Best of 2011

Can't help it.  End of the year always invokes retro(intro?)spection.  More than our ages, we use it as a barometer for success or failure, inspiring changes to get it better this time, even though results are destined to fall short of our well-intended, lofty goals.

At least I don't have to worry about chubsters joining my gym, cramming the parking lot and hogging all the good machines for the first two weeks of January, never to be seen again.  Because my gym is in my basement (and if you join now, you get this special introductory rate of 0% down and get the fuck out of my garage).

As I hinted at in an earlier post (http://tinyurl.com/), 2011 fucking kicked ass.  Was I finally happy?  No, of course not.  I'm Joe.  Happiness for me hurts.

But I found it tougher to bitch this past year, since pretty much everything was coming my way.  Which reminds me of tripping on mushrooms in the Marin Headlands long, long ago with my good friend Matt. It was a shaky start to the night--y'know, where the hallucinogen begins to tingle and you can't decide if she's gonna be a good witch or a bad witch.  The radio played softly in the fog-shrouded gloaming.  Then this song came on.

And everything was fine after that.

Not that there aren't things I want to improve upon for 2012.  I'd like to finally get those six pack abs I've always talked about.  I'm getting close, down to 13.5% body fat, and I think I'll be adding some new equipment to Club Joe.  Plus, I'm trying to boost my testosterone (naturally, of course; I don't fuck around with anything illegal these days) with BCAA (branch chain amino acids) and D aspartic acid, recommendations from my former nemesis-turned-body building advisor, George Murphy (http://tinyurl.com/ ).  But this isn't about my new and improved rock hard body (or the rusting metal parts inside holding it together).  If you'd like to see some beefcake shots, we're not shy, just ask.  (Please send two dead creeping to the Tropicana Motor Hotel, c/o young Joe...) (Apologies to Tom Waits).

For the rest of this week, you are going to encounter myriad Best Of lists, every newspapers, sports' show, Late Night Special, etc., is going to feature some variation of it.  So I figured I might as well offer a distinctly personal take on the concept as the year ticks on down.  

This year was a lot like that song I linked above, even though I fucking hate Santana.  Many, many good things happened in Joe's life.  So let's look at some of the highlights.  (We'll save the negative shit for tomorrow.)

Best Thing to Happen to Joe

We have a lot of entries here.  First off, like Nelly say, must be the money.  Then there's my marriage to the woman who turns more heads than anyone I've ever been with, the lovely Justine.  And the house.  Bought my first house in 2011, which brings about two more contenders: the gym in the basement, and the fucking indoor BBQ.  Any other year...I mean, how do you beat an indoor BBQ?  Too bad for the BBQ, 2011 saw the single greatest thing to ever happen to a wretch like me: my boy, Holden, who finally answered that nagging question.  What's it all for?  Him. It's all for him.  If you have a kid, you know what I mean.  If you don't, don't worry, maybe someday somebody will love you enough.  Just kidding.  At least you still get to sleep past 6.  

A few months ago, I made a comment to Justine, something like, "I love that boy more than anything in the world," and she said, "Even more than me?"  And I was, like, "Uh, yeah.  What?  You don't?"  And she just laughed.  It's OK being second to your husband or wife when you have a baby; the kid trumps all.  And Holden is doing tons of neat tricks these days, his little personality finally taking shape.  The little looks and idiosyncrasies.  Not that it's all a cakewalk.  Holden has taken to flopping like a British soccer player when he does't get his way, and six hours straight watching him on my own can make me feel like a midget is tap dancing on my last nerve.  But there is finally someone whose needs I gratefully put ahead of my own.  Best thing to happen to me this year.  Best thing to happen in my whole goddamn life.  It's like finally having that little monkey butler I always dreamed about...

Best Wedding

This is sort of cheating, since my last wedding was such a cocksucking sham.  And like that first blow job, marriages like that can really leave a bad taste in your mouth.  I lost so much with the last marriage, was so thoroughly lied to, taken advantage of, played for such a chump that, honestly, if my new wife, Justine, only sliced off one of my balls on our honeymoon night and put it in a jar of honey, we're still probably talking significant upgrade.  But the wedding and new wife have been such a rousing success, my testicles still fully intact.  Not to go all shmoopy...

