The beauty of life and the feeling of pain yet to come! May 14th, 2008

The title of this blog has a double meaning, even though it doesn't really apply to anything specific.  It was a thought I had, and everyone knows my ironic words that coincide with each other in a magnificent mirror of each other between light and dark!  So life is what it is!  During my daily travels I find myself thinking of various notions, ideas, theories, inventions, ways and directions of life, impending dooms (some known, some unknown), new stories, and other various thoughts that have very little meaning to most people.
So what is it that makes me so damn crazy and intense?  Why does my brain work the way it does?  I had a guy ask me; "When did you realize you wanted to be an artist?"  Now before this question of course, I was asked what I do as an artist.  In which I reply, almost everything except painting.  The acting, the writing, the journalism, the producing, the various film projects, the poetry, the songs I write, etc.  I am a man of many talents.  These talents do not make me much money, but I survive.  I enjoy life, not take it for granted.  I know my life has been really crazy at times, but I always perservere.  I am always one step ahead of my woes.  Looking at the present as my only concern allows me to take it as it comes.  This is one step ahead without actually looking into the future.  So why am I writing this blog?  Because I want too!
I am just a man that had a lot of bad breaks in life; of course most of them were caused by my own hand!  But here I am still, fighting for that existence that I was given.  I try to not rely on others for much, since I have learned that usually results in failure.  I stand Independently of the world and society around me.  You know years ago I was suicidal.  I used to imagine my death, and imagine the faces of those who found my lifeless body.  I imagined my brains splattered against the white wall of my bedroom on Mango Avenue.  I was about 13 years old at the time.  I remember slitting my wrists around that time on top of the Laundromat at Milwaukee and Bryn Mawr.  Of course the cuts were not deep enough for me to die or bleed to death.  I ditched school that day because I was tired of the CPS, which happened to be my first year in Chicago's Public School System (I did attend Kindergarten in Chicago, but that was only for a few months).  I had been educated in the burbs because that is where my mother always had worked.  So when I made the move to my Pop's house in '89, I didn't know what to expect.  What I found, was not very good.  The curriculum was 3 years behind what I had learned in the burbs.  8th grade studies were my 5th grade studies in the burbs.  So I became bored, and the kids were all crammed into one classroom.  I had already began switching classes in 6th grade, so being stuck in one classroom like some Soviet education system, didn't work well for me.  It felt like a concentration camp, and it became one throughout that year.  I fought with almost every white kid in that class that year.  I got along with the black kids who were bussed in from the West Side, and I got along with the nerds and Brian Kwit.  But other than that, I fought Mike Vaughn, Duro Stoykavic, some Freshman from Taft, and a few others.  It was a battle, and I won a few, and lost a few.  Luckily I had been hanging out with Jason Callender for years by then, and all we did was beat the shit out of each other on a daily basis.  So fighting was just another day in the life...  The fighting wasn't the problem, it was the idea that I had no friends.  I listened to metal, and everyone listened to rap.  I tried to fit in, I tried to act my way into a persona of myself, but that failed, I was caught up in the lies of my new character!  So there I sat on that Spring morning and tried to off myself with a blade.  I failed!!!  Obviously...
So when I got home, I got in trouble for ditching school.  I tried to explain the situation to them, but I was just a trouble maker.  So, I asked to see a shrink.  I needed some therapy.  I was that loose cannon that you have seen over the past decade many times.  The kid who guns down the school staff and his fellow classmates.  I was on the edge of sanity, and when I asked to see a psychiatrist, my father told me to "Man up!"  That crushed me, parents should be there to help there kids.  Of course, I "Manned up!" and then my life kicked into full gear.  I had to deal with my thoughts, and it was tough, so I started the heavy drinking and drugging.  It didn't stop for 14 years.  I had already been doing drugs and drinking by then, but I didn't care anymore...There was no help coming, so I helped myself and self-medicated my brain to stop it from thinking.  It worked, I turned into a totally different person within 5 years.  I gave up on life and society.  I turned my back on the family, on the people who were supposed to be there when I was young.  I said "Fuck the lot of them" and it took years for me to go back and say I was wrong for that!  But at the time I needed to walk my own path.  Of course I stayed suicidal, but it was the type of suicide that was slow and planned.  My suicide was taking place over years instead of at one moment.
Of course, now my Dad understands the importance of doctors and kids.  Thankfully, otherwise who knows what would have happened to my little sisters.  Life definitely teaches something everyday.  I don't regret any of it.  I am who I am!
So now that I am done with my whole spiel on suicidal thoughts.  It really doesn't pertain to me today.  I am not suicidal, I love my life.  Yes, at times I still get overwhelmed but I am happy overall.  Life is Life!  It is never the same thing everyday, and that is what makes it so great for me.  The boredom,  and the nothingness is what sets me down that dark path I have walked in the past.  That path is well known to these feet of mine, but I try not to take that route.  It is dangerous, and I have seen many people fall to the wayside taking that path.  I am standing today with many roads to take.  I am doing the best I can today, and if that is not good enough, then I don't know what to tell you except, "Man Up!"
So the many thoughts that cross through my brain vary from day to day.  I have no direction, kind of just enjoying life at the moment.  There are a lot of new faces in my life today, and I am going to do what I do best, observe life, and then formulate a new plan for my next moment of my existence!!!

Thanks to anyone who read this blog, it really has no meaning other than I just want to keep on writing since I will be publishing my auto-biography at some point.  These little memories need to be put somewhere so I can review them when I put it all together.  I hope all is well.

The rehearsals for the play are going pretty well.  But I have a lot of memorization still to do.  I have Act I done, but I am looking horrible on Act II, Act III is tonight!  So who knows...

I will post a bulletin of the show dates later today...

Later
Kenny