If I’m gonna self evaluate – and technically, no, no one asked, OK? But whatever, I’m gonna do it anyway. So if I’m gonna self evaluate I’d say my biggest flaw – and I’m sure most of you might disagree, maybe we can have a write-in contest someday –

I keep distracting myself. So my biggest flaw is taking everything way. too. seriously. Everything meaning “life” I guess. I just assign so much gravity to so many things and it can really weigh on me after a while.

And it’s like I need to look up every few days and shake it all off with the simple phrase “just have fun.” And those words are so powerful. It’s like if I constantly forgot to breathe and started suffocating and then thought “hey, just breathe” and gasped for sweet air and was like “oh yeah, air! Air is so good!” then Memento-brain forgetting it again.

But you see what I’m saying, right? It’s amazing how easy it is to forget to have fun you know? You can try to plan fun and it just transforms into drama so quickly. Nit picking every detail, trying to make everything perfect, fighting over the order of things or the timing of things when it just doesn’t matter at all. What matters is having fun in the remaining seconds, minutes or (hopefully) years that we have left here.

Cause it’s not about getting it exactly right, right this instant, it’s about looking up and seeing the sky and trees and someone you love and smiling and being at peace with the moment. Not asking of the moment or tagging it with expectations or even words (love! hate! favorite! summer! interesting! really? ) but just letting it be. Now is now, nothing more. Why ask so much of it?

Why is that so hard – to be here and have fun?

Tags: justwriting

Whenever I’m downloading software and given a choice of countries to download from I always pick Japan. I don’t know what it is, I just trust the Japanese to handle my software downloading. I absolutely never select Seattle, WA. Something about that godless city. I’m sure it’s nice but it doesn’t know downloading. And downloading from my home town of New York seems so provincial. Ech. So I go with the Japanese. If not Japan, then Taiwan. Perhaps Korea as well. South Korea. I like to keep my downloading Asian. Of course it goes without saying that I will not download from Communist China. Technically Russia et al are Asia also but… come on, let’s be honest, no they’re not.

Tags: justwriting

If you’re going to have a rooftop party in Williamsburg in the brand new super-expensive condominium across the street and use a high-priced audio system to blast music in a 10 block radius in the part of town still populated mostly by brown people, you can’t only play Beck. I’m sorry but use some of that money to buy some taste in music. A few Beck songs, fine. More than a few, hey, whatever plucks your duck. But exclusively Beck? Do you actually enjoy being a living stereotype? You are giving privileged white people a bad name.

Tags: justwriting, nyc, rants, thecity

There’s this dish sitting near me that used to have “mini” versions of Snickers, Twix, Milky Way and 3 Musketeers. About a week ago I took care of the Snickers and Twix. They were delicious. I now am forced to choose between Milky Way and 3 Musketeers when I get a craving for sweets. I now feel compelled to out 3 Musketeers for the fraud that it is.

Four words: It’s just fucking nougat. That’s it. That it is gilded in chocolate is of no consequence to me. How boring is nougat? Pretty fucking boring. Sugar paste doesn’t cut it for me as far as candies go. It doesn’t even try to be a good candy bar. It just sits there, waiting to suck.

Who among you sanctions this sham of a candy? Who’s been buying this dreadful fluffed excrement since 1932? Eating a 3 Musketeers is like ordering a taco filled only with lettuce. Or placing an order for styrofoam peanuts from Amazon. Where is your joy? Where is your pride?

The worst part about it is that the name conjures such action-adventurous imagery. You’ve got this picture of three drunk rowdy frenchmen with swords and guns just fighting the shit out of people. It at least deserves some peanuts! Don’t you think? One fucking nut?

It’s time we realize that 3 Musketeers and its troubled cousin Milky Way simply mooch off of the success of Snickers and all the other good nut-filled candy bars. Isn’t it time we, as a nation, said, “No,” to this pseudo-edible manifestation of mediocrity?

