CAMP: Having deliberately artificial, vulgar, banal, or affectedly humorous qualities or style.
– American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

There was one point in this week’s season finale of Nip/Tuck where I almost started to believe that the episode was going to end with Christian – whose dream sequence started this disaster of a television season – waking up from the nightmare that was this season. Like claiming virgin birth, after Newhart saying “it was all a dream” isn’t really something anyone else can do. But still, for a moment there, I was convinced it was the only explanation.

The entire episode – truly the whole season – was pretty goofy. But always in a way that suggested bad writing, lazy scripting, and a show that basically blew its wad back in its first season. It had never before occurred to me that the thing was deliberately bad, purposely surreal.

Until we got to the final confrontation scene, really two scenes, both with hostages and forced torture. Both utterly, unspeakably dumb. And both backed by an insipid, almost circus-like soundtrack. I’ve no idea what the song was, actually I’ve no desire to find out. It was upbeat and silly, almost. Entirely inappropriate for the brutality of the actions taking place on screen. And it occurred to me: Wow, it’s all been a scam. Christian is going to wake up with some bimbo next to him wondering why he’s making such strange noises in his sleep. It’s the only explanation. Professional writers can’t possible be this bad. Professional actors wouldn’t stand for it. Professional directors wouldn’t direct it. A network wouldn’t put this on TV unless it’s all a joke. It was all camp. I was sure.

But no. The joke was on me. It really was that bad. It was camp, just the writers didn’t intend it that way.

Somewhere there is the person who made the decision to play that song over that scene and he or she almost certainly believes the scene is a spectacular success in the tradition of Reservoir Dogs.

I’ve not yet decided what shocks me more: How bad a debacle this season was or, as I heard today, that there are those who think the season finale was a spectacular cap to the show’s finest season. Pardon me while I puke.

Irony

What was my first spoken (though I was alone in my car, I often talk back to the radio) reaction when I heard on Tuesday evening about this decision handed down in the Pennsylvania "Intelligent Design" trial?

"Thank God."

I already had one response to Lisa's comment that I added as a comment on the previous post, but I had another thought about what she said and it's better as a separate entry than another overlong comment.

Lisa pointed out her lack of tolerance for conservatives who overvalue their own importance, and while I can certainly agree with that point, I tend to think the problem is perhaps not so much with those (probably relatively few) who have the opinions. The problem is the journalism that leads us to believe such opinions are valid, common, and worth discussing.

At least for me, the problem with journalism isn't that there's so much "bad news" out there or that I don't find them credible. The problem to me is the horserace. It's conflict. Journalism is built around conflict to some extent, sure, but most issues (especially the opening of a movie for crying out loud) are nowhere near as divisive as media coverage would have us believe.

Any lazy journalist knows he can reliably get a spicy quote from an extremist on either side of an issue. It's an easy story, but it's lazy journalism. It's writing about issues like horseraces (who wins and who loses) rather than like actual issues with subtexts and complexities and consequences that have nothing to do with "who wins."

It's pretty inexcusable that our elections and wars are reported in this way, but it's an especially sad commentary that even entertainment news now gets the horserace treatment.

Bearing that in mind is how I have managed to stay sane over the past few years. Is it miserabe to have to hear over and over again about Cindy Sheehan? God yes it is. And is it awful to have to hear unending griping from "the Christian right" about the decaying values of Halloywood? Indeed so. But those who make the loudest noise are generally furthest from the actual crowd. That doesn't excuse the incompetence of those people, but remembering that has kept me from pulling my hair out over the past couple of years.

A meandering and (toward the end) sentimental post

Here's the poster you've probably seen for Brokeback Mountain.



So, then, what's this?



According to this site it's a new ad for the movie. But I had never seen it before. And it really pissed me off. I was all fired up to write this blog about the idiocy of trying to de-gay a gay movie and misrepresentation of potentially offensive topics in general.

And then I thought, "You know. I'm not sure even Hollywood executives are stupid enough to try to promote a gay movie with a poster of a nuclear family." Besides, it didn't really look like a poster, or even a traditional ad.

Turns out it's not a traditional ad, but it's one of several industry promos being sent out to Academy voters with the Oscar package. And since both of the females are supposedly contenders for award nominations it's only natural to put some pictures of them in the promo packs.

Which means that those who are showing off the second ad and screaming about hypocrisy are either (a) irresponsible and stupid or (b) hypocrites themselves. In this case, it's probably A, but even the possibility of B annoys the heck out of me.

From conservatives who rail against abortion but really don't want Roe v Wade overturned lest that disappear as a campaign issue to liberals who denounce the war in Iraq but nonetheless see the loss of American lives there as a chance for political gain, there are far too many examples of dishonest hypocrisy in the world today.

This is why I more and more admire people who at least truly believe in their convictions, even if I don't happen to agree with their opinions. John McCain is the best example. In reality, he and I disagree on far more issues than we share common ground on. But I don't care, really. I think more highly of him than I do of virtually any other politician. I voted for him for his senator position (as if that mattered) and would honestly be tempted to vote for him for President. Even though I don't like his politics, for the most part.

But I'm digressing, because this wasn't meant to be a political discussion. My real point is, in this year when I've read roughly 3,462 articles about how Hollywood is hurting the box office slump goes on, I can't recall reading a single article that suggests the main reason things are going badly: bullshit.

Most articles talk about absurdly high ticket prices (true) and bad product (true). But people always complain about prices and there have always been shitty movies. The problem is the great extent to which we are now aware that even Hollywood executives know they're putting out shit. And yet they still promote it. Does anyone really believe that there was a single person involved in the making of "Stealth" that thought it would be (a) a good movie and (b) a successful one? Of course not. And yet the budget to promote that piece of trash would have been front page news if it were a lottery prize.

So Hollywood is full of shit. We've all long suspected this, and now we have proof. Indeed, as the example I used to start this blog proves, we now tend to think Hollywood is even more full (?) of shit than they really are.

Cynicism is healthy. But a bleak world view isn't. I still believe in convictions and faith and being willing to trust others, even strangers. I think that used to be typical. More recently, it was at least something we all tried to encourage at this time of the year. Now even Christmas is regarded with a skeptical eye. It's a shame.

