Captain Xark's Open Salon Blog

The Simpsons Helped Me Stop Smoking Cigarettes

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:04:46 -0400

In 2004 I was nearly catatonic over my addiction to rolled, filterless, american spirit tobacco in rizla papers. I couldn't go 45 minutes without a fix.

I had quit for days and even weeks, but I was surrounded by cigarettes, my gf smoked and all of the anarco kids and musicians I hung out with smoked.

I would always think I could just have one, but with that one came the mountain of anxieties back at me like a boomerang, the great feeling of unwellness caused by the seesaw-ing of those chemicals in my brain. Many of those anxieties are still with me now and I can imagine them going a way with a few puffs.

But I have learned, that boomerang will only come back harder in two hours, and the next morning.

In 2004 I asked my brother and his wife if I could stay in their basement for a week and they agreed. I would just take a vacation and watch TV, really try to not have a care in the world.

So I bought a huge bag of breath mints and packed my bags, without any cigarettes, which I remember was actually difficult, and my girlfriend dropped me off. I remember feeling sheer terror, knowing there would be no cigarettes there for me, nor would they even be within walking distance. The gas stations in St. Peters Missouri only sell the mind-control/cyanide forms of pseudo-tobacco I had learned to despise once I had tasted the pure unfiltered good stuff.

So for a week, I watched The Simpsons and ate a thousand breath mints.

It worked. Maybe if you have a basement away from your addiction and a pile of Simpsons DVD's, and a family member to trust you and cook you dinner, this technique could help get you off whatever it is you want to be off of.

But once you do it, you can never go back or you will be right back where you started and it will have all been for nothing and you'll just have to do it again.

That thought keeps me from having even a single cigarette to this day, 7 years later.

And thanks to my brother and his wife, that was one of those big favors you don't come by very often in this world.

Namespace Surrender

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:03:42 -0400

Captain Xark passed on into the netherworld of nom de plume's yesterday, succumbing, perhaps acquiescing to other parties on the web interested in his namespace.

He gave it a lot of thought, and so have I. Which is why, I, Admiral Grout Panache, will also be sailing forth into the overly known territories of overlapping syllabic combinations. It just wasn't meant to be, was fun while it lasted.

But what do you do when you have a common name? Or a name too common?

In the future, I suppose neither of us will attach titles of maritime authority to ourselves, unless of course, either of us actually gets a vessel of some kind.

That said, it's been fun, though not enough. The account will still be checked from time to time, so please send a message if you'd like and we'll let you know where we re-emerge.

Sincerely and metaphorically,

CX and AGP

Projects, Online Dating, Dullness

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:02:32 -0500

(CX awoke briefly, he think he's been in a different time or dimension, AGP)

"Ive got these three projects and they are all in totally different directions. I'm torn between them and it's led to inaction. It's all caught up in my identity and I am really trying to get away from that. Why is it so hard?

Started a new online dating thing. This site actually has lots of women who are 90% compatible who I also find attractive, but which who decline my subtle advances. More women have rejected me in one week than had in person for at least a few years. I have really been considering what it may be like to be without sex for a few years. Feels like a waste, but alright. Luckily I like the xbox360.

I mean what am I even working for anymore? So that I can make another 20k/yr so some woman will overlook my flaws? So that I'll have paid off my student loans by the time I retire? That I can send out another (script, song, breath) for rejection 'in this economy?'

Maybe it's the greyness, maybe it's just general lack of optimism.

I hear my smarter self, and I hear a lot of you also saying, 'no need to be so glum, thus has it ever been, i know it looks that way now, can't lose every day' etc.

I don't want a car. I don't want to live in an xurb. "

AGP

Are you Sure you want to be Busy?

Wed, 4 Feb 2009 21:02:57 -0500

I decided long ago that I never wanted to be busy. I think it was about that time I lost my thousandth friend to the disease and went into my first great silence.

I decided that I wanted to be someone who would answer his phone and emails, not procreate until the kids could be my primary job and be available to go do something if you called me up.

Not sometime soon, not next week, but this week. Like on Thursday, maybe even on the weekend if you wanted. Right now? Sure, what part of town?

It's been great. The decision has treated me well. I watch all of the movies I want to see and get to take naps when I want. I make music when the spirit takes me and write when the ideas come to mind.

I can and do invite people to do things whenever I want, only they can never go.

They say, "Maybe next week, I'm busy with the [kids][others][game][papers][plans]."

I don't call them back then maybe run into them a year or two or ten later and they say "I've been busy."

I shake my head and say, "I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope you get better soon. Call anytime."

They ask for my number and then they don't call and I'm not surprised.

It must be infuriating to be around someone who has all of the time they wish they did.

Republicans Pretend they are still Credible about Money

Wed, 4 Feb 2009 20:02:49 -0500

Where were they in August when 700 billion dollars were being given away without any record even being kept of who was given money?

Where were they when 20(+) billion went missing in Iraq?

Now they are concerned about pork barrel projects and Taminy hall politics? (Well they have to say something, they can't just say 'we had near complete control for 8 years and now everything is broken so keep doing what we say even though we lost the election' can they?)

I think they mean they just don't want to spend money on building things in America, they just want to spend money blowing them up in other countries and let everything else rot.

If there is any sort of Taminy hall politics they are concerned about, they should clean their own doorsteps first and then recognize that we've legalized Taminy hall anyway.

Taminy Hall is just what K street was called before we had 'Lobbyists.' and maybe if we're going to have legal bribery then it's better they wear suits and write checks than get into Robber Baron style street wars.

The Free Market Experiment is Over, now it's time for Keynsianism or however that is spelled. All these people saying the New Deal was a bad idea have never had grandparents who grew up in Oklahoma in the 1930's and lived on social security until they died. If someone said that about the New Deal to my face I'd head butt them in the nose.

It's time to throw the word socialism out too because it's gotten so twisted up that it can't mean the same thing to everyone anymore.

There is a Government and There is a Market now let's just take it on a case by case basis.

I don't think Microsoft could make a better interstate and I don't think the government could make a better Xbox, so there we are. It is just that simple, we have to argue about it and decide. Anybody who doesn't like it is welcome to save up for a container ship and build a freestate out in the ocean. (or a spaceship, like I'm doing)

So let's spend a bunch of money in our borders. Then all those construction workers and good ole' bribed government officials can buy lunch at Denny's and tip well and then maybe we'll have things rolling alright again (if a psychopath doesn't set off a bomb or shoot someone.)

AGP