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Slowdown

“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

That’s some sensible advice from my favorite First Lady. (Dolley Madison is a close second.) Her other spiffy idea, which is very wise, is that nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.

I like First Ladies. They don’t get nearly enough credit. Abigail Adams wrote Thomas Jefferson, concerned about Shays’ Rebellion — that fantastic revolt that the unemployed and the working poor might want to take a few lessons from. And she got Jefferson to write one of his most anti-authoritarian sentiments, “I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.” And then there was Lady Bird Johnson, who not only planted millions of flowers around Washington DC, but also had to deal with her boorish husband on a regular basis. On the other hand, how many Great Society programs would have been denied were it not for Lady Bird’s efforts? We may never know for sure.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that Good Ol’ Eleanor comes along just as I’ve been rethinking what I do and revisiting places that I forgot were so wonderful.

And so due to unexpected bursts of inspiration (but, more importantly, perspiration) in other places, the results of which I will report if it amounts to anything, I’ve decided that this unforeseen self-discipline is more important than disciplined blogging. So I’ll be scaling down the posting frequency from five chunky posts a week to pretty much writing whenever I feel like it. Believe me, there are several strange and aborted posts in my drafts folder which I may or may not finish. But after a few nudges from friends (and some crafty withholding from parties known to feed me certain pieces of information which provoke 1,000 word essays), I’m now finding that my writing is leading me elsewhere.

This isn’t a full-blown hiatus, but it is a slowdown. The Internet, which is a mostly pleasant and valuable place, does not represent a tyranny, contrary to certain parties desperately in need of a chill pill, an ice cream cone, or a blowjob. But negotiating this terrain does involves a strange amalgam of inclusiveness and self-restraint. Or as Mark Twain once wrote, “Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

When I Had Hair

In the mid-1990s, I made my way around various film and theater circles. My interests were mainly centered around the prospect of putting on a good show. I enjoyed being one of those wizards behind the curtain executing an illusion. And it didn’t matter whether it was coming up with a wacky storyline or perfecting a visual detail that only a handful of people would notice. But because I was often so lively when I worked on sets, friends began to insist that I should act in their projects. One even promised me a bottle of vodka for a day of work. And it seemed impolite to say no. I would begin to point out to them that, although I had taken several acting classes to understand the process, there were plenty of people out there who could act.

But no, they wanted me. I had something that these actors didn’t. Or maybe they just liked seeing me ham it up. So in my early twenties, I would often be enlisted to act in short films and plays. I would either play authority figures (attorneys and doctors) or completely crazy characters (psychotic killers and lunatics in a sanitarium). I would develop an intricate character backstory far exceeding anything the writer had intended, and I would often work out elaborate character relationships with other actors so that we would have additional facets to work from during a scene. And it was all a great deal of fun.

Recently I discovered a videotape containing one such scene. I was twenty-two. It was 1996. I was enlisted by my pal Han Lee to play a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross for his film directing class at San Francisco State University. The other guy, playing Shelly Levene, is Eric Gibboney. At the very least, the clip demonstrates to the world that there once was a time in my life in which I did indeed have hair!

Mashup of Drafts (With Annotations)

I cannot be bothered to write anything of importance at the present time. Therefore, I offer the following post composed entirely of random sentences from other posts that I started in 2009, and I never finished, and that I have no real intention of finishing (with pertinent annotations):

I am in Midtown Manhattan, where the streets have no name. [1] Thanks to the dependable rage and knee-jerk regularities of the big crunching boot known as the Internet, Billy Bob Thornton has, in the past four days, been widely derided for his boorish appearance on a CBC radio program. [2] We make drinking within the realm of financial possibility while we tax the fuck out of cigarettes. So let’s take this oxidized sportster out for a spin, shall we? There is a part of me that might feel like one of those hokey magicians playing a PTA meeting for $75, the type who attempts to pass off that all-too-simple trick of squeezing water behind your elbow as cutting-edge.[3] Some figure who genuinely wallows in the suffering of others. Some savage soul who wants to kick in the teeth of anyone really. But I’m sure they’ll both choke on their free foie gras at some junket later in the year.[4] Never mind that I offered counsel and empathy when his personal life was falling apart. There is nothing entertaining, thoughtful, funny, literary, or striking about any of the material that is regularly posted here.[5] Last night, as I rested my freshly pedicured feet on my manservant’s lithe and writhing back, I found myself exceptionally alarmed. Our team of researchers, using the finest investigative techniques that microfiche has to offer, have located an essay written in 1983 by a hotheaded young man, who reportedly beat an Apple IIe with a baseball bat just after banging out the deranged essay reprinted for our readership below.[6] The box, the simple box, the box that rhymes with fox, the box you get back from the bagel shop that has your lox, may be the art form of the 21st century.[7]

[1] Careful readers of op-ed columns in a certain newspaper will likely see what I was satirizing. One common quality of these abandoned drafts is the fixation I have on the New York Times. This says more about me than the New York Times.

[2] I have been building up to an enormous essay about masculinity that I need to get out of my system. The theme has recurred in numerous drafts over the past eighteen months and there have been pitches to numerous outlets. Alas, nobody is really interested in the topic. Except that they are interested, as the near two million people who watched that YouTube video demonstrates.

[3] This metaphor was rooted in personal experience. And I’m going to have to figure out another applicable essay to get it in. When I was a boy, I would often attend Parents Without Partners outings with my then single mother, who was looking to get lucky and who, as it turned out, was extremely miserable. While adults gathered together for mediocre potluck dishes, I was left to wander the floors of some meeting room with frayed beige walls — the kind you found quite often in the mid-1980s that was often turned into a makeshift dance hall but that had not been architecturally designed for that purpose. But everybody knew that all the single parents were pinching pennies, with varying results and outright poor children with holes in their shirts and unwashed shorts pretending to be middle-class. There, I’d talk with other nervous kids, who were all likewise abandoned by their parents and were in need of a sad social fix. The adults often hired a cheap magician: someone who needed some pocket money, but who had certainly not made professional magic a full-time job. The kids didn’t care to be condescended to. And for some reason, they often looked to me. Because I tended to have a very loud voice and say things that apparently you weren’t allowed to say. (Or so many adults frequently told me. There was one particularly pious gentleman who took my mother aside outside of a church and said, “There’s something of the devil in that boy.” These days, it’s more or less the same thing. Except that the adults take other adults aside to talk shit about me and use four-letter words to describe how terrible I am. And it’s all a bit awkward because I’m now an adult.)

Anyway, I would often raise my hand when the magician asked for a volunteer. And if he was ever a bit condescending to my fellow kids, I would then expose all of his trickery to the audience, pointing specifically to the sponge behind my elbow and exposing the mechanisms of his act during the course of the show. I was truly a little asshole. But one such magician took me aside after his act, and he was very kind to me. And he asked me if everything was okay at home. I told him no. And he said I should perform magic shows because the other kids were very amused by my antics. And I remember that magician’s kindness any time I see some troubled kid trying to figure shit out, and I try and do something about it.

[4] This seemed a particularly vicious thing to say. One often writes in the moment and is astonished to see what one has written later.

[5] This sentence was written during the morose early days of quitting smoking.

[6] A chasm of memories I haven’t thought about in years have provoked ancillary imagery. It is no accident that violence remains a constant motif.

[7] I don’t believe any writer should be hindered by singsong prose. Some “literary” authors would be better off writing children’s books and rediscovering why they enjoy writing in the first place. It is very sad to have seen them deteriorate.

2009

This is probably my last post for 2008. While I cannot personally identify the last 365 days as a triumph or a disappointment, I can say this: It was the year of promise; it was the year of squandered possibilities. It was the age when we finally realized that Bush would finally be gone; it was the age when we hoped that Obama would work his magic. It was the epoch of bailouts; it was the epoch of Madoff’s avarice. It was the season of sixty degree December days in Manhattan; it was the season of government deficits we can’t possibly pay back anytime soon. It was not so much the spring of hope, nor was it entirely the winter of despair. But many good people were laid off. And it is hard to view any of these terrible developments with beatific ecstasy. We do indeed have everything before us, but we likewise have nothing before us. Particularly when so many of us are determined to give up. And if we go to hell, then we’ll certainly fly business class. Assuming that the airlines don’t bump our flights.

Come to think of it, Dickens was a bit of a self-righteous twit when it came to establishing these dutiful dichotomies in that famous opening chapter. And I say this as someone who loves Dickens. I’ve chatted a number of people with over the past few weeks and they’ve attempted to explain to me why they didn’t fully “blossom” in 2008, concocting strange theories in the process. A redoubting Thomas looks to the year’s last integer and says, “Well, 2008 was an even year. I never accomplish much during an even year.” One’s life, however, cannot be boiled down to a ridiculous numerological maxim. You can’t apply the “every even Star Trek movie is good; every odd Star Trek movie is bad” approach to life. Life is, after all, what you make of it.

Yet if life is what we make of it, why aren’t we doing more?

One is tempted to panic, to freeze up, to defer decisions and actions to others who seem to know what’s going on in an age of social and economic crisis. But if 2009 represents an opportunity to reclaim our stunned inactions over the past twelve months (and, some might argue, the past eight years), then why not start asking questions right now or whipping up a few answers? Why not figure out some place — even a small one — where you can do something rather helpful or interesting?

I have a number of fiery opinions about current events that I won’t bore you with. But I’ll say this much. If we take any disgraceful developments lying down, then we more or less deserve what’s coming. If we continue to grant license to those who would deceive us again and again, then we’re well past the “fool me twice, shame on me” stage and comfortably nestled in the “swallow the Kool-Aid without question” phase.

The time has come to take back America. To challenge everything and to throw around interesting ideas that stick. To restore the environment we had before 9/11. To demand accountability. To refuse to accept any and all malarkey and live up to a grand American credo.

We are a nation of innovators. A nation that can produce such astonishing individuals as John Brown, Amelia Earhart, and Larry Walters, to name only a few. Where are today’s misfits and cultural revolutionaries? Where are those who would try something different? While some life choices may be limited by silent responsibilities, this does not necessarily mean that the grand range of louder choices has evaporated.

It is my hope that 2009 will be the year in which America wakes up. And by “waking up,” I am not talking about some progressive fantasy. I am talking about reviving and spicing up the national dialogue. I am talking about a nation that welcomes as many perspectives as possible. Because we’re now at a place where we need them. I am talking about a country in which the number of crazy things that happen from time to time becomes better memorialized. I am talking about mischief. I am talking about tomfoolery.