"The opposite of war isn’t peace – it’s creation"

You know, I think there’s far too little dancing on tables. Seriously, wouldn’t life just be a little more exciting if from time to time some people on the street, or in the restaurant on the corner, or in your apartment building just burst on in full song and dance? Tell me that wouldn’t rock. (So long as it’s not induced by a demon, right Xander?)

That’s just one of the things I loved about Rent. (Yes, I saw it last night and so, yes, I’m going to write about it. Again. Just let me do this, though, and maybe I’ll get it out of my system.)

I loved the way everyone seemed to be a part of the real world, even when they broke out in song. It was charming and also seemed to work with the whole “we’re bohemian artists” thing that Rent tries so hard to champion.

I really liked the movie overall actually. There were some things I didn’t like, but virtually all of those were things that are problems with the musical – not really the movie’s fault. (Which is to say, the ending still sucks.)

I got a kick out of the dialogue, which was virtually all from the actual play – except in the play they would sing it, not speak it. Sometimes it was awkward and I really wanted them to be singing it, but I still got a kick out of it. Like a big in-joke for people crazy enough to actually recognize it. I wonder if, as dialogue, those lines seemed poorly written or forced to people who don’t know the play that well. Then again, I doubt very much if this movie succeeds at all for people who don’t already know it. That’s normally a big problem for me – generally I think movies need to be movies and not be overly concerned with their source material. But here it didn’t bother me. Maybe because I am a big fan of Rent. Maybe because I frankly doubt if the audience for the movie is much beyond those who have seen the show already anyway.

The only other thing wrong with the movie, I thought, was the strange section where the first half of Act 2 should have been … except suddenly we were no longer in a musical at all and we had that completely pointless scene with Alexi Darling. Stupid. And for that we get denied “Happy New Year,” “We’re OK,” and “Contact”? Harsh.

Otherwise, wow. So many of the songs were done so well. “Rent” is not really a song I love that much but by the end of that song I was sold on the project completely. “One Song Glory” was amazing. “Tango Maureen” kicked my ass. (I wasn’t much for the way “Out Tonight” started in the club, but it was redeemed at the end). And, of course, “I’ll Cover You” was just amazingly perfect – the reprise especially. God that part of the story just kills me. Someone explain to me how the same writer who could write that scene, which is so perfect, could also massacre the ending and Mimi’s death/recovery so badly? I’ll never get it. (Maybe if Larson hadn’t died it could have been tweaked and made better?)

Putting “Seasons of Love” at the beginning was a great decision, too. I already wrote about how much I love that song as a sort of Greek Chorus and to have the cast singing it to an empty theatre as the opening scene … it just worked.

And the cast was excellent. Pretty much the entire original cast was back, except for (I think) Mimi and Joanne. Rosario Dawson was so-so as Mimi but I thought Joanne was wonderful. The woman can sing. And of course the original cast is the standard, not to mention the voices everyone is used to hearing from the CD. Best of all, of course, is Jesse L Martin who frankly has the voice of God.

And I was afraid I wouldn’t like it. Sheesh.

Addendum:

It was so hard to sit in the theatre and not sing along and, at times, to not applaud some of the really great song numbers. It's a musical, you're supposed to applaud. The singing thing was especially awkward. I propose an idea to whoever has the rights to the show and might want to try a new twist: "Rent" as rock concert. Perform the show not as a musical, but as the singalong fest it so often years to be. I know I would go.

One of many reasons Thanksgiving break was great this year

I’m not really a big fan of biopics. Partly this is the result of my previously expressed affection for the power of fiction to be more true than reality. Partly it’s because I think even the most interesting lives lack any kind of engaging narrative arc. So, even though they look to be good and worthwhile films and even though I’m not uninterested in their subjects, I have never seen Ray, or Ali, or Gandhi, etc etc. I rented The Aviator which was interesting to watch (mostly thanks to Cate Blanchett) but excruciatingly boring as a movie. And I want to see Walk the Line because I’m a Johnny Cash fan but I don’t ultimately expect it to be one of my favorite movies.

But despite all that I want to plug a biopic that I saw over Thanksgiving, because I’ve seen a lot of movies this fall and most were high quality but so far this was the best: Capote.

It’s different than a typical biopic, which is part of why it worked so well for me. It’s based on a full length biography of Truman Capote, but the film focuses exclusively on the three or so years he was working on his masterpiece, the “non fiction novel” In Cold Blood.

Disclaimer: I’m a sucker for this story. Like The Insider or Good Night, and Good Luck (both of which are amazing movies in my book) I feel a little uncertain in recommending Capote because part of why I like it so much is because I’m personally so interested in it, and I’m not certain that everyone else would be so naturally fascinated. (In the case of Capote, my fascination is based on writing in general and In Cold Blood in particular, in the other two movies it’s my interest in journalism.)

I read In Cold Blood in high school and until seeing the movie remembered little of it specifically. What I did remember was the reaction it provoked in me: I mean, the book just floored me. Stunned me. It’s such a masterpiece. I had only a short time earlier read the famous account of the Manson crimes Helter Skelter and while that’s a fine book, reading it was like reading a lengthy piece of journalism. It didn’t engage me emotionally. This is part of why In Cold Blood is so spectacular – it really is like a novel, and is written by a writer who at his best is as good as any American writer of the last century. But the story itself is also just shocking. Even in the late 90s I found myself just stunned by the brutality and the senselessness of the crime. I remember thinking: If this book feels like a punch in the gut to me now, what must it have been like to read it in the comparatively innocent 1960s?

Although it doesn’t tell the full story of his life, Capote really is a biopic. In showing us a mere three years of his life, it somehow manages to tell the full story of his life. We see Capote in New York, famous, worldly, flaming. We hear bits and pieces of his background. And we see the pain and the start of the depression and alcoholism that would ultimately cut his life short. Writing In Cold Blood essentially killed Truman Capote. Even though he lived another 20 or so years he never published another book. He was never the same person.