But I'd like to thank my wife, Justine, for restoring a little faith in love, proving to me that this whole marriage thing needn't be a selfish series of self-serving duplicity. After all, at heart I am a Family Man.

It's nice to feel appreciated and not have your wife blowing your friends.

Best Concert

Tough one.  Two possibilities.  The Hold Steady.  Gaslight Anthem.  Saw the Hold Steady twice, once at the Fillmore, which was good, and then again with my buddy, Matt, at the Treasure Island Music Festival, which was like a prolonged rock 'n' roll orgasm.  Seriously, I think I came in my pants twice from the sheer rock force. Finn's voice and acerbic wit were finely honed that night, and the band, strangely operating without keys, never sounded better.  When they finished their 45-minute, no fat, all lean meat set, they left poor Death Cab for Cutie trying to follow up that shit.  Like watching Spinks try to take on Tyson. Woefully overmatched.

Still, I think I have to give it Gaslight Anthem.  My friend Rich and his (business) partner Dennis put on the San Jose concert series, so they got me, a very pregnant Justine, and Big Tom and his girl, Zenaida, backstage passes; and the fucking band's latest, American Slang, is a masterpiece (The Hold Steady's latest, Heaven Is Whenever, is good, but not like this) (this might've actually been in 2010, but it was so good, we're carrying it over).  Brian Fallon and Co. delivered a clinic that night, what rock 'n' roll is supposed to be all about: attitude, sneer, smart lyrics, emotional hooks and swells, romantic cynics in blue jeans and white tees and a little outlaw country twang.  And to top it all off, when I met them?  What a bunch on non-pretentious, down-to-earth, so-not-douchebag bunch of nice guys. Essentially the anti-Stephen Jenkins.

And you told me fortunes, in American slang...

Best Movie

Young Adult.  For all the reasons I mention here: http://tinyurl.com/6mfr6fd.  If you are pressed for time or just too lazy to click on the link: Diablo Cod's script is flawless, Charlize Theron's acting is unrivaled, as is Patton Oswalt's; and director Jason Reitman's direction gets out of the way, letting the story tell itself, which is what good direction, like good writing, should do.

Best Place to Talk to Old Friends from High School

I only wish Facebook would've come around about 20 years earlier and saved me from all that time I wasted with disappointing face-to-face interactions.

Best Book

This is another tough call.  There's Joe Loya's Confessions of a Bank Robber, and Alan Kaufman's Drunken Angel.  I reread The Dead Zone, and was again deeply affected.  There's Duane Swierczynski's Fun and Games.  Honestly, couldn't get into Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (don't ask me why).  Another gem: Pearce Hansen, Street Raised.  Which might be number one were it not for David Corbett's Do They Know I'm Running?  Which is nothing short of breathtaking, beautifully written, bestowing the best of humanity and dignity where you'd least expect to find it, in a creosote-drenched world.  It's a road book, and a love story, and the tale of a boy becoming a man, all set against the inhospitable, unforgiving Mexican landscape, pitting alien against alien.  Poignant, powerful shit.

Best Advice

Never play cards with a man named Doc, never eat at at placed called Mom's, and never lay down with a woman who has more problems than you do.  (If only I'd found his gem about 10 years earlier...)

Best Website

Hands down, Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/.  It's like Candy & Cigarettes 2.0, jacked on steroids, with a hit of crack.  The best advice on writing out there, and he's funny and irreverent as hell, no punches pulled, and he hides his disillusion and bitterness far better than I.  There are not many writers I wish I could write like.  Chuck Wendig is one of them.

Best Sports Moment

Winning my first Fantasy Football Championship.  Duh.

