4/21/2011
Half Thoughts
It was there, just now. I had it. It was mine and I lost it.
The other night I began a new section of a large writing project at which I've been picking for a long time. It had been vexing me for a while. Starting as a bursting, eager, aggressive idea more than a year ago, the first forty pages fell out of my head and onto the page practically unbidden.
Since then, I've had to work at it. Not forcing it, per se, but making a conscious effort to put each new addendum and amendment down on paper. I have to coax it forward from the back of my mind rather than feeling it rush to the front as if it were running from obscurity.
This morning it flashed in my head again, like a crack of gas escaping from a burning log or a slow-fused firecracker finally meeting it's ember. I shot out of bed like I'd been bitten and ran to the bag where I keep my computer and my notebooks. Furiously, I plugged up, turned on and went digging for pens.*
Perhaps ninety seconds had gone by before I planted my ass in my desk chair, and it was gone, just gone. Had I not found myself in my chair, still in my pajamas, with pen in hand, it might never have been there at all. It evaporated like a fart in a high wind.
I'm sure it was a brilliant idea that was powerful, evocative, that flowed from behind my eyes. I'm sure it would have been a revelation. I'm sure it was the best thing I've ever thought of and I cannot even begin to remember what it was.
Couldn't have been that good, could it?
*You can never find one when you need one, a fact complicated by my habit of color-coding my writing.
4/17/2011
Be Mine, Sister Salvation
I was eighteen. She was twenty-two and we both waited tables at the same high-volume theme restaurant in downtown Atlanta. Her name was Carla Mazer and, sweet Jesus, I was in love with that girl. I don't mean that I had a passing crush or a case of puppy love. No, I mean I was obsessed in the way only a hopelessly romantic, fresh into the grownup world, college freshman can be.
She was slender but powerfully built with flashing eyes and a raven hair that she would sculpt like plasticine. She had a unique combination of quick wit, sharp tongue, lazerbeam glare and martial artist's posture that made many people viscerally afraid of her. Though hugely articulate, she rarely made public conversation, such was her distaste for explaining herself to people she considered her intellectual lessers. Though normally carrying a Vulcan-like reserve, on the rare occasion that she did smile, the lights in the room would dim in comparison to her glow.
She was, or perhaps has become in the remembering, the gold standard against which I measure all other women.
Most importantly to me, she was the first Woman, with the capital W, who ever paid attention to me. We were never romantic and, as badly as I wanted it at the time, it would have been strange for us to have been. She was, however, the first adult woman of romanceable age to treat me as an equal, to be interested in me as a person, to acknowledge me as a fellow adult. She recognized in me a kindred spirit, worth knowing and worthy of knowing her.
She took me to my first goth/fetish club. She appeared in one of the first play-scenes I ever witnessed. I did my first whiskey shot with her. She was the one who bullied me into overcoming my reservations and hitting on a stranger for the first time.* She turned me on to much of the music that now defines my taste. I can say without reservation that I would not be who I am now had I not known her then.
I'd not seen her, nor spoken to her since the twentieth century.
Last night I went to a reunion event for the denizens of that long-defunct club to which she introduced me. She was there and she didn't recognize me at all. This is not so strange as I look nothing like I did a decade past and old acquaintances often have to look twice before realizing who I am. When I said her name and looked in her eyes, though, there wasn't even the tiniest flash of familiarity.
I was never, not even back then, under the misapprehension that our relationship was anywhere near as significant to her as it was to me. There was no presumption of reciprocity. To her, I was a casual work friend that liked industrial music and could be counted on not to be a dick in mixed company. To me, she was a earthbound demigoddess who held the keys to everything alluring about adulthood. It's no surprise I have distinct memories of her while she remembers me not at all.
It's for the best, I suppose. She's not the person she was. She weighs at least half-again what than she once did. She seems to stay quiet, not because she's bored by her company but because she has nothing to say. Her eyes have lost that flash. That sense of quiet aggression that captivated me and terrified everyone else is simply gone. She didn't just get older; that's unavoidable. No, she let herself get old and she let the woman I adore fade away in the intervening years.**
As wonderful it is to have a reminder of those times, of those days when one of my very favorite people helped me learn who I wanted to become, I think I would have preferred not to have re-encountered her as all. I suppose it's for the best that she didn't recognize me. I didn't really recognize her either.
How disappointing.
* Said stranger rejected me but that's not the point.
** Strangely, though, the stranger Carla once badgered me into approaching was also at the event last night. She has aged much more gracefully and is still patently uninterested in me.