Tragically, no. It won’t ever go away. All I’ve got here in the dish is god damned nougat. 3 Musketeers and Milky Way, you can both just go straight to hell.

Tags: justwriting

Whenever I can see a person’s toes on the subway, I count them. One, two, three, four, five. I have yet to find any missing. Or extra. Is that why I count them?

Tags: justwriting

Next to me, a young girl was drawing a picture. As young girls tend to draw, it was a picture of a tall pretty woman in a dress. I began to say, “Hey, that’s a nice drawing you have there.” But then I really looked at it. And I thought, “Gee, that kinda sucks.” I decided to compliment her anyway since she was a child. But then I thought, “Wait. That drawing is garbage. It’s really really awful. Even for a child.” So I kept walking and didn’t say anything.

Tags: justwriting

I am the owner of the single messiest bedroom in America. So I’ve finally decided to clean it. It will take about six months to do it right, but I figure I’ll start now. So I get to this box full of those air cushions that are very fashionable in the packaging business these days. I start popping them and squeezing out the air when I think: Where did this air come from? What weird foreign air am I expelling into my room? Are there weird cold germs in this air? Someone’s perfume? How different is New York air from Vermont air or Hong Kong air?

In the end, air is air. But this whole air relocation thing still sorta weirds me out. Right? It weirds you out too doesn’t it?

Tags: justwriting

When I was in third grade I bought a mini tape recorder with my allowance money. The kind of tape recorder people use in movies to secretly record conversations. I have no idea why I thought it was so exciting, though I recall being quite excited about the purchase. I decided to start an audio journal, documenting my ever so exciting third grade life. Entries included such moments as “And now we’re getting into the car to go to school bingo night.”

One day I lost the tape. My heart folded in two. Who would find it? Would he also have a mini tape recorder with which to listen to all of my secrets?

The next day my third grade teacher quieted down the classroom for an announcement. “This was found in the hallway.” She held up my tape, my most private and valuable of tapes! “Did anyone lose this? It’s labeled…” she squints at the tiny cassette, “Dairy. Did anyone lose a tape labeled ‘Dairy?’ “

Fear rapidly translated into embarrassment. I had misspelled ‘Diary.’ I now had to go claim my dairy tape. The class thankfully returned to their adolescent end-of-the-day chatter and I discreetly approached my teacher.

“Yes that’s… that’s my tape.” I put out my hand. She handed it over without so much as a concerned look. Apparently she had learned long ago that third graders were weird.

But I always wondered. What in God’s name did she think was on that tape? What sort of content warranted the title of ‘Dairy?’ Did she imagine playing it and hearing my young voice listing cheeses? “Gorgonzola… Brie… Parmesan… Havarti… also Provolone… and Jarlsberg…”

I stopped using the mini tape recorder around that time. It only made a reappearance years later when it was used to trick my friend’s 5 year old little sister into thinking she was on the phone with Santa Claus (which worked quite splendidly, might I add).

Tags: justwriting

I could write now about the year, how it went. A summation of the past year’s unit of time. I could write about how insignificant the simple changing of an arbitrary digit is, and therefore how silly New Years is. I could write about how useless it would be do go out of my way to try and have fun tonight, even though a week from now I won’t care what I did on New Years Eve and it will be just another night out. I could write about the pressure for having an answer to, “So what did you do for New Years?”

I could write about how perhaps there is significance in a new year. I could conclude that we need to divide up time in order to understand it, and that a new year truly is a new beginning, if we make it so.

I could list things that happened this year that I liked. I could do the same for things I didn’t like.

I could recount my past New Years, highlighting the enjoyable ones from the not-so-enjoyable ones.

I could eat Thai, or Chinese, or Mexican, or Italian.

I could be indecisive. I could be down. I could let that ruin my night. Hmm.

Tags: justwriting

Let it be known that here, officially, God is snowing the bejesus out of this place. Crazy awesome “damn it’s snowing real hard” snow. No easy transition into winter, no gradual pussy footing into a white Christmas. As if He had been out of town the last month and felt the need to make up for it all this very moment. Good show, Man.