The movie makes it clear why. Primarily, the movie likes to focus on his very complicated relationship with one of the killers, who is awesomely portrayed by the guy who was the drug dealer in Rules of Attraction. He felt an affinity for the man, who had a haunting background that reminded Truman of his own. But he was also terrified of the killer, with good reason. And he needed him, too, and used him in a very deliberate and conscious fashion to get the information he needed for his book.

Now I’m re-reading the book and it’s interesting to see that he must have had a similar (if surely less painful) conflicted relationship with Kansas, the setting for the book, the scene of the crime. Capote was a flamingly gay, completely urban snob. If we’re to believe the movie (and it makes sense) he laughed with almost a sneer at small town Kansas and its conservative values. And yet, the book seems to celebrate those values as sincerely as if Truman had been born and raised and lived there all his life. It’s an effective narrative device (the narrator of In Cold Blood doesn’t seem to really be Truman Capote any more than it would be in one of his fiction stories). But it’s also scary, because after getting very close to this small town and the people in it, he exploited them. Some of his depictions and descriptions of the people in the book are downright cruel. Others are caring. That’s the way it should be with characters – except these were real people who, inevitably, had to read what this man had written about them.

Anyway, Philip Seymour Hoffman just inhabits Capote. They always say that about actors portraying real people, don’t they? But he does. Like I said, I don’t see a lot of biopics, but let me give you the example of one I did see recently. In The Aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio played Howard Hughes. But I always saw DiCaprio on screen. Blanchett played Katharine Hepburn and she was Katharine Hepburn. She inhabited her. I watched the movie and saw Hepburn there. Hoffman does that with Capote. He’s not like himself at all. It’s not just his voice, or his mannerisms. It’s everything. I know he played a gay character in Boogie Nights, too, but you could hardly believe he’s the same actor. Bravo to him. (I though Catherine Keener as Harper Lee was also great and I’ve never seen Chris Cooper in anything I didn’t think he was great in.)

Diana said she thought it dragged in parts and she’s probably right (she did seem to really like it despite that note). I can’t insist you go see it. It’s a quiet and deliberate movie. There are scenes (one in particular comes to mind) that really do drag on, but they left me utterly transfixed. But if you’re not engaged they will seem overlong and boring. There aren’t many flashbacks or cinematic devices. There are a lot of POV shots. It worked for me. If you don’t go in wanting to see the movie, though, it may well leave you uninspired. But for me it was the best thing I’ve seen in quite a while.

Stuff and nonsense

Item

The above link is a ranking of how literate various cities (pop. 250,000+) are, based on newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources.

It’s also further proof of why I don’t want to live here for the rest of my life. Phoenix is all the way down at number 54. (Tucson was better, at no. 34.)

But the two places I would most like to move to, if (when?) I do leave Phoenix? San Francisco rated fifth and Denver was sixth.

*

Item

I’m pretty sure this is the greatest story ever. Do you think Grimace drove the getaway car? And then there’s the obvious question: How does the Hamburgler fit in all this?

*

Item

How do you know your credibility as President has reached disastrously low proportions? How about when the top headline in a conservative paper like the Republic in a conservative place like Phoenix starts giving you the quotation mark treatment: Bush to unveil ‘victory’ plan. Ouch.

*

It’s the last day of November which means I should have 50,000 words of a novel written … right? Well, not so much. As of this moment I have about 37,000, which is way short of the goal but really isn’t too bad. Especially considering where I was last week, I’m pretty proud of the output. And, as I wrote before I’m mostly excited about having found a story.

I thought about taking the afternoon off from work and seeing if I could squeeze out 13,000 words in 11 hours or so, but then I had a 3.5 hour meeting from hell in the morning so didn’t get anything done then and, well, now I’m blogging so the hell with it, I guess.

Don’t know how often I’ll keep working on this story once December officially hits. I’ll probably bounce from story to story based on whatever mood strikes. The problem I ran into with this story is that I hit a kind of boring section I didn’t want to write, which usually just means I’m muddy on the plot. I started writing other scenes that will go later in the book to get around it, so hopefully with time I can fill in that gap. In the meanwhile, there’s another story idea hatching (related to this character world that has spawned the “What I Am…” short story and this novel – which incidentally now has a working title, “Smoke”), plus the good old LA story, and Christmas stuff, etc etc.

So, ultimately, I guess it’s a failure, but we’ll definitely invoke the term “moral victory” for this one.

*

I read on Slate today about a woman writer who feels that Jonathan Larson stole characters from a novel she had published and used them in Rent. I wasn’t going to blog about it, but Lisa’s comment on my Rent post got me thinking about it again, as well as a discussion I had with my aunt over Thanksgiving.

As for whether Rent was partly plagiarized from this lady’s novel, I don’t know – I have ordered both the novel in question and her book where she talks about the “theft” from the library. But I doubt it. After all, rent is – without question – a modern retelling of La Boheme. New city, new disease, Americanized name spellings. But it’s pretty much the same story otherwise. So, if Larson stole from this novel then didn’t the novel also steal from La Boheme? It seems a tough argument to prove.

But the author’s real outrage wasn’t about having been (possibly) plagiarized. It was that she (and by the way she’s openly gay) disliked the portrayal of homosexuals and the AIDS crisis as presented in Rent. She also seems to have a problem with the movie Philadelphia. Interesting note: Rent and Philadelphia were produced primarily by heterosexuals. I’d be curious to know what she thinks of, say, Angels In America, which was written by a gay man. But I digress.

To an extent, I think, she may have a point. I haven’t read her argument in any great depth, but the gist seems to be that it overly sanitizes just how hard it was to be gay in the late 80s and early 90s. Maybe so – what made the Team America gag funny was that it nailed that, “It’s fun to be gay!” thing that seems to be going on in Rent. It’s a tragedy ultimately, but it’s also a lot of fun – and I wouldn’t be the first to argue that the final message is ultimately uplifting, no matter the dead bodies.

But Lisa raised a different point in mentioning her Mom, an apparently open-minded woman who nonetheless had no idea Rent was basically about gays and AIDS. And this is probably true of a lot of people, many of whom might even stumble into the theatre expecting Chicago or Phantom of the Opera. Surely, this has also happened to music theatre goers already.

