part two:
the methodical pill
the method i use to deconstruct and reconstruct myself runs aggressively on surprise. more instinctual than anything else, the method barely reveals its diagram as i close in on the finish; an early sneak peak tells me there’s no chance of derailment. in other words, i have no real clue as to what i’m doing until reflection occurs after the fact when a full understanding of the method drops like a small circus of epiphany bombs. what’s left are bomb holes to be filled with circus tricks. the method is harsh, a revelation that arrived via past successful experiences such as the first time i broke myself into pieces in order to jump start my life. in that case, i ended up at UCLA as a result, and would have never ended up in college if it wasn’t for taking too much ecstasy. it’s a punishing drug if taken in excess and can turn on you, owning the ability to promise you the past sensation of being part of something bigger while knocking you into a euphoric dark corner that can disconnect you the way westerners were forced to turn away from the uhf television frequency; it makes you forget why, and i am pro-forget it. dark corners make for great perspective making the tiniest of lights encouraging. ecstasy is love born from artificial chemical. it is love both at its essence and as a product. so is my method.
early march arrives and im blasting baby boy on his facebook page. baby boy’s threat, made near six months ago, still had bite – leave a unresolved threat against you hanging around the house long enough and it becomes ugly furniture. i stretched my ten fingered jaws as i commented on some of baby boy’s threads that attacked his favorite targets – new agers, hippies, fundamental christians, and yuppies – it’s the same round of venting every year, a series of recycling bimonthly attacks that get his frustrations out which i have no problem with; power to the venter. last year, i would have read his crafty words and commented on them with a supportive snap partly because his words spanked spunky replies out of my ass that kept my creative writing habit alive; my firecracker comments combined with baby boy’s pin-point humor made for great rolling banter “liked” by many. this time, however, i heard his opinions with a new ear. the words, same as before, rung a new chime that was off tempo and nowhere past tense. they felt hypocritical. they felt unsubstantiated. they felt less than authentic. i felt like attacking a dear friend.
it started with a thread he created based on the following premise: “men that do yoga/spiritual work are not like the men of the sixties” using don draper as his prized pony and deepak chopra as the representative softy. the comment was bookended with the impression that there are no real men existing now, and that both rational thought and critical thinking had disappeared. when i read these words, i wanted to break them. my response brought out the assumptions built on the universal statements; one claiming that “everything is x” or that “all x is y” is like standing at the midline in a dodge ball game with no balls (5). but it wasn’t simply the faulty logic that irked me but where the ideas that bred the comments came from. i blasted a comment attacking the logic while stating that regardless of whether a man worked on himself or on cars, it was particular attributes – responsibility, for example – that defined a man as a man. instead of getting hammered by red balls, my comments drew out concern from other baby boy friends about his current state of being; what this merely baby boy angry at something, perhaps at himself? this was naturally followed by expressions of love for him; don’t hurt the baby!
i put my premise together with the concerns, careful because two and two only make four if you keep things in line. so, i thought back to the previous week when baby boy asked for online prayers to lift his spirits … but some men do spiritual work so they can learn how lift their own spirit out of the river of grudge. baby boy, known for having no work ethic whatsoever while having direct experience with the frothy spiritual community in los angeles during the nineties, frustrated that he himself was well-under and could not lift himself out of his depressed hole. baby boy does so much work to remain the boy, and my own experience of doing something similar which kept me in a trapped compartment that depended on me holding up the constructed persona of a boy told me that i have at least a small lead on at least part of what he felt. my view was taken seriously by others, encouraging some that came to his rescue to engage in more involved communication on the topic. the support made me feel validated. it told me i was onto something, and combined with a thriving revenge itch felt +/- moving me to run like a recharged battery offering no apology for running off negative. more baby boy thread comments came, and my explanations of them turned into quick, one line retorts. those retorts became names. i began name calling like a provoker pressing into his hollywood screen-chest. it was dirty, and given i picked a small fight with my mother weeks earlier that emotionally opened us both, my actions felt sanely insane. my desire was to get baby boy out of his off-line shell and into an online spat with the promise of something greater.