I said I wouldn’t write about the temperature but I made no promises about precipitation. I cannot be stopped.

Unrelated thought: if you were to refer to God as “dude,” would “dude” be capitalized?

Tags: justwriting

Boy, what a sad sad lot of costumes I’ve seen today. All these prefab, bought-yesterday, unimaginative crap costumes. Worst of all is that guy that thinks a plastic mask (of the rubber band variety) makes for a costume. It doesn’t. It makes for a guy in a mask, which isn’t cool, scary, spooky, creepy, funny or any of the various things Halloween is supposed to be.

Then again, I didn’t dress up this year, which you could argue is worse, but at least I didn’t half-ass it. Last year I went to a party as a Staples Employee That Had Been Shot In The Head.

Halloween was my favorite holiday as a child. I fucking kicked ass at Halloween when I was young. One year I went as Dick Tracy, complete with yellow fedora, a real yellow suit jacket and a (non-functioning but cool looking) radio watch. Two years in a row I was Batman. The second year I created what I refer to as my Sistine Chapel. The pinnacle. I paper machied my own head-piece, perfectly replicating the 1989 Batman costume. I made my own cape, along with black cardboard body armor and hand made gold foam belt.

Another of my favorites was when I went as the Terminator. I cut up Coke cans and used the unpainted inside to fashion my “metal endoskeleton.” I used the red part of the can for the red eye. That along with some fake flesh, a little latex and some fake blood and voila, half of my face was ripped off exposing my robot insides. OK, it wouldn’t have fooled anyone, but for sixth grade it was pretty fucking good. My father drafted up plans for a fully functioning robotic arm that I would attach to my own and control via strings and pulleys, but it proved a to be a tad more than difficult, so we scrapped it.

Yes, I was a bit old for being that into Halloween still, but I just loved doing it. All right, I was waaaay too into it. Fine. I admit it. One could argue that I harnessed it into a passion for filmmaking. Another could argue that I was a giant loser. It would be a good debate.

But the point is, if you’re going to leave your house in a costume on Halloween, have the balls to put some real ingenuity, not money, into a good costume. The following costumes don’t count:

A man dressed as a woman.
A woman dressed as a whore.
A bum.
The Scream killer.
Anything comprised entirely of a plastic mask.
A shirt that reads ‘This is my costume’ (Hasn’t been funny since ‘87)
A clown

You get the idea.

Tags: justwriting

Hello hello hello! Cha cha cha! It’s so good to have you all back—it’s so good to be back. Yes. We have a great entry for you tonight.

My head is finally out of the baseball haze. The depression was deep and painful. It never gets any easier. But enough of that now. No more MorrisonSports.com

Been spending 86.2% of my free time on a comedy show. It’s a blast and good to be behind the camera again. One of the videos I edited should be on the web soon. I hope. Stay tuned. (Quite literally keep this website open and refresh manually every 16 seconds. Literally.)

Buying Fountains of Wayne’s Welcome Interstate Managers is the best decision I’ve made in quite a long time. (iTMS link)

Hmm, very weird. Following an iTunes Music Store link makes that page’s tab in Safari close. Very inconvenient. Sorry.

Do you ever feel like you’re on the verge of something bigger? That there’s something very important, right around the corner, right over the horizon, right on the tip of your tongue, that you know is there but you just can’t get at? That we’re all arguing about the wrong things? That we’re all managing this whole life thing the wrong way? That we’re not asking the right questions? I think so.

Just finished Douglas Coupland’s Girlfriend in a Coma. I’m not quite sure whether the opening pages’ great potential actually paid off or not (girl slips into coma as punishment for seeing visions of the future). It almost got to the point where the potential didn’t matter anymore. It was a warm fun read with some great ideas at the end (if a bit rushed and pushy).

Just so you know: tomorrow morning is all about sausage, egg and cheese on a toasted bagel. Beat that.