Best Friend

OK.  You can't really have a best friend unless you are 12 (or you are my wife, for whom every friend is her best friend).  Plus, you write best friend, and everyone else you know is going to be offended.  And I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. (Except those of you douchehookers I hate; I don't give a shit about your feelings.) But the rest of you, I love you, all.  Still, I feel the need to single out one man.  Let's call it a Lifetime Achievement Award (and no this will not be another entry gushing over the attributes of Tom Pitts http://tinyurl.com/7lqcl7a).  This mantle goes to Rich Rice.  With the exception of some family members (at least the ones who aren't dead), I've known Rich longer than anyone, and though we've drifted out of one another's life, played lesser roles at different times, like any friendship of that length, we're still friends after knowing each other close to forty fucking years.  Fungi don't last that long.  He's isn't like a brother; he is a brother.  Or to equate it to pants... Rich had seldom been the flashiest pair.  He has no rhinestone sequins, no in-style/out-of-style bell bottoms.  He is the Wrangler jeans of my life. Dependable. Comfortable.  Built tough with a relaxed fit that lasts.  Rich is Brett Farve, but without the high interception rate or sending pics of his junk to strangers on his iPhone.  And in the big moments of my life, like picking a Best Man or choosing the godfather to my only son, there was never really any other choice.  

And now the best of the rest before the boy wakes up...

Best Comedian: Louis C.K. (who wins handily over runner up Daniel Tosh)

Best Local Band: The Wandering Jews (unless you ask my wife, who will pick my ex-guitarist's band, the Hollyhocks)

Best Website after Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds: Cracked.com (http://www.cracked.com/).  I don't know when Mad's retarded little brother became so good, but I'll say it: consistently funnier than the Onion.

Best Supermodel: Kate Upton.  All you need for evidence is this:

When a woman can do that to you in her clothes, I shudder to think what she could do without them.

Best Statistic: 17% of Americans believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

Best Pound-for-Pound Boxer: Manny Pacquaio.  Fuck you, Floyd, you gutless turd.

Best Kids in the Hall Clip to Appear on this Blog:

Best TV Show, like, in Fucking Forever: Breaking Bad.  (If you don't like this show, you are wrong.)

Best Website to See Before and After Pics of Methheads: Faces of Meth (http://www.facesofmeth.us/main.htm)

Best Bet at the Track: $900 on the 5th horse in the 6th race.

Best Online Porn: Too many to choose from (but if you make me, I'd say redtube).

Best Color: For 36 years out of 41...black (we try not to acknowledge the green years).

Best New Swear Word: douchehooker (thank you, Annie!)

Best Way to Make Duane S. from Texas Stop Reading: Tebow.

Best Gym: My basement.

Best New Old Show: Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Best Place to Pick Up Women Online and Have Anonymous Sex: That's a joke to see if you've read this far, Justine.

Best New Sports' Radio Channel: 95.7, The Game.

Best Pic of a Man Dressed Like a Unicorn: This guy:

Best Potential Serial Killer I'd Like to Date:

Best Emotionally Damaged, Potty-Mouthed Sister of a Make-Believe Serial Killer I'd Like to Date:

Best Reminder to Be the Best Dad Possible:

And last, the category you've all been waiting for...

Best LOL Cat of 2011:

Amanda Knox Pt. II: Dollar Votes

Sticking with our ongoing theme, the balance of artistic integrity/vision vs. the publishing industry's need to turn a profit by eating little pieces of a man's dreams (at least I think that's been the theme), I thought this was rather apropos.


Amanda Knox hires DC lawyer as literary agent

AP – 6 hrs ago

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SEATTLE (AP) — Amanda Knox says she's hired a Washington, D.C., lawyer to help her land a book deal after an Italian court cleared her and her ex-boyfriend in the killing of her British roommate.

Knox family spokesman Dave Marriott says Robert Barnett will represent Knox in discussions with publishers and help her evaluate other opportunities.

Barnett has represented the literary interests of U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton andGeorge W. Bush, as well as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Knox returned to her hometown of Seattle in October after she was cleared in Meredith Kercher's death.

The 24-year-old had been in custody since 2007, and experts have suggested she could score a seven-figure book deal. She hasn't granted any interviews since her release.