Paralysis of spirit simply will not do as we face a whole host of problems. I am speaking of a particular type of success, and the words date back to Emerson:

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

Just a Poker Game

On the evening of December 4, 2008, I came to realize that the next day would be December 5, 2008. This date, in and of itself, did not puzzle me, although it bears some minor importance to me for personal reasons I won’t bore you with. I began to recognize that the day would drift into another a little more than two hours before the stroke of midnight. The recognition of this change came after a long day of work, in which I had fallen fast asleep after I had committed approximately eleven hours (perhaps more) of creative labor. It also came after I watched, for the first time, an episode of The Office on an actual television, as opposed to some illicit download with the advertisements stripped. Now I had not watched an episode of anything on television for quite some time, and there seemed to me more commercials than were absolutely necessary. Whether the strange amalgam of television comedy and commercials caused me to dwell upon the shifting day, I do not know. I only know that I was trying to zone out and that I was trying to do so in a way that was similar to how other people who worked nine-to-five jobs lived their lives.

A friend from another nation whom I had not seen in two and a half years had been staying with us, and he was a bit stunned by how I had changed. He decided to leave at the last moment for a bed and breakfast, but never offered me a specific reason or a goodbye. His wife had ordered him away. I have not yet met my friend’s wife, and I would like to. But I do know that he had come on a plane before her, stayed with us, and the two of us had imbibed quite a bit of Jim Beam. I knew what I was getting into, but I felt the crushing hangover from this crazed carousing the next morning and it nearly killed me, but I pressed on with my labor. It’s what I do. I had two interviews to conduct. This type of labor was foreign to my friend. He was shocked to see me up at 6:00 AM, and stood at attention when I made coffee and secured bagels to ensure that everyone would have some breakfast to get through the day. But he didn’t understand that I had to work, and that I was committed to my strange job, as low-paying (and often non-paying) as it is.

More than a decade ago, I thought my friend was helping me. He encouraged a shy kid to be true to himself. He was kind to me, and I tried to be as kind as I could right back. I got a late start, but I got a start nonetheless, and I am grateful to him. But now that I have become truer to who I am, I’m wondering if I was actually helping him. Did he see something in me, even in a prototypical form, that might have been a clue to his own identity? In all these years, has he been hiding behind something that is not what he is, but that, in a great twist of irony, helped me to become who I am? This unexpected understanding has made me feel treacherous in some way, but I know that it’s not my fault.

The late John Leonard once said that it takes a long time to grow new friends, but what he didn’t observe was that it sometimes takes a much longer time for older friends to come to terms with how they’ve changed, and that sometimes the divide can’t be crossed. We become lost and occupied in our baroque lives, reuniting with longtime pals after many years and regularly hanging out with the current friends within our circles. Sometimes, the gaps between years are negligible, and it’s easy to pick up where things left off. It’s like a pleasant game of poker in which all the hands have remained face-down on the table, and the players have had the decency not to look at the cards. Despite the thick film of dust that has settled upon the green felt, all the participants play the game through. But there are other times in which the moment has passed, and some don’t wish to marvel at the great changes in others. It’s just an old card game that can’t be reinvented, rethought, or improved upon. And the cards languish until they are reshuffled by other parties. But it’s still a great pity that the people before never finished their game. As old as poker is, it can still conclude any number of ways. And even if you lose the current hand, you might win on the next one. It’s only a pleasant card game. Nothing competitive. Just a good way of getting to know another person. Even the ones you thought you understood.

Come On, It’s Friday

In the past twenty-four hours:

• I learned that someone I knew had committed suicide.
• A toilet exploded in my face.
• I spent fifteen minutes, desperate for caffeine, behind a man who unloaded Canadian change at a cafe and had to be informed that he was actually in the United States. He responded by spending another seven minutes going through his American change, trying to figure out the difference between a nickel and a dime. This was just after I received the phone call that someone I knew had committed suicide.
• I sat on a three-hour bus ride with a bunch of obnoxious frat boys. It took a deranged 2,000 word story written on a laptop, involving brain creatures, dismemberment, ash entities, and other horror elements, to stay sane throughout this regrettable trip.
• I witnessed a blind woman hold a crowded bus hostage by misquoting the American with Disabilities Act and demanding that the bus depart dramaticaly from its route. She was so terrible that even her friend was apologizing for her. The driver of this bus, however, was utterly professional. One of the best I’ve seen. But this kind of thing wouldn’t be tolerated in New York.
• I had a Strawberry Julius. This wasn’t so much traumatic, as it was strange.

I should point out that the past 24 hours were not all bad. But because of these strange circumstances, and the fact that I’m conducting an interview tomorrow morning, I hope you’ll allow me a fourteen hour reprieve or so before I post new material. Much of the above is funny in hindsight, and I will probably laugh myself to sleep. But I’m knackered from all of these ontological developments. Which is not to suggest that I’m a noble man. I do have a considerable amount of stamina, but sometimes too many odd things happen at once. Some gentleness is in order, but I’ll be back sometime soon.

Contents of Box

• A yellow legal-sized writing pad containing mysterious ideas and plans.
• An issue of Mike Hampton’s Hot Zombie Chicks.
• Minidisc case reading “Babbling — Raw #7. Also, The Babbling Project #1.” (No minidisc.)
• Minidisc case reading “1. Babble 2 6/6/00.” (No minidisc.)
• Mindisc (with case) reading “Babbling #8.”
• Y adapter for telephone line.
• Minidisc case — scratched and unmarked. (No minidisc.)
• Floppy disk with label scratching out Intellipoint driver, reading “ME — Startup.”
• Floppy disk (unmarked, unlabeled).
• Various audiocassettes from November 2004 containing interviews that I conducted to research a still unfinished polyamory play.
• Minidisc, with case reading “The Babbling Project #2.”
• Blue Sharpie
• Box of Bostich No. 10 1000 mini staples
• Unlabeled green floppy disk
• Floppy disk reading “Creative stuff began @ work I”
• Damaged minidisc with Chet Atkins and mysterious “Test 7/21/00″ label.
• Blue Pocket Etch A Sketch
• CD — containing driver for Olympus digital camera I no longer own.
• Unusued Ampex magnetic tape still in shrink wrap.
• 3M Recording Tape containing audio for uncompleted film.
• Many business cards.
• Many mysterious microcassettes — what’s on them?
• An incomplete San Francisco Secondary Schools Pass.
• A minicomic — Melina Mena’s Sour Milk Sea.
• A 2004 monthly calendar designed by my friend Tom Working.
• A strange package containing an adaptation cable for a video card that was fried sometime in 2005.
• A small bottle of Advil PM. (It’s still good! The expiration date is 10/09.)
• Many 3×5 index cards.
• A red Bostitch mini stapler.
• Many VHS videotapes containing (among many movies) Soapdish, episodes of the animated Star Trek series, episodes of Blake’s 7, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, episodes of Doctor Who and Monty Python, Twelve Angry Men, Sullivan’s Travels, Miracle Mile, episodes of The Simpsons, episodes of The Prisoner, Quick Change, an HBO special starring Rowan Atkinson, Suspiria, and Poison Ivy (recorded, no doubt, because of the promise of Sara Gilbert and Drew Barrymore naked).
• A pair of red scissors.
• A small journal I had forgotten about that contains the sentence, written in 1999, “I am slightly fearful of being laced with Judeo-Christian nonsense.”
• A CD containing photos of a play I wrote and directed many years ago for a small venue.
• An additional CD containing the sound cues for Wrestling an Alligator.
• A mysterious 5 1/4″ floppy — what’s on it? how to transfer?
• Numerous writing instruments.
• An unopened box containing a corner brace — 1-1/2 in. x 3/4 in.
• A student ID from 1991 in which I actually had hair.
• A Swingline package containing 5,000 standard staples.
• A floppy labeled, “YES! 4/97 Job Search.”
• A floppy labeled, “Servant of Society.”
• A receipt from Stacey’s Bookstore, dated 05/04/07, for Bleak House. (I still haven’t finished that book.)
• The Fat Camille Omnibus 2007 by Camille Offenbach.
• Another minicomic: Nitsy and Bitsy.
• A CD labeled “80s MP3s.” (Shudder.)
• An undeveloped roll of Fujicolor film from who knows when. (What pictures are on this?)
• Julia Wertz’s I Saw You…: Missed Connection Comics #1.
• A handout for an improv class that I took in 2005.
• A handout from MUNI on “Ballpark Service Tickets and Fares.
• A spare serial drive cable.
• 2 AA batteries — still good?
• A UHU STIC gluestick.
• Many DV tapes — containing what?
• Two VGA to DFI adapters.
• Printout of Segundo scheduling spreadsheet from 2006.
• 16mm yellow leader tape.

Most of this will probably be thrown away. But unfortunately, I’m too curious about the data that might be on some of these tapes. I’m additionally curious as to where I obtained some of this stuff. This curiosity, I suppose, is the problem with moving. When setting up in the new digs, I will likely expend a considerable amount of time trying to find a use for nearly everything on this list.

Ancient Job Evaluation Report

Employee: Ed Champion

Strong Points

• Flexible with hours and volunteers for evening and daytime overtime when available
• Recently demonstrated a willingness to help others in the office
• Willing to take criticism and improve
• Knows WP and Excel well
• Tasks are completed timely
• Good at staying in contact with attorneys

Points for Improvement

• Interactions with some people are defensive and prickly; needs to work on improving working relationships
• Pay better attention to detail, proofread work, do filing promptly
• Prioritize and delegate when appropriate
• Needs to focus on ______ work between 9 and 5:30
• Interrupts without showing courtesy to those in conversation
• Slow down and listen to instructions
• Show initiation in taking on new assignments or projects

Goals

• Keep work to a consistent level throughout the year
• Improve communications skills and relationships

Overall Performance Results: Meets Expectations

These are all good points for improvement, some of them still applicable. But at the risk of coming across as “defensive and prickly,” I should observe that my “defensive and prickly” interactions largely involved one attorney who took a good deal of his time to speak to me in a condescending tone about tasks that any well-trained monkey could perform. He did this over and over because his life was miserable, and he wanted to make other lives miserable. (And he did. But he has not yet made partner.) This may likewise explain the point suggesting that I needed to “slow down and listen to instructions.”

Counterprogramming

Everybody has strange feelings in their early twenties. It’s a time in which you really don’t know a damn thing and, in trying to figure out who you are, you end up wandering down many solipsistic avenues, thinking that you’re sure one thing is going to work out and not knowing that something entirely unexpected will find you. Confused by these feelings, you think that other people (a loved one, for example) will somehow help you find your way. But the answer lies in being true to yourself so that you can embrace others. While moving this weekend, I uncovered a number of notebooks in which I had penned all sorts of naive feelings. I was 23.

