what happened while i was still young

you dont wanna know var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-22926621-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[colletteccurran]

Hey guys! Hope your Friday night is full of fun, put-off homework, and your chums. Just a reminder that my game’s Kickstarter is going to happen this coming Monday! It’s a kart style racing game and I had tons of anxiety fun designing the characters. 

Here’s some preview images of an in-game screenshot, Rose, and the character selection screen.

Now go tell yo mamas and yo papas.

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

CHECK IT--->

[colletteccurran]

Try not to end up in jail, y’all.

[colletteccurran]

If you have a Steam account, vote for us! 

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

I've been working on the art for this new racing game, Rose Racer. I'm super excited, but we have a long way to go. If you have a Steam account, please vote for us!

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

The Randy's Donuts Miracle Man

Well it’s been nearly a whole six months now since your dearly beloved has been State side and rotting in a den of patriotism and idiocy. Nothing like a hot steaming cup of national responsibility for ruining half the world to wake you up and make you want to go back to sleep.

  Things are well. I live in a cloud of jet fuel perfume so close to Los Angeles International Scumport that I could toss one of my cats from the apartment window onto the windshield of a passing 747 if the timing and smell coming from the feline poop-cavern are just right.

  I’ve also started working at the Organization Good Karma, where I help the childers write essays about their gang-infested and super-violent community in order to get into college with a ribbon that says, “I survived the Ghettos of LA.” I also put out glue and glitter and watch the world come to a shimmering, sticky end. It’s an upgrade from singing the alphabet every day, but the money keeps the finger probes strapped tight.

  Being in such proximity on a daily basis to the youth of our future, I’ve realized I’ve grown up. Awkward has become ‘Awk’ has become ‘Hoc.’ Don’t reach for that gun yet I’m not done. There’s the whole ‘twerking’ thing, which I tried out based on connotative guessing and let me tell you IT IS NOT WHAT I THOUGHT IT WAS. I’m not allowed certain places anymore. So Hoc! I’ve also missed the build-up of great family television, like Breaking Bad and the Walking Dead. It apparently takes a nation of hype to make these things work their magic because without the supplemental Facebook freak outs and the picture box on the wall telling me what to do and buy, I’m kind of ‘meh’ over the whole thing. That’s right people, I’ve become un-cool.

  There’s just nothing like real life, I’m finding. Maybe you’ve got to live in the middle of Buttfuck Nowhere to really slaver over this shoot ‘em up junk. I’ve got my very own Breaking Bad just down the street, right across from the 99 Cent Only (That’s the name of the gangsta holda, not the price by the way). Driving home yesterday I passed at least four groups of undead, all waiting for the bus with their missing limbs and asking for your spare change, God Blessing you to death. Lord Keaton help us all.

  A world with television has blinded us to the beauties all around. I mean, have you even looked to see how much dust your vacuum can pick up in one go? Fascinating! What about the progress of the baby roachies growing up so quick into mature little crawly scavengers? It can happen in the blink of an eye if you aren’t paying attention. And please, do you even know the Randy’s Donuts Miracle Man? I bet you don’t. Keaton save your soul because this piece of holy smoke and mirrors cannot go unwitnessed. You thought the good ol’ days of circus tricks were up. No. The Miracle Man is genuine and I’VE SEEN HIM LIKE FIVE TIMES ALREADY.

  This poor sod. Let me paint you a picture: Black, poor, wheelchaired. BAM. Poverty. He’s on the cusp of Inglewood, asking for your dollar bills in the evening time just as you’ve left work and pulled into the donut shop parking lot looking for a fine sweet on that post-‘labor’ hour. You’re near as desperate for that creampuff of deep-fried cow lard as he is for your pocket lint and tarnished nickels. “God bless you, God bless you,” he says as you wave him off cause you’ve got a very urgent date with a heart attack. “God bless you, God bless you,” he says and then GOD BLESS INDEED AS HE RISES TO HIS FEET! This man – this poor, black man strapped to his rolling seat of paralysis – has just stood in the name of Our Lord Buster Keaton! Holy, holy! He even has feeling in his ass again – just look at him scratch! It itches him so. Dear God, give him all your pocket change. He deserves it. Take the bills you’ve earned and throw them to his God-touched toes. He’s been sitting there all day since the last time his ass needed a pick and his crippled, perfect legs a stretch. You’d perform miracles, too.

  Sometimes the miracle of Miracle Man is subtle. One cold, mundane night I saw two fine vixens were in the middle of their order when Mr. Holy Holy rolled up nice and slow and sneaky, using not his hands to turn the wheels, but his blessed, revived tootsies. He almost looked lazy. ALMOST. Give him your money. Poor him. Suffering, suffering.

