Geronimo

There is something about getting old that just doesn’t tickle my pickle. I am like most people on this front, as most do not like this pickle tickled. Some do not even have pickles to be tickled. This is besides the point.

I am turning 24 this weekend. Twenty-four. Yes, I wrote it out. Why, say you? Because it is nearly a quarter of a century. I am approaching what is more commonly known as my Quarter Life Crisis. Yes, such a thing really does exist and as with the more well known Middle Age Crisis, it typically targets men.

In all seriousness, I learned about the Quarter Life Crisis from an article on MSNBC.com. I realized while reading it that my concern about my career, thoughts of the distant (yet frighteningly close) future, and obsession with time was not just me and my over thinking self. This was something a lot of men my age go through.

For a lot of men, a career is very important. Though I do very well in an office, I would say that I am focus less on my career and more on my future. Where will I be in 5 years? Interviewers often ask this question to get a sense for your ambition, and thus your drive to succeed. My answer was always, “I would like to have several employees under me as a manager, and be incredibly successful and involved in my job”. Not a bad answer, wouldn’t you say? But the question I would love for them to ask is not where will I be, but rather where do I want to be.

I want to own a jazz club, with a small and modern gourmet restaurant attached to it. I will sell cigars, and every Friday and Saturday night we will feature the best local jazz I can find. Ever seen The Score? I want to be Robert DiNero. Minus Edward Norton, the big fat Native American hitman, and the stealing. If I can’t have that, I want to start a microbrewery right here in D.C. with my brother as the idea man and head of marketing and advertising, me managing the restaurant with a dabble in PR, and my father behind the scenes on the business and brewing front.

This is where I want to be. This is the life I wish to live. Forget sitting in an office making calls, taking orders, and trying desperately to get yourself noticed. I want to be the place everyone thinks of when they think of a great atmosphere for drinking, eating, and relaxing.

The human life span is actually quite long. I look back on the last 24 years, and it has taken such a long time to get here. I expect the next 24 to go by a lot quicker. Nevertheless, 80-90 years is a long time to live and you can accomplish a lot in that time.

I feel fortunate knowing what I want out of life. I am also fortunate in that I do not delude myself into thinking it will be easy, equally being realistic about keeping with my dream. I have no idea what the future holds. I could win the lottery or become a thief, grow a mole, and sneak into a customs office with Edward Norton. Though both are incredibly unlikely, I am not willing to write them out of my book just yet. Though the future is uncertain, my goals are not. The remaining ¾ of my life await. In the words of Jerry Fletcher in Conspiracy Theory, “Geronimo”.

Truly, What is The Harm in Being Frank?

In college, I had an excerpt of The Harm in Being Frank published in our school’s literary magazine. I had turned in 3 other pieces of work, poems namely, and they chose the excerpt from The Harm in Being Frank. I was shocked.

For anyone who has not read it, The Harm in Being Frank lives up to its title. It is a purely raw short story, and though it was written with style, character, and an artistic goal in mind, it can be interpreted by those unfamiliar with modern fiction as raunchy and unrealistic.

I sit here debating whether or not to include a piece of The Harm in Being Frank, or to take a more subtle approach to introduce my work. As this blog is about being frank, I figure what the hell:

The greatest thing about being over seventy is that you no longer need a condom. Menopause is my birth control, and I could give a shit less if I got crabs or herpes anyway. It’s all relative to your age. If I had gotten syphilis when I was eighteen, my life would have ended. Now, carpe ass.

There is something about when you move intro an old folk’s home, waking up every morning to the smell of piss in the hall because Esther forgot to wear her diaper to bed. At first, everything is so surreal and depressing; a woman young enough to be your daughter holding your former magnum glory just because your arthritis is flaring up due to a humidity rating of fifty percent. In fact it was at that moment, Rosi holding me with her head turned like she didn’t want to see it, that I realized there was a legacy to be created.

Retirement homes are gold mines for eager old women. I like to think of myself as the replacement. One husband lost in the war, another the victim of heart disease, and yet another two floors up who thinks he’s fourteen. They all were in need of a man. It was a calling. It was as if God himself had shone the way to finishing my life in polygamy. As if a bunch of female voices suing in harmony as a ray of light shone down from the heavens onto my penis.

I had created a system. Old Fucks Can Get Laid: Books on Tape Volume One. If resources run short, transfer to Southern California or sunny Florida. Plenty of young girls to get you riled, plenty of old fogies to get you laid. Frank Randall, years of experience in the field of aged lust. For an extra $9.95, you can get his biography, Magnum of Love.

