The Haunting Of Me

I'm haunted. I see things, hear things, feel things, and I can't seem to get them to go away. The way the moon looked tonight I knew there were going to be something coming out tonight.

The way every star seemed to be almost the size of a beach ball, the pitch black canvass to the diamond night.

It's the mist on the road, the hole in the moon, the bent tree limbs illuminated by darkness. I knew I would be visited tonight.

Sometimes they come to me in my dreams, and I wake up to find them gone and I feel like there's no control anymore. There's nothing to protect me from the sounds, the movements, the smell....them.

I tell myself to let them go. I wish them well, a safe journey home, far far away from me, and then on nights like this they come back, and it feels like they never left.

I stopped out by the lake and wrapped up in my old coat and listened to the wind howl and bounce off of the water. My eyes teared up from the cold breeze, skin was defenceless to fight it off, the rain bounced off of my nose, it started to freeze the tips of my hair...

Its been a losing battle. This is a long road. I keep reminding myself to be persistent and good things will come, and I guess to have good days you need to have a few bad days along the way.

I don't believe too much in the Church, but I do believe in God, and I believe that he wants the best for all living things- I prey to him to make it all go away. The hard part to imagine is the fact that if I no longer want this haunting around it should freely go...and it doesn't. It keeps coming back with smell of fall, the sip of coffee, the long afternoon in bed - it's still there.

I read a story once of this fat woman who laid on the couch for so long that it actually became attached to her. Her skin actually grew attached to the couch. Maybe that's what will become of these things- maybe they're already one with me. A one package deal. Buy 1 get the next 5 free.

I don't want them anymore...but they don't give a shit.

Seriously, who farted?

I think the only thing that has continued to make me laugh is a nice long fart. Think about it; nothing is better than knowing you have a nice hot fart in the chamber and your target knows nothing of your intentions.

My mom farts like she had been possessed by a ghost. A quick bulge of her tummy, a loud surprised yelp, and out comes a masterful toot worthy of an Oscar. Then after each eruption she follows it up with "I farted" like everyone hasn't heard and been scared by it.

I think the best one of my mom's farts came when my parents had first been introduced to my girlfriend's (now ex-girlfriend's) mother and sister. We had just gone to the Olive Garden where my mom is a habitual addict of the garlic bread and salad. Each time she asked for another order of bread and salad became a torrid game between herself and the waiter, each time her winning strike was the line "I just love the salad here" and he would begrudgingly run back to the kitchen pouring more salad into a bowl. She had the tour of Italy, and now Benito Tootsalini was making a quick exit through her asshole.

My girlfriends mother and sister exited the building first, and just as my mom applied pressure to the door, and as another couple was coming through, my mom farted so loud the lady actually flinched.

It's enough to fart loud amongst friends and family (especially in the car while turning the heat up and locking the automatic windows), but to actually scare a stranger is simply magnificent. My mom acted like she was embarrassed, but secretly I watched her faux embarrassment turn in to an sinister smirk knowing she had just executed a perfect strike; ruining an evening of a couple she didn't know, and completely crop dusting her son and his girlfriend.

Sitting at the kitchen table my mother is an absolute pro at the "loud, my ass is on a bare wooden chair" fart. Where most civilians will cock one leg up to get a good rumbling fart, my mother will in some way, shape, or fashion work up an excuse to have her feet up which now props her asshole up in the right position for a loud intrusive fart.

Growing up I thought that she just was unaware of her problem. The more and more I look back at this I realize that she's a ninja, a fecal genius, waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting victim.

Goodbye, superstar. Noel Gallagher Quits Oasis

I remember the first time I heard about "the next Beatles" as my friend Eric referred to them. It was 1996 and a perfect July day in upstate New York. 

I am a lifelong John Lennon fan, and because of that I am usually openly opposed to any "copycat" or bullshit homage to him. There was only one John Lennon, so how can Bono do a cover of "I am the walrus" it just seems stupid. 