For me, even that seems like it’s enough. It’s easy to criticize stories that are for whatever reason very close to you because they don’t match your experience. But if you want someone to understand your own personal experience then you have to bring it to them, you can’t expect others to tell your story. Rent tells the story Larson wanted it to. As I said before, it’s silly sometimes, sometimes it’s downright bad, but hopefully it’s close enough to what he believed that it’s an appropriate tribute and memorial to his short life. Of course, most people who see Rent will never get that far. They’ll see gay people with AIDS and hetero people with AIDS and some gay people and straight people who don’t have AIDS. They’ll see them sing and dance and live together and be distinctly human. Maybe it has and will continue to help a few people realize that ultimately all those distinctions don’t make them any less human. That’s a point and a success that no one should want to deny.

I'm just begging for you to mock me

A lot of people, I know, totally hate Rent. I get that. I can see why you might hate it, even. It’s a love-it-or-hate-it kind of show. It’s OK if you hate Rent. But I love it.

Yes, the story sucks. It’s a four act opera condensed into two acts. Poorly. But I don’t love the story. I don’t love the whole bohemian thing. I know the second act sucks. I still love it, for really the only reason you can love Rent. Because of the music.

I like musicals in general. Thank you for your witty commentary re: my sexuality on that count, but it’s true – I’m that rare creature with a Y chromosome who loves both musicals and women. Go figure. I even used to watch the Tony Awards. I think that’s where I first heard parts of Rent – though I’d been hearing plenty about it before then.

There used to be a record store in Cherry Creek North (I can’t for the life of me think of what it was called now) that let you listen to any CD in the store for any length of time before you bought it. This is years ago, before Blockbuster Music did more or less the same thing, before anyone else was really doing this at all. We’re talking back in the days when hearing something on the radio was pretty much the only way to know what a CD offered before buying it. So, curious, I went to that store and listened to Rent. I bought it the same day. I loved it, listened to it a lot, learned all the words. When I worked at a bookstore I used my discount to buy a book all about the production, complete with the full book/script, as well.

I didn’t get to actually see the show, though, until I was in college. (I remember being in New York the one and only day I was there and regretting that there was no way to stay that night so I could see it on Broadway.) The tour came to Tucson first semester of my freshman year and I went with my roommate (a musical theater major no less!) named Vern. I had been a fan before, but how to describe the actual show? It was equal parts rock concert and musical theatre. It’s not just that so many in the crowd knew the songs – they even knew the words. It wasn’t just that so many people in the crowd had the audacity to sing along – it was that they did so loudly. It wasn’t just that you could hear people singing along – it was that they seemed to be encouraging it. (A note: I saw it again in Denver a few months later and the atmosphere was very different. Maybe because it wasn’t a college campus?)

Is Rent perfect? Far from it. That’s something else to love about it, in my book. It’s not exactly a work-in-progress, but the writer died before the thing even opened on any stage anywhere. So there are rough edges. And thank God they’ve left them (and I hope to God the movie doesn’t gloss over those rough edges completely). It’s musically messy, not nearly so polished as your Chicagos or Wickeds. It’s silly. It’s stupid and sappy sometimes, sometimes so blindingly idealistic that even the world’s greatest optimist would be embarrassed.

But it’s just so goddamn good. I though about changing that second to last word and just can’t. That’s the only way to describe it: goddamned good. How can you not be moved by this story? It’s very time-specific, yes, but what’s wrong with that?

I’m nervous about the movie and also can’t wait to see it. There have been a lot of bad movies made from good musicals. Then again, there are those few like Chicago that are just fabulous. I really hope Rent works that well. I like that most of the original cast is back for the movie, no matter how old they look. I’m nervous about what they cut (“Contact” isn’t on the soundtrack? I’ll be so pissed if they wimped out and cut that) and what's with this new song on the soundtrack? Let’s hope that’s just a “rolling over the end credits” kind of song. Mostly I’m nervous because … well, Rent really shouldn’t work as a movie. Half the point was the bare bones stage, the minimalism. I would have been more than happy to have someone film a performance and just release that. Instead, we get a full-on movie.

Doesn’t it seem odd to have a movie with a sizable budget being made of a musical that triumphed the bohemian lifestyle? That doesn’t offend me, it just strikes me as funny. Really, I have little opinion on the bohemian conflict of Rent. I have little opinion on the story at all. Is it a great story? Not really. But it’s a fairly clever update of La Boheme and, really, the point of opera is never the story but just the terrible inevitability of it all – which is a pretty clever metaphor for AIDS. What I love about Rent is mostly the music. It’s like a rock concert. It’s funny. It’s silly. And then from out of nowhere they break out a song that will have you crying like a baby.

I love Seasons of Love. A great song anyway, what really makes it great is how it functions in the musical. As the opening moment of Act Two, it takes place outside of the plot. It’s not even a part of the story – it’s a Greek chorus as much as anything, not an explicit one, but serving the same function nonetheless: Seasons of Love instructs us to watch the second act in a certain way. It salvages what would otherwise be ridiculously tragic, frankly too operatic for a rock musical.

Haven’t seen the movie yet and I’m both nervous and excited about seeing it. Maybe it will suck. But then again if I can sit in a theatre and hear One Song Glory, that might be money well spent.

Read this first, then watch me rant like a lunatic.

I've no desire to actually start an abortion debate here, but I hope you'll understand my point here isn't about abortion itself. My point is simply how abhorent it is to ask kids to do something like this. I don't care what the cause is. Doesn't matter if I agree with the cause or don't agree with it. Doesn't matter if everyone on Earth agrees with the cause. It's just wrong to make your kids do something like this.

Kids don't have political opinions. They just don't. They're kids. That's the whole beauty of being a kid.

I'm not trying to tell you that kids aren't actually much smarter than we usually give them credit for -- hell, I just got back from a vacation where I was hangin out with various cousins of mine ranging in age from 7-11 and I think all of them were smarter than me. But they don't have political opinions. They're kids. That's not their world.

If they have political opinions it's not from any fundamental understanding of the issues, it's because Mom & Dad have drilled it into them. And that's sad enough, but what kind of parent makes their little girl go out in the freezing cold Chicago winter and picket a doll store? Sorry, it just disgusts me.

