My life, foibles, failures, pains, and anime (for some reason)

I’d like to take this opportunity to lend a little personal insight on a form of art and entertainment I’ve only recently been introduced to, anime. In order to fully do so I feel I must divulge a bit about myself along the way. I apologize if it rambles from one subject to another, but it’s a bit difficult to sum up the major experiences of one’s life in just a few short pages.

My younger brother came by my home several days ago and brought along a few DVDs of a series called Hellsing. I am a fan of Japanese and Eastern style art and music and have been for many years. My previous experiences with anime had been watered down television series like Pokemon and One Piece. These tend to be aimed at children from the age of 6 to 12 so it’s all pretty basic. I was thoroughly blown away by the intricate storylines and adult concepts that various anime portray and have become a bit of an addict over the last few weeks.

Netflix on Demand is a wonderful thing and I usually spend an hour in the evening watching a part of a series streaming on my computer after I’ve finished working for the day. It’s kind of a personal reward for getting up and writing for 8 or 10 hours straight. I realize that up to this point I’ve given away very little about myself on this blog. I will endeavor to change that. To that end let me start over.

I am a professional freelance writer working out of my house. Most of my work comes from contract positions writing up guides and reviews as well as small advertisements and various content for small business websites. Ever wonder where people found the time to write introductions to business websites or responses to just about any search engine term you could type in? That’s me and a legion of others. Mostly we are people who have a great love of the written word but for one reason or other are unable to find full time employment with larger writing firms or teams. Some people live in small towns too far away from any major centers of commerce to work in an office atmosphere; others do it as a part time supplement to their primary income, and yet more work in this fashion because they have no other option.

The third category is where I fit in. I began to show signs of some sort of gastrointestinal disorder at the age of 9. My parents took me from one doctor to another; some said it was in my head, a possibility given that I was emotionally volatile from a very young age; laughing one minutes and crying the next. Other physicians said I was faking it to avoid attending school. Again this was a possibility as I was the only Yankee attending school in a small, backwater, and very southern town. Consequently I was picked on and ridiculed just about every day. Its understandable that I wanted to limit my exposure to other people of my own age as much as possible.

After several years worth of pain and anguish on my part my parents finally conceded the fact that I might have been ill. To this day the most that can be said is that I have some sort of chronic gastrointestinal disorder that causes me crippling pain on a daily basis and prevents me from leaving the house most of the time. I won’t recount the war of attrition that school was. The pain, shame, embarrassment, and fear I experienced every school day. I could probably fill books with it if I hadn’t mentally repressed most of the memories.

I still think about it and wonder what those children were thinking when they picked on me and threatened me, sticking their chests out and strutting around like cockerels. I am a very big person, always have been. I’m currently standing at 6 feet and 6 inches; I was roughly a foot taller and 50 pounds heavier than any other boy I went to school with for most of my life. Admittedly I was overweight and had poor stamina, but at the age of 10 I was strong enough to pick up and carry my own father, who was well built himself. Yet they would pick on me as if I was some sort of weakling. It’s a good thing I was not at all aggressive as a child and sought to resolve disputes through words, rather than my fists.

I tend to kick myself over the whole thing now. If I had taken a few of them down a peg or two I would’ve been doing Darwin’s work in improving the gene pool. Ideally the dumb ones shouldn’t live long enough to breed. Funnily enough I look back on that time as a lost opportunity to get away with some serious damage while being underage and not subject to prosecution as an adult.

In any case what I’m trying to say is that I’m in a great deal of pain and can’t leave my home most days, negating any other line of employment.

While I do have a great love of the written word and have always written for my own enjoyment, I wanted most to be a psychologist. The human mind has been a great mystery to me for as long as I can remember. I don’t know why, but I’ve never understood human interaction and the thousand and one unspoken cues that it entails. Maybe I was brain damaged as a child, maybe I’m actually the spawn of an alien species, I don’t know.