  What’s to learn from this, you ask? What to see is that you’re doing it all wrong. Those eight hours you spend at your desk, you could be rolling after the ladies, basking under the greatness of a giant-ass donut. Buster Keaton has shown me the way. Fuck the childers, divest yourself of shame, and invest the profits in crutches. 

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

There was this Greek guy wondering what kind of cheese was in his salad while reading a book about a guy wondering what kind of cheese was in his salad. It was feta.

JERF

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

Sorry, I remembered, you're Collette. It's Stephen from High School, sorry for the tedious question!

Ah, there you have it!

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

I'm following you and have no idea who this is, do I know you in real life?

I don't know if you know me personally or not. 

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

HERRO (Japan Pt. 1)

If you talk to people who have travelled to Japan for a couple months or less, most will tell you how incredibly friendly and helpful the people were: old men approaching with the idea of small talk and curious inquiry, cute teenage girls in school uniforms hollering welcoming English phrases, little ladies taking the time to explain the intricacies of TRADITIONAL Japanese customs.

If you’re living here long-term, and you’re like me where the novelty of being a novelty wears off when real life like grocery shopping and working and casual shopping kicks in, this ‘friendly’ approach becomes the slow stalk of a shark. You can see the old fish wading toward you in the produce aisle out of the corner of your eye, coming to investigate for who knows what gain if you can eat TRADITIONAL Japanese sweets. Sometimes it’s a surprise attack, crashing into your dinner table during mid-conversation with your partner, yelling HALLO! HALLO! WHICH YOUR COUNTRY?, sometimes in English, sometimes Japanese, sometimes in the gummy dialect of denture-less senior citizen. Existing here is living daily in the Mickey Mouse suit and one is liable to be interrogated at any moment in a public place. Forget the teenage trend of screaming HERRO at the back of your head or out the window of a passing car and I’ll try not to boast the time Jerf and I were HERRO’d a record two dozen times by the same high school kid trailing our heels along a soccer field. 

It’s easy to justify this insatiable curiosity in a country that preserves itself and makes sure those damn Filipinos don’t extend their contract over three years or marry and produce mudblood minions. Foreigners are encouraged to come, mill about and absorb the greatness of TRADITONAL Japanese culture, then get the hell out.

I went to college. I attended culture classes and read hundreds of pages of Orientalist critique. I wrote eagerly over topics of the illusion of the Other and swallowed guilt as an imperialistic butthole nation, but living two years where such documents are scoffed at in a struggle to protect the pure and the TRADITIONAL of Japan, you suddenly find yourself powerless in the position of outsider, and you learn quicker than you’d like that the Other does indeed exist because it exists for and is maintained and reinforced by the national community, and it is YOU.

I reserve from my college years a contempt for nationalism. I have grown firmer in this view.  

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

see you later, crocodile

I’m coming down to a record of about 22 months in the far eastern Japanland. This blog has suffered and by default its readers have been starved for top-grade sarcasm and cynicism and a general feeling of nausea.

I can’t even scratch the surface of relating any of my life the last year and a half without having to explain myself long enough to age and kill all your mothers and going into detail that would have them rolling in their graves. I’ll have to see to it that I responsibly correspond the relevant shit and omit the bull’s.

This never really was much a blog about myself, come to look at it. If you could gather three things about me in the last page of posts, you’d come to conclusions that I am an acrid, foul-mouthed poop. You’d mostly be right, but you wouldn’t have the worst of it by far. I’ve grown bitter-er and my head is now slightly lemon shaped.

That being admitted, I am still young and things are still happening and all up until now must be related. You probably won’t like it. If I had talked in front of myself two years ago, I would have slapped the lemon juice right out of my face. I suppose in two or five years from now I’d like to drop kick my current integrity right in the kisser. But now is now.

I am going home very soon, right in time for the U.S. of A. Day. It will be a challenge acclimating myself back to a culture in which people act like assholes not because you’re round-eyed and taller than the fucking Tokyo Tower, but simply because you exist; all are people, and all are dickwads.

 Without much more ado, I present my final and lasting impressions of living in Japan, the good and the dumb. Go and love your mothers while they are here.

  The Good

Daiso

Onsen

  The Bad

Herro

TRADITIONAL Japan

Perversity

Expenses

  The Ugly

Hanami

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

If it doesn't mess up the place, it doesn't get in your face.

-JERF; Carl's Jr?

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

The best kind of internet is the internet on accident

I want you to meet Eugene Ferris and his hair.

Say hello.

I'm not actually sure his name is Eugene Ferris.

