The Long Strange Trip
My bio (much abbreviated): a gifted first child, destined for great things, leads a rebellion against the Izod wearing faction of his fourth grade, becomes a wrestler, first girlfriend, develops extraordinary cunnilingus technique, leaves home at 17, drops out of high school, starts co-founds a criminal gang, escapes life of crime by moving to Seattle, discovers loneliness and LSD, gets a job that starts a domino chain that will years later lead to his dream job, home, GED, rejected by UMKC, leads friends to California to follow the Grateful Dead, homeless in Hollywood, Venice and Santa Monica, home again, accepted by UMKC, meets and is seduced by future wife, quits UMKC, becomes an alcoholic and then a parent, gets a truly pivotal job at a comedy record label, loses job, get job back, quits drinking, discovers exercise, installs phone networks which leads directly to dream job, becomes a workaholic, back to alcoholic, rediscovers himself through art and exercise, does nude modeling, develops the basis of his philosophy (that leads to this website), has an affair, encourages wife to do the same, becomes amicably but permanently separated from his wife, endures some dark times, quits drinking for good, discovers California sobriety (hint: starts with a T and sounds like THC), tries and fails at professional photography, achieves his lifetime programming goal, discovers the source of all his anxiety, realizes his life is just too weird not to share, and here we are.
Now that you are up to speed, what follows are stories that span a time frame of 55 years, perhaps a little longer if I get to speculating on the specifics of my conception. They are told with a level of honesty that is somehow both vulnerable and brutal. I will restrain my tendencies towards rhetorical flourish, shocking with gritty detail rather than the my usual free imaginings. The thing is, the whole point of the exercise is to review my life in order to figure out what just the hell happened. Truth is an absolutely necessary ingredient for that particular cake. Besides, the truth is pretty interesting. It’s kind of an experiment. What happens if you mix smarts and willful stubborn self assured boldness and physical fitness in equal but very generous measures into a child and pop him down into comfortable white suburbia with a silver spoon in his mouth. In 1969. At the risk of hi-lighting my age, I point out the year because I think when is another aspect of the experiment. It was a different time, or maybe not. It’s so hard to tell. I’m not saying it was a better time. The porn is so much better today. A lot of other things too.
At the risk of spoiling the ending, I can tell you it was a long strange trip. The boldness meant I didn’t follow the lines at all, the smarts kept me both alive and once I found a calling, a lot of money. But that same boldness and mind led me deep into alcohol. And then anxiety. Then exercise led me to a quite different place. A much better place. For a while. For about a three year timespan, a little over ten years ago. It was a time that I really just shined brightly. In the intervening anxious fearful years, it became exceedingly distant in my mind, the memories of a different man.
I am back. And I’m even badder. I’ve decided to feed two birds one scone and both further my writing career with all the juicy, sexy details, and rewrite my own history, undistorted by all the fears. There is a third motivation. I’m an unscrupulous artist who wants all your love and is willing to do almost anything to get it. As long as it’s honest. Which is proving so far to be all it takes.
![The Great Sexual Awakening of 2007](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/620e7d2ef92f407714fe8f2d/1720122433479-1Z33N259572YEA75KGSD/36701_1523539853445_2896165_n.jpg)
The Great Sexual Awakening of 2007
Written March 28, 2009
My first awakening began a year and a half ago sometime in august. One night Liz comes to me with a not very subtle request for sex. I rebuffed with one of the usual excuses, I don't remember exactly but it was probably the old standby "too tired". Next night, same request, similar response on my part. Two requests in two days got my attention though. For years we had lived a virtually sexless existence. We were like two very comfortable room mates who loved one another and shared common tax liabilities and children. A single sexual request would happen from time to time but like old friends meeting once again in a grocery store we could never actually arrange a get together. But a second request so shortly after the first was something out of the ordinary. I realized that the third request if it should happen might very easily be the last.
The third came and I said yes and it was - ok. The sex that is. We we're out of practice and Liz didn't climax, but it was close and real and somewhat sticky afterwards. Only a few days transpired before the next encounter and it was also fun but not ultimately satisfying for Liz. She would try so hard to climax. Which is not the way to come. But it was still a wonderful and unexpected change in the relationship. And we agreed we could keep trying until we were successful (maybe that was her training as a teacher...try, try, until you succeed).
We quickly became like rabbits. Or teenagers…
![Anxiety Free with One Condition](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/620e7d2ef92f407714fe8f2d/1718487375837-70QJ34JBAA483HFC0L5O/IMG_0059.jpeg)
Anxiety Free with One Condition
About four weeks ago on a Friday night, I finally really understood that the anxiety I had been experiencing for decades of my life was entirely in my head and not at all due to any of the carefully constructed medical explanations that I had so diligently built and so faithfully believed in over the years. Although the final piece so perfectly falling into place caught me by surprise, this really was no sudden thing, but the result of years of ego breaking effort. The weeks following the discovery were a rollercoaster of revelations as all the seemingly impenetrable barriers my unchecked fear had built in my life, seemed smaller and scalable in the new light. Even if the epiphany didn't immediately vanish my fears, it did point to a path through them. I mean right through them. So now I must do all the things that I am terrified of. Which is of course, terrifying. But a terror with a purpose.
![Fanfic Draco](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/620e7d2ef92f407714fe8f2d/1719074157917-1MPYEEPSVL8HUNZ95L59/F4ED0121.jpg)
Fanfic Draco
The Draco here is probably best understood after a full immersion in Harry Potter Fan Fiction. By the way, the “Not Safe Warning” for fanfic makes my own warnings very tame. It will change you. It changed me. Please note this is not a recommendation. They pair characters in imaginative ways, some of which I don’t think are even biologically possible, let alone the cannon damage done along the way.
This was a gift to my delightfully freaky wife (now ex but still wonderful). A very fortunate pairing of my insatiable need to strut and display my plumage and her shallow appetites.