What I do know is that I was gifted with a greater than average intellect and a very analytical mindset. I bounced from one career path or another as a child, as most children do. But found I had a bit of a knack for interpreting people’s interactions and figuring out why they acted the way they did. I did so in a very straightforward and logical process rather than an empathic or emotional one, making my insights pretty accurate. Also I have a very dour and solemn demeanor, regardless of how I’m feeling. I’m actually a very sensitive and emotional person, I just don’t show it on my face or in my body language, never have. I guess people liken me to a priest. They’re always confiding in me. My schoolmates, my teachers, my co-workers. Everyone always opens up to me regardless of how well I know them, and whether or not I actually want to hear about their problems. It gave me a lot of practice over the years so I thought I would put it to good use.

I managed to get through high school and college, despite the fact that I had to home school and teach myself most of the time as my attendance was sketchy at best. I even graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Psychology. Too bad my guidance counselor was a senile old bat who hadn’t noticed the world had changed since the 50s. There were no job opportunities for someone who had no guarantees he would be able to get to work on any given day. I ended up working at my old job I had taken between college semesters working at a department store. My manager was an alcoholic so as long as I kept giving her a few bottles of the good stuff for every holiday and birthday she didn’t care if I was able to get to work each day. I am sad to say that, despite her personal problems, she was the best boss I’ve ever had.

After almost 2 years of taking abuse from the walking stiffs that we called customers (my town is largely a retirement community full of people from New York and New Jersey) I had had enough. (On a side note if you’ve ever seen the original Dawn of the Dead by George Romero, you’ll know exactly the sort of customers I’m talking about. The only difference between them and the zombies is that nobody will arrest you for shooting a zombie) I was making less than 300 bucks a week, wasting money on gas and dry cleaning for my suits at work, and had nothing to show for it except sore feet from standing 12 hour shifts. I was still living with my parents and just barely getting by. I quit the next day and starting writing for a living.

Don’t get me wrong. The job is not easy as you have to be very cut throat, meet tough deadlines, fight to get work, fight to get paid, and drum up your own business. But I’ll take it over the old rat race any day.

Having brought you up to speed with what I do and basically who I am I will continue with my initial statements. I was addicted to anime and watching them before bed each night. I was watching a new one called Utawarerumono. The exact translation of the name was beyond me, but the art, the storyline, I was in love with the entire thing…Until the second to last episode. The crowning glory of this series was the characters. They were funny, quirky, human, and lovable. After the first few episodes it felt like you knew them personally. (At this point you might want to stop reading for fear of story spoilers)

In any case, in the second to last episode before the final showdown between the mysterious amnesiac hero and the shadowy villain, the hero regains his memory. There is a flashback, in which the hero remembers a time long ago, in a post apocalyptic future. Mankind is forced to live beneath the surface of the earth because of its poisonous atmosphere, despite the fact that other flora and fauna lived in a naturist paradise.

The main character was a test subject who’d been discovered wandering the surface world. He was imprisoned in a research facility populated with human/animal hybrids that the facility overseers had engineered in an attempt to create human genome possessing life forms that could live on the surface. These hybrids were essentially human, with human feelings, emotions, and tendencies. Despite this they were treated more poorly than animals, their humanity was denied, they weren’t even given names.

One of the hybrids, a beautiful young girl befriended and eventually fell in love with the main character. They staged a breakout and fled to the surface world, where they lived for well over a year and had a child. One day they were caught. The hero was shot with a tranquilizer dart while the atmosphere-suit clad humans descended upon the woman and baby in her arms. The look of fear and shrieks of the mother as the child was ripped from her arms still haunts my dreams.

The husband awoke to find himself in the research facility again, strapped to a table. The head scientist of the facility came in to check on him. The hero immediately cried out to his wife. The scientist calmly replied that since she was the first of her kind to successfully bear a child, she had to be studied… She was dissected.

At that point I lost the capacity for reason and roared like a wounded beast. I tore through my room and ran to the garage where I have a heavy punching bag. I wailed on that bag for well over an hour, stopping only when my vision was too blurred with sweat and tears to see the bag. The knuckles of my fists were bereft of skin, blood smeared the bags, but I couldn’t have cared less. All I saw was red.