So sometimes it's difficult to know if the name you're coming up with for a character in a story is also the name of some famous (but not TOO famous) person you don't intend to reference or allude to. To avoid this I'll google a name and if one of the first three results is a wikipedia page or a Dateline credit, I’ll futz around with it until I lose popular recognition beyond the status of City Volunteer Over-Enthusiast. Usually the image results come up with mundane, ordinary people grinning ever so professionally, yet eagerly for resume photos or grandpa’s seventieth birthday cruise bash. More than enough times the results are pornographic for no apparent reason. Once in a while there’s a cat or two. And then other times there’s Eugene Ferris, buried between the mug shots of his counter-ego bad-boy Ferris brothers. This dude looks nothing but innocent. But looks can be deceiving.

Take a gander at that photo again. Make a statement about Eugene. You might say his hobbies include clutching tomes and growing beautiful locks. If he could uncurl those fingers from around that leather spine, he’d be a rockstar and you know it. Maybe you want his autograph anyway.

I didn't feel entirely right stealing this photo off the mysterious internet without any context and writing about a mustachioed man as if I knew him. I didn’t even know if Eugene Ferris was Eugene Ferris’ real name or some glitch in the randomness of the interwebs. Turns out I was right. This photo is of a man named Jon G. Hughes, which is a little more fun to say, but ultimately inferior to the genius of EUGENE FERRIS.

I missed there, but hit it on the nose with the rockstar bit. You’ll see.

Mr. Ferris (Hughes to his friends, Ferris to the web masses apparently, and Cynon to the ladies) is a published author you can find on this site: http://www.innertraditions.com/ , where you can get your Stargate historic adventures and holistic remedies in any of its tree-shaved books on sale for a minimal, phenomenal price. Everyone on this site has frizzy hair and/ or a ponytail.

For your reading enjoyment, I recommend starting with Accepting Your Power to Heal, then moving onto Journeys to the Mythical Path, and finishing your day with Tantric Quest. Which brings us right back to Jon “Eugene” Hughes, author of the acclaimed Celtic Sex Magic: For Couples, Groups, and Solitary Practitioners and Celtic Plant Magic: A Workbook for Alchemical Sex Rituals. You can read his bio here and focus on the part that says, “He is now teaching the tradition at his home… under his Welsh name of Cynon.” 

Sometimes I don’t know what to think of people. I try not to, lest the image of five to ten middle aged hippie women shrieking “Ohh, Cynon!” while stuffing rhubarb up their twats in a Celtic circle of long-haired men stroking their moustaches poison my third eye. But then again, I’m sure Jon Eugene Ferris G. Hughes wouldn’t know what to think of me, either. All we can ever know of each other for sure is that we’re both human, with our vast array of characteristics and personalities and understandings, in this very human – and sometimes inhumane – world. That and Jon G. Hughes is getting a SHIT-TON of pussy. 

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

Hola

I wanted to write a blog post. Something sincere, something witty, something with gravity. I haven’t written in so long and I know you’re all wondering what the fuck, sucking on that dry, selfish teet. Well here’s a penis in a sombrero to hold you over a bit longer while I get my shit together:

  I make my mother proud.

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

Facts of Life

Just when you feel things are back under control, life will always be there to dick slap you in the face. 

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

My Mother, the Troll

It's been months since I've been home and seen my family. So what kind of sentiments does my mother send me in an email? This:

"Every time I walk down the hall at work and run into Heather she gives me a surprised and a little sad look and says I thought you were Collette. She says we sound and walk the same. I guess I have to stop dragging my hands on the floor."

Thanks mom.

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

On the Importance of Scarring Children

A while ago I mentioned to a friend that I fancy a game of Fart on the Child Behind You in Line at the Grocery Store. Said friend, surprisingly enough (for surely a friend of mine would find nothing out of place in such an off-handed confession), was taken aback. Or rather, since my associates these days seem less and less ‘taken aback’ and more ‘increasingly disillusioned,’ he was put off. Like this was some sort of crime. Like regular people don’t take every sliver of a chance to boot the infants of our fellow upright apes off the surface of the planet, or at the very least, instill dominance, fear, and scarring insecurities when the squish muscle is most impressionable.

Is that a rat in a blue bonnet?

I’ve posted before about the utter lack of appeal tiny humans have on my absent maternal heart, which has been replaced by a deep cavity where I store much more important things such as greed, Jesus jokes, and an unquenchable desire to go back to 1963 and punch Joy Vogelsang in the uterus before the Dark Cage Age was upon us. You can’t argue that the world would be worse off with these things instead of another Collette to infest your facebook feed with nonsensical and highly offensive blog posts.