February 8, 1998 — 2:36 PM

Again my practice of purchasing a new notebook with the optimistic plan of filling it up in its entirety has been carried out. I have little doubt that this won’t be accomplished. But who are we without dreams?

There’s not a lot on my mind these days but there are a whole bunch of minor tedious things there to get my goat.

1998 so far has proven to be a creative dearth for me. There seems no motivation to write and what I do churn out are bad imitations of Jim Thompson novels as well as a certain obsession with sex.

This is due to several things that my obstinacy can’t seem to get around.

1. Sexual frustration — The lack of a woman, loved one or casual tryst for almost two years.

2. My trapped existence — The stability of a job seems to have taken most of the spark out of me.

3. Servant of Society — Although I haven’t stared at it for some time, the burden of reshooting all remaining material needs to happen. Unfortunately, El Nino seems to have concluded otherwise, forcing me to postpone the reshoots to March, weather permitting.

4. My inability to live/my obsession with books and knowledge — I need to take O. Henry’s advice and meet more people, experience other existences beyond the Sunset. While I like my current circle of friends, I really need to meet more people. Yet something is stopping me. Some irrational fear of getting hurt or screwed over prevents the extrovert from appearing as often as it should

I’ve thought about moving to L.A. simply because the creative competition will get me working again. In addition, the fact that I will move to a populated area knowing nobody will force the extrovert to come out, simply as a means of survival.

I feel very ignorant in a lot of areas and I’ve been checking out a lot of non-fiction from the library. I know so little about history and science — more so than the average person but not enough to satisfy myself.

Perhaps I am my own worst enemy. The part of me that is a perfectionist, the part of me that wants to survive on my own terms — these aspects of myself both help and hinder me. Yet I don’t know whow I can work with them and around them to accomplish goals.

And speaking of goals, what exactly is my plan? I’m sort of bedazzled by the fat that I’m actually making some decent money and able to go out spending outrageous money on drinks every Friday night.

But, as to the goals that brought me to San Francisco in the first place, I don’t know where the passion is anymore. All I know is that I’m 23 and that if I don’t accomplish something by the end of this year, I’ll feel like a washed-up failure. Several blocks seemed to have been put up in place last year, and I think my priorities have changed for the worst [sic] after spending the sumer trying to survive through temp work.

But leaving Servant on hold for so long also has something to do with this, in addition to my lack of a better half to put a check on my personal security and self-esteem.

Why is failure such an obsession with me? Why do I take it so personally? I bullshit around with friends telling them that I don’t care what other people think of me, but I kinda do.

But then presumably we’re all liars, twisting the absolute in our own private ays.

A cigarette outside, and then a run-in with the orchid guy I always meet on the bus. And then for no reason at all aside from the fact that all this shit is on my mind, I lay it on him. My “struggle” to do what I want.

It’s so fucking obvious, it’s lying just around the corner — if I can survive through temp work admist the upheaval of debts and other nonsense, I can write two decent screenplays and move to L.A. I can become a writer-director. In fact, I will.

The question is the method.

There’s one other variable I wanted to mention and that’s my sister. She just caught the filmmaking bug after taking the class with Brozovich. We’ve talked about the possibility of making movies together, which is indeed quite possible. But part of me is saying that I have to do this myself. I want to work with my sister but only after I’ve proven myself on my own.

Is that selfishness? I don’t know. It isn’t ego; maybe it’s some sort of odd pride I have.

I’ve concluded that Java Beach is too crowded and too noisy. A hegira to Jamming Java, I’ve concluded, is in order.

Class Distinctions

Back in the days when I played at the gilded trap known as the nine-to-five rap, there were often times in which my failure to distinguish social hierarchies was at odds with policies practiced off the clock. There was a night when I went out to dinner with my fellow co-workers. One of those terrible fusion places. The kind of place not so keen on food and atmosphere and social camaraderie, but where the individual goes to be seen. I have never cared too much about being seen, but I do like to have a good time, even if my own social tendencies sometimes get me in trouble.

The place pounded bad house music at deafening levels. There was very little light, save for a strip of green neon snaking around the perimeter of the bar. The waitstaff were clad in black, murky figures who sneaked up on tables like highwaymen descending upon a stagecoach. I kept feeling around for my wallet just to be sure.

It was clear from the stray sentences that managed to penetrate through the deplorable four four beat that my co-workers had class aspirations. Their fun was tied into the consumption of material goods. Whether spending every spare dollar on needless decor, drinks tabs that extended into a three digit sum in mere hours, or the blow that one secretary snorted in the restroom with a file clerk two decades her junior. (”I still have my tits,” she once said to me, little realizing that my interest in breasts had to be justified with some minimum but by no means unreasonable level of smarts.)

I lost interest in the talk of a reality television show I had never watched and began observing a server who reminded me very much of one of the attorneys at the firm I was then toiling at. She had spent a good deal of time perfecting her posture, had carefully kept up her skin, and was in her early thirties. Roughly around the same age. The resemblance was so similar to me that I could imagine her replacing a tray with an attache.

I pointed out these physical and behavioral similarities to the group. They looked, conceding that there was some resemblance. But the secretary, slamming down her fifth straight shot of Jamison’s, waved her finger imprecisely in my direction and insisted, “But [attorney name's excised] is beautiful!”

The waitress and the attorney were indeed both beautiful. But I didn’t really see why one would be more beautiful than the other. The only real difference was the vocation and the amount of take home pay.

But I suppose that if you look through a haze of drug and drink and drudgery, your sense of the world grows distorted. The ugly takes on a sudden allure. The tendrils of stasis start to resemble upward mobility. And beauty, which takes on many forms great and small and shouldn’t have a price tag, is hopelessly cross-stitched into commodity.

Half Day Off

Okay, I’ve just done the math. And I’ve written, to my great shock, 22,500 words for various professional endeavors in the past two and a half weeks, which includes toiling through Thanksgiving weekend. That doesn’t include the fiction or the blog posts here or half a radio script that I’ve been toiling at. Now I have a modest clue as to why I’m a bit exhausted. So if you’ll pardon me, folks, I’m taking the rest of the day off. And by “day off,” that means resuscitating the second computer and running a few modest errands, which even includes a quick research run.

No Harm

As with any human brain, my own has glaring deficiencies. Whole cavities of knowledge that I hope to fill. Proper restitution of the immediate territories reveals still more estival pores occupied by pop music lyrics, needlessly pedantic refs to events from twenty years ago, and other lithe, trunk-clad, mnemonic divers hoping their swan dives mesh with the wintry waters. Which is to say that these four lobes cannot be duly mapped or mopped, tapped or topped, and I remain at the mercy of a fallible and fluctuating organ. In the end, none of us really know anything. And I quite like that. But there’s no harm in trying.

You Don’t Want to Be My Friend

You don’t want to be my friend because I am possessed of two diametrically opposing qualities: a deeply visceral empathy and a concern for the logical, sometimes both at the same time, sometimes both canceling out. You don’t want to be my friend because, if you are a true friend, you have my incredible loyalty and this, I realize, can be overwhelming. You don’t want to be my friend because I am true to who I am and, while I try to be nice, I am not always nice. You don’t want to be my friend because I am committed to honesty, even when it hurts. And this mostly hurts me. You don’t want to be my friend because while I am good at elucidating at length and intelligence upon certain subjects, I am often not good at explaining my own feelings, assuming that I am not reluctant to do so — ergo, the title of this blog — because one has the obligation of showing up or being kind or responding to the munificence of other people. You don’t want to be my friend because I am very happy not knowing. You don’t want to be my friend because it takes me too long to reveal what others can tell you about themselves so easily. You don’t want to be my friend because I am often stopped in my tracks by a moment of cruelty or injustice and cannot let certain things slide and must rally against it, even though I hope that I will use my powers for good. You don’t want to be my friend because I don’t want anyone to hurt you and will remember those who do. You don’t want to be my friend because I am sometimes an introvert who masquerades as an extrovert, and am perhaps something of a social fraud because of this. You don’t want to be my friend because while I am confident about who I am, I am not sure if the scars have completely healed. You don’t want to be my friend because my face is terribly expressive. You don’t want to be my friend because I very frequently don’t want to ask for anything. You don’t want to be my friend because I want to bear burdens silently.

You don’t.

Want to be.

My friend.

Last night, I had a horrible nightmare in which I learned that my own mother had been responsible for My Lai. I woke up shaking, sweating, my huge heart thumping loud within my chest. I also had a wonderful dream in which several kind jazz musicians allowed me to sing with them on stage after it was demonstrated that I couldn’t play any of their instruments.

You see, there are also good things that come from all these emotional realities. And the shame in typing a phrase like “you don’t want to be my friend” makes me wonder if I am again being too hard on myself, if I am again feeling guilt for not being perfect, if I am momentarily advocating Donne’s dangerous maxim, if I am otherwise grappling with the burdens of being human.

But I do want to be your friend. And I’ll understand if you don’t want me to be your friend. But it goes without saying that we’re all in this together and life is too short not to try.

Confessions of a Political Fraud

More and more, I’m finding myself to be a political fraud. Here I am, ostensibly progressive, and yet silently buffeting a nation in which the invasion of civil liberties and waterboarding as a legitimate interrogation technique are accepted as if they were no more injurious than an insect crawling up one’s forearm. Here I am, reading about Darfur and feeling somewhat complicit in remaining relatively silent about the homicidal fracas and in not writing a letter to a representative who is allegedly supposed to represent me, but who will likely do nothing. What power do I really have? If I attend a protest against the war, what good will this really do?*

It’s clear that the arrogant tyrants in power are quite content to keep fingers in their ears and sing, “La la la, I can’t hear you” for the next two years while Rome burns. It’s clear that the Democrats, who have now had almost a year to stand up to these tyrants, are no less self-serving in their failure to act than the supposed party of corruption. It’s also clear that the American public is more content to feel smug and somehow better than these apparent buffoons in power by watching some “satirical” news report delivered by Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. But when the chief news outlet that questions authority is framed within a comic context, does this not, on some level, treat the issue as pedantic? Should we not be outraged by people dying or falsely imprisoned brown-skinned people being tortured or our conversations being recorded without our permission rather than remain emotionally detached, staring down these developments with nothing more than the false comfort of irony? And how is watching television doing one’s part as a citizen? Is the American liberal’s default setting merely to take in disturbing information over a nice breakfast, furrow his brow, and then go about the business of paying his bills?