The anime did not show the dissection thankfully, but my imagination generated images which I don’t doubt were worse than any visual artist could’ve rendered. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a very emotional person at times, but the last time I reacted in this fashion was when I was working as a bouncer in a club when I was attending college. On my first night a drunken idiot tried to grab one of the dancers on stage. She stayed calm and waited for help while I was waved in to take care of the problem. I gave him a verbal warning as was required, repeating it in Spanish as his friends were speaking Spanish to him. When he did not respond I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him down. As he came down he spun around to face me, triggering the switchblade knife that he had concealed in his other hand. He drove it right for my heart.

I managed to get an arm in the way to deflect the knife, though the blade cut deeply into my forearm. The only thing after that which I remember was another bouncer tackling me.

After the man was taken away by police for assault with a deadly weapon and one of the bouncers bandaged my arm, the head bouncer explained what had happened. I had a “red out” as he called it. Basically when some people are hurt or wounded they lose their minds with their anger, responding with maximum violence. I had broken the man’s wrist, which was holding the knife, then dislocated his shoulder, shattered his nose, clothes lined him to the ground, and then proceeded to jump up and down on his chest, shattering his ribs. It was at that point that another bouncer tackled me to stop me from killing that man.

Obviously I was not cut out to be a bouncer as I “Did more damage than I prevented” in the words of my boss.

This time I was not hurt, but it felt as though someone I knew and cared about had been violated in the most heinous and terrible way possible. That woman had not even been treated as a human being when she was killed.

I have a very strong and overdeveloped protective instinct toward women. I know it’s not politically correct to say so given that women are considered equal to men, but it’s just how I am. Perhaps it’s the result of trying to keep an abusive father from harming an emotionally vulnerable mother. She’s called me a big guard dog on more than one occasion. It’s just that violence against women sets me off like nothing else.

A day later and I still tremble with rage at the memory of what I saw; the mental image won’t leave me. I slept for only a few hours that night, waking up to bandage my hands before trying to get on with my day. The more and more I thought about it, the more I had to get it out. Writing has always been my chosen method of expressing myself and I thank anybody for their time whose read this far as there is a point to this ramble aside from telling you about myself.

After much rumination I realized that the purpose of art is to evoke a response, to generate emotion in the viewer. Not all art is beautiful, not all life is beautiful, and nevertheless it should be recognized for its value in portraying the full spectrum of human existence, emotion, and life. While my response was indeed extreme and unpleasant, it is representative of part of the human experience. Were this art form portrayed in a less skillful fashion I probably would not have identified with the characters and responded as I did. Feelings of loss, rage, and a sense of helplessness and being unable to do anything to stop it. These are common, though regrettable, emotions resulting from life experiences.

In this I must applaud anime as an able and powerful art form which I shall continue to patronize and would suggest you do the same. It is important to be aware that anime is not something intended solely for children. Not every story has a happy ending and indeed you may experience something akin to what I have described as you watch one series or other. While at times it may be painful, one would not be whole without experiencing and taking in the negative as well as the positive aspects of life, the same as with any true art form.

Now if I can only come to terms with the look of fear on that woman’s face that has burned itself into my mind’s eye.

Scams as Far as the Eye Can See

As a freelance writer you may or may not know that it is up to me to drum up my own business. Consequently I send in well over a dozen job applications each week along with my responsbilities writing for my current employers. Unfortunately there is not much in the way of a regulatory board or group for most of these jobs. Typically they are small contract jobs for start-up businesses or subcontracted work on the behalf of a web developer to provide content and filler for new websites.

It's rare to actually have a legal contract drawn up and payment is typically through an intermediary such as Paypal.

As a result of this system's informality there are many ways for a scam artist or unscrupulous businessperson to take advantage of a writer. I would say that at least half of the applications which I send in are openings for scams. Many of them are ingenious, some of them are downright hilarious because of the convoluted backstories some of these people expect me, the writer, to swallow.

