will take me dancing to a place that plays this music and we will dance.

And my dress will flutter and

sway.

like a Hollywood movie.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pH9j8H0B4k

How can I ever change the feelings that I feel?

If I could, Baby I would give you my world.

How can I? When you won’t take it from me…

You can go your own way.

Go your own way.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxeQKQQ6k4s

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMqg-MQRI9I

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnn9JlqqTE4

Make You Feel My Love

When the rain is blowing in your face

And the whole world is on your case

I could offer you a warm embrace

To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear

And there is no one there to dry your tears

I could hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love

I know you haven’t made your mind up yet

But I would never do you wrong

I’ve known it from the moment that we met

No doubt in my mind where you belong

I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue

I’d go crawling down the avenue

There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do

To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rollin’ sea

And on the highway of regret

The winds of change are blowing wild and free

You ain’t seen nothing like me yet

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true

Nothing that I wouldn’t do

Go to the ends of the earth for you

To make you feel my love.

Tonight, I’m in this funk of sorts.

I’m contemplating love.

Love used to be my favorite thing in the world until it wounded me.

Now I barely think about it all…

Except for when I hear songs like Bob Dylan’s To Make You Feel My Love.
It has such beautiful lyrics that it kind of breaks my heart and reminds me of love..

And when I start feeling like this, I take a dive in the pain for a while.

Tonight, I’m listening to Adele sing this song and

It makes me want to feel this way for someone…

even if it’s only for a little while.

So I write my feelings out…

because once they’re gone and buried in my granite heart,

I won’t come by the way of love again.

Not for a long time.

-goobs

I have a few things to say about the state of LOVE in the world today.

LOVE is a mess. Period. Pointblank. Done.

Don’t question my judgment on this ya’ll.

I know.

The state of love today is a HOT MESS.

I say this, not as an active participant in this thing called LOVE, (cause between you and me, LOVE don’t live here anymore) but as someone who has LOVED, lost and LOVED again. As someone who has LOVED and let go and hoped that LOVE would come back, and no…It didn’t. (Whoever finds that LOVE I let go…I don’t want it back now…It’s used.)

I say that LOVE is a mess because I’m checkin’ it out from the sidelines baby.  In fact, I’m all over this LOVE thing kiddo. ALLLLLLL OVER IT.

I’m an assistant coach during some people’s game of LOVE, and a medic helping nurse other’s wounds sustained during some Hail Mary play. Sometimes I’m sitting in the stands hoping’ for a big ole’ LOVE touchdown!! And other times I’m booing a bad LOVE call and screaming’, “Hey Mofo! That was FOUL!!!!!” And god forbid I catch the other team cheatin’ during the game. That’s grounds for some serious shit…let me not even start.

I own the franchise on the remains of LOVE lost and I sell collectibles of LOVE remembered. I see people run around high on LOVE. High man. Thinking’ they’re invincible and untouchable and the mightiest of lays this side of the Mississippi. And then I see the ugly side of LOVE. The listless, can’t-get-out-of-bed, Breyer’s-Ice-Cream, same-pjs-for-days drama that frankly is too desperate to go on about.

What the F.

We got people crazy in LOVE.

We got people having LOVE hangovers.

We got people in some bizarre LOVE triangles.

We got people in real LOVE, tainted LOVE, endless LOVE, addicted to LOVE and my favorite, havin’ a little LOVE on the rocks.

People who know LOVE hurts, who know they’re all out of LOVE, that say you can’t hurry LOVE, that know they are louder than LOVE and who want to rock the cradle of LOVE.

People who will tell you they got nothin’ but LOVE for you baby, to stop in the name of LOVE, that you’ll never find another LOVE like theirs, that it must have been LOVE, but it’s over now, that they got a whole lotta LOVE, that you can’t buy them LOVE, that LOVE is all around, that you are nobody till somebody LOVES you, that they did it all for the glory of LOVE and of course that LOVE bites.

It does sometimes. LOVE does sometimes bite. Hard.

We have shows about people being able to choose LOVE from gaggles of men and women who are available for LOVE. Just like that. Like LOVE candy dispensers…except these candies have had teeth whitening and/or boob jobs.

LOVE is being marketed as super-uber attainable everywhere you look. Drink some Diet Coke and instantly you will be able to make a LOVE connection and kiss some chick you LOVE. Pay for some guy’s dry cleaning, who drives a Ford like you, and maybe, just maybe, you might have a LOVE connection. Shit. Pop a Mentos and carry your potential LOVE mate over a mountain and into a small village where you will be happy forevermore. With no threat of lawsuit or Amber Alert. (Which begs the question, why aren’t we giving our armed forces Mentos? We coulda found Osama a long time ago…but that’s a whole nother blog.)

LOVE is such a commodity nowadays that we have become obsessed with finding it. It’s become that perfect pair of jeans. That perfect Coach Bag that although expensive, will go with everything. We just know it. Even if we don’t need it. Even if we don’t know what it is? Even if we can’t afford it. DAMN IT! We are going to have that LOVE if it kills us, because everyone else wants it, has it, or is getting a new one all the time.