4/10/2011
I'm Still Talking & You're Not Listening
I hear a lot of talk about how discourse in this country is crumbling but I'm not that convinced. Sure, the sound-bite, short attention span, hyper-kinetic transmission of ideas seems to dominate popular media but, for those that are interested, a much more substantial conveyance of ideas is still available.
One thing is pretty much indisputable, though. Each successive generation of social networking lends itself to utterances that are less substantiative than those of the generation prior.
People who study such things will argue at great length about which online service constituted the first Social Networking site, at least as we have come to understand the term, but the first that I was aware of was Live Journal. Though it was clunky and offered virtually no services by today's standards, I think of LJ kind of fondly. Being almost entirely text based, having very few formatting options, offering no games and having no character limit, Live Journal was great for lengthy diatribes. In-fact, long windedness was a desirable trait in those days. Though posts could be as short as you liked them, the formatting of the page lent itself to texts of some length as if implicitly saying, "If you can't fill the space, what you think can't be that important." The idea was not so much to get responses, as to see how long one could hold readers' attention.
Live Journal was supplanted by Myspace, which was much more rapid-fire. It did still have a blog option though, allowing for longer, more detailed, posts. Myspace offered much more functionality and thus could take up much more of a user's time on things other than composing text. The most convenient means of communicating information was on a front page, where ideas were kept pretty short.
Of course Facebook is the Social Network De Jure and it promotes even greater brevity than it's progenitors. With no option whatsoever for lengthy treatise, Facebook puts a limit on the number of characters in a post and the limit isn't all that high by the standards of informed discourse. Posts are limited to a few hundred words at best.
And most recently, Twitter limits you to a text message, to a scant one hundred and forty characters, no exposition, no elucidation and no extemporization. This is near to the minimum length for a syntactically correct English language utterance.
What does this do to the expansion of discourse that the internet initially promised us? Certainly, there are plenty of doom-sayers that point to the sound-bite nature of modern media and that assert that discourse, as a mode of human activity, is on it's way out. They may be right and this constant foreshortening of utterance is the first plague in an information apocalypse.
On the other hand, I don't know that this is necessarily a bad thing. We were told from the time the internet first entered our homes that the future would involve more and more information, more and more access to that information and that more and more of our lives would be taken up with interacting with that information. We accepted these premises at the time but didn't stop to think that, with that much more information, we'd have to find new ways of consuming it.
Obviously, I'm a fan of the elucidated statement and I presume you are as well, since you've read most of a seven-hundred word blog post on the subject. I'm simply saying that the method I've used here is not and should not be the only valid means of information conveyance. Perhaps this push towards brevity is an opportunity. Perhaps this is a chance to distill our ideas and prune our statements. Perhaps these communication tools will force our expressions to be denser and more impactful even as they force them to be shorter.
We can hope, can't we?
...And Women, And Song
This bottle. Oh, this bottle; how you've haunted me.
I've had this bottle for at least five years. I don't remember the date that I got it but I do remember the event. As the head server at a long-defunct semi-fine dining establishment, I was dragooned into working the Executive Chef's wedding reception rather than being invited to it, such is how French chefs view their floor staff.
My payment for the evening was fifty dollars, a box of gourmet leftovers and two bottles of the wine the chef had ordered from his home town. When I got home that night, I cracked one bottle and drank it in small sips with my then-roomate as she listened to me complain about how much I hated working for French chefs.
The other bottle I tucked aside. I was saving it for a special occasion, something important, some life milestone. I'm not sure I knew what I had in mind, my engagement, a graduation of some kind perhaps? I've glanced at it a number of times, snug in it's corner of the cabinet where I'm not likely to see or think on it. On nights I've made dinner for lovers, I've wondered what it would taste like and whether tonight was the night to find out. I've done plenty of celebrating and looked at it furtively in mornings and said, 'If only I thought of you last night."
Well, I'm at that age when life milestones rarely announce themselves in advance and tonight is a night for goodbyes and remembrance. So, tonight, I will open this bottle that I've been sitting on for a third of my adult life and I will take a sip of what I've been anticipating the-anticipation-of for all this time. I will do this because we spend too much time and effort on plans and regret. I will drink this bottle because it's Sunday in Georgia and I want another glass of wine. I will drink this long-awaited bottle, not because I'm commemorating some occasion, but because, any time you go to something that is so long-awaited, it is an occasion unto itself.
