Sunday

I have nothing magnificent to write. I am just setting things up for my daily writes...
Nice day in the A-T-L


Did the Fantasy Football draft this morning for the league of which I am the commissioner. It went well. It is called D-BASS. That is the name of the league and do not fool yourself into thinking that it is some sort of hip name. D-BASS simply stands for "don't be a shitty shit talker" when it comes to smack talk amongst the teams. That one is Monica's. She gets credit for that bit of HA.


So, yeah. Football is close. Cool weather soon...I especially hope that this is true since it seems now that my AC has gone bye bye on the car. I do not feel like getting it checked out or fixed. That will probably change mid-day tomorrow on or near campus.

Ken Burns regarding America's creation of our National Parks: "The first impulse was spiritual. This was the American impulse that I could find God in these places in nature better than a dogmatic devotion in a cathedral".

wow, so perfectly correct

Look for it on PBS next month...and I think PBS has an HD channel so, bonus!

the greatest time to be alive...

Click him to get more ramblings from him
(and double your dosage first)
~Cosmo

2008! wow! 2007 was quite a year...crazy shit going on in the world man.
instant crazy shit too.

As soon as it happens somebody’s filming it! everybody is a star!
For at least a quarter of an hr.

I feel as if the momentum of the planet is picking up too...
yeah. ok I guess every person who has ever lived on earth thinks they are alive at the greatest moment in the planet's existence.... maybe not.

I can't assume to think someone else’s thoughts so I'll derail that train, but everything feels faster to me at least. I am one of those people who thrive in chaos. When the world is completely out of control I feel the most lucid.

I remember 9/11 and how singularly focused I was...because I simply thought it was the end of the world. So, when I look around and see wars and devastating weather occurrences and assassinations and wild west shoot ‘em ups and plane crashes, I feel right at home! I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I live life as an observer and not wholly a participant. How I can be in a situation and looking through my eyes I am reporting or telling a story as I perceive it. So when the bullets fly and motorcycles are jumping over my head, I somehow speed up while everything slows down (like in an accident) all is slow motion as I stroll through the carnage ducking the tire iron flying slowly by and embedding into the slow moving chap beside me!

You know, in these times I think of what Morpheus said in the matrix...how even the air we breathe is not real...so what is (IS) real? That is (IS) the key! What is real to me: is it completely different from what is real to you? What I see: is it what you see? More than likely… maybe. I would not know that unless I were you and what I see is me. The world is full of movement and my brain's eye can see thing's much more clearly lately (thank god for prescriptions!) HA!

And just because what I see is what I want to see I'm not crazy enough to jump off a building…yet! Because for the time being I am a slave to the basic physics of the planet...if I drop a brick it will fall on my foot and cause pain. But when a shaolin priest drops a brick what happens? First of all he would not be picking up a brick. second of all there I go assuming I know what a fucking shaolin monk would think....even though I've watched every episode of kung fu and both kill bill's. I have no idea what David Carradine thinks but if I did...I would probably just try to get used to the fact that i could levitate. Like Jet Li in hero. It's a consciousness thing where the world slows down and you stay at "regular" speed...but really you are slowing down the activity by sheer will of what you expect or know to be what you perceive as "real"...but can that alter the world that others occupy?

hahahaha


what others?

more from cosmo here

Determinism? What’s the point of getting out of bed then?!!!

~Chris

From a paper that I wrote on Sartre in Fall of '07

Two points here:

1) “It was (or wasn’t) meant to be.”

I cannot believe that things are planned in advance.

That is just too easy and a much too lazy way to live your life.
Life IS randomness. Oh perhaps YOU may be pre-determined to some extent- but not your life.

2) Perception is reality.

I do believe that this phrase truly applies to everything that happens in this life. Where you stand determines what you see.

Happy? Sad? Hopeless? Inspired?

If you want to change what you see then change where you stand.
Likewise, if you want to alter your stance, then change how you look at things.

Gang, we cannot keep randomness from occurring.
But, we can indeed determine how to act upon that randomness in our lives.

I will never believe that God determined that I would get leukemia. And I do not believe that some old man in the clouds hovering over His chess board decided that I should live from that wretched disease. But, I do believe that this “source” or the “ground of all being” was there and worked with me to kick cancer’s dick in the dirt when I let It help me.

And I will take my universal source of all energy over your wizard in a throne room, thank you very much.

So, Sartre said,

“Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of,

and the value of it is nothing else but the sense that you choose.”