Understand that I don’t recuse myself at all. I am that guy. And I stand here guilty and defenseless for failing to do my part. Please lay into me. And while you’re at it, lay into yourself. I’m very much that American liberal who does nothing. Or to be a bit more generous, close to nothing. Sure, I’ll send emails and letters to people every now and then. Sometimes, they’ll write back. Sometimes, particularly on the local level, they’ll be a small victory. Sure, I have voted in every election since I came of voting age. Sure, I’ll think about politics, but I often keep these thoughts to myself. Because I have no wish to be a chowderhead contributing to that sweltering and insufferable Babel tower of predictable platitudes and ill-informed rhetoric. Is this wise or is this evading political responsibility? I have no desire to be part of a mechanism in which one must remain firmly locked in one’s views, in which one cannot question the very principles that one is supporting, and in which one cannot change one’s mind. I have developed a rather odd temperament in recent years of remaining somewhat opinionated, yet quite capable of dramatically shifting my views when someone has presented me with additional information. My peers and pals, who are getting married and having babies and abandoning politics with a nonchalance even more celeritous than mine, wish to settle for domestic lives. There is little room for a more global gravity. And that’s fine, I suppose. These are their choices. But surely someone can step in who doesn’t sound like a mahcine reading boilerplate from a monitor.

I’ve pondered running for political office — on some local level. Friends, aware of my persuasive panache, have suggested that I go to law school. But I would rather use my powers for good. Having seen so many idealisitic politicians give into the inevitabilities of this corrupt system, I don’t want to be that latter day politician who pretends that there is no ideological trajectory. So what’s left? Writing about this? Confessing one’s political inadequacies on a blog? Voting in the elections and persuading other people to vote? Given the great monster ensconced in DC, is this really adequate enough? Am I some new version of what Goldhagen called an “willing executioner?”

The question I ask is whether we are now in an unprecedented period of American history, where the problems we now face us are far more significant than anything we’ve experienced in quite a long time, where the very fabric of this country has been damn near permanently stained, and where being cheery, as I often am, or latching onto entertainment, as I often do, is really the right thing to do when we may very well be perched on the point of no return.

* — I used to be an active protestor. But I developed an antipathy to protesting when I attended an antiwar protest five years ago. I followed a splinter group through San Francisco, and watched as two ruffians, apparently there to protest against violence, beat down a homeless man who would not join their march. I felt sickened because I did not help this homeless man, who was terrified and cowering from further flails, and because I did not go after the two thugs who beat this man down. Does this incident speak for all protests? No. But it did leave a despicable taste in my mouth — both in regard to the nature of protesting and my own surprising stance. I wondered if my own failure to act, to check up on this homeless man, and to get him help if necessary, was part of the same blind herd mentality that had riled up this throng and caused two to go over the edge. I had not submitted to casual violence. But I did certainly submit to apathy. In joining a protest, one must subscribe to some common goal. But does one become overly accepting, perhaps too accepting, of aberrations? Are certain distasteful qualities revealed in the act of the protest? I think so, and I plead guilty. I should have acted and didn’t. And I have regretted that unfortunate evening countless times, and will likely continue to regret it.

Personal Meme

Rachel Kramer Bussel has tagged me for a meme. And who am I to deny her? So here goes:

1. I believe I may have written about this before, but in the second grade, I was apparently considered “special” and “gifted” after being asked to go to my elementary school on a very hot Saturday morning and participating in some tests that involved spatial dimensions, memory, and verbal skills. The man who tested me, upon seeing my results, began speaking to me in an extremely quiet and nurturing tone. I saw him speak to other adults, who likewise pointed to me. Frankly, now and then, I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. I will be the first to confess that I try to do my best, but that it often isn’t good enough to satisfy me. But this did permit me to enter into a GATE program, where I was bussed once a week to another school and encouraged to think and create. But since I was given nothing specific in the way of ideas or guidelines, since I didn’t have nearly as many books as some of the other richer, middle-class students had, I ended up getting an incredible crush on an older girl named Kristin, spending my time combating a horrible diffidence that crippled me for many years. But I did end up experiencing my first kiss — I don’t count the other pecks I received in preschool and kindergarten, which were more predicated upon “girls are icky” games in the schoolyard — after I gave her a box of After Eight mints that one of the men my mother had dated — a New Yorker, who tried to offer paternal advice to me over the phone — convinced my mother to spring for. The box of mints was six bucks. No small purchase back in those days.

2. As further evidence of my incongruous smarts, I ended up on a Knowledge Bowl team in seventh grade, where I was roundly ridiculed for my ratty clothes and how apparently stupid I was. It wasn’t my idea to be on the Knowledge Bowl. My English teacher, who was miffed when I once defended Stephen King’s virtues by stuttering my points in front of the class, had the idea of putting me on the team. I obliged him and I didn’t know why. We participated in the initial round by staring at a primitive computer terminal — a TRS-80, as I recall — that was linked to several other schools over what now seems the flimsiest of networks, but was then cutting edge. There were a few cases where I knew some obscure answer, although I felt tremendously dumb because my geography and science horrible. But I was very good at language, and remembering painters and musicians. And I saved the team from a defeat by offering a few eleventh-hour answers: both through this computer-based contest and during a later one, conducted live in front of parents and other kids. The other kids on the team — again, much richer and better dressed than me — still viewed me as a dork and a dumbass. For all I knew, they might have been right. But I did find a few other misfits who I got along with. In addition to introducing me to The Prisoner, a television series I still hold in high regard, they also taught me how to use a ten-sided die and encouraged me to do something called “DMing.” There, I invented a remarkably complex universe and tried to account for every conceivable choice that the other players would make, creating a document of what-ifs that was somewhere around thirty handwritten pages. (I also had a tendency to create fictitious countries, complete with economies and demographics. I submitted one such country, using a yeast concoction to generate three-dimensional mountains and carefully painting over it, to my history teacher.)

3. Other failed contests along these lines — my efforts debilitated by my unshakable shyness — included getting to the district spelling bee and, with three kids remaining, misspelling “leopard” by stuttering the O (”l…e…ooooooo…p…a..r…d”) because I was so nervous (I whispered “Whew!” into the mike after spelling a word correctly, where the whoosh from my lips would reverberate across the PA system); being invited to perform at a school district choir before puberty and hiding from everybody, until a kind dark-haired girl took an interest in me and told me what a great singer I was and that the choir needed me and somehow coaxed me onto stage; and, in ninth grade, getting very far in a school district speech contest, only to become very nervous because I had a crush on a redhaired girl named Stacey. But she was a Bush supporter in ‘88 who hated my guts and was very resolute in letting me know it. (There was also a malicious, dark-haired Republican-in-training named Louis, who did everything in his powers to make my life miserable, including mocking my stutter, ridiculing my Marshall’s-purchased sweaters, and, in particular, not even permitting me to be a third-string class clown.)

4. Politically, I was a late bloomer. It was 1988, when a very tall senior named Chris, son of a very political man and a kind-hearted laidback guy who ran an underground newspaper (and asked me to write for it, which I did) and who showed me the ropes on how to light a theatrical play, asked me if I was liberal and made me understand what being a liberal entailed, that I realized I was an opinionated young progressive lout. I didn’t understand then why everybody was going after Tip O’Neill. And as soon as my liberalism was out, several hippie chicks in my drama class wanted to corrupt me. But I was too shy then to let them do this. I was, as I believe I have imputed in the previous paragraphs, a fool.

5. 1988 was also the year in which something I wrote was actually performed. It wasn’t much — a play called Inspired Lunacy: Or I Think This is a Big Mistake — very much modeled on Douglas Adams, the Three Stooges, and the Marx Brothers. Two other guys helped write this: a short guy named Chris and a guy named Eric who everybody hated. I deliberately took the third credit, because I didn’t know what I was doing. I shamelessly lifted gags that I had seen pulled off in other mediums. But what I learned with this play was that the humor I came up — which, with the exceptions of a few kind teachers and students, I thought pretty crappy — generated laughter, but that the stuff I stole didn’t. This encouraged me to go into crazier areas, such as a literal adaptation of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” a few years later, which set the murderous events over a suburban teenage party. I wrote and starred in that fifteen-minute theatrical piece, but it was the first time I had seen my material directed by somebody else. The director was extremely ambitious, using crazed gel lighting. In my bedroom, I practiced my murderous fall for hours so that it would be fairly convincing, angering the family (”How dare you make that noise!”) with my many thumps. The idea of my theatrical adaptation was to present something comical and end it with something startling and sad. I think this was my way of communicating the unpleasant domestic situation to my classmates.

6. Only a few years after the Poe hijinks, I spent far too many hours examining Buster Keaton’s moves on grainy VHS tapes and second-hand DVDs, trying to fall like him. When girlfriends asked where my bruises came from, I never offered an answer. I was not as shy as I had been as a kid, but I was still ashamed of who I was.

7. One of my favorite bars in my twenties was a neighborhood dive called Kelly’s Bar and No Grill (later turned into Pittsburgh’s Pub under new ownership). I’d spend hours there listening to conversations because I learned fairly quickly that the place was where former convicts would go in and get set up. It was sometimes a rough place. (I once witnessed a knife fight there, which, in my youthful folly and idealism, I actually attempted to stop. Thankfully, I was not stabbed.) But I learned more about people just by sitting there during happy hour and listening. I often went alone. But then friends discovered the place and we played darts. By then the riff-raff had dissembled. And it became a pleasant, but fairly run-of-the-mill dive.

8. My skin thickened considerably when I worked for a particular mean attorney. His personal remarks and observations were often extremely vicious, but I began to see how utterly absurd they were and they melted off my Teflon shell. So I have to thank him tremendously for toughening me up. He also inspired the Businessman character in my 2004 play, Wrestling an Alligator.

Anyway, time to pass the meme on. Here are the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

And here are the people I pass this onto (only eight? So unfair!):

Jeff Bryant

Sarah Weinman

Mark Sarvas

Tayari Jones

Jason Boog

Levi Asher

SJ of I, Asshole

Shauna of What’s New Pussycat

Easter

I am half-awake and in need of resurrection. Head crushing, by no means crucified, from scant sleep, I head to one of my Sunday breakfast haunts, seeing flocks of families acknowledging an altogether different notion of rebirth. Mine is more prosaic and can be executed the other 364 days of the year. One of the problems with being without religion is that there are no cues. There is no atheist church, but one finds community in other ways.

