Bookmarx

Posted by Tommy Marx November 4th, 2009

I’m back.

Three years ago, my blog was getting thousands of hits a day (which blew my mind, in all honesty). I looked forward to writing posts and giving my opinions on various subjects, and I assumed it would just keep getting better. And then I was fired from my job at Standard Insurance in Portland, OR, because of a post I wrote. And while I landed on both feet, working as a consultant first in Kansas City, then in Orange County, CA, my blog died a slow death.

When I moved back to North Carolina, I started a new blog, but my heart was never really in it. In the last six weeks, I’ve only written one post, and that was only because I was so pissed at how incredibly bad Drag Me to Hell is (the movie is one of the worst I’ve seen in years).

But a few days ago, something changed.

(more…)

Posted by Tommy Marx August 14th, 2009

Sometimes life is amazing, gifting you with wonders you don’t want to discuss for fear you’ll jinx everything. And sometimes life cripples your soul and leaves you panting for breath and praying for relief.

Next week, I’m going to start posting to my blog again. There’s a lot I want to talk about, from unnecessary film reboots (seriously, Buffy the Vampire Slayer?) to ex-gay ministries, to name just a couple of examples. I also want to talk about a couple of things I’ve been going through recently, but I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle that yet.

I moved back to North Carolina in October, hoping to find a job and looking forward to seeing my family and getting reacquainted with friends I love dearly. It didn’t turn out quite like I had hoped.

I had to spend some $4000 of my savings to get a new engine for my car just weeks after I returned to Greensboro. I had to move out of my first apartment four months later because the upstairs neighbors (who babysat for extremely rambunctious boys) were so loud that I couldn’t even follow a half hour television show without wanting to blow my brains out. And I couldn’t find a job. The end of this month, I will have officially been unemployed for a year.

I don’t really care what people think about my litany of problems. I’ve never thought struggling was a competitive sport. All I know is that I’ve felt overwhelmed quite often, coupled with this bizarre guilt because things could be worse and I shouldn’t complain. I know I’m gonna get through this. Or at least I’m reasonably certain I will.

But that doesn’t make it easier.

In a very major way, things have been much worse the last couple of weeks because I’ve been involved in my next-door-neighbors domestic drama. It should be simple, especially for a liberal like me. If a guy hits his girlfriend or wife, he’s the bad guy and she’s the victim.

But what if she keeps taking him back? What if she instigates things, deliberately provoking him?  What if you start to realize she loves the drama and the excitement of it all, but it’s too late to escape unharmed?

Two weeks ago, Ronnie kicked open Jenn’s deadlocked door. When I went outside to try and talk some sense into him, he grabbed me and held me while he went after her. As soon as he let me go, I called the police.

Last weekend, I got a letter threatening me, and although it was signed by Ronnie, I am pretty sure Jenna wrote it. She likes the drama, you see.

I went to the apartment office the next day and showed them the letter. Ronnie and Jenna were told they’d be evicted in thirty days, since I was evidently the last of many that complained about their fights. Now I get to count the days while avoiding or ignoring the people who live next door to me, wishing they would fucking leave.

I also get to mourn two friends that I genuinely liked, because regardless of what’s happened, Jenna and Ronnie were both people I genuinely enjoyed hanging around with.

Next week, I’ll start writing on my blog again. But for now, I’m in self-pity mode, wishing I had never left Oregon, wishing it was possible to go back and redo things. I’m old enough (by far) to know that happy endings are few and far between, but I’m not old enough yet to wish I didn’t know that.

But what can you do? It’s only life, right?

Posted by Tommy Marx June 16th, 2009

Ellen Dursema is the coordinator at the community center in Arivaca, Arizona. When asked about Brisenia Flores, the daughter of one of the volunteers she worked with, Ellen described her as “sweet, beautiful and artistic.” Brisenia, a nine-year-old girl who had just graduated third grade, “loved her mother very much” and had spent hours creating several pairs of beaded earrings for her mother as Mother’s Day presents.

Ellen’s last memory of Brisenia was watching her and her sister make a “human wheelbarrow” on the playground of the center.

Last Saturday, Brisenia was gunned down by four “Minutemen” supremacists in her own home, along with her father, who Ellen says used to treat all the volunteers at the community center to lunch from a local taco stand.

