Total Recall... And No, I Haven't Seen That Piece of Shit Remake...

Total Recall:  Has this ever happened to you?

            Guys, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say “Has this ever happened to you?”  So, here it is:  Have you ever thought that maybe your super hot, way out of your league but for some reason still wants to sex you up wife is not really your wife, but is actually a secret agent, there solely to control your life and make it livable, but since she doesn’t actually love you(although the sex is great), instead makes your life utterly uninteresting and is kind of a just pain in the ass?  Like, for instance, you work hard every day, mining or whatever the fuck, and want to take a vacation to the place where you want to go, say Mars, for once, instead of her always choosing everything as if to specifically keep you away from something and basically, what seems like, just to spite you.  Your entire life is middling and pointless and you just want to do something different for once.  Something exciting.  A little something just to shake it up.  See life from a different perspective, which would probably make you feel a lot better about your boring life, since, hey, its actually not that bad.  It’s just sooo boring.  And all you’re thinking is “Hey, I work hard for this money, jackhammering and shit, to provide a great life for you.  I stay in amazing shape, give you a good boning when you need it.  I’m a concerned and caring citizen and am sensitive to your needs outside of sex too and all I want to do is take a fucking trip to goddamned Mars.  Maybe get into some shit and save a planet with the help of a crazy taxi driver alien dude and an ex-girlfriend who is all pissed at me, but I don’t even remember her(I swear I don’t remember, honey, don’t be mad.  I don’t know what she’s talking about), which makes her even more pissed at me.  We can go to fucking Saturn next year, but just, fucking this one time, can we please do what I want to do and GO TO FUCKING MARS?!  AHHH!”  Has this ever happened to you?!

            I know, right?  I feel like that’s every relationship I’ve ever had; and I know you’ve been there too, man.  It’s so frustrating and all you want is some sort of change.  You have no “Hand” in the relationship.  It’s just every day,  the same old shit.  I can imagine what Arnold was going through…  Wake up, go to work, come home, have sex with Sharon Stone when she was still hot, go to bed, then rinse and repeat.  Fuck.  And I know what you’re thinking:  it could be a lot worse.  You could live on the repressed, constantly in military turmoil, dirty, filthy, with all your air supply controlled by the government - Mars planet.  “Go ahead,” you say “see if I care.  I’m trying to build a life for us.  And this is a good planet to raise a family on.  And you have a good job and friends and good life here, but see if I care.  What do I know?”  And yeah, you would be right.  You always fucking are, even when you’re not you still are, or, at least, we have to tell you that you are.  And yes, I would rather have sex with you, hot Sharon Stone, then some three-titted hooker.  And no, I don’t think she’s prettier than you, and I’m not just saying that.  Two hands, two tits.  It was God’s original design and it’s definitely my favorite, I mean, yours are my favorite.  They’re the only ones I think about.  But, no, that’s not all I think about.  Can I please turn the game back on? I was just kidding about Mars.  I loved going to Saturn last year.  Yes, I had fun.  We should totally go there again. I’ve already had a few beers and I don't know what I'm saying.  I just want to watch some football.  I don't want to argue with you right now.  Yeah, we can talk about it later, that’s fine.  No, I’m not trying to shut you out.  I just, I don’t know.  I don’t know why I brought it up.  I’m sorry, you’re right.  I love you.  I said it once already but I just want you to know, you’re right and I love you.  We don’t need to talk about it later, it’s a non-issue.  I didn’t mean to bring it up.  I just saw the commercial and it made me think maybe I did want to go but I know that we’ve already talked about it and I don’t care.  No, I mean I care, I just don’t care about Mars.  I mean it's sad what's happening there and shit and I feel bad for the people that have to live there but I don't want to go.  You're right, it sounds awful.  Ok, is everything good?  Cause we’re back from commercial and we’re inside the ten.  I gotta watch.  I gotta watch.  It’s only on once a week.  No, I know it’s ON more than once a week, but this is the only I get to watch because of work, you know?  I just want to relax and have a good evening, OK? It was rough day at work.  Fucking assholes all day and, you know.  I know, you had a rough day too.  We can talk about that in a bit.  Just, its been back on and I don’t know whats happening.  Shit, I fucking missed it.  They fucking must've scored already.  It's already back on commercial.  Fuck.  I'm just...  I'm gonna get another beer...

Inside Llewyn Davis Part I: Headaches, Memories and Vomit, My Life as a Folksinger...

Llewyn Davis Part I:  Headaches?  We don’t need no stinking headaches…

            To prove both my dedication and insanity, I am writing to you today with a fairly intense migraine.  I say “fairly” because I am no longer throwing up but still can’t see straight, hold my head fully upright or move my eyes without a lot of pain.  I am doing this for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to:  trying not to focus on the pain or my lingering nausea, the experience of trying to do something worthwhile whilst partially incapacitated but mostly it’s because I didn’t go into work today so I finally have some peace and quiet, and time, to write.  I did, however, make a valiant effort to make it in to work today, despite this crippling affliction, but had to pull my car over so I could open the door and puke, thus negating the rest of the trip and my workday.  I do apologize to the lady walking her dog across the street, as I would imagine it was probably not very pleasant to see or hear…