(The following except from The Harm in Being Frank is the sole property of Jonathan Mahoney and cannot be distributed, copied, or sold for any reason or through any means)

* * *

I like to say that I did not write Frank, but rather that he wrote himself. Now I know that sounds like a good way to get out of sounding like a dirty bastard, but it is the truth. When you are writing fiction, you get involved in your character and you begin to think like the person you have created. Though the above selection does not relect the full extent of Frank's honesty, Frank is raw. In fact, I think he is the rawest geriatric I have ever met. But he made himself that way. I simply pushed the keys.

Believe me, Frank gets worse. The purpose of the story, though, is Frank’s difficulty in finding a balance between his legacy, The Program, and his grandson, Jacob. The story is character driven, and so it is ultimately driven by Frank’s inability to find a priority and to stick with it.

I am proud of Frank as a creation, as he was an autonomous creation. I was easy to build him because he helped me along the way. His character, though flawed as a person, is seemless in production and presentation. In the introduction to my thesis, I ended it in a way that embodied my impression of Frank:

“Though I would love to meet Frank, I fear that I would hate him”.

"How can humanity have come so far..."

After September 11th, 2001, I came up with a quote that I put in my AIM profile:

“How can humanity have come so far to end up so far from humanity?”

The quote speaks for itself. I do not give myself any pat on the back for the prose, as I was not trying to be artistic in this thought. My goal was to convey the thought; the reality.

I would love to see a poll of how many blogs on BlogSpot.com have an entry for today addressing the effect of 9/11 on our lives. I have chosen not to dwell on the death of our fellow citizens or the heroes. I have chosen instead to address a thought I began in the moments following the fall of the North Tower of the WTC above.

Through leaps and bounds, humanity has advanced itself in various ways. We have developed technologies that defy even the most imaginative minds. We have developed cures to previously terminal diseases, invented a successful artificial heart, and even created a little Honda robot-man who can wave at the paper boy.

As always, there is a flip side to this coin. We have developed the deadliest biological weapons the world has ever seen, our foods are becoming increasingly dangerous to our health, and we have developed new weapons and technology to make killing near sport.

Humanity is great, and we are a good people at heart. We, like all things, have our flaws. Our greatest flaw, in my mind, is our repetition of history. On this earth, we are the only beings capable of recording our race’s history. An elephant does not have books of its evolution, or records of its family genealogy. We have the benefit or recording our greatest triumphs and our foulest mistakes.

My direction has strayed, and I am unsure if there is an exact tie in to 9/11. My ultimate thought and point here is that we have not learned from our mistakes. The world wars killed so many human beings over petty issues and disagreements. Greed and the conviction in a single aspiration drove skirmishes into all-out wars. The attacks of September 11th were a display of a conviction against America: that we are evil, strayed, or just wrong in how we interact with the world and God.

These terrorists are not like their predecessors in some ways, but are spot on in others. They are not trying to take over countries like Kaiser William, but they are trying to cleanse the world of people who do not stand with their convictions like Hitler. They may not be trying to take control of governments, but they are trying to strike fear in them so that they have influence over them.

Humanity must look into the definition of what it means to use humanity.

Dictionary.com:

“the quality of being humane; kindness; benevolence.”

We may not have familiar beliefs in religion, government, or way of life. But we all have one thing in common, and that is that we are all human. Every Monday morning, a old Chinese man sits at the top of the Metro stop I exit playing a Dihu (a traditional Chinese high pitched string instrument). He is not incredible, but he plays for hours. Every Monday, I give him money for playing. I am not tooting my own horn, mind you.

I cite this example simply to make the following point: do not ignore those people who ask for your help. $1 in a cup makes you a humanitarian, believe it or not. You spend 3X that on coffee every day. You may not be fighting terror, but you are ensuring the advancement of humanity.

Newspaper Clipping: "Nice Guy Dies by Hands of Women"

Before I met my beautiful girlfriend Amber, I believed I was doomed to be alone for a very long time. As mentioned, I suffer from what professionals call, “Nice Guy Syndrome”. While I could get into the gruesome symptoms (random hair spurts, chronic running nose, the inability to close the deal) I would rather summarize that this is simply, and troublingly, the inability to break free of being friends.

Now, we are not talking “Just Friends” as most guys are familiar with that trap. Nice guys have the luxury, and pain, of becoming “Good friends”. You see, we are what many refer to as a catch. The girls we want so desperately to be with, but remain our good friends mind you, consistently remind us of this fact. It is a seesaw of counter-comments. You are such a catch, and I am so glad we are friends. You are going to make some girl really happy, and I am so happy we are friends. You will find someone I promise, and I am so happy we found each other. It is a constant temptation to just get off, and leave them on the playground alone with a see but no saw.

This temptation is, surprisingly, the path many nice guys take. You cannot blame them. If you are getting punched in the face, you adapt. You learn to dodge. If you keep falling into the trap of friendship, you adapt. You use a different approach. The Nice Guy’s worst enemy is the Dangerous Guy. So why wouldn’t it make sense that we become what we most hate. The Dangerous Guy, after all, is our biggest threat. We watch how our friends fall into their trap consistently. We, for once, want to be the one to set the trap, rather than being the one to fall in it.