Tags: justwriting

Living in a city without a car changes the entire dynamic of transportation. No longer is it point A, point B, hit the gas, go. It’s math and maps. You use buses, trains, hired cars and most of all your own two feet. The art of walking fast becomes a necessity. Part of that art is the ability to negotiate the cross across a Don’t Walk light.

Invariably, at some point, you will imagine yourself being run over by a car. It’s part of the territory. Cars jet past at incredible speeds only feet away and you begin to imagine that dreaded day where you will not properly negotiate the Don’t Walk and suddenly turn left and see a car barreling toward you.

I’m pretty sure that every New Yorker believes, in such a moment of crisis, that he could pull a Jackie Chan. Meaning that if the option of successfully dodging the speeding car was impossible that you would simply jump, vertically, at just the right moment and walk over the hood of the car landing precisely where you started after the car had passed.

This is my belief anyway. It’s a comforting ambition. “Oh if that happened? Yeah no problem.” Though I fear it might not turn out quite as gracefully as I’d like to imagine. Having recently been nearly run down by a speeding maniac, I proved my ability to haul ass and dodge a car. I moved like lightning, I’ll tell you that. But had dodging not been an option… well yes I’d speed walk right over that damn car.

In real life I think I might just get enough air to clear the hood. I mean, adrenaline would be involved don’t forget. The problem lies in the speed walking. Walking as fast as the car is traveling. I’d probably start off OK but rapidly spill into a tumble of limbs and roll tragically off the side of the car, landing hard on the pavement. It would be the single most spaz-tastic moment of my life, but I would live.

But who thinks about reality when they’re skipping across a Don’t Walk? Naw, I’d make it. I’d pull the Jackie Chan and keep crossin’ like nothing even happened. Sure.

Tags: justwriting

Oh, I’ve been lurking around here, just not showing my face. Plenty of time, just too much on the mind. This here is a hobby in it’s own right, and when my brain is chewing on other things, it falls off a bit. Here are two attempts at writing from the vault which I will share, for no particularly good reason.

Tolerance
Now see, the problem is that we all think we’re special. Which is entirely justified. The problem is assuming that you are the only person who is special. It’s when you make the incredulous assumption that you of all the billions of people in the world, are somehow gifted and worthy of special allowances, even though you’ve probably not done anything too extraordinary in your life, whereas the gazillion other people on the planet are just other people who are, let’s face it, in your way. That’s where everything goes wrong and god dammit if half of us could change that, what a world we’d have.

Ol’ Hookey
I saw a man with a hook for an arm today. A big ol’ wooden beast of a hook. Whistlin’ along down the sidewalk, swinging that hook-arm up and back like any other kind of arm. Just happy to be alive, happy to have two arms, hook or not. In fact I dare say he prefers the hook. Hook-pride in this man. I nearly walked up to him, to congratulate him on choosing such a gigantic prosthesis, when I noticed it was just an umbrella. Being held in such a way.

Tags: justwriting

I woke up today and while making coffee finished up the last of last night’s General Tso’s Chicken. The final moment of vacation and Summer. The second I step into work, the rest of the year will begin, along with all of its focus, hard work and chilly weather. And more writing.

I’m quite looking forward to it, aren’t you?

Tags: justwriting

A bizarre habit I noticed today. Whenever I use my iPod I take great care to check the L and R labels on the tiny little ear buds. Tucked beneath the black protective foam is a little gray dot with either an R (on the right naturally) or an L (on the left, in fact). If you are not brain damaged you are familiar with this concept. Anyway, I never put the ear buds in unless I am absolutely certain the correct bud is in the correct ear. I’m so paranoid in fact that after the R-confirmed bud is in the right ear I still check the other bud. As if that mysterious ‘Q’ labeled bud might appear.

It’s a habit I had never questioned, though today I questioned it. Would I ever, in a million trillion years with a million monkeys listening to a million iPods ever notice that I had them on backwards?