Thank God I'm Not In High School Anymore

(No) Thanks to Lisa for making me relive when I looked like a cancer victim ...

I'm pretty sure this picture is from the summer following my junior year of high school. I know I still have that shirt. Sorry for inflicting this on you all.

My NaNoWriMo Pseudo-Update

In which I write a blog with literary flair so I don't feel bad about not writing my novel.

Imagine the horror. After four and a half years of being in college, a writer is quite confident that he is ready to write his own version of that great entry into the world of “literature” – the college novel. He’s got only a short period of time, though – he knows if the months become years and the years become decades, well, he’s going to forget what college was actually like. And indeed the months do become years and he is somewhat worried to find that when he is (rarely) moved to write, it’s not the college novel he intended. He may have already outgrown it. And then a well-established writer of a certain literary and populist pedigree comes along and publishes a novel with great national attention (if not acclaim) and, yes dammit, it’s a college novel. The young writer is discouraged (if 70 year-olds are writing college novels, does that mean the college novel is over?) and later encouraged when he reads it (the book gets it so disastrously wrong that he thinks a “true” college novel may still work). He’s also just annoyed. How many people will read this book and actually start to think college is like this?

So he starts writing and it turns out (not that he was even intending this necessarily) that he is writing his college novel, finally. It just snuck on him, but he’s 20,000 words in and suddenly it’s clear – that’s what it is. But here we come to the horror. The horror. The writer looks back at what he has written, looks forward to what he think he will write yet in the story and – the horror – everything that was wrong with that Charlotte Simmons book is present in the one he is writing. It’s a college book that barely even addresses what college is actually like. Really, it’s just – the horror! – a sort of dirty book all about sex.

Yes, there’s a lot of revision this story is going to need, should I get to the end and finish it. It’s not unusual, I don’t think, to start a book thinking it’s about one thing or that it’s going to go a certain direction – and then find out you were entirely wrong: It’s actually about this, and going in this direction. One reason so many books and movies are bad is that, as a writer, it can be hard to let go of where you thought you were going. Maybe you had this great scene all planned out. Maybe you still kind of want to stick it in there (ahem!), even if it doesn’t necessarily fit (fit the narrative, I mean. Of course.)

So far, I hate to admit it, the story I have been writing is essentially the tale of Christina’s sexual exploits during one year of her undergraduate schooling. What a dirty bastard I am sometimes. But, let’s be fair for just a moment – lots of people have written lots of books about sex. Mine isn’t even really explicit, or particularly scandalous. I’m beginning to even think the ending might be redemptive, which would be something almost wholly new in my fiction. And moreover there’s this: Sex really, really truly is a part of college life. Sometimes it’s a pretty big part of college. But here’s the thing: Sex isn’t what you’ll remember about college. It isn’t what you’ll miss. And – no matter how much it might be on your mind – it isn’t how you spend most of your day.

The way I remember it, most people were too busy for sex to actually be a big part of their lives. Hell, I was too busy and I was a freaking creative writing major. If I didn’t have time for girls, then how in God’s name did people with jobs and real majors find the time?

So far there’s only a hint of that in what I’ve written – in the form of a little conversation between Christina and her nearing-30-year-old-friend Jess, who misses college. Or misses what she thinks college might have been, if she hadn’t been in a serious relationship. The point, ultimately, is that Jess is wrong – college isn’t really Girls Gone Wild, it isn’t really Charlotte Simmons. Maybe sometimes it is. But most people who are up until 3a on Wednesday nights are studying – and I don’t mean anatomy.

That’s mostly going to have to come in revision, though, I think. Still, it gives the story a focus beyond the sort of weak plot I’ve been working with, and that’s reassuring. There’s virtually no chance I can get this thing to 50,000 words by the end of the month, but it’s worth it having discovered in the midst of this silly little story I wanted to get out of my system, an actual book. That college novel. Finally.

But what really matters is what I want

Rather than tempt fate by refusing to participate after being tagged, I submit to you the things Google thinks that Matthews needs:

1. Matthew needs to know what is expected of him ... Ain't that the turth?

2. Matthew needs a Mother's Day gift and is just about to discover whether
there's a prize in the cereal box when his mother interrupts his search. Using cereal box "prizes" as gifts ... why didn't I think of that?

3. Matthew needs to double his fluid intake and drink way more than an ordinary child A Guiness, please, bartender. And keep 'em coming.

4. Matthew needs dead babies. I knew this would show up sooner or later. Want to know why I'm not religious? Try having your name be on the bible story about infanticide. Not so fun.

5. Matthew needs to figure out if he’s Matthew or Martha Go figure, but this is where I stopped my search.

How Far We Have Come

I cannot insist enough that you take just a little time and read or listen to this story over at NPR.

It's one thing to watch HBO's wonderful series "Rome" and reflect on how miserable life was in those days, even for the wealthiest and most powerful individuals. The world was not a comfortable place 2,000 years ago, really.

And it's one thing to appreciate the fact that what I will very haphazardly refer to as "modern medicine" has only been around about a century. It's funny to watch a quasi-historical movie like Sleepy Hollow and giggle at all of the wacky "scientific" equipment Johnny depp has to play with. And it's one thing to marvel that it wasn't until 1939, just 66 years ago, that the miralce drug, the drug that literally changed the world - penicillin - was used to stem bacterial diseases.

All of those things are amazing to marvel at. And yet they are very much historical. There aren't really any first-hand witnesses of those moments around anymore. Our grandparents might remember the rise of penicillin, but even they would have been very young at the time.

This is why it's so utterly incomprehensible that the man in this story, who is younger than either of my parents, lived through (and in many ways continues to live with) a procedure so bizarre, so archane, so B-horror-movie-esque. It's barely comprehensible to me that we used to give people lobotomies with no functional understanding of the brain at all. But to do it this way? With (I'm not making this up) ice picks? Ice picks? In the eyeballs?

It's absurd, horrifying, amazing, sickening. Most of all, it seems like one of those things we really should all know about, we should all remember with a degree of shame and apprehension - and yet ... almost no one knows anything about it at all.

Jumping On The Bandwagon

You are Baby Gonzo from Muppet Babies! You have
definitely got some issues that need working
out. Your friends really DO like you, but
sometimes you just can't believe them. Maybe if
you'd just stop unleashing strange monsters
from the Basement . . .


