me about a Camelot-like vision of how good television news can truly be when it's practiced by someone like my friend and former co-worker Michael Williams.

Michael isn't simply a talented broadcaster, he is -- in the words of one of our mutual friends and colleagues -- "an MVP; a world-class journalist." He's the kind of thoughtful, tenacious, devoted, compassionate, singular mind that is sadly hard to come by in this age of painfully moronic media saturation. When he hasn't been traveling the world as a network correspondent, pursuing stories with a ruthless vigor and an unparalleled attention to detail and to his craft, he's been a staple of South Florida local news for years into decades -- first as a reporter, then on the anchor desk at WTVJ, his beloved home away from home and the place where I was fortunate enough to work in the shadow of his brilliance on a daily basis for three very good years.

Michael also happens to be one of the all-around nicest guys I know -- a humble family man with a great sense of humor and an easy manner which makes him a joy to allow into your home every night.

Put simply, Mike is one of the good ones.

So, needless to say -- he had to go.

If anyone ever dares question why I've come to despise what this industry has become -- it can be summed up in a simple, unfathomable fact: someone of Michael Williams's caliber can be unceremoniously shown the door.

Earlier this week, WTVJ's news director Yvette Miley -- an old friend and knowledgable newsperson -- made the announcement that Mike's contract would not be renewed, and that essentially he was being fired. Thankfully, he wasn't walked to the door and watched by security as he pulled out of the parking lot -- a brand of "standard operating procedure" in many newsrooms which has always seemed grotesquely undignified, and would have been particuarly so when dealing with someone with the class and grace of Michael Williams.

Word is that Yvette was crying when she broke the news of Mike's sacking to the staff.

The edict supposedly came from the top, from WTVJ's General Manager Ardy Diercks -- a woman I've never met face-to-face and who should probably hope that I don't at any point in the foreseeable future. Her masterplan apparently is to remove Michael Williams from his coveted seat on the anchor desk and hand the reins over solely to his co-anchor, Jackie Nespral -- a woman who, despite being generally harmless and mildly easy on the eyes, isn't journalistically sound enough on her best day to spit-shine Mike's wing-tips; and that's a kind assessment in the most liberal definition of the word. It's a decision that, although audacious in some regards, is a recipe for disaster -- one certain to plunge the once-mighty WTVJ further down the spiral into respectability and ratings oblivion.

When it comes to news judgment, it's difficult to make the stupidest decision imaginable in a town like Miami -- given that the competition for the title of "Most Inane Local News Product" is so fierce -- but WTVJ may have just done it.

May the station, and those so insouciantly willing to break up the final remnants of my old family, suffer accordingly.

Good luck Mike.

I have no doubt that you'll move on to bigger and better things.

Auto Reply: Out of Office

I'm going to be taking a few days off, so don't look for any new material until at least next Tuesday or Wednesday at the very earliest. My wife's grandmother died yesterday morning and this weekend will be consumed by no small measure of genuine deference to her memory.

The funeral will be held on Monday and I of course will be there -- proud to honor the life of this truly amazing woman.

On a more practical note, I spend almost every waking moment writing -- whether it's at work, on these "pages," or on a re-edit of the manuscript which I'm foisting upon the New York literary community. The bottom line is, I'm burned out at the moment. I could use a little time away from the hypnotic glow of a computer screen, so I'm going to force myself to go dark for a bit.

Keep in mind, I make this small sacrifice for my sanity even as the new Daughtry album is released and begins climbing the charts, which needless to say cries out to be mercilessly ridiculed. Would someone please give this kid back his old job at the Chevron station in Corpus Christi so that we can once again sleep safe in the knowledge that even mediocrity has its standards?

I wouldn't have learned a thing from my sixteen years doing television news if I didn't give you some sort of "tease" as to what you can expect once I return from my break. So, in the month of December on this little experiment of mine, you'll be treated to the very first truly filthy story of sex and nihilism to be posted here by me; I'll also be taking the computer with me to Vegas, as I take a much-needed vacation which will involve drinking, gambling, a dead hooker, $5.99 prime rib, Wayne Newton, peyote, and my attempt at initiating a three-way between myself, my wife, and Jenny from IDon'tLikeYouInThatWay.com (I kid Jenny, I kid -- but not really), I'll finally publish the second part of Where is My Mind? The story of my recent brain surgery; And of course you'll get a chance to read my last post ever as I commit suicide on my 37th birthday.

It's all ahead, right here.

We'll be back, right after these messages...