(a short comment on threats – it is not important what the article was that he threatened to throw away because where i come from, friends do not threaten anything against other friends under any condition unless they are willing to risk losing the friendship. its funny that, after he so easily threatened me when i tried to reach out to him (while also throwing in a “jesus loves me” bomb, referring to himself) to which i responded that i could easily end the friendship right there, he asked me why i didn’t value the years of friendship we had built. my answer is this – i put value on the friendship, not the possession which he obviously never once considered while making the threat. once he made that move, i detached from the possession – they were as good as gone to me, even though i spent a nice chunk of change on those psychedelic mushrooms (6). did your idea of value change once i told you what they were? if they did, and you felt that psychedelic mushrooms carry no value for whatever reason, note that the reason why i don’t make threats against a friends possessions is because the friend puts all the value necessary in the possession simply as being their loving owner.)
now the following question may have occurred to you: why not attempt to resolve this matter face to face, the matter being the threat + my frustrations – why resort to barking on baby boy’s facebook page? baby boy is a delicate creature and would normally never threaten anyone under any condition. why not sit with him and find the genesis of the threat? a one-on-one conversation with a non-threatening friend where we could discuss this conflict like two grown men, and attempt not only to resolve our differences but to attempt a more intimate argument much like the one i experienced with my mother. his ex-girlfriend pointed out, eloquently, that by choosing to air my grievances on facebook instead of, say, calling or emailing him about my feelings, i really did not appear to care about preserving a real friendship, stating that appeared as if i was performing for an invisible crowd – standing on someone’s lawn screaming at them inside the house which is not an effective way to reach someone. she was indeed onto something, smart girl this one is. and once she revealed that fact to me, the method began to reveal itself – was i only doing this for myself, and if so, why wasn’t i doing it for the both of us?. these two questions lingered like a bad odor, and i’m not too quick to kill an odor. but i was one small step ahead, as i had recently figured out a great deal about how baby boy manages a situation such as this, explaining why i would refused any attempt to speak with him face to face. it was because of what i call “baby-logic”.
i figured this out during our argument where, after asking me for help, he quickly turned the conversation around, removing himself from responsibility in a experience he had even before jumping into the topic. i felt manipulated. i put the pieces together from other conversations with him + ones i’d overheard + experiences transcribed to me by others. babies get into trouble sometimes, like children. or, at least they’re told when they’re in trouble or that they may have done something wrong. many children will do anything to escape blame; a natural reaction. but baby boy is a grown man nearing forty. confront baby boy in a manner that makes him feel he may be in trouble, and he sends out “the negotiator” to try and convince you that everything is fine if you simply allows things to go back to the way they were. not much negotiation but simply an attempt by him to remind you of the value in being his friend in exchange for letting him get away with whatever he’s being accused of. if that doesn’t work, baby boy sends out a solid defense team that picks apart your words in order to use them against you, or does everything in their power to make you sound like the one that needs help or is in peril – essentially, you’re the one in trouble. it’s convincing, a well tuned line of defense created by a baby with a fantastic legal team designed to get him off (no pun intended but this does foreshadow some of his other actions … with the opposite sex) without punishment.
honest fact – baby boy lives on facebook. stating that he spends an average of six hours a day on the internet might be an understatement; i’m guessing a ten hour internet day is a commonality. in fact, i’ve seen him hyper ventulate when he’s gone several without internet time while at work. baby boy receives so many facebook email notifications that it’s tough for him to keep track of messages. this is not to say he never checks for whatever he finds important to him but from what i’velearned through both personal experience and other people, answering personal emails written to him often go ignored. and his phone? whether he’s paid the bill or has his prepaid service charged up, baby boy lets it ring until his voicemail becomes full and unchecked. perhaps this is different is you’re on his guest list; i don’t know if one exists. and ive seen what he does with mail – unopened power bills stained from sitting underneath a bag of last night’s chinese take-out. trying to make direct contact with baby is like climbing a wall, and the only way to get his true attention is to place something on his facebook wall.