We don't get or acknowledge nearly enough such days I won't dare feel bad about it.
Here's to the next however many years, to the next however many milestones and to the next however many tokens of things done and undone.
As I've written this, it's had just enough time to breathe. A votre Sante!
I've had this bottle for at least five years. I don't remember the date that I got it but I do remember the event. As the head server at a long-defunct semi-fine dining establishment, I was dragooned into working the Executive Chef's wedding reception rather than being invited to it, such is how French chefs view their floor staff.
My payment for the evening was fifty dollars, a box of gourmet leftovers and two bottles of the wine the chef had ordered from his home town. When I got home that night, I cracked one bottle and drank it in small sips with my then-roomate as she listened to me complain about how much I hated working for French chefs.
The other bottle I tucked aside. I was saving it for a special occasion, something important, some life milestone. I'm not sure I knew what I had in mind, my engagement, a graduation of some kind perhaps? I've glanced at it a number of times, snug in it's corner of the cabinet where I'm not likely to see or think on it. On nights I've made dinner for lovers, I've wondered what it would taste like and whether tonight was the night to find out. I've done plenty of celebrating and looked at it furtively in mornings and said, 'If only I thought of you last night."
Well, I'm at that age when life milestones rarely announce themselves in advance and tonight is a night for goodbyes and remembrance. So, tonight, I will open this bottle that I've been sitting on for a third of my adult life and I will take a sip of what I've been anticipating the-anticipation-of for all this time. I will do this because we spend too much time and effort on plans and regret. I will drink this bottle because it's Sunday in Georgia and I want another glass of wine. I will drink this long-awaited bottle, not because I'm commemorating some occasion, but because, any time you go to something that is so long-awaited, it is an occasion unto itself.
We don't get or acknowledge nearly enough such days I won't dare feel bad about it.
Here's to the next however many years, to the next however many milestones and to the next however many tokens of things done and undone.
As I've written this, it's had just enough time to breathe. A votre Sante!
4/08/2011
I Know, I've Been Slacking
I'll get back to it soon. In the meantime, I'm reposting one of my favorites; enjoy.
Why Do You Want To Do This?
She keeps asking me, my Aunt. She is a deeply loving but deeply disappointed person. She spent as long in art school as I did in film school and, poised to retire, she has never gotten to be the artist she wanted to be. Because she loves me, she keeps asking, “Why do you want to make movies?”
The answer is simple, “I don’t.”
What I want is to be a spy. I want to save the world through guile and guts. I want to be a gangster, a Mafioso, a keeper of a criminal code and underworld ideology as seductive as sin, itself. I want to be a vigilante and dispense justice on my own terms. I want to die and talk to the living. I want to travel in space, to see things that others have scarcely imagined. I want to overcome a disability so debilitating that others had always assumed I could never be anything but a burden to society. I want to lead a revolution. I want to be a Kung Fu master. I want to be arrested for a crime I didn’t commit and lead a jailbreak so daring it will never be forgotten. I want to be a cop that was sold out by his own people and go outside the system to avenge the death of my partner. I want to be the most inspiring English teacher in the world. I want to be a war hero, a sports hero and an antihero. I want to hunt zombies. I want to rescue the princess. I want to die slowly of a degenerative illness and change everyone else’s outlook on the world in the doing of it. I want to dodge bullets with grace and ease. I want to get the girl. I want to win the game or diffuse the bomb with one second to spare. I want to have subtitles.
At one time or another I have said to myself that I want to do each of these things, and many others and I want to do them because I saw each in a movie. When I was a lonely little boy in suburban Milwaukee I would waste my Saturdays hopping theatres in the Marcus Cinemas at the end of my block. It was there that my dreams were born, on a yellowing screen, at the rate of twenty-four frames per second, in the twilight of Plato’s cave reborn. I will never get to be a spy and I will never get to be a Kung Fu master. I will never go into space and I will never get to hunt zombies but I can help make dreams for some other lonely little boy.
Why Do You Want To Do This?
She keeps asking me, my Aunt. She is a deeply loving but deeply disappointed person. She spent as long in art school as I did in film school and, poised to retire, she has never gotten to be the artist she wanted to be. Because she loves me, she keeps asking, “Why do you want to make movies?”
The answer is simple, “I don’t.”