I seriously doubt it. Though I will continue to check them. And listen to the proper channels in the proper ears. And so it goes, and so it goes.

Tags: justwriting

Today I bought a silver Zippo with brushed metal finish. It replaces my lost silver Zippo with brushed metal finish. I lost the old Zippo about two months ago. The only difference between this new lighter and the old was an engraved dollar sign. The old one was a gift and nearly my most adored possession. I didn’t get the new one with the engraved dollar sign because I knew I’d never get a new lighter if I held out for the engraving. I’m lazy.

I mention this because I wonder about the fate of my old lighter. Who owns it now? Does she cherish it like I did? Or is it rusting on a bedside table somewhere? Is it lighting cigarettes? Is it melting heroin? Or is it safely tucked in a shirt pocket, waiting to warm hands when the cold season comes again?

Or is it sitting in the grime between the tracks of the subway, sniffed and ignored by the rats?

Does the new owner like the dollar sign? Does it mean anything to her like it did to me? Does she resent the dollar sign, envisioning its previous owner as some severely old crusty white man in a suit who kicked puppies and smoked cigars? Or is it just a tool to her? It makes fire and that’s that. Dollar sign could be a Euro or a banana or a beaver, who cares?

Maybe I’ll meet her some day, and she’ll light my cigarette and I’ll say, “Nice lighter.” She’ll smile, I’ll nod and we’ll be on our own ways again.

Perhaps.

Tags: justwriting

It seems a dilemma to me, this issue of name-dropping. For those of us who still gawk when they see a celebrity; whose friends are not celebrities, it’s a simple issue. We don’t name-drop because we can’t. For the famous it’s also not an issue. Celebrities befriend celebrities. Nicolas Cage, I’m sure, hangs out with Ashton Kutcher, and so when Nicolas Cage says, “So Ashton and I were out getting ice cream,” it’s true and so we don’t hate him.

It’s when us commoners mix company with those on the fringes of star life, that the problem arises. Say I have an acquaintance named Jules, and say he has some fancy yet (always) rather ambiguous job where he meets, runs into and perhaps on odd days hangs out with celebrities or pseudo-celebrities. He (Jules) may say to me, “Yeah, so Brian and I, that is, Brian Dennehy and I, were having a sandwich and he says to me, he says…”

Instantly I hate him. Certainly that is the easy reaction on my part. Oh Dennehy huh? Fuck you.

But for Jules the issue is more complex. Say he does lunch with celebrities. Say he truly has a good story involving Brian Dennehy or David Duchovny or Shannen Doherty. Is he to keep such a good story to himself just to protect my ego? Well he certainly shouldn’t! But on the other hand, it can’t help but seem a bit pretentious, which is my fault, but nevertheless.

This only concerns me because I aspire to lunch with the rich and famous, and I really really don’t want to have to like, hold back all my good James Woods stories just because you can’t handle it. You know? You know what I’m sayin’ here?

Tags: justwriting

It shall be noted that Coca-Cola Classic is the worst beverage ever conceived by man. For leaving my mouth feeling sticky and raw. For leaving an after taste of metal and plastic. For tasting like mediocrity. The Coca-Cola Company is only forgiven its sins due to Diet Coke, the greatest beverage ever conceived by man.

It shall be noted that clothing is losing its opacity. A brief yet productive walk down and past several streets yesterday confirmed this. Translucent clothing abounds. There was a time when such clothing was worn over more restrained, prudent clothing. Simply suggesting naughtiness. No longer. It shall be noted that I spotted 72 nipples and 14 thongs yesterday, without so much as trying.

It shall be noted that there comes a point when you must stop acting like a foul rotten cunt, chill the fuck out and remember how much beauty there is in the world.

It shall be noted that I will always misspell the word ‘definately.’

It shall be noted that most people don’t know where they are, subways are late and people are fat. More importantly I have to finally accept this, stop complaining about it; take it as part of the landscape.

