I've mastered fakeness. I truly have. I think this might mean that I'm officially a full-blown adult, since I get paid for being just that - fake.

I (involuntarily) left the accounting field late last year. After tiring of the state employment office route, I took a job I knew would get, would be easy, and I was perfect for: customer service agent at a call center.

For the last 8 months, I've taken 45 - 60 calls a day from prepaid cell phone customers of A T&T. The job requires minimal computer skills, and decent verbal skills. I'm excellent at it. I sound like the friendliest, most polite and caring customer service agent a guy's ever heard.

Such is my acting ability, that I've been promoted - not to tech support, which is the next level of customer service agent, but straight to "resolution specialist." In normal English, this means I strictly handle callers who've asked to speak to a supervisor. These callers are pissed, and need someone to curse at.

I've become a zen-master of fake concern. My pulse rate no longer accelerates when I'm being yelled at. I zone it all out, wait for a pause in the customer's rant, and respond with polite reassurances of concern and forthcoming resolution. That, or respond with a soothing, apologetic, straight forward, well-worded, "you're shit out of luck" type response.

It all seems so evil when I stop to think about it. I miss the angry young man, that would've told callers to go fuck themselves, and gotten fired a week out of training. The guy who was never going to compromise, nor build the wall around himself, and meet all of life's shit head-on. He was awfully amusing at times.

But, meh, fuck it. I guess I can forgive myself. A guy's gotta put food on the table after all. It beats stealing, anyway.

I just wish I could come up with new drawing every now and then.

I just read the my last journal entry - what a rant. Well, anyway, here's goes another. Tattoos. I just don't fucking get it. Nevermind, the piercings, lemme just stick to tattoos. Why? you may ask - I work with mainly 20 years old, all wall-paper'ed up, cool as hell, and as short sighted as a 5 year old looking through a magnifying glass.

Here's my point: there is nothing I could hang on a wall, set as my wall-paper, stick to my bumper, etc.., that I won't get sick of. Heaven knows nothing that is cool today will be cool in 10 years. Why? because the young determine what's cool, and in 10 years, anyone reading this won't really be young.

Had I succommed to the temptaton of getting a tat when I was 20, it would've been something stupid, most likely a Led Zeppelin or Red Hot Chili Peppers tattoo. But lets consider what popular was back then - when I was 20, in 1987, these were some of the top 40 songs:

La Bamba - Los Lobos
Heaven is a Place on Earth - Belinda Carlisle
Here I go Again - Whitesnake
U Got the Look - Prince
Shake your Love - Debbie Gibson
Lost in Love - Lisa Lisa & the Cult Jam

So, considering how much cooler Led Zep or RHCP were in 1987 than anybody on that list - just how cool can a tattoo of today's favorite artist be in 20 years?

Not very.

Well it's been about a year and a half since the last journal entry. I've gone through a couple of job changes, left one job for a higher paying job, then left that job for yet another higher paying job, then got the shaft after setting up an entire office's books, files, work-flow etc.. and am now at a shit-paying job.

By the way, one of the reasons I've decided to post a blog here is that waaay too many people I know in real life are on my facebook list. Saying things like 'shit-paying job' doesn't always go over too well with the fam. I've got immediate siblings, nephews, and cousins galore who'd love nothing more than to report my activities to the folks. And even at 41, I still don't want that.

So here I get to bitch about life, whine and complain, and be a general ass should the mood hit me. First and foremost... being over 40 sucks. Don't let any fool-ass middle aged guy tell you anything different. Losing your hair, looks, and brain-speed is no fucking fun, no matter how much money one's made.

So yeah, it is nice to have a pad, and plenty of cool shit one's accumulated over the years, but I'd trade it in a second to have my hair and my edge back. Not to mention that adults are fucking boring. Imagination goes down the drain, bigtime. (And I've always been more creative than your average jerk-off) I haven't had inspiration to draw anything in ages. And I haven't the time nor the patience to get any better at it. This blows.

Not to mention the 'not being able to eat whatever the fuck I like.' That truly blows. Gahh I could go on and on.

There are some advantages to being older.. not being nervous around fine chicks (since one becomes invisible at about age 35,) being able to pull-off just about any look (since nobody pays attention to you anyway,) and seeing fear in the eyes of folks you give a crazy look to (since at MY age, they generally assume you really are fucking nuts to be giving folks crazy looks.)

So this'll be the basic background info entry, after which, I will try to avoid talking about personal BS no one cares about anyway. (If you're one of the truly abnormal web surfers out there who reads everything about everybody go to hokeyman.blogspot dot com)

Big news, I'll be 40 next month, so consider me one of those odd 'never-grew-ups,' but please, PLEASE keep in mind that I was born waaay before the anime revolution hit the states. I liked Speed Racer when I was a kid, and I could watch some more, for nostalgia's sake... but I DON'T like anime. Hate me, if you like, I'm sorry.

Video Games? Got too complimuhcated sometime after SNES. I like shooting stuff, blowing stuff up, playing sports video games - but almost NOTHING where progress has to be saved, or too much shit has to be figured out. Figuring out shit is my job, I do enough of that already, thankyouverymuch. I wish I were a young, hip, gamer - but that's not going to happen. I believe video games ARE cool - just not for me anymore.

So what's such an old fart doing here? I discovered the world of digital art on theburgg dot com, met a cool, young, hip, artistic gamer, TheGreatShiniku (check out my friend's list - anybody on there, or to be added in the future will totally rock) who taught me the Shi-painter. He's basically, filled me in and dusted off some of the old fartiness. So here I am.

Maybe this is all part of some, odd, mid-life crisis, thing -whoknows? I don't really care. All I know is that there is a ton of cool art on this site, I like drawing, and although it seems to have taken forever, I've finally gotten used to drawing digitally. Think I'm too old to be on here? I'm old - I don't care.