I don’t hate children. Indeed, it is part of the grand scheme which is my sorry life to squat and dump out a new human or two. Some children truly are awesome, and working with them almost every day has brought a tear to these crusty, perverse eyes. But I also work with little motherfucks – the miniature bastard pricks that scream and tear and grope and blatantly defy with every intention of bringing out a darker side of me yet. These are not babies that do this, these are children, and they have learned to wipe their ass. Yet it is the night shift duty to check for night shift duty left in the toilet because some kids are born in barns, others are born in porta-potties.

It’s high time to realize the half-sized human you’re trying to make the world a better place for is an asshole. Why? Because chances are, you’re an asshole. And you were once a little asshole just like that thing you fill full of Dr. Pepper and unachievable dreams.

Look at it this way, someone way back when you were a slobbery pile of flesh-goo thought you deserved a nice planet to live on; some grand, merciful soul looked upon your lopsided head and drool-speckled chin and those grubby fingers reaching for every bacteria-infested kitchen crack and pre-chewed piece of sidewalk gum and thought, “This child of the Lord deserves a chance, and I must make the world a better place for it to flourish.” Well lo and behold, look where we are. This was someone’s idea of a better world. And you’re all the more bitter for it.

 I think the only reliable conclusions we can come to are: 1. Better means working to make better human beings, not better circumstances for horrible human beings, 2. Better takes a lot of fucking effort that nobody wants to put forth, even for their own block-headed offspring, 3. Even if one is willing and brimming with hope and intuition, nobody has any real clue which direction better is in; it’s like a map of the Buzz Lightyear parking lot two hundred miles outside of Disneyland, except there’s no You Are Here sticker and the buses aren’t running today. And finally, 4. The only real regrets of this world are lack of funding for education and everything that’s important, and a similar lack of Rubio’s Baja Grill Restaurants in Hiroshima, Japan.

Now go and pass hope-filled gas on an unsuspecting child at nose-level with your bum.

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

Facts of Life

Drinking lots of tea and exercising regularly is good for maintaining health and a regular pooping schedule.

[whathappenedwhileiwasstillyoung]

A Lesson in Ataxia

Today I had a revelation I would like to share with you all. It came at me – literally – in the form of a misguided grasshopper who was under the impression that the best way to avoid being smooshed under my asics would be to fly straight at me.

It worked, but that fucker went about his success in a mysterious, horrifying way. If I hadn’t already been running, I would have been as soon as he latched his little claws onto my leg and decided that stopping to rest would be the next best recourse. He eventually found my thigh jiggler-massage a little too close to a San Francisco earthquake and launched aimlessly back out into the wilderness. I miss him already.

I found much of the rest of my run thinking about Mr. Grasshopper and his wise orthopteric teachings. I put myself in his little tarsi shoes and wondered at his chaotic, haphazard ways. God Our Lord and Savior gave fish fins to swim from their enemies, birds wings to fly from their enemies, and obese Americans fat asses to sit on their enemies. But what did He Our Lord give grasshoppers?  A pair of these:

Confuse thyself, confuse thy enemy.

This is the way I’ve come to understand my life. My fate is as predictable as dribbling a football. I have absolutely no clue where I’m going. I have my eyes on the goal, and that goal is death. But there’s a little bit of space in between to fill, and flaming Einstein would like to remind us all that space and time make a marvelous satin fabric and my American ass isn’t quite obese enough yet to bend that shit to a stop. So I’m hurdling out of the morass, forward-going if I knew where forward was. Where I’ll land – whose big thigh I’m going to cling to and chill out for a while, who can know such archaic, divine knowledge? Lord Buster Keaton grant me the fortune to dive headfirst at every axe aimed at my neck and watch the executioner dance like a girl when I get caught in his hair.

I’m not alone in this state of eternal entropy. You’re right there with me, not having a single, merciful, erroneous clue. If you think you’ve got it all figured out, you’re in midair – free falling; the Giant Cannon in your high school physics book has propelled your butt into orbit and Tom Petty is the new vocalist to your OST.

You’re going to land somewhere you don’t expect. Someone’s face probably. And if Jesus Our Lord and Savior and his chariots of fire hair band angels are your answer, you’re just guessing D All of the above. That’s cool, though. A, B, and C are incorrect anyway. At least you took the test.  

Dust in the wind and all that shit.

Of course, it comes to me slowly – reluctantly – this fate paradox. Of which I don’t think about often because as far as I’m concerned the man follows the man who follows him…

The grasshopper is chaos (bear with the distasteful metaphor just a smidge longer). But if I know the grasshopper has no sense of direction, and should I expect to be hit in the face by its spiny, fumbling legs, does that restore order to life?

I think, in the end, it simply puts a bug in my face.

 A lesson in ataxia.