It is a sad truth that at my age, women are looking for thrills. The majority of women are not looking to settle down yet. They want to get in trouble, drink like crazy, dance until close, and date a guy who keeps them on their toes. Later in life, they realize they are no longer happy with this lifestyle. They seek a nice guy to sweep them off their feet, and give them the security they have avoided for so long. The sad thing is, in their quest for thrills and adventure they have turned all the nice guys into dicks. Suddenly, the supply that was so abundant is gone. That is why I scoff when I hear women say, “Chivalry is dead”. Dave Chappell responded best, “Chivalry is dead. And women killed it.”

Back when I was searching for a way to break through the “Nice Guy” persona, I read an article on AskMen.com which actually advised men to develop a mean side; to shed their Nice Guy and become a Dangerous Guy. I was insulted and disgusted. I couldn’t believe that people were actually advocating that we get rid of such an asset. It was as if AskMen.com was proposing all bald eagles drink a pint of EDT and die off.

Yes, an asset. I still, and always will, see my Nice Guy as an asset. Even when I was looking for a way out, I made a promise to myself to never leave that piece of me behind. The rarity of such a thing has made me grasp onto it even stronger. I also, around this time, grasped onto being a gentleman, as I was raised. Holding doors, paying for dinner, eating properly, treating women with respect. These are all dying aspects in the 21st century. We cannot let go of such a rare breed so easily.

“It is so hard to find a nice guy" is something I hear often; we may be hard to find, slowly disappearing, but at least we are still out there.

The Inception (Insemination) of PUD

Five years ago, I met a big fat Jewish kid and an Italian. I know this sounds like the beginning to a politically incorrect joke, but it is actually the story of how I met my two best-friends. While you may think a story about how friends met would typically be boring and generic, you must consider multiple factors: a) I am telling this story b) we are the most unlikely threesome c) our exploits together have been anything but boring.

When I arrived at Franklin & Marshall College on August 25, 2001, I was already familiar with the campus. I had spent three weeks at a summer program called S.P.A.E. (Summer Program for Academic Excellence) which I had been accepted to following my early decision acceptance. We were a mish-mash of race, intelligence/grades, humor, and drinking styles and because of this plethora of differences, we always wondered why we were chosen for the program.

My familiarity with the campus, and being used to living away from home due to two years in boarding school, made my adjustment very mild. While all others were panicking over gaining 15 pounds freshman year, my only concern was making friends.

Enter The Blob.

During Orientation, we participated in multiple team building activities to help us become acclimated and help facilitate bonding within the hall of our dorm. During one such activity, a man with a guitar had us dancing to his hippie music. He was like a Raffi for high-schoolers. He asked us, at one point, to choose a partner, figure out who was heavier, and have that person lie on their stomach. In the fray of being talked to like I was 3, I turned to the kid next to me and he turned to me. His name was Jordan Wolk. He was Jewish. He was The Blob.

I decided, in this confusion, that I was bigger than him and lied down on my stomach. The singer told those standing to stand on their partner’s back and pretend to surf. My back has never been the same.

We quickly became friends, strangely enough. He watched Sports Center 3 times a day, I hated watching sports. I played computer games, he sucked at Madden. He was mildly introverted, I was outgoing. He was fat, I was thin. And yet we connected.

Ah, but where, say you, is the third?

John Ford, our ex-football player, ogre, grunting, sports-loving, Italian friend lived two doors down from me freshman year. He was a big guy at the time, having just quit football and letting himself go just a bit to gain a little over his freshman 15. I remember thinking upon first meeting him that he was a jock and that we would probably never be great friends since he would be hanging out with the football group. Having just quit football, he still had that swagger that typifies football players.


We soon discovered that he had, indeed, quit football and he quickly shed his “jock swagger” as he became more comfortable with our hall. Within the first few weeks of knowing him, I remember having two major thoughts: 1) This kid is fucking hilarious, and crazy to boot 2) This kid can fucking drink. If there is one thing Ford and I do well together, it is drink. A typical night of me and Ford drinking together consisted of us drinking way too much, blacking out, and trying to piece the night together the following morning.

He too loved sports, so he and Jordan had that in common. But his background was in a group of friends who were confident, extremely social (alcohol), “cool kids”. So this side of him was a stark opposite to Jordan’s “overprotected” high school life (his words).

I have a theory that each of us connected on one major aspect each, and our commonality on these three fronts drew us in as friends. As I said, Jordan and Ford loved sports and so conversation was very easy between the two of them. Jordan and I had/have a disease in common called “Nice Guy Syndrome”. We are both “The Sensitive” guy, and so we were able to connect on this level. Ford and I were both incredibly sociable. Give us social setting and we could break the ice and have a good time.