Brisenia was murdered because she wasn’t white. Her killers didn’t care how old she was, what dreams she had, what she might have been if she’d been allowed to live. They hated her because she was the wrong race.

This has to stop.

We live in a country that claims to be Christian, yet seeks to demonize and destroy anyone different. Pat Robertson broadcasts daily infomercials telling people that tolerating homosexuals leads to earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorist attacks. Virginia Foxx wants to seal the border against those evil Mexicans and voted to protect the Minutemen Militia that murdered Brisenia Flores and her father. Bill O’Reilly constantly referred to Dr. Tiller as the Baby Killer before he was shot to death a couple weeks ago in his own church.

This has to stop!

I am so fucking tired of hearing how illegal immigrants steal our jobs, rape our children, and basically are evil incarnate. Why do people insist on making up the most ridiculous bullshit to justify their own hate? Eight years ago, religious fundamentals destroyed the World Trade Center. But I’m more afraid of my fellow Americans now than I ever was of foreign terrorists.

Brisenia Flores was nine-fucking-years-old! The only reason her older sister wasn’t gunned down too was because she was visiting her grandmother. What kind of sick fuck kills a nine-year-old girl?

What kind of sick fuck thinks illegal immigrants are destroying our country and must be eliminated? Hatred is destroying our country. Murder is destroying our country.

Yesterday, a little girl from Arivaca, Arizona, didn’t go to camp because someone decided to kill her because she was Latino. They think America would be a better place without Mexicans.

If they truly wanted to make America stronger, they would use their guns on themselves. I don’t care if it sounds ugly, the only sane response to this shit is to ask Supremacists to do the right thing just once in their lives and kill themselves.

This has to stop.

Posted by Tommy Marx June 3rd, 2009

A few years ago, I moved from North Carolina to Oregon.

The job I had sucked – imagine moving to one of the most “liberal” places on earth and working for a company that actively hates gay people. Looking back, I would have been angrier if Standard Insurance had only hated gay people, but the business pretty much hated everyone stupid enough to do business with them. I’ve never worked for a company before or afterwards that bragged so much about being customer friendly while going to such incredible lengths to fuck over every client.

That is just my opinion, of course. Just the opinion of one of the many, many account managers who have lasted less than a year working for The Standard.

Please feel free to call me bitter. I stayed with a job long past anyone normal would. I moved from North Carolina, where people honestly believed allowing gays to marry would bring forth the fiery apocalypse that would destroy the world completely. I honestly thought that was as bad as prejudice could get.

It took me a long time (seriously: eight months of being told constantly that I was offensive and disgusting because I existed) to realize that people in the South are more accepting than certain companies in the “liberal” Northwest. The Standard Insurance Company taught me that being friendly is counter-productive and being gay is reprehensible. Thanks, guys!

So I got angry. And I hated Portland. I hated The Standard. Can you blame me?

I worked as a consultant for the next couple of years, flying back and forth from Kansas City and Costa Mesa, and while it wasn’t the best life, it paid well. When the economy tanked, I moved back to North Carolina.

Virginia Foxx and other North Carolina KKK members aside, I thought going home would be good. There were more job opportunities on the East Coast, I’d be close to my mom and my best friends Susan and Julie, and things would work out.

And I listen to Mat Kearney and I swear to god I wish I hadn’t made such a fucked-up mistake.

I want to go back to Oregon. Not because of Erik/Matt (although I miss him).

Imagine a world where people are nice to each other because they want to be, not because they think it’s what is acceptable. Imagine a world with no humidity, no bugs, gorgeous scenery. Imagine a genuinely nice place to live.

Shit, I’m tired and I’m sad and later on maybe I’ll talk about how incredibly wonderful it is to live in a state like Oregon. But today I want to apologize to Susan and to my mom and to anyone else that would possibly care that I once lived in Virginia and North Carolina. I don’t belong here. And I so fucking want to go back home. If it means working at McDonalds in a polyester suit designed to be as hot and uncomfortable as possible, I’ll do it. I’ll save up my money, I’ll sell my DVDs and CDs and books. I’ll do whatever it takes.

I want to go back to Oregon.

I want to go back home.