            Now, for those of you who have never had a migraine in your life, Fuck you and God Bless You.  Go forth and procreate together to hopefully create a entire race of beautiful, wonderful people who only read about migraines in history books, like the Spanish-American War, and view them merely as a past affliction of a not as intelligent race of people, or something of the like.  Unless, of course, you too suffer from an equally terrible plight which should be hidden from the future generations like the Ark of the Covenant, at which point please bag it up and be safe.  Luckily for me, my migraines are only a once in a while type thing and not habitual.  I have known many people who suffer from them constantly and I feel terrible for them and wish there was some type of cure for their intense and repeated suffering.  Personally, I have found pooping helps; though it may have just been a coincidence that I was pooping half an hour after I took some medicine and that was actually what made me be able to see straight finally.  Who knows…

            Anyways, enough of my whining and on with a topic.  I wanted to choose something light, given my current state, but unfortunately the thing that I cannot get out of my mind d54444444444444444qr2w(sorry my cat jumped on the keyboard) is the upcoming movie “Inside Llewyn Davis.”Now, I have only seen the trailer for this movie and already my interest is beyond piqued.  I, like my good friend Jon Fickes(of the Fraidies.  Be on the lookout for their debut album which is going to be amazing!), had a very emotional response when I first saw the trailer.  In case you didn’t know, both Jon and I, separately but coincidentally, moved to New York City, at the same time in 2007.  At the time, neither of us had a band and we were both folk singers; no doubt influenced by our love of Bob Dylan and On the Road and all that jazz, like many, many others.  The difference, however, was that we were really good at it, Jon being much better than I.  I’m not saying this in a pompous sort of way, just matter of factly.  I have travelled across this country and back multiple times, guitar and harmonicas in hand, and have never come across anyone better at folk singing than I, that is, until I met Jon Fickes.  I can say, unequivocally, that he is the best folk singer I have ever seen, bar none.  We were also kind of the only ones, in a true folk sense, that is.  None of that shitty faux-folk stuff thats so prevalent nowadays.  So anyhow, when we got to New York, we were ready.  And man, did we play all the folk singing joints out there.  We played those coffee houses in the Village and east Village and at bars all over the City and in Brooklyn.  We played at two in the morning at the Sidewalk to the “waitresses, walls and weirdos.”  We were, most likely, as I have no factual documentation to prove this, the first people to play original folk music at the Café Wha? in at least twenty years or so. We did it all.  We played anywhere they would let us…  And almost no one cared.  It was depressing.  It made me not want to be a folk singer anymore.  And, more importantly, it made me start a Rock N’ Roll band; which, in retrospect, was the silver lining, I suppose.  It was hard.  We had been folk singers for so long at that point.  We couldn’t imagine not doing it.  I had spent years traveling(or in folk terms:  rambling) so I could write good, honest songs about my experiences.  It was a long, hard transition(that’s what she said.  Sorry I just couldn’t resist).  But life doesn’t give a shit and drags you through it.  Time won’t allow you to wallow in the death of a dream.  So, we left.  We moved on and sort of forgot about all that.  We both started bands.  Jon is about to release his first record and I’m about to start work on my second.  My first record got a lot of good press and airplay and we got to play a ton of shows all over the Pacific Northwest as a result.  Things are going well.  I can’t much complain, though I still do constantly.  Everything was moving the right way.  Then, out of nowhere, we got sucker punched in the back of the head.  The “Inside Llewyn Davis” trailer.  Jon saw it first and told me to watch it.  I did and immediately knew, and felt, what Jon was talking about.  It was a flood of memories and emotion and the joy and sadness of a past life that we both had years ago.  I think about halfway through the trailer I sort of checked out.  I didn’t need to watch anymore to know there wasn’t going to be a good ending for this man.  I already knew it.  I already lived it.  My second thought was that they should have called me and Jon, and, just like Ringo, all we’d have to do is act naturally…

            Now, for sure, there is a large part of me that really doesn’t want to see this film.  I know that I will, at least a couple of times, but I wish I could stop myself from doing it.  Nothing good will come of it.  I know this.  I know that I will become unbearable to be around(advanced apologies to my girlfriend and band), caught up in my own nostalgia and floundering around in the countless memories I still carry, vividly, within my ever-swelling, at the present time anyways, brain.  I hope that I will be able to distance myself from the movie’s main character and watch with only visual entertainment  in mind.  I hope that I will not get caught up in my own neuroses and spiral back into the depression and sadness and hopelessness I once embodied which ruined my life and a relationship in the process.  I hope that this film will not inspire me, for some insane reason, to long for the days of my own folksinging and wish to continue, blindly and stupidly, that imprisoned passion of mine.  I hope that I can just watch as a fan of the Coen Brothers and brilliant movies.  I hope and wish for all of these things.  But I know that in this wish, I am doomed to fail.  I know, just as certain as I know my head and body are in a lot of pain right now, that I will fall prey to all of those aforementioned things.  And so will Jon.  And all of us, who idolized Guthrie and the Carter Family and Dylan and the lot, will feel Llewyn’s pain.  We will embody and embrace that hurt as it is also our own.  We will selfishly share in the sadness.  I may have modeled and lived my life according to the selfish and reckless ways of Dean Moriarty, but I always yearned to fall more on the Sal side of things.  He was right all along.  He dipped his toes into the craziness of Dean, but never fell fully and completely under the spell.  He always kept his head above water.  And when I, I mean Dean, hit bottom,  I, I mean he, looked up and saw that Sal had played it perfectly, right to the end.  He had seen and done enough to satisfy his curiosity, but he did not become addicted to the craziness like Dean and I had.  He had known all along, what we would come to learn, albeit perhaps too late… 

And all of this because of a fucking movie trailer…  God, I hope the Packers win on Sunday so I have something else to think about…  And that handful of Excedrin I took earlier still isn’t doing much, so I’ll be done for now and get to Part II after I finally watch this fucking movie.  Good Night, and Good Luck…