There are many nonoverlapping sights that catch my attention: The new waitress who presumably fits the bill of “two years’ experience” that was registered on the help wanted sign, now gone. I don’t know if she fudged her years, but I suspect she has. She is pleasant enough, but she is inexpert at replenishing coffee. I still tip her well. Her jeans slip down her waist, forming a sharp hyperbolic ellipse that reveals the beginnings of a paunch and the top portion of an oval tattoo close to vulva. Hyperbolic curve revealing hidden hyperbolic curve clipped by the denim demarcating line. With its wholesome-debauched dichotomy, it reminds me of the Beriln Wall. But this exhibitionism is commonplace in my neighborhood and it doesn’t faze me.

I can certainly empathize with the confused and bushy-haired young man who is being vetted by his girlfriend’s parents. He didn’t get the memo that it was Easter either. His blue bandanna holds back unruly shocks of brown hair which disappear behind his blue sweatshirt. The other three people at his table are dressed like the families, which is to say suited, and they have signaled this disparity by shifting their posteriors to the left of the booth, all bunched in solidarity against this man’s sartorial indiscretion. Shirtsleeves or dressing down simply aren’t options here and I wonder if someone is going to arrest me for wearing yesterday’s denim shirt or failing to shave or not remembering the miracle of the nailed man on the cross. I’m certainly not cross towards any of these believers.

The table that draws my attention, and I am curious and observant because I failed to bring a book, is a father with two children. The father is moribund, suffusing strawberry jam in a sad and solitary way. His son and daughter are happy, frequently leaving the table to run circles around an aquarium just across the tiles. Papa does not share their zeal, but he has spiffed up his son, who is also besuited and well-groomed. Papa is dressed in a crisp blue blazer and a burgundy shirt and a smart tie blending in like Cézanne. He is in his mid-forties, the remains of his hair closely cropped. The balding is now at an end for him. I wonder if I will look like him in a decade or so when my hair eventually goes. I am wondering if he has the kids because his ex-wife forgot to pick them up. I am wondering if he was burned by someone or whether he is just hungry or disguising his sadness by appearing here with his brood. Perhaps the diner permits him to escape or saves him the labor of cooking eggs, potatos and bacon in that proud male manner that I have employed for women who wake up with me on a Sunday morning. Perhaps he needs a woman to swing his skillet. His children do not notice his loneliness. The waitress may not have two years’ experience, but she is expert enough to pick up on social cues and leaves the man to find a quiet paternal bonding with his children.

The divorce can’t be recent. (Or is he a widower?) The children are too happy. And I really hope this man will display some kind of joy. Maybe he might smile, as I did, over the waitress’s oval tattoo. Or perhaps he considers himself too old for this puerile preening or he doesn’t want anyone to see his giddy dregs.

But it turns out that I am very wrong. For as the man walks in the distance to settle up, I see the slight upward curve of a smile. And I see him engage in minor flirtation with the waitress, channeling some young part that I had thought dead. I wonder if he has read my mind. As the pleasant din of early Marley delights the diners, the man begins dancing a twinkly two-step, one that he hasn’t employed since his days in the dance clubs. And I see now why the kids love him.

Twenty minutes after this man has disappeared, I pay my check. I be-bop as well, with decidedly more swings of the arms, in deference to this man’s giddy human spirit, wondering if anyone is watching me and hoping that my clumsy but pleasantly executed moves will inspire them to dance a demented jig for a day that is, as far as I’m concerned, too restrictive of the beatific human spirit.

Rats

I shot out of bed this morning at 3:30 AM and I haven’t been to bed since. This is saying something because I am a deep sleeper. I was woken this morning by a rat who scurried under my futon. The rat was about six inches in length — likely a Norway menace — and its slimy curlicue tail swirled about a foot away from my head. I have heard the rats (there are many of them) scurrying through some of my papers. I have heard them in the walls and it is just as scary as Lovecraft’s story. Where did they come from? They stormed my apartment in one parasitical burst.

I am now in a coffeehouse. The exterminators are coming this afternoon. I have no desire to return to my apartment, although I have been brave and did some work while keeping my legs under my ass. I have tried to do more work, but it has been to no avail. The exterminators tell me that it will take repeat visits to rid the apartment of this infestation, but that the vermin should be exterminated in about two to three weeks. They offer a 90 day warranty, which I find interesting, given that the service involves destroying rather than preserving something.

I did not expect this to happen to me. I am certainly not a heroin addict nor do I welcome squalor. I may be messy, but I am not a total slob. Certainly the apartment has been in worse shape than it is in right now and the rats did not come. I suspect that the rats were attracted by the recent bathroom leak. Sewage is their natural habitat. And there was a hole in my bathroom ceiling for several days. Put it together.

I know there is a hole behind one of my bookshelves, for that is where this morning’s rat came from. Thankfully, it did not give two shits about me, but I let out a considerable squeal and vowed to kill the bastard. Unfortunately, I was unarmed and, even if I had possessed a weapon, I had no wish to catch the bubonic plague. I know there is another hole somewhere in my closet and I have kept that door shut. I hear the rats scratching from behind the heater. Christ, how many of them are there?

I will be staying in a hotel tonight. I have cracked many rat jokes, but there is still something unshakably menacing about the vermin. These damn things copulate several times a year and produce a litter of twenty or more. There are more rats than humans on this planet.* I am operating off of two hours of sleep and am keeping myself awake with Americanos.

I look upon the exterminators as my private mercenaries, my comrades in arms. I know that we will defeat the bastards.

But if it’s quiet around here for a while, you now know why.

* — I have since learned that this is false. Blame my understandable anxieties here.

[UPDATE: The exterminator has arrived, sealed off openings, and laid down traps. Apparently, the mice were coming through openings in the garage, which have now been sealed. The remaining ten to twenty mice will die in the next seven days. There's a funny story here for a future post. I talked with the guy for a while. But it will have to wait. Needless to say, I now have a deranged respect for exterminators.]

Birthdays

I turn 32 today, and I hate it. Not because I am concerned with aging or because I am ashamed of who I am. I’m proud of my achivements and I’m doing just fine. No, I hate this whole birthday thing because it causes my faith in other people to dwindle into near misanthropy — if only for a day. Like anything, it passes. In many ways, how one person acts around you on your birthday (treating you coldly or failing to even say hello when they know very well it’s your birthday and this damn knowledge has made the office rounds without your sanction) is a measure of how they view you as a human being. But I also realize that this is an inaccurate measure, that people are subject to personal whims, that they have lives and they’re doing the best they can, and that it is unfair for me to judge them based on one day. Further, who am I to expect anything from anyone? And who the hell am I to judge?

The problem extends to just how important a birthday is and how it ties into one’s ego. To celebrate one’s self or, to use a verb suggested to me this morning, “pamper” one’s self strikes me as a horrid act of solipsism. To assume that others should reschedule their lives around you is even more selfish. And I suppose I’m committing the ultimate act of selfishness by laying down these neuroses in writing. But I must be honest here.

Here is the cruel irony: I am embarassed by any attentions showered on me, but I do pine for it in some casual, picayune, and non-materialistic manner. The last time I attempted any kind of celebration with friends (a few years ago), I tried simply to meet for drinks in a pub. There was no need for anybody to bring gifts. Just a casual conversation. Perhaps a few “Happy birthday, Eds” thrown in for good measure. I figured this was a halfway house between lavish blowout and informal confab. A way for me to become comfortable with the idea of the birthday, which seemed to delight everyone else.

Nobody showed up. I felt about as insignificant as the fly crawling up my glass of Guinness.

So I have removed myself from the equation. But I’m not sure if this is the right approach either.

Because we are dealing with an issue where one’s status is raised or lowered in relation to how a birthday is celebrated, I dread the birthday’s assault on my steady internal barometer. A birthday enters the equation and it threatens to blow a strong gale against the steady sail I use to guide my course. The birthday is entirely different from the curve balls life throws you, which are generally not personally directed at you and don’t involve you and can be responded to with action and discipline.

Since my own attitude doesn’t subscribe to the whole “Hey, here’s a cake! It’s your day!” approach that seems to be the norm, I try to wiggle my way out by avoiding most of humanity. It’s probably a shitty thing to do, particularly when my friends are only being kind and are just doing their best to make me happy. And I certainly don’t welcome this passive approach on my part, which is somewhat cowardly and only continues to exacerbate the problem. I really want to conquer the birthday in the same way that I triumphed over my hesitations about Xmas by doing volunteer work instead of participating in that holiday’s abject consumerism. But I don’t know how to do it. Because the damn thing’s all about me.

I feel that when I reveal even modest impulses (”Can we go out for drinks? Can we go out for dinner?”) that I’m like that wretched kid in that old Twilight Zone episode who has powers over all of the adults around him and forces them to submit to his every desire. Shouldn’t social occasions happen because people simply want to meet each other?

I certainly don’t want to burden my friends with any feelings which suggest that I’m ungrateful. I don’t want to be some miserable beacon that they have to celebrate or reassure, even in a small way. I don’t like the fact that for twenty-four hours, I become this minor bundle of nerves because I’m so self-conscious.

Why do I still blush in my fucking thirties when people wish me happy birthday? I can handle damn near everything else. I’ve had stalkers and death threats. There is no end to the amount of vitriol I have received over the years. But I’ve always been able to laugh that all off and dwell upon the positive.

The birthday, alas, is cut of an altogether different cloth. And I wish I knew exactly why. I cried on my thirtieth birthday when my then girlfriend baked me a cake. When my now girlfriend sang me happy birthday to me on the phone this morning, I was embarassed to tell her know how much this meant. When emails poured in this morning from a few friends, I couldn’t even type in the word “Thanks.”

I don’t know what to do about any of this. But at least I know there’s tomorrow. I know that tomorrow I’ll be myself again, divested of the importance and the attention (or lack thereof).

Taking a Leak

The good news first, since, acerbic tendencies aside, I’m an optimist: Ami Greko is a goddess. I’ll say no more. It arrived today. Thank you thank you thank you, Ms. Greko. I will start reading it tomorrow and report back here when I’m finished.

The bad news: I had intended to offer more content and podcasts this week, but there have been, how shall we say it exactly, existential complications. My landlord, who is thankfully a hundredfold more responsive than either Michael Brown or George Bush, and I are still contending with the leak from hell, which has now sullied quite a few of my books with water damage. All of them, thankfully, are easily replacable, although I’ve had to place my collection of tomes published in the 19th century into the main room.