And our arsenal for LOVE is serious.

We nip and tuck. We gel and iron. We spray and suck-it-in. We fake tan. We bleach hair. We wax. We MAC, Cover Girl and MaxFactor. We shave and polish and dye and try and try and try. We suffer in uncomfortable shoes, but convince ourselves we are hobbling like Beyonce and we are fierce! We say the wittiest of the wittiest things we have ever memorized. We practice our most-politically correct political banter. We order light and act like we are really intellectually heavy. We compliment and hope we have no little gremlin caught between our teeth that could blow our suave outta the water.

And then we hope that the arsenal of our NON-selves has met their offense of NON-selves and that hey, maybe we can do date number 2 over wheat-grass smoothies in the design district and then maybe go see an indie film that’s not too long because that wheat grass could kick in at any moment and then you know what could happen.

SHIT.

Shit could happen.

And nowhere in the equation of LOVE does SHIT make an appearance. EVER. In fact, if your bowels even emit the idea of SHIT in the form of FART during this strange LOVE-dance we call dating, just kill yourself. It’s over. You might as well go get some of that Breyer’s Ice cream from paragraph seven and rent Beaches. Because nowadays LOVE does not tolerate gas. Or any other honest bodily emission that doesn’t smell like something from a counter at Macy’s.

Now, gas withstanding, you may get to a place with said LOVE-potential where the sex could happen. Now this is where LOVE is the shiniest of the shine. Because nowadays, nothing says I LOVE you like the most serious lay of your life. I’m not joking. Nowadays you are expected to study like a mad person for two things; the first being your career of choice. The second being how to bring a potential LOVE mate to the most earth-shattering climax of their despondent fuck-spanse. Cause LOVE is a many splendid jizz. In fact that might be in the bible somewhere.

Now porn-star moves withstanding, and your Don-Juan-esque-ness now firmly in check, two things can happen. You can move forward and take the plunge…get married, pump out a few puppies, and have the house, the jag, the vacations, and the infidelity. Or not. The divorce.  Or not. The mid-life crisis. Or not. Be satisfied or dumped out the other end back where you started, all alone. OR you can become distracted.

Yeah. Distracted.

Cause while this whole thing is going on, so is the marketing of LOVE. What did you think? Just because you found the LOVE of your life version 3.0 that the world would stop trying to sell you an upgrade right away??

Ha.

That’s the problem. The problem is that from day one we are told that LOVE is the greatest thing in the world. And so we say GREAT! And then we say, “Hey what’s LOVE?”  And the great contingency of THEY tell us what it is. They tell us LOVE is Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara. They tell us LOVE is West Side Story and Casablanca. And in the same breath, they show us LOVE is Baby and Johnny having the time of their life and Samantha and Jake Ryan on that table blowing out birthday candles. They say to us, dont Let Go Rose! Even though Jack is sinking down into the cold, blackness like an ice cube into Coke and the whole goddamn Titanic has gone under.

And at the same time THEY are selling us Pilates, Ab Masters, Playboy, Hustler, Minerals and Pills, Lypo, Extensions, Splenda, Diet Coke, fake tits, Proactive, Porsches, and Herbal goddamn orgasms in the shower Essences…so that we can either get LOVE, keep LOVE alive, arouse LOVE, keep LOVE interested, have dazzling LOVE lives and be number 1 stunna LOVAS.

That’s the problem!

LOVE has been taught to us. LOVE has been advertised to us. It’s been MTV’d to us. It’s been Barnes and Noble’d to us. It’s been late-night Time-Life Series’ed to us.

And honestly, can you do that? Can you teach LOVE? Can you sell it? Can you buy it? (I think the Beatles would say no…You can’t buy me LOVE.)

When you were a kid and you got that new box of Crayolas, you know, the 64-pack, and you first smelled the waxy goodness and saw all those colors and knew it meant a whole day of coloring fun…Did anyone have to stop and say to you, “Now here are a few examples of JOY…” Or, This is how you act HAPPY…” Or, “Now, this is how you show CONTENTMENT.”

NO MAN.

It just happened. Cause we emoted.

And thats what LOVE needs to do.

LOVE is not commercials, or songs, or gifts, or movies or even pre-fabricated moments that we think should go down the way we think they should because we have seen it work that way and we figure hey…it could work for us. LOVE is not us being prissy, and metro and acting fake, faux, fabulous and FABRICATED. LOVE is just LOVE man.

Just be you.

Just smile. Act real. Play hard. Laugh harder. Fart for Christ sake. Lol

Say what you need to say when you need to say it. Be politically incorrect. Be alive. Be whole instead of skim. Be skim instead of soy. Bust your illest 1986 dance moves. Sing in your car. Watch re-runs of the A-team. Wear your Van Halen t-shirt proud.

Cause you know what?

Somewhere out there, someone will LOVE you for it.

LOVE you for you.

And that’s all there really is to think about.

Everything else is just someone else’s version of your great LOVE story.

And between you and me…I’d rather write my own ending.

-goobs

“Leave the gun. Take the cannolis.”