It shall be noted that I will never post my pictures from the 4th of July.

It shall be noted that there have been breezes. Sometimes between 4:30 PM and 6:00 PM through the living room window. Sometimes just after sunset, on the street, through my shoes, pants and face. Sometimes at 2:00 AM, on my way back, on other streets. It never gets better than that.

It shall be noted that this feels good.

Tags: justwriting

Three attempts at writing that never quite made it out of the oven.

1. We want our blog authors to update daily. More content! More stories! More pictures! We remember that first really brilliant article that got us hooked and we return for more. When days or even weeks go by we start speculating. Fretting. Where did they go? What are they doing? Harvesting more content no doubt. Doing the living that results in writing.

2. Two weeks now without hair and loving it. Well, OK, I have hair. Some. But it’s all very short. I guess that’s the whole idea of shaving the head. The number one advantage by a long shot is the elimination of hair cuts. That monthly ritual of simultaneous dread and relaxation (D&R). Though I’ve never paid for a bad hair cut, I still dreaded. Loathed. Kicked and screamed. But once I walked out of there with a chiseled sharp ‘do, I was loving life. These were the rare moments where you could catch me strutting, waving to random strangers. I always felt so sexy after a hair cut. “See this right here baby? That’s a fresh cut. Touch it. It’s sharp, like me.” And now, doing my own haircuts and liking the look, I’m feeling sexy 24/7.

3. Francisco lives in an air conditioning vent with his wife and four children. He’s a good father I think. Resourceful at the least. I’m watching him repairing his home. His first venture outside of the vent landed him a small stick. “Not bad!” I yelled to him. Finding a stick of perfect size can’t be easy in midtown Manhattan. Then off he was again. Another stick! Also of perfect size! Remarkable. Good eyes, Francisco. What are the odds? If you asked me to find two equal sized sticks laying around midtown, I’d have laughed then eaten a sandwich. But not Francisco. He sized the challenge up then got to it. It’s men like Francisco that shape this world. Then again, Francisco isn’t a man. He’s a pigeon.

Tags: justwriting

Look at you, so willy nilly and fancy free. Wailing on those drums, those bongo drums, with both hands. Slapping and tapping and sometimes clapping. Over and over and over and (one more) over again. I admire you, surely, because you do what I cannot. You drum. You wear your shirt open. You have no shoes. You’re left of center and loving it. Such passion. All that talk of communes, sandals, hemp and The Other Ones certainly makes you pound those bongos real hard.

Sure does get loud here in the subway tunnel. Which brings me to my point. We’re all a stereotype of some sort. That I have no problem with. Not with your shoes, or your hair or your passions. But with that noise. Sure makes listening to my iPod kinda tough huh? Just when I’m getting a good head bob going, well, I get to you. Bongo-ing like a madman. Trouble is, it makes it hard to fully realize my own stereotype. The goateed-glasses-really-into-iPods-and-hip-gadgets stereotype.

So please, for the love of god…

Eh. Know what? Keep bongo-ing. Why not? You’re probably very happy. You probably love your job or whatever the hell it is you do when you’re not beating drums. You’re not hurting anyone and that cute girl in the long skirt sure likes it. I’ll just pause my digitally pristine Counting Crows and let you have it. Cause you let me have mine. You know, Bongo Drum Man. More people should be like us.

Your Pal,

Shawn

Tags: justwriting

(in no particular order)

To someday be paid to write screenplays.

To be able to walk up to anyone in particular and start a conversation from scratch.

To be able to shoot a gun. If by chance, someday, I find myself in a bar out west and some ugly shit goes down and I’m hiding behind the bar with some cowboy and he hands me a shotgun… I want to be able to handle myself.

I want FreshDirect in my neighborhood.

Wireless internet everywhere.

A new Tarantino movie every 14 months.

To get Textism without having to do research.

To be able to do at least one really cool secret agent type thing.

Retinal computer display.

No taxes.

No idiots.

Live in New York City.

Tags: justwriting