Eric lived in a house with his mom, who was a waitress, so summers at Eric's were generally unsupervised and fucking awesome.  I walked in to Eric's after walking the 2 miles through the woods to get to his house; walking the creek bed, using the broken tree to get up the ravine, and sneaking in just behind the Stock's house. 

Eric put in the album "(What's the story) Morning Glory"  and the track "Hello" played. I was stunned. The guitars, the use of feedback, the subtle twinge in Liam's voice hypnotized me. By Champagne Supernova (track 12) I had a new reference point to my life. 

Sadly, people grow apart, I can't remember the last time I talked to Eric. The funny part about life is that sometimes relationships dissolve for no reason at all; one day you don't call, the trip you don't make back into town, the Christmas where you didn't drop by, and friends just seem to fade away.  There's no moment where you walk up to a friend slowly fading and say "I'm done, we're not friends, we don't have much going on anymore" so they basically get put away in this mental folder for you to reference every now and then. 

As I grew up, went to college, women, booze, drugs, all of those great times had Noel Gallagher's music directly attached to them. I was singing "don't look back in anger" today in the car on my drive home...he has written the soundtrack to my life. 

I started to really come to respect Noel for his interviews, his humor, and his beliefs. If you type in "Noel Gallagher Interview" in youtube you're in for a treat as he could have easily been a comedian. The timing, the intellect, it's all there. 

Hearing that he quit isn't as tragic as him dying, as John Lennon's assassination, or as the state of the economy- it just means that I've lost my theme music, and I'm going to miss hearing what my friend has to say though music. 

You can't quit Oasis when you are Oasis. Liam is a great singer, but Noel is the attitude, the charisma, and the driving force. I wouldn't attend a concert now even if I had free tickets and was promised a blowjob from a 19 year old gap model after. 

Noel, I will miss you. I have every song, every dvd, and every simple part of Oasis to remind me of a life well lived, but something has died with your departure. 

I wish you the best, and I can't thank you enough for being the background music of my life. 

Chris Tatum. 

Naw, I'll do it tomorrow

Hello Planet Irf. 

I am becoming increasingly more spontaneous. I think that as a man gets closer to middle age (I'm 30, but seriously look at me, I look not a day older than 20...those pectoral muscles didn't get there by chance...that's 2 hours in the gym everyday and a heavy diet of cookie dough and booze) you start to feel like you need to leave some sort of lasting legacy. 

Now I don't think that this blog, the millions of digitally fingerprinted F-bombs I've typed or said while operating on blogs, magazines, or Internet radio shows are the best example of me. 

My friends see me as a guy who is always going for the joke, my family sees me as a guy that helps in time of need and a good person, my girlfriend sees me as the guy who occasionally washes our comforter with our towels causing fuzzies and no sex. I have created multifaceted versions of a douche bag. 

With these thoughts in mind I went to the local grocery store to pick up spaghetti sauce and cookie dough. I trot through isles like I'm a lost kid, I never look up at the signs, I think it's way more fun to hate yourself for thinking the bread is in isle 2 when it's really in isle 10. 

Here's the prime example of how shitty I am: As I'm walking out of the store and to my truck I notice that an older lady has finished with her shopping cart and she's about 100 yards away from the shopping cart corral. 

I walk up to her and tell her not to worry about taking it back and I grab it and start walking it toward the corral. She runs up behind me and apologizes for not taking it up there herself. I was a little confused but I managed to actually listen to the way I talk to people, my intonation, my subtle voice inflections, and I realize that although my actions are actually quite valiant, my tone is filled to the brim with sarcasm. 

I stop myself mid explanation and tell her that I thought I was doing a good thing, but the way I talk makes it sound like I was trying to let her know I was doing her a favor. She asked why I would think she needed someone to take a cart up for her, and I replied with this statement: 

Well ma'am, I noticed that you're parked in a handicapped parking spot, use a cane, and are a little older than me. Lately I've been looking for ways to improve who I am, and I thought since there haven't been any recent events of damsels in distress, dragons, or burning at the stake, I figured I would help an old lady get on her way. 

