STRANGERS

I'm feeling a backlash of negativity, the product of my own past negativity. Karma, baby-- what goes around comes back around.

I sent out e-mails shamelessly promoting the animation and the website. I sent some e-mails to people who I know I haven't spoken to in years, or people that I can no longer stand in any capacity. Why? Because I was fishing to see if there were any hard feelings. I was surprised that some people had squashed their beefs with me, but others have maintained steady grduges.

This is one e-mail I got back, from this guy I used to know who I will refer to as "Mac".


I don't really care, why do you keep sending me these emails. please stop. to me your just another spammer. take me off your list.

WTF, my sister just Emailed me saying some guy name mike called her number saying you used me as a reference. why? you need to stop that. we haven't hung out in years and I don't know why you think I can be some kind of reference to you. besides you gave out my sisters number not mine. please don't write me back explaining your self, I don't care because you just tend to ramble. so just stop emailing me and don't use my number or name with anything you do. It's not too much to ask. just stop


I laughed at first, but then I got really angry. I shouldn't be pissed off, because Mac always has been a miserable person. Still, it got to me, because we used to hang out. However, he wasn't much of a friend, and his character really showed itself when he went from being some wannabe-hardcore-leftist-aging-punk hacker to a jingoistic-warmongering zealot in the wake of 9/11.

I mean, everyone was shaken by the events of that day, but he straight up turned 180 degrees and then some. He started using the word "towelhead" and talked about bombing Afghanistan and all this shit that was too much for me to take. I can understand being angry, but I can't comprehend becoming the opposite of what you proclaim to be, even after a terrorist move like the WTC attacks.

I lost a lot of friends after 9/11, because they started to show their true colors, and of course they looked at me in a different light as well. I was just as angry as anyone else, but I tried to improve my stature in life instead of continuing down the path I was taking. It's no surprise that all of the people I used to hang out with around the end of 1999 and all of 2000 are no longer parts of my life. That was a very low period in my life, despite being financially stable (for the most part) and "having it all": friends, girlfriend, steady job, nice apartment, and my youth.

In fact, I shot a short movie around that time, detailing my life in an episodic way. What did I title it? "Sherman Oaks Blues".

I was stagnating, and it had to do with all of these people around me. With the exception of Down Low, everyone in my life became a drag. I started to hate my co-workers because they were so shallow. I started to hate my girlfriend because she was such a drama queen. I started to hate myself, because I was trying to fire things up creatively but found myself not breaking any new ground.

So after 9/11, I cut my losses and started from square one. And now, I'm pretty happy with how things are. Eve and I are talking again. I'm working on new things. I've made peace with a lot of my personal demons and see hope for the other issues I have.

But an e-mail like that is reminder of how the company I was keeping a while back was affecting me. And it makes me a little sad, as well as mad... but like I said, Mac is a surly guy, and he is never happy about anything.

Just to get it off my chest: I got that guy a job at the radio company. I don't know if he's still there or not, but he was there because I put in a good word for him. They didn't hire him the first time around, because he was too old-- already in his early 30s, and I was about 25 or 26.

After the young guys they hired turned out to be useless, I brought him up again and they gave him another try. He was working the mail room, so we worked together. We hung out during lunch breaks, getting high and talking about politics and music.

Then we had a falling out over a chick. Classic scenario, eh? That'll fuck up a friendship faster than anything. But then again, Mac wasn't someone I considered very friendly. After a while I began to see what a pain in the ass he could be, and how he used people for scoring weed.

He proved to be two-faced and conniving, especially in regards to that chick. And he's a fucking hypocrite as well-- he has the nerve to say I ramble? I wouldn't subject even my worst enemy to one of his monologues that go on for-fucking-ever.

And he was the worst kind of know-it-all: the kind that doesn't know shit. One time he almost had a fit because he insisted I was wrong about some Beatles-related trivia. He rudely bet me $50 in front of the whole department, and he was proved wrong. I didn't make him pay me, because the satisfaction of being right was more than enough.

Fuck him. Now that I think about it, I ain't sad about his sorry over-the-hill glory-days-reliving misinformed wrong-about-everything loud-as-fuck hearing-problem-having can't-say-a-sentence-without-saying-"fucken" girl-repellant ass at all.

Now I know why Eve was so angry earlier today when I brought up a mutual friend, a girl that she had been once really close to, a girl that she one day realized she had nothing in common with, a friend with whom that ties had been long severed...

It's that feeling you get when you realize that a certain person never knew you at all, and vice versa. They are strangers. You recognize nothing. They have a problem seeing you for who you are.

So I guess I have more reasons to watch my back on the streets. People nowadays are dangerous creatures-- they are angry beyond belief and want to do something about it. My job is to merely react, to throw it back at them when they try to bring me down like they always have.

I'm just venting. These are the things I was going to write in my reply, but since I figured he'd probably just delete my e-mail without reading it, I gave him just one word:

"Whatever."

Not exactly the wittiest response, but what can I say to something like that e-mail? First of all, the reference thing probably had to do with a delinquent payday loan that I squared away about a week ago. They were looking for me, and I have moved four times since I was at the address they had on their file. And the phone number thing? I haven't used that dumbfuck's number in years, and the only reason I had his sister's number in the first place is because he used to live with her.

Yeah, he was a real winner all right.

What's funny is, Mac was with me the day that I secured a payday loan from that place, because it was down the street from his apartment. He was the one who referred me to it, in fact! That's why he was a reference, so it's doubly ironic. And there's not one part of me that wants to relive the pathetic sluggishness of my existence back in those days...

He's also a wannabe hacker, so I wouldn't be surprised if Blogger gets firebombed or the animation server suddenly becomes disabled. I doubt he's reading this, but if he ever does, here's my rambling message to him:


You ain't shit, and you'll never be shit. This entire post is about as much space as I want to waste on you, bub. Good riddance.


There, that should make up for the lack of negativity in my posts as of late. Now it's time to get back to being pleased with and proud of myself, instead of hating everything around me.

I'm done with that for now. I did it every day for the past six years, and it got me nowhere. And something tells me that I'm still going to feel repercussions from my actions during those six years for future days to come.

Ah, well... can't win 'em all.

HAVE A NICE WEEKEND, PEOPLE!!