Normally (i.e., had this been a former classmate) I'd be stewing and seething with rage.  But you know how I feel about Amanda (http://tinyurl.com/89l4fmh).  Who could be mad at that face?

                                                                               I do!  I do!

                                                      

Still, it's a little disconcerting when you see publishers rushing to fall over one another to hand out seven figures to someone who has no skills in book-writing to, um, write a book.  I suppose Amanda could be a terrific writer.  I can't say one way or the other, since I've never read her work.  Maybe she has an innate storytelling ability, knows all the tricks, won't mistakenly write "all intensive purposes" or "baited breath," or get overly bogged down in the symbolism of a rainy parking lot at a Costco on Rosh Hashanah.  Perhaps Amanda is an avid reader, who slept on writing books in her jail cell and absorbed knowledge like Edgar Cayce; the former star of her undergraduate writing class, who'd been bursting to start a novel until that whole unfortunate murder charge and subsequent incarceration, a James Joyce wrapped in perfect bone structure with pristine eye sight.  Then again, who really gives a shit?  Because this is another dirty little secret about the writing profession: it actually has very little to do with writing.

There's a running joke re: poetry readings, how the only people who go to them are other poets.  The same is true in a lot of regards when it comes to the writing community, which is fairly incestuous.  If you were to look on my Facebook page (and if we're not friends, just ask.  Please please ask), you'd see a good chunk of my friends are strangers, men and women who, like I, consider themselves writers, and if you delved a little deeper, you'd see we share many of the same friends and likes and all that, even though I've never met any of these people and only know them through cyberspace.  And this goes all the way to the top, ending with the Russell Bankses and Elmore Leonards, the lords of the writing world.  On the local level, I routinely encounter the same handful of names reading at readings or publishing noir stories in the magazines I'm in. And in this capacity, no matter the playing field, literary or noir, print or online, there is some weight put on the actual writing.  Because writing matters...to writers.  But that place isn't the real world, is it?

It may sound like I am complaining that it shouldn't be that way.  I'm not.  I mean, of course it shouldn't be that way.  Just like kids shouldn't be going to bed hungry tonight and all that.  If you're going to get hung up on life not being fair, there are several encampments being set up in public parks all across America that I'm sure would love to have you (just beware the drum circles). There are far worse injustices than a few white guys not getting paid to write a book.  It'd be nice, sure.  But I also didn't have to sit for four years in a dank Italian jail cell, accused of things I may or may have done.  And if anybody deserves a lucrative book deal, it's my sweet Amanda, especially after her split from Harry Potter, which I heard she took pretty hard. 

                                
                                (Damn you, boy wizard, for hurting her.)

Honestly, aside from noting how cute she is, I don't know jackshit about Amanda Knox or her case.  Would I date her if given the chance (like in a parallel universe, where I wasn't old, broken down, and married)?  Of course. I'd date a fucking robot if it was good looking enough.  Do I think she is guilty? Am I going to keep talking in questions?  I can't say.

The part that interests me here, besides having an excuse to plaster Amanda's adorable face all over my blog like a tweenie crushing on the Biebs, is the light a book deal for Amanda shines on this fruitless profession upon which I've embarked.  

I guess it's not different than record contracts being handed out to singers who can't sing. Which they do all the time.  And it's no big deal because you've got Auto-Tune, just like Amanda will have someone to help her write her book.  So what's it really matter?  Writers don't write their books all the time.  Just ask James Patterson.  It's all about name recognition (i.e., marketing ability and sales).  Amanda gets to say she's a writer.  And this girl gets to say she's a singer.

I suppose what irks me in the end is how naive I was signing up for this.  Forget my own personal interest, I've encountered myriad writers, with loads of talent, who are never getting their book published, and even my friends who have--and some of these are fantastic, change-your-life works--they are never coming close to seven figures.  They ain't coming close to six figures.  Fuck, if they touched five, they'd be doing cartwheels.  There simply isn't, nor should there be, some giant conglomerate handing out a shit-ton of money just because someone writes a really good book.  Like it or not, our system is predicated on supply and demand, and if Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling can retire now, terrific, good for them.  But that's not the goal of this game.  At least not for me. I don't care about the money.  Although I'd sure take the fame and adoration. I guess it comes down to a value system.