Which Forgotten 80s Cartoon Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Ask Someone Smarter Than You

First, an apology for that last post. See, in an effort to refresh myself on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in anticipation of next Friday’s big event, I am listening to the book at work. Turns out I struggle to (a) make any sense at all and (b) use grammar correctly when I’m also listening to delightful children’s stories. Who knew? You might think this suggests terrible things about my job performance while listening, but you would be wrong. In fact, I don’t need to use my brain to perform my job at all. Basically, I’m just a zombie with a phone: “Give money. Sub. Ro. Gay. Shun! Bad toilet part, bad! Give money!” That’s basically me and my co-workers all day long. Or, no wait, maybe that’s just what our supervisor seems to think our job consists of.

Anyway, on with the show.

I have noticed that people are often seeking out my wisdom with questions on everything from current events, to spelling, to the meaning of life. In an attempt to consolidate this chore I have created this new advice column: Ask Someone Smarter Than You. Namely, me. Here we go:

Dear …

I have a problem but I’m not sure how to solve it. When I’m in crowded places, Disneyland say, I am compelled to stop, inexplicably, and obstruct all manner of people and traffic behind me. I’m completely oblivious. I also do this in stores and even parking lots. Can you help?

- Wait, what was I doing again?

Dear what,

You are the proverbial “exception that proves the rule.” In this case, the rule you are proving – albeit in a roundabout way – is that of evolution. Many people mistakenly think evolution simply chooses the best and the brightest to continue on. This is not necessarily true. Sometimes evolution chooses people with no marketable skills whatsoever. For example, girls who are eager to spread their legs and guys who are attracted to those girls don’t really offer much for society, but they have a remarkable rate of procreation. A good real-life example of this is Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. But back to your problem. See, thousands and thousands of years ago, the vast majority of your ancestors were killed on the African plain when they would stop for no reason whatsoever and get stampeded by a herd of wildebeests or eaten by a lion with low standards. Unfortunately, a few of your people survived and passed these genes on to you. In today’s world stopping in the dead center of Main Street Disneyland is not necessarily going to get you killed, but it’s still an evolutionary disadvantage. And if you’re doing the same thing in parking lots then I dare say your kind are soon to meet your appropriate fate. Anyway, I can’t really help you with this problem. But my good friend Charles here ...

Dear guy who ordered some popcorn chicken and mashed potatoes,

I know you asked for Pepsi and not Dr. Pepper. And I know you asked for honey mustard and ranch dipping sauces even though I gave you barbecue sauce. Wanna make something of it?

- KFC drive-thru chick

Dear Thru,

I don’t really mind about the switch to Dr. Pepper. If it was Diet Pepsi then we’d have an issue. What is a problem for me is handing over the drink when it’s completely covered with soda that overflowed from the cup. That’s rude in any situation because people will inevitably get sticky hands, but when the person is sitting in a car then it’s just plain rude. But that probably explains why you’re working at KFC, doesn’t it?

Dear fanboy,

In a recent Rolling Stone interview Bono named "Electrical Storm" as one of his favorite U2 songs. So why haven't they ever played it?

- The Edge

Dear edgy,

This used to upset me, too, but frankly even I don't understand the innerworkings of Bono's brain. At first I thought maybe the song didn't fit their show that well, but ... well, the thing is it would fit in their set. Ultimately, though, I don't get upset because I'm not likely to get a chance to see U2 live until like ... 2009 or something. I did see two very good shows in Phoenix in the spring. Unfortunately, I skipped Las Vegas this past weekend and of course they proceeded to play what everyone is now hailing as the best show of the tour. I'm a fountain of knowledge, for crying out loud, not an oracle.

Hey Matt,

I need directions. Help?

- Erin

Dear cumdumpster,

I wouldn't say we were “lost” either time, but I nonetheless managed to fail to find both Diana’s school and Disneyland on Friday night’s trip, remember? Diana’s school is one thing (I’ve been there twice and one of those times it was a field), but Disneyland? How does one miss Disneyland? So, what in this past history makes you want to seek advice (directional advice especially) from me? Then again, you did trust me to drive you home on Sunday, so maybe I’m all you’ve got?

Dear “buddy,”

Why do older guys like me always call younger guys like you “buddy?” Actually, that’s not even my question, but it’s a damn good one, too. So I saw you walk toward the register and responsibly go through the actual line the way you’re supposed to. And then I just walked up, avoided the line altogether, and got to the counter in front of you. I even made eye contact with you. Don’t you feel like a sucker?

- The guy from the library

Dear guy,

No worries. Once you were out the door the librarian looked at me and said, “That guy comes in here every few days. He’s a total dick.” The librarian, you may remember, was a woman probably old enough to be my grandmother. This made my day so I bear you no ill will. Except for the calling me “buddy” thing. That needs to stop.

That's all for now!

Plenty of nothing

Well, it’s happened. After a great start in the first few days that gave me a nice cushion, I have now actually fallen behind the pace for NaNoWriMo. I’m still not far behind and I probably shouldn’t worry too much about the actual day-to-day word count but then again this deal is short enough that there’s no luxury time to catch up once you get behind, especially considering distraction such as Thanksgiving, etc coming up.

I’ve several problems with getting it done but strangely most of the problems aren’t to do with the book itself: I’m very uncertain about the story but I think that this was a good choice for a book to write quickly and without thought. The problem is just actually writing.

First came the weekend trip to California. I did at least get the computer out on Saturday afternoon. I think I wrote about a paragraph. But then Sunday on the drive home I had many hours to think about the story and got a little done that night. But I didn’t write at all Monday or yesterday. Tuesdays and Thursdays are what should be my most productive days, but yesterday I didn’t do anything after work but watch some TV and try to clean the house (to pathetically little effect). Life, unfortunately, distracts from writing and while I know the whole point of the month is to let your home fall to shambles around you while you get some writing done … I just can’t do it. My other problem is that generally I prefer to write at night, especially late at night, after Diana has gone to sleep and I’m in bed with the laptop. But the past few nights I’ve actually chosen to go to sleep at a decent hour. So … maybe it is the book after all and I’m just avoiding doing the writing. I don’t know. I’m very conflicted about the story but I’m to the point now where I feel like if I get it out, even if it’s just awful and I never show it to a soul, then at least it will be done and the urge to write the story will be gone. I hope. Or something. I don’t know.