in the simplest of terms, baby boy has built himself a firewall. per wikopedia … this is “used to protect networks from unauthorized access while permitting legitimate communications to pass.” as his roommate, i rarely ever reached him over the phone. always took at least four phone calls even if his phone was right next to him while he surfed casually on the internet without any other concern to deal with, and i can honestly report that i think i only reached him five times on the phone during my eight plus years of knowing him. this particular attitude is strict, an attitude that allows one to control precisely who comes into one’s life which makes everyone else an inconvenience. evidence exists of this regarding baby boy. i’ve heard him speak of clients pertaining to his particular love craft – photography, in a manner that puts them down even before meeting them, as an inconvenience of his time. i’ve watched him speak to acquaintances many times in which the conversation seems normal, but once they leave, he complains about their presence as though his time was stolen (7). now bear in mind however, when baby boy acts out, he’s entertaining to watch with a sitcom-style manner of conducting himself that would allow his character to survive on nbc thursday nights and it’s easy to fall in love with. but recently, i have discovered hints that i, one of his better friends for nearly ten years, have a space reserved on his list of those he forced himself to have to tolerate.
there’s a strange component to my discovery that, once i figured out the firewall, makes complete sense to me. during the summer, baby boy asked me to conjure up advertising campaigns for his second but more realistic attempt at creating his own advertising agency. having been a copywriter himself for several years and coming from a family rich in advertising tradition, baby boy has the foreknowledge to make a great career out of his talents; it was partly his lack of work ethic that held him back from doing something on his own but he expressed his desire and had great ad contacts to learn from. baby boy has gathered a small team, he explained, and asked if i would be part of the experience i’d never done copywriting before; just screenwriting and blog work, and he consistently complimented me on my creative flair. during a stay at his place, i conjured up some ideas to show him that i was committed and that i could do work. i wanted to support his efforts to get baby boy up and running with his own established voice. i wanted to be a part of his dream. even though my father was ill, i still put aside time to write. but several months went by, after i asked for him to keep me in tune with his progress, i hadn’t heard a word from him. attempts to contact him went unanswered. so, sometime around mid-october, i went to his facebook page months later and saw how much time he had devoted to … his photography career.
no attempted contacts were made to me, and as far as i could tell, i was the only existing member left of his campaign. i didn’t take this personally at the time because baby boy has a tendency to what i call “no-action” action but that was before i realized his attitude towards people when he feels his time is being bothered. i reflected on this after my father passed. baby boy, in fact, was the first of my friends to find out about my father’s condition, present when i received the phone call from my mother announcing the news. he understood the predicament given baby boy’s medical background. for months when my father was ill, friends found out about his condition and called, or dropped by both invited or uninvited and kept in touch to see how he was. baby boy, however, who i can honestly claim to be my best friend given our time together, never attempted to get a hold on me. email sent by myself to him asking him to contact me went unanswered. i could have posted a note on his facebook page given his habits, and in hindsight, i may have. baby boy never met my father perhaps i didn’t have to take this non-action so seriously. but people i recently met just once sent me emails asking how they could help, letting me know they were available if needed and if there’s any fact about baby boy, is that he has plenty of time on his hands – even with his ad and photo projects, baby boy finds as much time as possible to avoid doing work. so this begs the question – was i to expect baby boy, to have to do anything? is he the type of person that understands about how important a father is to a son?
the answer is an astounding yes. baby boy’s father is a famous father, adored by many and idolized by baby boy even with a rough relationship once baby boy hit thirty. baby boy also understands the loss of a parent, his mother having passed at what can be considered he understands loss and suffering and how support from friends is essential. so why did i never receive one moment of his time during an eight month long period? it’s because my situation was an inconvenience to his time, making it clear to me that baby boy was not going to be there as a supportive friend even when faced with a tough dilemma. this was not a great surprise; he usually carried the clause that you had to go to him, not the other way around … unless he make a special case for certain people which i was not a part of; what those parameters are that would qualify me as being to type of friend that he picks up the phone for to see how me and my father are doing, i can only guess at.
i seemed to have fit into a fuzzy middle with baby boy. i was not the entirely intolerable nor the friend he has on his mind when i was faced with a parent under distress. that puts me in a strange position – allowed access behind the firewall yet not knowing my pace with him. the odd thing about a firewall? i can recall countless conversations, both in person and online in which i would start off with a comment only to be met with a fast compliment. sometimes, the compliment felt as though it had no thought involved in its construction, as though he just threw it at me like a bone to a dog except there was no one to bring the bone back to. this had always felt strange, but i was one to let these feelings pass because i was never one to bring up conflict in order to keep the relationship intact. but given how he threw not only a threat at me but a “jesus loves me” just to push me away, the idea of using compliments in the same manner felt more and more plausible. but still, i didn’t want to be convinced of it … until i thought of a particular incident he was involved in, driven by my eagerness to integrate myself with my father’s virtues.