Will I read Amanda's book?  Doubt it.  But will I read short snippets about her life on Yahoo News and Google her picture from time to time?  Certainly.  Is my interest in Amanda Knox more than just slightly creepy?  You bet.  But at least I'm not rewarding Harper Collins or whomever publishes this thing with my cold hard cash.  (And somewhere, the editor of a large publishing house weeps silently.)  

It's all you can do really, vote with your dollar.  A long time ago, someone tried to explain the BCS to me.  I was a little kid, trying to understand who "won" in college football.  When they were finished explaining to me how the BCS worked, I said fuck that shit.  I am huge football fan, but I am not wasting a season watching a sport that has no real winner; that system sounded fucked up to me when I was 12, and I haven't watched a college game since.  I don't have control over the BCS.  But I sure as shit can decide where I'm spending my time and money.  It's called dollar votes.

Russian Corpse Dolls

It is really hard to keep up with the awesomeness that is Joe these days.  In the month of November alone, we've seen four short stories published, three poems published, another short story, what very well may be my best, the cannibal-driven The Meat, taken at Drunken Boat, three more pieces (essay, flash, poem) accepted for translation into Romanian, and for whose magazine, egophobia, I've been invited to be a regular columnist, and yesterday I received an email asking for permission to turn another short story ("In Cases Such As These") into a drama for KMVR in Sacramento.

And my payment for these things?  A big fat fucking not a dime.

Like when I ran into Jon Dempsey working at the old Country Farms in Berlin, CT, after I returned home from California following a few years of losing jobs and girlfriends and fucking up my dreams.

"Yeah," Jon said, slapping down an extra piece of juicy roast beef, "but you're living in San Francisco."

The idea sounds a lot more impressive than it is.

An up-and-coming writer versus a fat guy sitting at his computer.

(To which you say, "Who you kidding, Joe?  You're not fat!"  Damn straight.  16% body fat.  Which is good.  Of course, that's not George [5%] good.  But it'll have to do.  Until I get better.)

*

OK.  So we've got to upgrade this fucking thing.

This blog began as a joke, really.  I kept hearing (over and over and over) that I should start one, how I'd have so much to say, how it would be good for my career and (yawn).  I didn't know how to start a blog.  It took me, like, seven years after everyone else to even get a goddamn e-mail account (and I am one of like seven people left on the planet who still uses hotmail).  So just to shut everyone up, I did it.  Actually my wife did it.  Kind of like when my former poetry professor had to send out my submissions for me because I was so apprehensive and gun-shy.  After she set it up, I tinkered with the design to get this craptastic gem you see before you today.

But I look around at everyone else's blog, and feel like that goofy family of kids who lived on the Turnpike and wore the ill-fitting hand-me-downs and drank their tap from the poisoned mercury well.

I went trolling around the Internet last night, since I was having a bitch of a time writing, because I was feeling so down about my blog having all the visual appeal of a vegan Thanksgiving.

Found a few interesting distractions.  One was this awesome article by Chuck Wendig http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/11/03/writers-are-the-99/, which explores the 99% vs. 1% phenomena that has taken root, this idea of the writer as marginalized (along with everyone trying to carve out a living in the creative arts), which ties in nicely with the opening paragraph of today's entry.  I like being able to tie all these random thoughts together, more like an exercise, really, since all good writing is all about motif and parallelism (for a stellar example of this, see the other day's banking conceit http://tinyurl.com/6lt43u3).

Wendig, as usual, makes terrific points, doing what I try to do, only a fucklot better. But the sentiment is the same.  

Mostly, I walked away from his blog feeling envious.  Because his blog looks like a grown-up's, whereas mine looks like it designed by one of Harry Potter's lesser, ineffectual classmates.  (Speaking of Harry Potter, since when did he start dating my Amanda?