Apparently, just after I left for work this morning, the leak broke big, assuming Biblical proportions. The water in the bucket overflowed and my landlord discovered upon entry a capacious puddle extending down the hallway. Knowing of my bibliomania, he was kind enough to shift some of the bookpiles onto shelves. We’re going into the ceiling tomorrow. The source of the leak remains unknown. I suspect the bathroom will resemble Gene Hackman’s apartment at the end of The Conversation. But no matter. We will prevail against the dreaded water.

Such is the life of being an urban dweller and a renter.

What this means is that tomorrow’s LBC podcast may be delayed until the weekend. Then again, I may get it finished. We shall see.

Yet Another Meme

Origin point, pulled from Gwenda.

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops?

Yes. And I can only imagine how often I’d be searched if I wasn’t Caucasian or relatively clean-cut looking.

2. Do you close your eyes on roller coasters?

Why would anyone want to do this? Diffidence and amusement park rides are hardly the peanut butter and jelly of human experience. If by “closing your eyes,” you refer to blinking, well, I do quite a lot of that. But this is entirely unrelated to the roller coaster and has more to do with removing irritants from the cornea. However, you’ve given me an idea! The next time I ride a roller coaster, I will see how long I can ride it without blinking.

3. When’s the last time you’ve been sledding?

I recall a few makeshift sledding moments in my teens in the Sierra Nevada. But keep in mind that I’m inveterately Californian. As such, snow is largely an exotic meterological phenomenon to me. Which is not to suggest I’m anti-sledding or anti-snow. In fact, I have long harbored a desire to take up bobsledding.

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?

Someone else, although I have no problem with the latter Circadian predicament. To paraphrase Woody Allen, I suppose that sleeping alone means sleeping with someone you love.

5. Do you believe in ghosts?

I don’t believe in the supernatural, which extends not only to ghosts but manufactured deities that a lot of angry people seem to find comfort with. In fact, I once accompanied a friend to a dark park in San Bernardino. My friend insisted that this park was haunted. When he said this, the creepy feelings I had about the park’s gloomy atmosphere immediately lifted and I spent the next twenty minutes convincing my friend that the park was not, in fact, haunted. And he was able to feel less fearful about the park.

This is not to suggest that I don’t enjoy the concept of ghosts. In fact, I greatly enjoy reading tales about mythological entities — what some folks call “speculative fiction” or “horror.”

6. Do you consider yourself creative?

Talk with my accountant, who I understand practices in a “creative” capacity.

7. Do you think O.J. killed his wife?

Maybe. But I don’t feel I can prognosticate upon this question unless I’ve examined all of the evidence. I was troubled by the “O.J. did it” impulse that so many Americans latched onto in the mid-90’s. By virtue of reading tabloid stories or watching excerpts on television, many took it upon themselves to venture opinions that seemed uninformed to my ears. I was disinclined to care, but I did offer a few “uh huhs” and utterly dumbass asides for those who needed to talk about it. O.J. Simpson was a bad guy, but he wasn’t exactly Adolf Eichmann, was he?

8. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?

While both of these women are quite beautiful, I don’t believe I could sleep with either of them until I’ve had a chance to talk with them and see if we’re conversationally compatible. But I’m in a happy relationship right now. And if you’re going to tempt me, why not up the stakes a bit or go a little nuts with the question? Why not ask: Would you sleep with Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie and your girlfriend? Or your girlfriend and a clone of your girlfriend? Come on,appeal to the polymorphously perverse! I have a lot of that going on.

9. Do you stay friends with your ex’s?

Every effort has been made to stay friendly with them. Alas, the women who I have dated in the past few years prefer to adopt a “scorched earth” policy when the relationship is over. I suspect this has much to do with bad timing shortly after the final relationship meeting — likely my fault. At that point, being an emotional sort, I’m generally upset and the prospect of exchanging possessions we’ve left at each other’s apartments feels cold and transactional. Oddly enough, the ex-girlfriends seem to be perfectly okay with this, which causes me to become even more laconic and desiring to get very much the hell out of there. The ex-girlfriends then interpret this to be an insensitive gesture on my part (and perhaps it is) and, when I am friendly weeks later, after I have allowed my emotions to sort themselves out, I am persona non grata. Although there has been some improvement on the “let’s be friends” front with the last few.

10. Do you know how to play poker?

If you’re asking me if I can bluff, then yes.

11. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight?

I have, in fact, been awake for 72 hours straight. Four times. All this without drugs. I am devoting myself to science, so that the appropriate biologist might better understand strange people.

12. What’s your favorite commercial?

I’m particularly fond of the Daisy commercial, which finally revealed to the world just how ridiculous presidential politics could be. Only a man like Lyndon Johnson would try to win votes by scaring the bejesus out of voters with nuclear war. You have to respect that kind of brazen melodramatic approach to winning. Of course, since the commercial aired in 1964, it’s been downhill ever since.

13. What are you allergic to?

Cats and excessive pollen.

14. If you’re driving in the middle of the night, and no one is around do you run red lights?

Well, this all depends on whether I’m feeling particularly nihilistic.

15. Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?

Yes. I happen to know what Col. Sanders’ 11 herbs and spices are. Granted, some people probably know this already. But since Col. Sanders is dead and the KFC people have likely belittled the old man’s great recipe, I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m sitting on an exclusive.

16. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees?

By way of Boston having a team symbolizing a laundering nightmare for those with crisp white briefs and New York opting for a general and rather unoriginal patriotic noun, I choose the Sox.

17. Have you ever been Ice Skating?

I have. It was catastrophic. One should never take up ice skating after a pub crawl.

18. How often do you remember your dreams?

I remember half of my dreams and try to write them down when I can.

19. When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried?

Yesterday, when thinking about that time I thought about the time that was really funny.

20. Can you name 5 songs by The Beatles?

Yes. Right now, what comes to my head is “I’m Only Sleeping,” “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number),” “Day Tripper,” “Oh Darling,” and “Yer Blues.”

21. What’s the one thing on your mind now?

There’s this strange skull that seems to have this funny idea that it needs to be there to protect my brain from the elements. I suppose that I could wear a hat and have two things on my mind.

22. Do you know who Ghetto-ass barbie is?

Yes, but she wasn’t nearly as interesting as Eight Months Pregnant Barbie (although I thought Mattel went a little too far with that stomach you could pop open), Menopausal Barbie, Don’t Fuck With Me I’ve Just Had My Period Barbie, or It’s Time to Shop for Shoes Barbie.

23. Do you always wear your seat belt?

Sometimes.

24. What cell service do you use?

Mononuclear. Have you heard of it? These guys have a pretty affordable mitosis add-on too, although it’s no substitute for text messages.

25. Do you like Sushi?

Yes.

26. Have you ever narrowly avoided a fatal accident?

Yes.

27. What do you wear to bed?

Nothing.

28. Been caught stealing?

I’m not much of a thief. The one time I did steal something, it was a Weird Al Yankovic tape from K-Mart. I was in eighth grade. And I only did this because of peer pressure from my so-called pals at the time. Ironically enough, all of our parents learned that we had stealed and I was declared the bad influence. When in fact the notion of stealing had never been my idea and I had been egged on. Being a rather shy, nervous and misunderstood kid, I had hoped that my indiscretion would curry favor with these small-time urchins. Instead, I was declared a menace in the ratty apartment complex we lived in. And these kids were instructed to avoid me.

29. What shoe size do you have?

That’s a very personal question! Only my lovers will know the answer!

30. Do you truly hate anyone?

While I’m generally a person who can find something good within everyone, even my nemeses, I have tried long and hard to find one good thing about President George W. Bush. But I cannot find a single positive thing to say about him.

31. Classic Rock or Rap?

Both, mothafuckah!

32. If you could sleep with one famous person, who would it be?

Why settle for one? If one is to commit such an indecency, I think it behooves the intrepid Lothario to sleep with as many famous people as possible in one evening. And, besides, I prefer to sleep with infamous people.

33. Favorite Song?

I think right now I’ll opt for “Billy Don’t Be a Hero,” a truly wretched song that allows one to name fifty songs in response that are infinitely better. Unfortunately, this also means avoiding this troubling question.

34. Have you ever sang in front of the mirror?

I’m not particularly fond of staring at myself in front of a mirror. What this means is that my mirror activities are confined to shaving and brushing my teeth. I am precluded from singing when I am holding a razor to my face, seeing as how any physical shift might cause an unexpected swipe and blood to spurt out in Peckinpah-like proportions. The latter activity, of course, makes singing quite difficult, but not impossible. And sometimes it’s quite enjoyable to watch the frothy toothpaste hit the mirror as I attempt to stumble my way through a Bob Dylan tune.

35. What food do you find disgusting?

Many people don’t realize this, but the Lima bean was actually discovered by Mendel. Mendel introduced this wholly inhospitable vegetable to the populace in an effort to steer people off small elliptical vegetables. After all, Mendel was a priest. And not having much of an income, he needed all the pea plants he could get to conduct his genetic experiments. What nobody anticipated, however, was that the Lima bean would actually catch on and be forced down the gullets of reluctant children. The Lima bean is not only disgusting, but it has given vegetables a bad rap. It has caused more childhood nightmares than any vegetable rightly should. If I might be allowed to adopt a controversial position, I wholly endorse its total annihilation from the planet Earth.

36. Do you sing in the shower?

I do sing in the shower, but my problem is that, because I don’t have a shower stall to enclose me. So I’m not certain if I’m actually “in the shower.” After all, when you’re dealing with a shower curtain which permits you to shower in a bathtub, there’s always the possibility that the shower curtain might slide back or fall off. Meaning that you won’t actually be “in the shower,” but “half-immersed in an improvised shower.” To add insult to injury, the water will then spill onto the tile and create a colossal mess that you might have to mop up later. However, despite the manic anarchy here, one can still sing.

37. Did you ever play, “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours”?

I’m the proud owner of the original version of this board game, which was put out by Milton Bradley in 1954. Offered as an alternative to Parcheesi and Monopoly, I’ll Show You Mine, If You Show Me Yours was an early effort by a few sensitive types to create a noncompetitive game. While this game proved a failure during the Eisenhower administration, fortunately the people behind this game were able to sell a new version of this called “The Ungame” in the 1970s, as Sensitive Males (led in part by Alan Alda and Phil Donahue) rose to national prominence.

38. Have you ever made fun of your friends behind their back?

I find that it’s better to crack jokes about friends when standing behind them, rather in front of them. This generally affords them the opportunity to take things in. They can always turn around to face me if they take particular umbrage.

39. Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew?

All the time. Those pesky older people, for example, feel the need to take my subway seat without even bothering to introduce themselves.

40. Have you ever been punched in the face?

Yes. But the guy meant to hit the obnoxious man sitting in the bar stool behind me.

Guess It’s Time to Fly South

At the risk of postulating neuroses writ large, I have slept seven and a half of the past seventy-two hours. As I snoozed during five of these hours, Windows Update decided to restart my machine (without giving me an opportunity to save my work) and didn’t bother to ask me about my feelings on the matter♠, which meant that I lost a good deal of the work I had done on this week’s LBC podcast. The Heti interview will have to wait until next week. I suspect that a good pal hated the band we saw the other night♣ and, if so, I feel guilty♥ that he blew some bucks on a band I had been dying to see live since 2003.

Much of these thoughts and feelings have, of course, been shaped through a rather incredible confluence of exhaustion, overwork, and, most of all, a failure to account for my own limitations. Of course, if I had to do it all again, I’d sacrifice sleep and fall on my face again. That’s what it says to do in the government-issued manual♦.

Aside from all this, things are positive, happening and toe-tapping. And I shall scribe again for public consumption on Tuesday — hopefully, with clean hands and composure. Do have yourselves a fantastic weekend!

♠ — Maybe I’m alone in this, but I feel that, aside from informing you just how they intend to cripple your system resources, operating systems should ask you how you feel from time to time. It would certainly advance the relationship chasm between humans and computers.

♣ — The Quasi show at Cafe du Nord wasn’t bad, but was seriously impaired by the terrible sound afforded to Sam Coomes’ keys, which did a gross injustice to Coomes’ propensity to slam on the ivory like a mad musician. The minute Coomes (now sporting a beard) took up the axe, things improved greatly — in large part because he was dishelved, looked somewhat bemused and had a rather joyfully spastic stage presence. Also, Janet Weiss is a solid drummer. But if you’re a Sleater-Kinney fan, you already know this.

♥ — Guilty because said pal attended a previous show with me that he didn’t care for. I’m not adverse to going to shows that he suggests, but I’ve apparently been the vocal party in this “Do you wanna go see a show?” business and feel horribly solipsistic as a result.

♦ — You got the same thing in your 1040 booklets as I did, didn’t you?

We Know When Our Asses Are Kicked

Life (and other things) has been treating us quite well, which is to say that we’re too occupied with this glorious thing called living and probably too exhausted or preoccupied to blog in any thorough capacity. On Sunday, we were quite shocked to sleep until 1 PM, which we hadn’t done in some time. All this sleep, mind you, sans any (and here’s the key adjective) sustained debauchery. Then again, we suppose there are only so many nights that one can operate on three hours of sleep. Nevertheless, it felt good and we were confused by the strange sensation of being awake.

We had started work on the next podcast before realizing that we were going to be extremely anal about a few things (not the way you’re thinking) and that, as such, we could not release it as quickly as we had hoped. The audio files would require a considerable amount of tweaking (to satisfy our compulsions, mind you!) and, accordingly, many gigabytes of space that we didn’t have. (Damn you, broadcast quality!) So we had to install yet another drive. The people at Central Computers are beginning to recognize us almost as frequently as the folks who work in the pro audio section at Guitar Center.

We’re using this stupid first person plural voice. Again. Dammit.

We have two more author interviews this week and then we are released from our duties for a week and a half. We will also be fighting, as ridiculous as it sounds, the littering charge. We’re in desperate need of some kind of vacation, which is thankfully coming. We’re thinking that about all we can manage before our trip down south for Coachella is a podcast or two and possibly a few literary roundups. In any event, if we’re laconic around here or we just plain suck in the next week, you now have the underlying variables.

We have failed to live up to any superhuman status. We therefore declare Dan Wickett the reigning grand master of tireless literary coverage. We know when our asses are kicked.

if i had a livejournal 4.12.06

it rained today the same way it did yesterday and the same way it did before that motherfucking rain what the hell is going on? what did i do to deserve this? can the sun come out and remind us we’re human? it rained 26 days in march, 26 days as if this town was some surrogate seattle and i’ve been trying to remain positive but it’s been 26 days and i hate umbrellas and the spokes that hit you in the forehead they are like those wretched cadillac boats that hover between two lanes when you drive so i’m left getting drenched hoping that the rain won’t come down but still the rain comes and i’ve had just about enough and i suppose that this, conjoined with the lack of sleep, is why i’ve been so bitchy surprised i’m not sick

all rain and no sun makes ed a mad boy
all rain and no sun makes ed a mad boy

better to be a mad boy (at 31, natch!) than a madman but i think one of those cluetrain people have cornered the market on indignant online identities i don’t know, that was so long ago in web 1.0

so anyway i am now ably fixated on this rain and three weather sources that i have checked tell me that it will rain through the whole of the week and that we won’t see the sun unless we’re lucky on monday i must have done something bad to deserve this this is a republican scheme, yes, with the global warming i must have done something bad but is this the correct way to punish me for my existential faults (many)? it would be nice not to have to go to bed alone and hear the rain patter mercilessly against the windows perhaps this is why i have insomnia why i’m a bit sad right now

what happens when you’re cooped up inside is that you don’t sleep and you force yourself to do something productive like making podcasts and burning yourself out and composing bullshit blog entries like this i wonder if there are any foolproof studies which conclude that rain is a telltale indicator of one’s mental health and well-being i’m more neurotic than usual

it continues to rain outside and often muni buses do not come thus quelling my natural enthusiasm for public transportation a grand shame i like being excited about subways

people are normally quite jocose in this town, but lately they have been miserable even the bartender the other night who i tipped generously told me, “here’s your fucking change” either he knows me or i did something bad to him or he’s miserable like the rest of us

i think i don’t like the rain because san francisco is such a beautiful town why i’ve lived here so long but when the rain comes it sticks to the streets and traps you between buildings it turns everything into horrible grime and nobody wants to go outside and pick up the litter because they will come back soaking you can walk outside for five minutes and your socks will feel damp and even my extremely buzzed down hair will feel like damp silky strands as if i’m not balding at all!

we californians complain about the rain because we’re spoiled by sunshine all the time snow is exotic when it is very cold like in other places in the states we are even more miserable but this rain is recurrent forcing us to remain recumbent nice for couples but pretty lousy after 26 (26!) rainy days single

i was doing perfectly alright being alone quite happy and occupied until this rain came and killed my instincts to go out and observe people and meet friends and otherwise inhabit this great city of ours

and yet there is still a roof over my head there’s plenty of media to consume and think about there’s plenty of work to be done but the rain causes me to rethink much of this and i don’t like snapping like a turtle at people and perhaps it’s not the rain at all but a general state of exhaustion that i’ve been in denial about for the past four weeks

i am a fool thank you rain for limning this

Me Thinks Momus Doth Protest Too Much

Cry me a river, Momus. There is a very specific reason why I don’t own an iPod, a Zen Micro or even a shitty Discman. (I did own one of the latter, but I destroyed it about three years ago in mock anarchist mode in front of a few friends when it began malfunctioning.) It’s because I enjoy room tone and the sound of natural space, even that occupied with a dim tune coming from an overhead garret. It’s because I love riding the subway and the buses lost in a book or fascinated by a group of people or overhearing some salacious cell phone conversation. It’s also because I value my ears. When I do any kind of audio engineering, I want to bring a fresh concentration to what I do. I don’t think humans were designed to be exposed to constant 24/7 audio input. I suspect, however, that the MySpace generation born just after me doesn’t yet know this.

It should be noted that humans can, in fact, say no to things such as television and portable audio recorders. One can also befriend neighbors and come to terms with precisely the kind of volume level that might aggravate them (or likewise). If a schmuck like me (who is often socially inept) can find a common level of respect among his neighbors, then so can Momus.

In other words, I take objection to Momus’s premise that the American landscape has been irrevocably saturated by music. I live in the Haight. It can get quite noisy from time to time. But I did take care to move into a pad that had affordable rent and solid walls. Forward thinking and planning can get you into desirable environments. Tolerance too.

But here’s another existential trade secret: by exposing my ears to the natural din of conversation during my MUNI commutes and within my inner sanctum, any sort of audio onslaught, whether it be my neighbor blasting jazz or the Fiona Apple obsession the folks at my local coffeehouse is not only more tolerable, but it can be tuned out, provided that some sanctuaries still remain.

I’ll be more concerned if they start piping wretched elevator music into the subways.

Note to the IQ Test Spammers

While I can pretty much ignore most of your ignoble cousins, it is you who, for whatever reason, seem to think I might be receptive to your pitches. Understand that I was tested many years ago. I didn’t believe the results back then and I certainly don’t believe them now, even though certain adults bragged about what I apparently scored and it allowed me to get into some dubious program called “GATE.”

I imagined a drawbridge or a moat, but there were, I assure you, no gates to speak of. And in fact the program was quite slipshod in encouraging my supposed “gifted and talented” abilities, bussing me to a school on the other side of town and having adults, all of them speaking in soft and sensitive timbres reminiscent of Alan Alda and Phil Donahue (my only real reference point, seeing as how the television was an unfortunately prominent fixture growing up), letting me “do whatever I wanted.” So I was able to wile away the time quite egregiously, knowing very little of the art, the books, the science and the PET computer that was “accessible” to me, but never tossed my way. In short, I learned nothing and had no idea how to go about “doing whatever I wanted.” I was nine years old for crying out loud. Of course, had the soft-spoken teachers thought to demand something of me, I might have picked up a thing or two.

But I do remember a very cute girl (an older woman in fifth grade) named Kirstin, who was tall and blonde and a bit prematurely developed, if you know what I mean, and who I was relentlessly attracted to and who I longed to kiss at the age of nine and who I tried to impress with stunts on the ratty BMX bike I had and who I cried about on the phone to one of the men my mother was dating. Because I didn’t understand these profound feelings that crippled my solar plexus. Because I was confused that I could feel so much over one of those girls, who were declared “disgusting” and “icky” and other verboeten adjectives in the elementary school vernacular of that time. Fortunately, this guy was nice enough to encourage my mother to buy a box of After Eight mints, no small task given that we weren’t exactly living in style, which I then wrapped up with a bit of leftover Christmas ribbon in an inept way and which I then presented to her on the school bus, knees knocking together, nervousness and shyness spilling over the edge, and my face redder than a family dinner at the Red Lobster.

