Oh, This is Awesome!

Hello folks.

Short blog today.  Still swamped with homework and whatnots.  Just a few quick points I wanted to hit.

Recall in my last blog post where I insisted that you all visit a visual arts blog by a guy named Blake Neubert?

Well, Blake drew something for In Review.

Check this out:

Hopefully the image isn't too big for your browser (sometimes pictures that are too big long-wise don't show up well in certain browsers.)

Blake drew my "Charles' Head Ratings Chart!"  This is awesome!  I don't believe that I have ever been drawn before, and I am truly excited about this.

If you guys didn't check it out last time, for sure swing by Blake's blog this time to help me thank him for this awesome drawing.  His blog is here.

And let me know what you think about this drawing.

Also, I have tallied the votes from the last post regarding that warped blog from Singapore (click here, if you dare, for a reminder.)  Some of the comments didn't have a vote at all, and some of the votes seemed somewhat ambiguous (yesish, noish).  But, in the end, you guys have decided that I will not be creating some kind of blog conflict with that plastic-surgery-mangled, self-racist, infantile night walker.

But if she was an emoticon, she would be this:  8-O  <===3

Just so you know.

Another bit of info: Mr. Armstrong's book arrived promptly in the mail.  (The book written by the humanitarian pro-wrestler I mentioned in my previous blog post.)  Here, you can see it next to the other three most important books in my life.

Finally, my collection is complete.

Jera and I are reading through it a little bit at a time.  Again, like I mentioned in the last post, it is quite good.  A review for your reading pleasure will be here someday soon.  And not your sexual reading pleasure, either.  I am sick of people getting "satisfied" by my blog.  There's porn out there for that.

Speaking of porn, do any of you remember a guy named Doug who challenged me to a blog duel months ago just immediately before I dropped off the face of the blogosphere?  If you don't remember him, you can check out his blog here.  But I don't know if I would recommend that for too much longer, because Doug recently e-mailed me and let me know that he was turning his blog into a Twink/Solo-Boi site.  He sent me a grip of pictures of himself that he plans on putting on his new site, and I will be frank: they were horrifying.  And I promise you, I am not one to be easily horrified. 

Here is the mildest picture he sent me.  It is the first in a long set in which he... well... gets crazy with himself.  Notice that Doug appears severely inebriated in the photo.  I believe he has begun smoking methamphetamine on a regular basis, which explains why he needs to change his website to a format that might pay a little more.

Doug, you dirty girl...

Now, I don't have anything against gay porn sites, no more than I have anything against straight porn.  But, first off, Doug, you aren't a "twink," nor can you possibly pretend to be one.  How old are you?  45?  As Wikipedia informs us, a twink is a:

young or young-looking gay man (in his late teens or early twenties) with a slender build, little or no body hair, and no facial hair.

I am afraid you may be too old for this gig.  And I also thought you had a wife.

Secondly: why did you send me these pictures?!  The ones with the octopus really almost made me throw up.

So, anyway, Doug offered me a 50% monthly discounted membership if I would plug his new porn blog, so that is what this is all about.  Half price nudity is half price nudity, no matter who it is.  Thanks Doug.  I hope you have payed for some serious bandwidth, because your site is going to need it once my membership is activated.

And finally, the big news:

If you have been around "In Review" for a while, you will recall that I have tried to quit smoking in recent times, at least once.  One of those times prompted me to slur out this hate-filled rant that made me sound, frankly, like a man who's brain had been twisted inside out by some kind of extra-dimensional demon-god.  And one who can't pee straight, at that.

It is so hard to live this way...

You may recall my brand:

And you may recall how successful I was when trying to quit:

Goddamn, it was windy that day.  Good thing I had that long hair and cigarette nearby so I could look like this.

Time and time again, I have tried to quit smoking.  I started smoking when I was around 18.  I would use cigarettes to hide the smell of weed from my parents.  Then, I would smoke when I was engaging in alcoholic or drug-addicted shenanigans.  Then, somehow, I wound up just smoking to smoke.  At least a pack per day.  For a long time.

I didn't want to mention this to you guys until I thought that it was somewhat definitive, but...

It has been more than six weeks since I have smoked a cigarette!!!!!

!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!

...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah.  That's right.

That shit was harder to quit than it has ever been for me to quit any of the following substances:

Marijuana

Methamphetamine (like our friend Doug likes)

Cocaine

Opiate pain pills

Huffing gasoline out of a paper bag

Alcohol

Nitrous Oxide

Dextromethorphan

Huffing spray paint out of a paper bag

Morning Glory Seeds

Mushrooms

Jenkem

Anything else I ever did.

For real.  Ten times harder than any of those.  But now, I have been longer without a smoke than I have ever been since the first time I ever had a cigarette.  It feels great.

Have any of you ever quit smoking?  Was it this hard for you?  Was quitting cocaine or alcohol harder?  Do any of you plan on visitting Doug's new nudy-blog?  Did you think the drawing of me was awesome (I mean, not my ugly countenance, but the quality of the drawing)?  Does your pee come out of you in any way but what a doctor would consider "normal?"  

Let me know on all of that stuff.  It's important.  I gotta get back to the school work.

Oh, actually, fuck it, here's a poem for the road.  Let me know what you think of this too.  

U.S.A. Circa 2011

By Charles Emerson III

Fear is our dying-cross.

Our lying-loss.

Our tying knots.

A cross to die on.

Like, we thought,

"Marty-hood

  for me.

  Bury me

  In Hollywood."

A place to die soon.

And somewhere,

there,

a lone shadow,

a long sinew

of leper soft skin

stays stalwart,

so late,

hovering over his typewriter.

Spelling out,

one word

at a

time,

our

fear.

The chains

and locks

and...

anti-depressant

spirit-sapping

pharmaceutical

cocktail 

nightmares.

They tumble out

the late edge

of his platen.

Typing...

Typing...

Typing...

a prison for us all.

A place to die soon.

Normalization

and

masturbation

ease

frustration

in our

broken nation

and I see that the

cats and dogs

have cornered the market on "free will."

Now, please, God,

please,

knock this monster

away from his

Latin keys.

Deliver us 

from dirty lenses.

We need them clean

for daring daydreams.

Give us our eyes.

Deliver us

from this dying cross.

------------

Love.