)

So I guess if we're looking for a theme today, it's coveting what we can't have. Amanda (http://tinyurl.com/89l4fmh).  A blog that makes me look like a professional.  To get paid for my work while achieving international fame and hot, awkward-looking Romanian chicks.

Of course, all my coveting can't quite touch this guy (and this guy definitely seems like a guy you wouldn't want to touch.)

Russian Man Stole 29 Corpses And Dressed Them Up As Dolls





In case you missed it, the dude's name is Anatoly Moskvin.  He is like a cemetery expert over in Nizhny Novgorod, a town in Russia.  And he really does look like the kind of guy who would dress up dead people for elaborate tea parties.  Here's an arbitrary link http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,796477,00.html, but it's pretty much all over the Internet.  Along with the pictures.

Usually he dressed the corpses as women, which I thought was interesting.  With blonde wigs.  I mean, if you are dressing up corpses, there are so many ways to go. You could have drinking buddies.  A sports' team.  A giant teddy bear.

OK.  Well, he did go the teddy bear route with one of the corpses.  But can you blame him?  In the corpse-dressing game, it's like the rock band "serious" shot.

But dressing them up like women says so much, doesn't it?  There are no reports he had sex with them (not that I've read).  Anatoly just want to be surrounded by girls dressed up pretty in a giant, never-ending tea party where he was the permanent guest of honor http://tinyurl.com/7czfgm6.  Is there a law against that?  OK. Probably several.

It's all about controlling our environment, no?  The work, the scenery, the people you want accompanying your life.  Some people are just more conventional than others.

I can understand Anatoly's point.  And not just because I've asked Justine to have me stuffed and set up permanently in the living room when I die.  The outside world, there are so many variables required to deem success.  Bosses.  Publishers. Women who say "yes" when you ask them to marry you.  Life is about circumvention.  Wall Street.  Publishing.  Love.  Anatoly simply did what Kirk did with the Kobayashi Maru: cheated at a game he was never meant to win.


Best I can do to tie all that shit in is leave you with a little Khan ear worm (which features, yes, a Russian).

I'll leave you to make the connection.

Amanda Knox

When the Amanda Knox verdict was reversed a couple days ago, my friend Duane said I should write the screenplay.  Forget that that would be like applying for a Pulitzer, or that publishing companies are already lining up at the airport, ghost writers in tow.  The truth is I can't.  It would be a violation of professional ethics.

I think I might be in love with Amanda Knox.

Now, I don't know much about the case, really, which would also hamper any attempts to write about it, because I'm guessing that would require research, and not just Google and Wikipedia, real research, and I'm not so big on that stuff.  I've gathered bits and pieces, of course.  Amanda was living in Italy, maybe as a student or something, and I think she had a boyfriend named Rafeal or something similar, and then her roommate was stabbed dead, and then Italian prosecutors claimed the death was the result of some sex game/love triangle gone wrong, and you can stop me here and correct me if you want.  But I never much cared for her actual innocence or guilt.  Becasue she's just so damn cute.

I'd be lying if I said that the whole "sex game gone wrong" angle didn't titillate, pique my interest.  Then there was that part where Amanda said the two girls were planning to "cuddle." Two girls in a foreign land planning to cuddle?  Christ, I'm just a man. That their cuddling session was interrupted by murder captivates my attention because when I am not writing on this, I like to write crime and mysteries. And I know that somebody died, somebody's daughter who was loved.  I'm not making light of that.  I don't need a deluge of responses that I'm being insensitive to someone else's pain.  But this isn't real to me.  It's a TV show, a Yahoo article, a Facebook status update.  It's no different than Casey Anthony.  I didn't know anything about Casey Anthony, just an article or two online I'd read, but I was still ready to join the rest of the mob, pitchfork in hand.  Casey looked guilty, everything about her face ugly, manipulative, smug, creepy and evil.  You just want to punch her in the head over and over for what she did to her own child.  Except, I don't know what she did or didn't do.  I have an opinion.  Just like I do with OJ, Phil, and Baretta.  I'd defend that opinion.  And if tomorrow a report comes out of Florida that Casey Anthony was cornered in the bathroom of a Perkins Cake and Steak and savagely beaten, I will rejoice in the justice of it all.  Is that right?  I don't know.