To my great shock, Kirstin received the mints with equanimity and proceeded to give me a hug and then further proceeded to smack me one on the cheek, leaving me utterly speechless and baffled and delighted. Kirstin and I gabbed to no end for the rest of that year. And that very day, during recess, we wandered off to the other edge of the school lawn and, neither of us knowing the protocol, proceeded to kiss each other deeply, outside the view of the supervising faculty members. She introduced to me this fabulous thing called the French kiss, which single-handedly sealed my heretofore unabated love for women, and older women in particular. And of course I cannot ever hate any woman named Kirstin. (Perhaps this might be one slight though subconscious reason why I voted Kirstin Allio’s Garner a 10? Or why I have had an inexplicable interest in Kirsten Dunst, who is much too young for me and not, from what I can tell, all that smart?)

Anyway, as you can see, none of this has anything to do with IQ tests. Nor is the consequential behavior that I have presented to you any indication of my intelligence. Nor are tests really the way in which one’s strengths and weaknesses come to occur. For I know very well that I’m not a genius and actually quite a fool, particularly with regard to the women I have dated and fallen in love with.

I have no idea if you obtained my address because I apparently maintain a literary blog or a “smart blog.” Or because perhaps in giving my email address to someone. Or maybe it’s the few Mensa members I’ve talked with having a laugh on me. I have long maintained that I am a few points short of this “genius” label and certainly a few beers short of an emotional genius’s six pack.

Los Angeles Review

The good folks at Red Hen Press have just put out the latest issue (#2 — 2005) of The Los Angeles Review, where a review of Kevin Starr’s Coast of Dreams can be found, penned by yours truly. Here’s the opening paragraph:

Kevin Starr is a one-man juggernaut, as if he decided early in life to take on Hubert Howe Bancroft’s “history factory” approach single-handedly. In his chronicles of the politicos, burgeoning movements, ethnic struggles and artistic trends of the Golden State, he’s taken special care to unearth both the obvious and the obscure figures that make up California’s unique cultural identity. We revel in Starr’s obsessive grasp of the past, only imagining how ebullient the man might be on a caffeine bender.

You’ll also find my thoughts on Starr’s out-of-print novel Land’s End and some speculation on Starr’s move to Random House. I can’t possibly fathom the idea of an Ed Champion completist out there in the crowd, so I should also note that there are contributions by my esteemed colleagues Mark Sarvas and Laila Lalami, as well as a remarkable array of fiction and poetry. All for fourteen bucks. Cheaper than a night out for drinks and you won’t lose any brain cells or wake up the next morning with an unfortunate surprise lying next to you. Do check it out.

In Which Your Narrator Falls for the $48.50 Ruse

Snce it was indeed St. Patrick’s Day, and since there were friends who had requested his presence, your humble narrator decided to partake of these dubious festivities with trusted parties. Never mind that your narrator wasn’t Irish, but that his heritage constituted the dubious combination of Dutch and German, which likely led to his strange temperament and fey physical appearance (consider, for example, your narrator’s family’s long line of bulbous heads). Never mind that your narrator’s hair color had transmuted over the past year and a half into a much darker shade of the reddish brown hue that had once made him the darling of family photographs, now with slight flecks of grey that only your narrator might notice, altogether a rather undistinctive shade for what little hair your narrator had left. The point was that this was St. Paddy’s Day — a time for drinking, a time for carousing, and a time for talking with rather curvaceous gals. In short, the holiday had justified nearly every act of minor debauchery called for.

Anyway, your narrator, rapt in a conversation concerning the Soviet conquest of Eastern European countries in the 1970s, was interrupted by a curvaceous and quite attractive thirtysomething (from the rather indistinctive territory of Walnut Creek, natch; he should have seen this coming) who was trying to attract the bartender’s attention. Said lady batted her eyelashes, rubbed her physical form against your narrator, and otherwise turned him into a lust-driven dumbass. What can the narrator say? He was single and susceptible.

Your narrator, of course, was a man of adventure, eager to ensure that an attractive woman could, in fact, order her drinks for her lovely coterie. He was prepared to stand on the bar, if necessary. Fortunately, matters being what they were, this was not necessary. And so, it was with this impulse that he flagged a rather industrious bartender’s attention, no small feat considering the prodigious inhabitants, all claiming to be Irish, who hoped to siphon the Guinness pipeline, securing the XX crowd’s drinks and winning them their trophy through some kind of unspoken nobelese oblige.

Anyway, the chief curvaceous lady, purportedly grateful for your narrator’s efforts, decided to reward him with a drink. But it was here that your narrator was an outright fool. The tab of the XX crowd’s drinks came to $48.50. They only had forty-seven bucks. And the lady, batting her eyelashes ever so fastidiously, called upon your narrator to put up the remaining capital, which of course included tips. Your narrator placed a Lincoln and all the George Washingtons he had in his wallet on the bar and completed the purchase, and was rewarded, if paying his own way can be called such, with a Guinness.

Thus, the $48.50 ruse. The idea here, no doubt contrived by these ladies, was to hit up a nice guy for these drinks, which your narrator foolishly did.

Granted, your narrator would have purchased another Guinness anyway. Not a colossal sum, mind you, but it was the principle of the matter which kept your narrator relatively lucid and a bit dismayed.

And so your narrator completed the purchase of drinks by his very presence, realizing that he is one of those fools who is commonly identified as “a nice guy” and realizing that, at the age of 31, he clearly has a lot more to learn about such chicanery in the universe. Not that it will hinder his kindness or generosity in the future. But the incident does remind him why nice guys finish last.

Recategorization

The word sounds vaguely Orwellian, reminiscent of a major shift in current events. But it is necessary, given that categorizing the content here is the only way that anyone, least of all myself, can make sense of it all.

As of today, I’ve written around 2,600 posts – 1,600 posts which remain uncategorized. For any other blogger, this may seem a ridiculous sum to collate into a taxonomy. But since I’m known to be somewhat zealous and anal about setting my ducks in a row, and since the categories offer a valuable method of tracking the development of my thoughts (such as they are) and associations, it has become essential for me to get them all set up once and for all during the first quarter of 2006. (I should note that this is part of a general self-imposed regimen to get my shit together. I still consider myself to be a very lazy man, but then the indolence standard I apply is comparable to 19th century labor.) It helps immensely that WordPress 2.0, with its DHTML “Add” box, has made it especially easy to categorize things. And 1,600 posts, at 20 posts to recategorize a day, is not as arduous a figure as one might expect.

My goal then is to provide a kind of uber-meta context for everything so that readers can participate more fully in the discussions and call me on my shit if I end up striking the same chord far too many times. A mini-Wikipedia with more ruthless standards, if you will. I’m hoping that some of the topics and obsessions here can flesh out into something more concrete, possibly becoming entirely new entities separate from this blog. And for the extremely bored reader determined to sift through the 2,600 or so posts (at an average of 500 words per post, that adds up to easily over a million words I’ve written here in the past two years, a tally that truly astonishes me), I’ve added little updates and annotations noting changes in information that seem pertinent or slightly entertaining.

All this probably means nothing to 99.99% of you. But I suppose what pushed me over the edge was some email correspondence with a few people about Peter Greenaway’s Tulse Luper project. Apparently, I’m the only Yank excited about it, much less aware of it, even if I can’t get my hands on any of the films in question. What I admire greatly about Greenaway’s project is the way that he has dared to throw information out there in an uncompromising way and that perhaps only he and a few people will understand it. Much like the novelist William T. Vollmann, Greenaway is one of the few prolific artistic visionaries out there producing a disparate body of work that grad students and artistic appreciators will spend years sifting through long after Greenaway’s death.

While I wouldn’t dare put myself or these efforts in the same pantheon as Vollmann or Greenaway, I am nevertheless hoping that this blog, which I apparently spend more time on than I realize, can serve a similar purpose. For the past two years, I have been working on various projects (limitless false starts and hundreds of pages of dialogue that have been painfully written and painfully thrown away), hoping that I can find a way of applying the brio that seems to come naturally here to that form. If experience serves as a guide, hard diligence and an open mind eventually leads me closer to the direction I need to be wandering in.

Recategorization then is partly a personal quest, to see exactly how frequently I am writing about certain topics and to drop kick the diffidence I apply to others and pursue them further. Only an information-obsessed geek will understand this impulse. But hopefully a few readers might find something of interest along the way.

Snowed Under

Tied up through most of the day, but if you insist on a daily dose, you can catch me over here. Apparently, the good folks over at Bloggasm thought I might have worthwhile things to say. You make the call.

The Chair Update

We are pleased to report that the chair that was wounded during the course of engineering The Bat Segundo Show #16 has been replaced. (We had sentimental attachments for that chair, but it had a solid six year run and it was probably due for a replacement anyway.) The new chair is a large and quite comfy leather chair that we almost fell asleep on yesterday evening. Further, this chair has a five year warranty and reliable casters to boot. In short, the upshot here is that the chair’s comfort and durability (to say nothing of its easy assembly) will likely fuel us for quite some time. (To give you a sense of how nifty this chair is, when you stand up, the cushion emits a noticable whoosh, as if to suggest that it’s had your bottom’s interest at heart all along. How many chairs have the courtesy to do that?) So expect a new Segundo podcast (or two) in the week. We assure you that these are some pretty exciting interviews. Also, Mr. Segundo has been located and he will explain his disappearance in Segundo #17.

Further, we cannot say enough good things about Rupert Thompson’s Divided Thompson, which kept us up until 3:30 AM the other night. While we’re not yet finished with it (though close!), we’re thinking that it might have made our Top 10 List had we read it earlier in the year. If you like your dystopian spec-fic novels sprinkled with goofball humor (we’re talking surfing and pole vaulting, peeps!) and a strange obsession with curlicue imagery, then we whole-heartedly recommend it.

We’ve also dug our claws into Black Swan Green and will have some things to say about that in the emerging week (though, to be perfectly clear, not a review!). Our immediate impression is that this so-called “departure” is probably the right thing for our man, David Mitchell, although we’ll say more once we’ve reached the apex.

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Books To Jump Up and Down Over

Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.

Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.

Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?

Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.

Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)

The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Contact Ed by email.

Or send materials to:
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• Ben Macintyre: The Latest Sourpuss to Run Away From Possibilities
• Untapped Currency
• Reminder: Live Conversation with Sarah Hall on Tuesday!
• Five Three Oh
• The Bat Segundo Show: Marjorie Rosen
• When Parody Replaces Opportunity
• The Benefits of Notebooks
• Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project #8
• Slowdown
• Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project #7


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