She told me that it was a nice thing for me to do but she actually enjoyed being able to do these things but really appreciated my attempt at becoming a better person. 

That sentence "the attempt at becoming a better person"..brilliant.  Isn't that our plight? Isn't that our plan? Aren't we supposed to make an attempt at becoming a better version of ourselves each day? I can tell you with all honesty I haven't been too good at pursuing that lifegoal. 

I actually kind of pride myself on being incurably miserable.  I'm sure in the celebrations after a Sabres Stanley Cup win, or some other monumental occurrence, if I stubbed my toe, I would be worse off than I was before the victory. I actually enjoy being mad. 

Well I encourage you all to try, to make that attempt at being a better person. Even if you end up worse off than you were before - make the attempt. 

I don't want to start some bullshit "pay it forward" kind of movement, I just think that in these times, this world could use a few more "good" people. 

As for me, as I sit in the Charlotte airport listening to the beeping of the handicarts, the incurable assholes chewing their gum way too loud, and the babies crying for no apparent reason - I will resume my attempt tomorrow. 

Article Posted On Helium.Com

Hello.

As we all know I'm starting to branch out and get some basic writing gigs.

Here's an article I wrote today about earning respect as a parent:

http://www.helium.com/items/1543950-how-to-get-respect-from-your-child

Lets be honest, we should not live in a country where there is a need for such a thing as “national respect for parents day”. With that said it’s very easy to go to a Wal-Mart on a Saturday morning and you will see that kids not only don’t respect their parents, most kids outright hate their parents.

I personally think the rules are bent so far in the children’s favor that parents can’t get into a situation where they can earn respect. If you really look at the patterns, I feel that most parents are afraid to impose some semblance of authority at home for fear that they’ll be carted away.

It is wrong to beat your children. It should not be wrong however, to discipline a child accordingly. You spank a kid and you’re a kid beater, you yell at a kid and you’re verbally abusive, it just makes no sense. What happens next; you take your child on a vacation they don’t want to go on and cross state lines, and you’re accused of unlawful imprisonment and child abduction?

So what have the laws done to protect our kids? They have done nothing. The laws have made friends out of parents, well here’s a news flash for you- friends can choose not to respect friends. Friends can use guilt to get what they want, a friend can outright choose not to listen to you.

I think a good family activity for National Respect Your Parents Day would be to make your children do all of the things they don’t want to do: Clean up the dog poop, take out the garbage, mow the lawn, and actually clean AND VACCUUM your room. There is no room in a house for a parental friend.

A parent shouldn’t have to set aside a day to be treated with respect and admiration. A parent should have rules in place, which provide a looking glass into why they deserve that respect.

I remember talking to my friend a long, long time ago about why he and his mother didn’t get along. I remember him telling me that he didn’t respect her because she was a waitress.

This was a woman, a single mom, who never had a vacation, who had a kid she provided for (he always had cooler things than I did), always fed me because I was dirt poor, and HE didn’t respect HER. These parents should come home to a clean house with dinner made every night.

Sadly, we as Americans have fallen into our own trap, in the valiant attempt to make everything equal for everyone, someone slipped up and made it OK for an 11 year old to yell “I hate you” in Starbucks because she’s not allowed to have a Macchiato.

Seems odd, but having a fun filled day with your family will not earn you the respect you need and enforce the rules your child will need to be successful in life. Creating a child, raising it correctly, and having it achieve more than you did; well, that deserves all the respect in the world.

Going backwards

Sometimes I think that a lot of the people our there are correct. Maybe it is harder to be a black person in America. Then sometimes I go to Youtube.com and see video's like this and I think that black people are sabotaging black people:



As a white person we don't have much to go on with hero's now a days. Of course we have Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, George Washington...ect - but look at what society has made us think of these people now:

Abraham Lincoln- Slave owner
George Washington- Slave owner
John F. Kennedy - cheater, womanizer, brain looked like beef stew.