So last night I had a dream that I was at work on a Wednesday and it wasn’t an interesting dream in any way, which is a pretty realistic version of my job. The result was that I woke up this morning thinking it was Thursday. This makes last night’s work dream pretty much the worst dream I’ve ever had. 99.9% of the time I can’t remember my dreams anyway so why didn’t that one vanish? What a crap deal.

Note: I just wrote “carp deal,” which in reality is probably every bit as bad as a “crap deal,” just not as common a saying. I changed it anyway to “crap.” Isn’t it exciting to get an inside look at the way this fabulous blog is put together?

Disneyland was a good time, of course. So our tickets were perhaps less than what is strictly, oh what’s the word? Legal? Yes, that’s it. Not exactly legal. Still, they worked for us. It was reasonably crowded in the afternoon but not busy at all in the morning and we had a good run of getting on every ride we wanted to without having to wait much at all. We walked straight onto Splash Mountain without a wait at all. Good times. We all especially enjoyed the new Buzz Lightyear ride, and the Tower of Terror remains awesome. Good times all around.

I guess that’s it for now. I didn’t really have any point here, but aren’t you pretty used to that now?

Peace out, homies.

And we're off!

I just posted the first chunk of my NaNoWriMo project over at the blog where I hide all that stuff. You can check it out, if you dare.

I'm not quite as enthusiastic as some about the start, although I did write a lot last night. I chose the "new" story, partly because that's more in keeping with the rules and also because I'm more likely to be able to write 50,000 words of this story. I don't value it as much as the other project, because I'm well aware that it's a silly, probably pretty bad story.

Now for the disclaimer.

I've been paranoid about everything I write ever since a conversation I had with Diana some years ago now when she told me that she really believes that most writers are never really writing fiction, or something to that effect. I disagree. I write fiction precisely because my real life is way too boring to be interesting. My real life is so boring I don't even talk about it with friends; I can't imagine writing a story about it.

Now, to some extent I do think she was on to something. What worries me as a writer is the truth that anything I write is my responsibility. If I write a murder scene, it doesn't mean I've ever killed anyone, but it does mean I have imagined it - the more distubingly brutal the scene, the more disturbing my imagination is, presumably. Truthfully, I think we probably all have imaginations that can be, from time to time, very sick indeed. We live in a violent world, a dirty world, and we're only human. For the most part, the main difference is how much of our sick mind we're willing to share with others.

Some stories do come totally out of thin air. They can be inspired by something you see on TV, or read in a magazine, or see across the aisle in an airplane. Some stories come from a closer place, at least at the start. The story I'm writing for NaNoWriMo is more the latter type. It takes mundane and familiar situations and says: What if? That's fiction.

Hope you enjoy.

Blogs Gone Wild!

That's right, people.

4 posts. 1 day. Spooky. Almost like it's Halloween or something.

So, in honor of Halloween Chipotle was giving away free burritos to any patrons who were willing to come in dressed in tinfoil (they wrap their burritos in tinfoil there). We expected lines around the corner of foil-clad burrito-lovers like ourselves but it was not to be. Still, we had enough fun at the first Chipotle to all agree that a second free burrito was well worth a short drive.

Anyhow, I promised to let Diana post most of the pictures, since she took them on her camera. And you'll have to wait because tonight she's well behind on her homework and tomorrow she's in class. But of the pictures you'll see when she posts! For example, have you ever wanted to see Erin fashion and then wear a foil/cocunut shell bra? Well, I hadn't either, but it turned out to be quite entertaining. So look for that, for Diana in a patriotic take on the Statue of Liberty and Amy as a delicious barbacoa burrito. For now, I have permission to post a picture of myself.

I call this: Veni. Vidi. Foil.*



I realize I look a bit like the Stanley Cup in this picture, but I challenge you to make a better toga from aluminum foil in five minutes. What else can I say? Best. Halloween. Ever.

* also considered:

"Friends, Romans, countrymen ... lend me your burroitos."

and

"I came, I saw, I ate burritos."

Fun With Gourds

So Brianna is so cool that not only did she buy herself a little membership to the very cool pumkin-carving-pattern web site Curse of the Zombie Pumpkins!, but she also shared the wealth.

David and Elaine (my brother- and sister-in-law and, it would seem, matchmakers extraodinaire) put on their annual pumpkin carving party Friday night and this is a shindig not to be missed, I tell you. So much so that we rescheduled a vacation so we could be there.

Here are the fruits (well, vegetables really) of our evening (though more could be yet to come, wink wink):



Here is Diana's Hannibal Lecter. Quite good considering this is the first time she's carved a pumpkin in years and the first time it was anything more than a triangular nose and eyes with a freaky grin:



Here's Erin's haunted house:



And my Leatherface:



Just a fun side note: This is my 69th post.

Happy Pumpkin Day! *

* This politically correct new title brought to you by the same people who spondored today's "fall festivals," "autumn costume contests," and "harvest celebrations."

Things I have done on Halloweens past (not necessarily in any order):

· Been dressed as a pumpkin, Raggedy Andy, and possibly other things I can’t remember.
· Interrupted a robbery-in-progress in my home.
· Saw Dave Matthews Band play a classic show. (Most of you don’t care but hopefully Erin can appreciate this. A great all-around show but the musical highlight was: the I’ll Back You Up > Halloween encore. And it took almost nine years before I finally got to hear Halloween again. The spoken highlight: “We’re disguised as the Dave Matthews Band this evening.” The personal highlight: Gwen nearly fainting because Dave pointed at people in the row in front of us.)
· Had my first date (even if I didn’t realize at the time that’s what it was.)
· Dumped someone.
· Dressed as an architect, golfer, football player, astronaut, fireman, Mickey Mouse, Indian, and surely others I’m forgetting. But since there’s a quilt (and a picture of the quilt in a book sold all over the country) with pictures of me in my old Halloween costumes, I could probably figure out a few others I’ve forgotten.
· Had an embarrassing back-seat experience I’ve never told anyone about ever.
· Gone trick-or-treating with my cousins, including the five-month old twins who were dressed as M&M’s.
· Seen “Saw” and “Bringing Out the Dead” in theatres.
· Introduced my parents to a girlfriend they had pretty much already decided to hate.
· Watched “The Nightmare Before Christmas” approximately 34,213 times.
· Gone to work wearing a Jack Skellington tie.