My friends:

Your perception IS your reality.

In the end,

there is no one to judge us in the way that we judge ourselves.

And many times, it is in our judgment of ourselves that others will decide just how we are to be judged.

It is difficult to live in the present,
ridiculous to live in the future,
and impossible to live in the past.

Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.


~Jim Bishop

Wednesday Night

~Jason

There was drama, oh yes!!
What should have been an easy evening was like sitting in a three leg chair. The tension was being poured out one & a half at a time and I don't know why.

Friends on edge, lovers ignoring each other, and strangers perched like vultures waiting to prey on either. This was one of those nights I'm glad I had that "invisible" quality.

A tiny, green frog jumped from a bar tap and landed on my shoulder. "What's up with these people tonight?" he said.

"Hell if I know...Full moon maybe?" I replied.

The frog laughed. "I don't come out on full moons...I know a cool little place up the road. Wanna go?"

"Sure, lets get outta of this amateur night."

I grabbed my smokes, finished my beer and headed towards the door. As I watched the frog hop out the entrance he stopped and saw me looking at him puzzled.

"What?" said the frog. I smiled,
"How little is this place?"

We laughed and went on our way...

A Thanksgiving Day saunter

Okay
My original intentions today were to sit down and to write a long essay of all of the things wonderful about this day and perhaps rattle off a list of things that I am thankful for.

But really, I just think that I'll do a quick "thanks" to all of you for your support this past year. I have encountered a lot of kindness from so many people that I would never have expected.

Some that I assumed would never speak to me again have come out of the woodwork. You are wonderful…and with no termite damage at all….

One year ago, if anyone had told me that I would be here in this situation…. well… actually I would not have been that surprised. Of course, I may not have been able to call it happening like this, but I am still not surprised.

Let's take an overview:

I returned to Kennesaw as a base of operations among family and friends…
A hot little happening place outside of a hot big happening place
(you just have to wade through the thick barrier of traffic, smog, and road rage)

I re-started my academic career…
Writing and Philosophy were things already present in my life, so why not have some formal training, eh?

I cracked into Stand-up comedy…
Joined with above academic pursuits, who knows who how this will shape my new careerI've started freelancing as a private investigator…oh an odd freakin' way to make money on the side…but studying during a stake-out is a clever use of time…

I have retired from Radio…
Let's be honest here. I unfortunately left radio years ago and foolishly happened into sales instead of focusing on my own on-air career

I am taking a stab at Improv Comedy…
Damn….not as easy as it sounds… but then again, I have always been overly self-critical And somehow I am now trusted to be a "manny" and the voice of reason for a ten year old little girl, a fourteen year old boy, and a nineteen year old… and yet people are always nervous when I get into a room full of twenty-one year old girls….. oh yeah…they should be…

I am now eight days away from being completely debt-free and having a bank full of cash chapter closes and life now on my terms...at least there is that…

Most importantly, I have built a long list of friends- some of which I never thought would be in my world again. And some that I never thought would grow into genuinely nice people to have on my side in this life

No man is a failure that has friends

So yeah
Between the friends, the comedy, the cigars, the scotch, and the hookers, I have got a sitcom, a book, and a stand-up routine all right here that I dwell in on a daily basis.

Thanks for those of you that have laughed with me, drank with me, sexed with me, and learned from me and taught me…

Hey, I love you all so much that I want to take you behind the middle school and get you pregnant….

(yep chris wrote another long one after all… what a freakin' puss)

Happy Thanksgiving!

~Chris

This has been one of those days....

That is how a lot of sad-sap stories start off....

"woah is me"

"this isn't fair"

"why do these things always happen to me???"

"I'm not even supposed to be here today!"

Today is a good day. Blissful, some would say...

One of those days when things line up and you just "know"... ya know?

A couple of things happened.

And, sometimes I forget
(and have allowed others to make me falsely believe otherwise)
just how incredibly charmed my life is....

I got mad skills and I always seem to take my focus off of it somehow.....

Today was a reminder, a hint, of my magnificent possibility that is always just hangin' around.... waiting for me to reach over a grab it... and run with it...like a horse just grazing and wondering if I'm ever gonna sling that saddle back up there again... poor thing... I just keep forgetting about it.....

But, heh heh... Today I saw things lining up again... just like it is supposed to... without the musty, knotted ropes of misery tethering me down. Weighing-actually pulling- me down.

I forgot that I am Golden...