I've often thought that someone who has the technological know how as well as the ingenuity and drive to put together a completely autonomous mailer program that makes the fake job postings, sends personalized responses to applications, and then steals the writer's work or money has too much time on their hands. Someone capable of doing all that is easily qualified for a high-level IT job that would provide significantly greater dividends than what they would get through scamming people. Plus there's the peace of mind you get when you've not done anything likely to warrant armed police busting down your door and throwing you into a cage with murderers and rapists.

Suffice to say, I've been burned my share of times too. So I've decided to post some of the more ingenious, or at least more entertaining, scams that I come across in my work in the hopes that you won't be taken in by this sort of thing.

My first story is the only scam which successfully got me. Thankfully no money was stolen, but I was tricked into doing roughly $400 dollars worth of work for free.

I applied to work for a website which hosted both phone and online psychic hotline service. It was called www.psychicrx.com, though that name is now defunct. They were interested in developing a database of articles on various new age and supernatural topics. I was one of roughly 20 people who were hired. We were all contacted by an intermediary by the name of Amy.

She outlined the format that would be required for the articles, we would be paid $10 for each article as well as credit for the work. I went to work and submitted somewhere in the area of 40 articles on various topics. I was told the check was in the mail after I'd submitted 30 my first week. After finishing the other 10 a week later I asked them about payment as my check had not arrived. Amy said she would get back to me... She never did.

No one at Psychicrx was available to speak with me, though my articles had been posted by their employees. After about three weeks of getting no where I received an email from one of the other writers. That writer noticed that the introductory emails Amy sent to each of us used a mass mailer which listed all our names and email addresses. The writer then used that to contact all of us as we were not in communication at that point, we didn't know each other or realize that we were all being cheated.

At that point we pooled our resources. One person managed to find the address and phone number of the Psychicrx offices, Miami of course, scam capital of the world. Another contacted the head manager of the company. Her first question was how had we gotten that phone number. That should've been a strong warning right there. She said that Amy was no longer working for the company and had left abruptly over a month ago, all our emails to her went to a derelict address. The manager promised she would see about getting us paid and asked for 2 days to bring it to her boss's attention.

After two days time the company was called again, a new person answered the phone, saying that the previous manager had resigned the previous day.

This went on for the course of another week, each person resigning having a more grand title until they told us the CEO of Psychicrx had resigned. At that point we were looking into bringing a class action suit against them. When threatened with this we received an irate email saying that because we had behaved irrationally and harassed their offices, they were withholding payment. When we reminded them of their contractual obligation to pay us, they simply pulled down the online forum where our articles had been posted. The only problem was that our contracts stated that we were due payment for every article accepted by psychicrx or it's appointed representative regardless of what they did with them.

Psychicrx tried too little and too late to say that they did not accept the articles, but public records showed that this Amy character was in their employ. All of us had copies of our email correspondance with her to back that up as well. Technically she was the Psychicrx representative.

It was at that point that psychicrx disappeared entirely. Their website was pulled down, for "maintenance", and has been down for the last 4 months. The office in Miami they used is now disserted. It turns out the name of the person who rented out the office as well as paid all the utility bills was fake, as was their contact information.

You may be wondering how we were able to pursue this so exhaustively if we were scattered across the country. It turns out that one of the writers was the sister of the District Attorney for South Florida, who chose to pursue psychicrx to make an example of all the scam companies that people Miami. In this we were very lucky, without such a one in a million occurrence we would all still be waiting for our payments, mad as hell, and completely helpless.

You may think that this was a victory on our parts. But not really. The scam artists got away. They will simply procure another office somewhere using false information and put together another moneymaking site. They all still have copies of our work and will post them as their own property when they can, and will simply start the process all over again. This time they may be more lucky, the people they scam may not be as tenacious or as well connected.

As a preventative there are a few things you can do to protect yourself. First you can copyright all your work prior to submission to a new employer. It may take a little extra time, but for a prospectively lucrative commission, it's worth it.