What I want is to be a spy. I want to save the world through guile and guts. I want to be a gangster, a Mafioso, a keeper of a criminal code and underworld ideology as seductive as sin, itself. I want to be a vigilante and dispense justice on my own terms. I want to die and talk to the living. I want to travel in space, to see things that others have scarcely imagined. I want to overcome a disability so debilitating that others had always assumed I could never be anything but a burden to society. I want to lead a revolution. I want to be a Kung Fu master. I want to be arrested for a crime I didn’t commit and lead a jailbreak so daring it will never be forgotten. I want to be a cop that was sold out by his own people and go outside the system to avenge the death of my partner. I want to be the most inspiring English teacher in the world. I want to be a war hero, a sports hero and an antihero. I want to hunt zombies. I want to rescue the princess. I want to die slowly of a degenerative illness and change everyone else’s outlook on the world in the doing of it. I want to dodge bullets with grace and ease. I want to get the girl. I want to win the game or diffuse the bomb with one second to spare. I want to have subtitles.
At one time or another I have said to myself that I want to do each of these things, and many others and I want to do them because I saw each in a movie. When I was a lonely little boy in suburban Milwaukee I would waste my Saturdays hopping theatres in the Marcus Cinemas at the end of my block. It was there that my dreams were born, on a yellowing screen, at the rate of twenty-four frames per second, in the twilight of Plato’s cave reborn. I will never get to be a spy and I will never get to be a Kung Fu master. I will never go into space and I will never get to hunt zombies but I can help make dreams for some other lonely little boy.
3/05/2011
The Last Temptation of Pop
In an earlier post I mentioned the Super Bowl commercial for which I will one day win universal acclaim from the people that aren't threatening to kill me. Were I to be allowed to make said Super Bowl commercial, this is the follow-up commercial that I would then want to air during the Oscars.
Picture this; You're in the Desert of Bethsaida. Jesus, surrounded by his flock of five-thousand, turns the bread into Dorito's and the water into Pepsi. All of his followers bow down before him, chanting, "Lamb of our Lord, bread to Dorito's, water to Pepsi."
From over the next rise in the desert we hear the distinct "CRACK!" of a soda can opening.
The flock all rise and turn, their eyes brimming with curiosity. The shamble with trepidation up and over the rise and there, in all his glory, riding boots shining, hair coiffed, black guitar slung over his back, is a young Elvis Presley ... and he's drinking a Coke.
He drinks the can of Coke in huge, thirsty gulps. Lowers the can and glares at the recently assembled flock. They stare slack-jawed at him and then, a few at first, followed by the rest, they bow down in awe.
Title, in a bold font: "CHOOSE YOUR KING"
Following the winning of my second Cleo, I will spend the rest of my natural life taking travel hints from Julian Assange.
3/01/2011
Why Did You Leave the Swamp in the First Place?
The film, more than any other, that made me want to one day work in the movie business was the original "The Muppet Movie."
I can even remember the scene, right at the very beginning, just after Kermit is done singing "The Rainbow Connection." Dom DeLuise, lost in the swamp and beset by alligators, says to Kermit as he sits on a log in the middle of nowhere, "Singing, Telling jokes, playing the banjo, who knows, if you get your tongue fixed, you could make millions of people happy."
As Arnie, the agent, paddles away in his rowboat, Kermit muses for a moment and says aloud, "Millions of people happy?" And, the scene cuts to Kermit, riding his bicycle and on his way to the dream factory.
Kermit left the swamp, traveled across the US, gathering a band of dreamers, dodging the machinations of a murderous fast food entrepreneur and having all sorts of misadventures with the express intention of "Making millions of people happy."
It's been more than twenty-five years since I first saw that movie. Since then, I've seen it at least fifty more times. I even wrote a paper about it my senior year in film school. More than any lust for fame; which I'm not likely to get, more than any greed for riches: a losing proposition in today's media market, that one statement did more to inform and inspire my younger self to this career than any other, "To make millions of people happy."
I don't much acknowledge that ideal anymore. In the interim decades and through two different movie careers, I've become much more of a mercenary. I don't pick my shows based on their message, their artistry or what awards they might win. I pick my shows based on the rate of pay, the length of the engagement, the places I might get to travel and how much I like the UPM. Owing to the fact that my work is administrative and virtually none of my contribution actually ends up in the screen, whether or not anyone who watches or likes the movie doesn't much figure into my professional calculus.
This morning, though, I remembered what that old desire was like. I got a hint of why I got into this in the first place combined with a token to my own adult vanity, a touch of mercenary pride and the chance to "Make millions of people happy."
Weekend of February 26th, 2011, we're number one at the box office.
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