I didn't beat cancer for nothing, right?

Yesterday I woke up to a wimpy tune in the air:
How am I supposed to start fresh when my past just keeps reaching into my future
and pulling me into my present

Today, I was startled to:
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent;
doing what is impossible for others is genius.

And, throughout the day.... I could hear the bouncy and repetitive tune:
Your intelligence is measured by those around you;
if you spend your days with idiots you seal your own fate.
(that makes me laugh)

But finally tonight as I realize what is ahead for me.... I have to remember:
Talent is God-given. Be humble.
Fame is man-given. Be grateful.
Conceit is self-given. Be careful.

So, let's remember to be mindful, now...

Good times,
Good times indeed

~Chris

You should be doing this with your life

~Chris

Do This
Do That

Society says we should be doing this with our lives
The church tells us we should be doing that with our lives

We should be doing this for our family
We should be doing that for our children

We should be doing this for our finances
We should be doing that for our church

We should be doing this for the community
We should be doing that for the environment

Growing up we were told of what we should do with our lives

Our parents said we should be doing this with our lives
Government tells us we should be doing that with our lives

Our spouses claim we should be doing this with our lives
Capitalism says we should be doing that with our lives

Holidays demand money so that means we should be doing this with our lives
Religion claims us unworthy which commands us to be doing that with our lives

What did you do this month?

What did you do this year?

What are you doing tomorrow when you get up?

What do you "have" to do?

According to who?

So, just what should you be doing with your life?

And here is all I have discovered:
If you can completely shatter everything that you have been instructed about what you Should…Be…Doing

If you can completely tear down the guilt-ridden paradigm of what you Should…Be…Doing with your life, then you can do absolutely nothing for a change

Do nothing

Yes nothing…

To do absolutely nothing "for a change"
I mean NO THING… whether it be for just five minutes or Five hours… Five days…
Five weeks, Five months or even Five years

Just be quiet…. and do…. No…. Thing…

You may then have a chance to abandon all of the things

that you think that you

should be doing with your life

in order to finally have a comprehension

of all of the magnificent things that you

could be doing with your life

Slam Poetry and how to be a comedian

Taylor Mali made me do many things this past weekend during the two workshops and the performance Saturday night.

1) he opened my eyes to a lot of something that I did not know was out there

2) he made me appreciate something that I did not know was out there

3) he actually made me speak a lot slower this past week with no umms, no errrs, no uhhhhs, and to speak deliberately

4) he reminded me how vital it is to carefully choose your words

5) he made me say things in front a group of strangers that always before was "not my thing"...

6) he made me laugh out loud....many times...

7) he made me realize something that had been put on the back burner for a while.... philosophical, well-spoken intelligent humor IS still the most gratifying and really the funniest funny of all

8) he opened a new arena for comedy for me in a way that was precisely why I signed up for college...

CLICK BELOW FOR TALENT...

Taylor Mali What Teachers Make


~Chris

So they say it’s my birthday....

Original Posting on August 27, 2007



I sit here tonight needing to be asleep and having only a few hours before class starts. I sit here very humble and appreciative. And I am content. And I feel accomplished.



Ahhh stem cells…. it's what's for dinner.
It was three years ago today in a hospital room at Northside in Atlanta. For me it was the beginning of a new beginning. Oddly enough, I have seen no less than a half of a dozen celebrities (or names of newsmakers) fall to leukemia since that August day in 2004. So why am I so fortunate? Fill in your own thoughts for that one my friends.

The one-year mark was monumental and two years meant nothing but positive things. Now at three years, I feel that this ever-so-slow exhaling of relief can probably be completed. Oh perhaps it is not absolute, but there are no absolutes with anything, is there? Tomorrow is never promised, but I am sure that you have heard that one before. So yeah, I was told that with the passing of these 1,100 days, I would pretty much no longer be required to be seen or drilled on a year-to-year basis. My lower back thanks them.


So, today was a huge today. Today was a milestone. And I did thank many people. I received some e-mails, some phone calls, some text messages, and saw some people in person. And I wanted to thank everyone again.


I thought about it tonight and I realize that I kinda just blew it off like it was not a big deal. Actually, it was and it is. And reflecting on the weekend, there are people that wished me a "congrats" that I would never have considered to remember (or even know about) August 26th. And that is where the "humble and appreciative" part comes in.


"no man is a failure who has friends"


Thank You
Chris


Just a three-year old in Atlanta