Second you can obtain multiple contacts from your employer; phone number, physical address, email, cell phone, fax, etc. The more ways you are able to contact your employer, the more difficult it is for a dishonest employer to break off contact or try to get away. Make sure that contact information is legitimate as well by using it. Fax him one thing, email him another, call him up with a question and send a letter by snail mail. It will give the employer the message that he can't ignore or get away from you. If it's a scam your employer is likely to panic and cancel the deal before you invest too much time and effort.

That's all for today. I hope to have more in the way of scams to look out for soon.

A Genuine Problem Rapidly Devolving Into A Pointless Rant

I just received a message that has me in a bit of a puzzle. I was hoping perhaps someone out there would be kind enough to respond so I could get the benefit of their opinion and point of view.

I've just been offered my first paying writing position. Unfortunately its not all I'd hoped for. The organization that's interested in hiring me (Which shall remain nameless as there is a possibility they might read this and not appreciate any bad press) specializes in providing clients with "sample" essays and research papers made to order. I do have a great deal of experience writing such things, though they've only ever been for my own grades before.

They offer between eight and twelve dollars payment for every three hundred word page written. I must include all my sources of course, in whatever notation format the customer specifies. Deadlines are very strictly enforced and they will not pay for late papers. It's a genuine organization, no scams involved. It does sound like a lot of work. I would have to average more than ten pages written a day to make more money than I previously did.

That's not really my concern though, I know I can write enough to make a profit. The question is what sort of research will have to be completed on my part before I can begin writing, and how much time is that likely to take up? I suppose if they had multiple subscriptions to online libraries and magazines it would save time trying to track down the appropriate research material. But if they don't, then there might be a problem as I live in a pretty small town and the local library is an absolute joke.

I guess what I would like to ask is; if anyone reading should have experience with this sort of thing, could they please respond with any information about their experiences in this situation? What this sort of job is like, how difficult and in-depth the requested papers typically are, etc. It would be much appreciated.

Also I'm very much aware of the morality issue at play here. Is it right to compose other people's reports and papers for them? In all honesty I would have to say no, but then again I never had enough money to afford this sort of service when I was in school, so I can't really say whether or not I would've used such a service. What I can say is that nowadays morals are a luxury. They're for people who have enough money to live comfortably for the forseeable future or who have some deep seated need to make a martyr of themselves. Not that I'm against that exactly, if people want to make themselves miserable for no good reason I'm happy.

Why, you ask? (Well probably not, I suspect of people couldn't care less, but I'm on a roll here so don't interrupt me.) Well to put it this way, mankind has always seemed to equate (or mistake) pain and suffering with sacrifice, divinity, and a higher purpose. Just go to any church, mosque, or synagogue and you'll get the point.

Please don't think that I'm bashing religion. I have absolutely nothing wrong with it and consider it, in most forms, to be a good thing. It can bring out the best in essentially good people. What I'm simply trying to say is that anything, taken to an extreme, can cause harm to oneself or others. Something as powerful as religion also has the potential to bring out the worst in essentially bad people. And I'm quite certain there are more bad people out there than good. If you don't agree with me then either you're made of much more optimistic stuff than I or have yet to experience the pleasure of their company. I know its a bit simplistic to label people as good or bad being that these concepts are relative.

For example a person may take vermin off the street, grind them up and give the meat to soup kitchens. You're killing two birds with one stone here. You're getting rid of pesky critters that dig through my trash cans and you're feeding the needy. It might be considered a good thing that person did to the observer, but from the point of view of the people in line at the soup kitchen, it would probably be a bad one.

So from the point of view of a pathetic little worm like me on this earth who has to rub shoulders with the crowds of effluvia that makes up the modern day gene-puddle on a daily basis (as I'm sure many of you do too), I would say that people blowing themselves up, castrating themselves and each other, fathering fifty bajillion children by a group of fifteen women who're all sisters and then defiling said children all in the name of (God, Yahweh, Jehova, Buddha, Allah, Jesus, Vishnu, etc.) is a bad thing.