But it isn't real.  It exists in the realm of the fantastical.  That story, as horrific and unfathomable as it is, even more so because I have a child of my own and can't imagine the sort of monster who could be capable of doing that, still only resides in the abstract.  The shrewish homely face of Nancy Grace.  The outraged op-eds.  The Facebook posts calling for her head.  It is, sadly, just another form of entertainment, however perverse, in the 21st Century Digital World.  None of us will ever meet Casey Anthony.  We will continue to receive our information via the Shrew and People Magazine, and nothing we read, see, or do brings that little girl back.  And that is heartbreaking.  But we will never meet Kim However You Spell Her Last Name or that new princess either, but magazines will still fly off the racks (and websites crash) when one of them gets married.

Which is why I don't pay attention to Casey Anthony.  There is a God.  And I have a feeling that God treats those who abuse helpless children the same way D Block at San Quentin does: He fucks that shit up.  And I don't pay attention to Kim or Kate. Because, well, simply put, I don't find either particularly attractive.

But Amanda... (sigh)  She's like a little wet kitten in a cup of tea.

I just can't believe she could do something like that, hurting somebody she'd had plans to cuddle with.  And I think the accusation (and four years in prison) is what made her make this sad, troubled face:

Amanda is too pretty to be sad or troubled like this.  Plus, I've been to Italy.  There's a lot of greaseballs over there (I can say that; I'm Italian).  Plus, y'know, there's...the Mob.  Pretty girls don't kill.  At least not that way.  They don't need a knife.  They do it with a kiss, a sweet nothing whisper, while they blow one of your oldest friends in Houston.

This thing is, I think Amanda and I could be happy together.  Yes, I am married. With a child.  And my hip is falling apart.  I'm grumpy, convinced I'm dying, turning agoraphobic, etc.  But let's set all these things aside momentarily, overlook the plot holes.  Like a Michael Bay script, just push it all in a room off stage that no one can see under the dizzying, CGI special effects.

I think one of the reasons relationships can start to stagnate is they succumb to familiarity, which can breed...children, lots and lots of children, and then you're at the mall, fighting about funnel cake.

You take one another for granted.  It's a long haul, a marathon, not a sprint, and with that comes complacency.  But with Amanda, you literally could never get bored.  Because you'd always be wondering, if even in the deep recesses in the back of your mind, if she is going to kill you.  That is certain to keep the spark alive. And anytime you're having kinky sex, you're tied up, whipped and handcuffed, at her mercy, no fucking "safe" word is saving you from that shit.  Which you have to admit is kinda hot. 

Every day with Amanda may very well be your last.  When you're living like that, there are no afternoon naps, no trip to Costco for 5-gallon jugs of grapefruit juice. No, brother, you are drinking life to the lees.  How's that for gathering some fucking rose buds?  Carpe mutherfucking diem.

And also you will also be the savior, rewarded nightly (and morningly) for believing in her.  

Because, really, can a girl who makes silly faces like this be guilty?

The truth is I think I love Amanda Knox because she reminds me of Amy Kross, a girl I knew in college and fawned over but never won over, left with only the sad songs I wrote about not being able to hold onto her heart (because, you know, I hadn't thought of the right words).

And being with a potential murderer would be a win-win in a lot of ways.  It would appeal to the two sides of Joe: the self-loving and self-loating.  Amanda would be grateful that a man as good looking, muscular, intelligent and compassionate as I is taking a chance on her, and so she would dote on me, and the constant press would mean I'd be forever in the spotlight.  Very cool.  And conversely, if she chopped me up at the end of some kinky S & M game, well, that'd be cool too.  Because a part of me hates myself and thinks he deserves it.  See what I mean?  Win.  Win.