i reflected on a situation last year when baby boy was living with his girlfriend. he had complained before about problems in the relationship while they stayed together, and listening to his choice of words when describing their problems, i will say that the relationship was in a fuzzy middle. baby boy told me his girlfriend gave him a pass for a happy ending massage, which is fine by my book – two people in a relationship and in conflict attempt to figure out some sort of solution in order to put the conflict at ease, i say go ahead and try it no matter how irrational the idea (barring some obvious against the law type action). suddenly, this massage pass turned into the allowance for sex outside the relationship. soon after, baby boy and his girlfriend brought in a roommate – a mid-twenties girl off craigslist (and i can hear the joke already – never get a roommate off craigslist!). baby boy reports that the roommate sends him chat messages about pleasing him sexually, and how she makes advances. next thing i hear, the roommate tells lies to his girlfriend about what they did sexually. baby boy claims that the roommate is mentally challenged, that something is seriously wrong with her, kicks her out and thus goes to work in repairing his relationship (8).
now i honestly have no idea what really happened and i’m not going to speculate because speculating gets me nowhere. but i coupled this with other baby boy episodes in which baby boy did not show respect for a broad range of relationships, or used his free pass line on women, or made a strong effort to bring down the reputation of a woman that he proposed sexual activity to (9). even if baby boy did nothing with the roommate and told me everything, and even if he did not bring unnecessary dramatic conflict into his relationship, and even if baby boy was nowhere near responsible for anything that occurred, i felt like i was sold the truth. i now understood why i was provoking baby boy to come out from behind his facebook page and contact me. it wasn’t so i could attempt to create an angry spark that would open us both to each other in the same manner that worked for my mother and myself. i was provoking baby boy so i can tell him i no longer wanted him in my life because when i added up everything that, in short, made me feel frustrated towards baby boy, it felt like a load of words that sounded nothing like the word “trust” which meant i could no longer trust his word.
this may lead one to conclude, given all that i have written and the attitude i have carried, that i am simply being overdramatic in my actions and that perhaps i could have easily of dealt with this issue in a much simpler and cleaner manner that did not conjure up so much idea-fluff. in fact, baby boy himself, after hearing how i would quickly bring the friendship to a halt after his threat, told me himself i was being “overly dramatic” about the situation. when i personally think of someone being dramatic, i think of a teenager who cries something like “why does everything happen to me!?”; this is a yell without a committed attempt to gain perspective so one can escape personal tragedy. but when facing both self emposed and relationship challenges (they seem to go hand in hand) i choose to work through them in order to recognize harmful old habits so i can grow out of harmful attitudes that no longer serve me, which is pretty strong given i haven’t been in a relationship since the eighties. anyone taking this approach may seem to act strangley to others, especially when its your very first time discovering not just yourself but other aspects of your own self once hidden by you. you’re nowhere near a drama queen if you commit to such action. in fact, these actions build character and make you feel like a king of the theatre.
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(5) this is like saying “all balls are round”. so long as you can conceive of one single incident showing that the opposite is possible, the claim breaks. a ball can be deflated, for example.
(6) things i enjoy doing on mushrooms – stretching, developing screenplay ideas, yoga, healing injuries, frolicking, sex, dancing and asking questions about anything because my brain is so relaxed at the time that answers simply appear to me.
(7) this comment is not made in reference to “lucky charm eddie”.
(8) around this moment in time, i was the type of person who didn’t speak up to people, nor did i ever bring up personal opinion in risk of losing a friendship. this was part of my “just let things be as they are” code accompanied by my own fears of creating conflict. in addition, at the time this episode occurred it didn’t feel like a issue (though i have to be honest – i ignored lots and lots of feelings around this time and currently practice recognizing feelings in order to deal with issues. this essay is part of my first attempt at it) but it did feel “off”. i actually met this roommate/girl with baby boy as we took some of her belongings to her. i must say, she seems like a happy person, cheerful, sweet. a bit hyper. but some people have a tendency to just shake their heads yes and agree to whatever is told to them and in this case, i did the same as baby boy schooled me on her mental issues and problems. this makes me feel like a sheep.
(9) i don’t feel the need to go too specific on these events as i don’t see the relevancy of doing so in order to lead to my conclusion.
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