All in all, not one of us have a definitive answer as to why we connected, all three, at the same time. The years that followed proved that our group, our little threesome of sorts, was meant to be.

And so on that day, August 25th, 2001, the little egg we would eventually deem, “PUD”, was inseminated.

To be continued…

Hey, Jefe...Would You Say We Have a Plethora of Problems?

Politics. Hey, why not. If this blog is to be a plethora of thoughts, I might as well pull politics into the mix.

“Jefe, would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?”
“A what?”
“A *plethora*”
“Oh yes, El Guapo. You have a plethora.”
“Jefe, do you know what a plethora is?”
“Why, El Guapo?”
“Well, you just told me that I had a plethora, and I would just like to know if you know what it means to have a plethora. I would not like to think that someone would tell someone else he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has no idea what it means to have a *plethora*.”

I digress.

Bush is an idiot. I am neither democrat nor republican, and so I proudly fall in the “independent” classification. A friend said it best: I am a republican economically, and a democrat socially. Now of course, there is room for interpretation but in a culture where we ultimately cannot avoid (and yet rebel against) generalizing, this is the closest generalization I can grasp.

I fear voting a democrat into the presidency as a great deal of them promise to remove our troops from Iraq by the end of 2007. Kerry, for one, said that this was his goal. Come on, Kerry. Did I really vote for you? In the state Iraq is in now, and will be for the next few years to be honest, we cannot pull a Vietnam. If we pull out, Iraq will fall into civil war and the existing democratic government will surely fall. I have no doubt in this belief.

I do not at all advocate the Iraq war. It seems as if Americans have forgotten, or discredited, the fact that Colin Powel had presented to Congress and America that there was no doubt Sadam had weapons of mass destruction. He sat there with his little concept drawings of the Mobile Chemical Lab Truck Thingie That Will End All Life on Earth When Sadam Can Hardly Support His Army with Current Funds Mythical Creature. We found him in a ditch in the middle of nowhere. He wasn’t in a chemical/nuclear/biological warfare bunker. He was in a ditch, unshaven, and hiding from a super power.

I want our troops out of Iraq, no doubt. But we have started something that we must finish. We left Vietnam in shambles, having killed innocent civilians and losing a large number of courageous and loyal American soldiers. It would be a disgrace to those soldiers who have already died for this war to cut and run, as they will have died in vain.

So to loop back: I will not vote for a democrat with an exit strategy, as they are way too ambitious, nor will I vote for a republican who may spread our lines even thinner by entering into another war. Our focus is Iraq, and we must put blinders on our politicians so that we do not divert from this path.

Bush impressed me with his restraint in the Israel/Lebanon crisis as he put his faith in the U.N. Now, I am not patting him on the back. I am simply giving him a two-finger golf clap, as he did not involve the U.S. more than he should have. Our future leaders need to look at that resolution as an example.

The U.S. has dirt (sand) all over its nose. Its about time we keep our noses clean.

Blogs Shmogs

I have always scoffed at blogs. Who reads a blog? Your friends? Strangers who don't even know you? We hold our privacy dearly to our chest, and yet we want to make our lives so public. We strive to reach the public light that celebrities, politicians, and athletes share and yet we think it is so rude when someone takes your picture without asking, or stares at you for a second longer than is appropriate.

As I read my brother's blog, I thought to myself what he was accomplishing by making his new and ambitious quest of traveling the world public knowledge. Who, besides his family and friends, really cares about a trip around the world? Everybody. Our culture has become increasingly public over the decades; MTV's The Real World was the first major movement in our time on this front. Facebook, MySpace, and now Blogs are all inventions of people wanting to make their life public. And the public responds.

Specific blogs have made the news. MySpace has become one of my friend's top place for picking up girls. Sound strange? Well, yes, yes it is. But in the grand scheme, it isn't. If we were to rewind 30-40 years, pre-internet, guys would have paid bundles to know a girl's interests, dislikes, music of choice, and see pictures of them before ever going on a date. "Blind date" should no longer be common nomenclature with inventions like MySpace.

So what is my goal for this blog. The title is derived from a short story I wrote, and plan to publish, as a college thesis. The reference is the difficulty we have in being real; how hard it can be to say what we think and mean. Why is it so harmful to be frank?

I do not plan to make this solely a philosophical blog, though that is how it has begun, nor do I expect anyone to read it. I know for a fact my friends will either avoid reading this or give me a very hard time for having created such a thing, but what this comes down to is my ultimate aspiration in life: to be a writer. To be in the public light, you must practice being in the public light. To be a writer, you must practice writing.

While my fiction will remain private until some highly intelligent publishing house or magazine picks it up, I think it is good to get my thoughts out for the public eye to see.