Black people have a lot of hero's: Malcom X - amazing autobiography, Martin Luther King - the Ghandi of black men, Rosa Parks- Bitch wasn't going to get in the back seat for nothin.

What happens now? Now there are video's made by black people, setting the black race back 50 years.

HOWEVER if you have a black baby, kid, or teen - you actually have the best pitch man on the planet. As seen in these video's with the cutest kid of all time:





This kid needs to be famous!

Chris's Weird Religious Dream

Morning World. 

It's 6am, about 30 minutes before the sun comes out, not a single bird a chirpin' in the sky and I'm wide awake. 

I think that dreams are sometimes in insight to your soul, maybe even a pathway to the other side, and definitely hold some aspect of truth. 

Obviously I'm not too much of a religious man but to me that doesn't do two very important things: 

1) this doesn't make me not believe in God, the right path, or treating people well. 

2) this also doesn't make me a bad person. 

This leads me to my most recent dream: 

Me and a bunch of grown ups were playing softball on my old baseball field by my high school. It wasn't clear within the dream why this was a bad thing to do - just for the sake of the dream it was. 

So out of the blue the clouds get incredibly grey, lightening, rain, everything starts to happen and all of a sudden there is a priest and some policemen in front of me. 

Beside me is the other guy I was playing softball with. 

As I'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on and why a priest would object to what appears to be a picnic I realize that I am dreaming. 

Each person is arguing- the priest telling the police that we can't just do whatever we want to do, my friends telling the police that we haven't done anything wrong...a really big cluster fuck (not to mention this torrential rain is really making a shitty day for a picnic). 

As I now am having a period of lucidity in my dream (when you do this you can fly, wake yourself up, really you have full reign over your dreams- you're almost godlike) I take a few steps back, look up to the sky and say:

"You can stop it now, I understand and I'm sorry. This won't happen again." 

The rain suddenly let up, the sun came through a little, the people stopped arguing, and as the clouds started to part there was a John III XVI written in them. 

I woke up to find my girlfriend getting ready for her morning run and I asked her what john 3:16 meant- she said that it was god loving the world so much that he gave his only son. 

I repeat, I am not religious, I have no real understanding for this dream, and to be perfectly honest I don't really believe in Jesusy things. Take this dream for what you want it to be, as I said before- I think dreams are a window or pathway to the other side. 

God, don't get me wrong, you and I both know I could use a lesson every now and then and I appreciate it. You also know that my perception on religion has been changed by the very people that push religion. 

How is it possible for the killings, the molestations, and the outright abuse of power within every christian church for there to be a definitive spec of truth about the bible, jesus, and their view of heaven?

I promise I will no longer say horrible things about Jesus. Here are things I still think are true about him: 

Jesus wasn't the white guy in the paintings. I really do think jesus is black, not Bill Cosby black, but I live in the south, so anything not white....well, is black. 

I think Jesus had a bit of a god complex...haha. Kidding, but seriously, everybody (even you probably) hates a kid that can fall back on his dad's business- nepotism is a motherfucker. 

Jesus, I want to apologize for that last poll I did where I said you didn't exist. Maybe the historical take on you is different from the real version, maybe my belief in you and your dad has been skewed a little bit due to all of the religious assholes and fucking Aston Kutcher and those "Jesus is my homeboy" t-shirts...tell me the truth- is he the anti-christ?

I just can't stand religious nuts. People that live and die by the church, praising every second, and then never really opening their eyes to see the true glory of this life. I hate the anti-abortion people who carry signs of aborted fetus' around to show the world that killing a fetus is wrong, but they don't give a fuck that a 3 year old kid is subject to seeing those signs. 

I hate so many things dealing with what I thought was religion. I think I was wrong there. I think that I hate people's perception of religion. 

I still am not going to go to church but I do believe in you again Jesus. If you could please steer away Ashton Kutcher for a while and allow me to get used to this, I would appreciate it. 

Thanks, 

Chris