And, after tonight, you can add to this list: Dressed myself in tinfoil in order to get a free burrito. Seriously. Is this a great holiday or what?

(The jack-o-lantern pictures are coming, I promise. I just can’t upload photos from this computer.)

Sure, I'll Be Your Monkey

Midnight tonight marks the official beginning of NaNoWriMo, and yet I still haven’t decided what to write.

My first option is the story I’ve been working on, which is the story of a young man in LA who is having a particularly bad weekend of mental health. After mulling the idea for many years, I started writing this book at the end of August of this year for the novel writing class I enrolled in. So far, I have written about 19,000 words.

Reasons I should keep working on the LA story, and make my NaNoWriMo goal to write 50,000 more words of it:

1. It is unwise to stop in the middle of writing something that’s going reasonably well.
2. I’ve written all I can for the class, so this would give me a goal to keep working.
3. It’s a Halloween/fall story so I may not be interested in trying to pick it up again in winter or spring.

Excuses to not keep working on the LA story:

1. I’m not sure this book would even need 50,000 more words to be completed.
2. It’s against the rules. You’re supposed to start a whole new book/project.

The other option is to go crazy with this idea that’s a combination of something very new and something quite old. Prior to the LA story, the thing I was writing for a year or so previous was a strange little story about this love triangle between some people in Las Vegas, but the story lacked any real direction and was just a mess, which is why I dropped it when it was time to do the class. I thought I’d let it simmer and see if I ever actually came up with a plot for the story. Then one night I had this essentially unrelated idea for a story about a young woman who at first befriends a couple but is soon being terrorized by them. Clearly, these two ideas were destined to be intertwined into one story. For lack of anything better to call it, I think of it still as the Las Vegas story.

Reasons to do the LV story:

1. It’s the perfect thing for NaNoWriMo. Since I don’t have much of a plot, at any other time I’m likely to sit around not writing, waiting for inspiration to come. NaNoWriMo would eliminate that luxury, I’d just have to BS my way through it.
2. It’s not a project that is especially near and dear to my heart, so I wouldn’t mind that whatever I get written will inevitably be kinda crappy.
3. You know how us crazy writer-types are. Always flitting around, unable to focus, eager to move on to the new thing, new idea, the new, the new, the new!

Reasons not to do the LV story:

1. When I say I have very little in the way of plot in my head, I mean I have pretty much no plot in my head whatsoever.
2. What tiny bit of plot and theme I have considered suggest a story that I would be more than a little wary of ever showing to anyone, let alone wife, friends, family, or total strangers on the Internet.
3. I’m pretty confident I know how to tell the first third or maybe half of the story. After that, I haven’t a clue and even the “forced” atmosphere may not help.

Any of you want to put in your two cents? Help me make up my mind already, I’ve got less than 15 hours.

In which I waste no time at all

I have a new car!

I will get to the pictures and the excited burbling in a moment, but first this: I already miss my dear old Subaru a bit. That car was with me all through college and beyond and I had so many wonderful fun times and great memories tied to it. In fact, many of them would probably get me in trouble to post here. But I remember this: I drove Diana on our first date in that car and not long thereafter it recieved one of it's worst dings when I was pulling out of Jessica's driveway and paying not much attention because I was laughing at something Diana said and I hit the mailbox on the opposite side of the street. It was very sad to simply give it up so suddenly. I'll miss you, little Subaru.

But I can console myself with this:



Pretty, no?

One problem. It has a hole in the roof:



Yeah, it's een more "family car" than the last one. But I'm a "family car" kinda guy these days. It's not so bad, really.

random stuff

1. Finally decided on a new blog name. Then realized I had the quote wrong. Typical. But fixed now!

2. I often write in bed, after Diana has gone to sleep. I usually listen to music with headphones, even though Diana has the TV on for background noise, because music is less distracting. I just glanced over at the TV and thought she must have put on soft core. But a few minutes later I now realize that it's actually "Under the Tuscan Sun." Which makes two Diane lane movies that seem to qualify as soft core.

3. Submitted application for grad school, but still need to turn in all the stuff that matters. Need to write a statement of purpose and turn in a writing sample. Of course, I have nothing that I wrote in college thanks to a computer that unexpectedly went to heaven about two years ago. Oh, and I still need to talk to my boss about writing me a letter of rec ... which could be interesting since, as you might imagine based on the post below, she's not my favorite person right now.

4. Must be fall because when iTunes shuffles to a song from "Achtung Baby" I don't skip over it, but turn off the shuffle and listen to the entire album.

5. Thank goodness Southwest is adding Denver to their routes. Too bad it won't happen until I've already had to give up my firstborn so we can get tickets home for Thanksgiving.

6. In the new Rolling Stone, Bono names a few of his favorite U2 songs and Electrical Storm is one of them. So why won't they play it live? I am bitter.

7. Oh yeah. I'm shopping for a new car. First was the, "This is fun" stage, then caame the "I don't want to spend this much money" stage, and now I'm in the "car dealerships can suck my toe" stage. Expected phases to come: "I love you, dear old Subaru, but the time has come to say goodbye" and "a thousand dollars for paint protectant? Who the fuck do you think you're fooling?"

And that's pretty much where I am right now. Ta ta!

My Wife Is The One Who Teaches Elementary Math

My supervisor does not understand that one-third and 33% are not the same thing.

I ... I just ...

Seriously, what else is there to say?

Let’s try a happier topic. “The 40 Year Old Virgin” is pretty much one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Yes, I was in an immature mood last night. Yes, that made me more likely to laugh at the chest-waxing scene. But come on. Is there any mood you could be in that would make the term “man-o-lantern” not be funny?



I didn’t think so.

It Takes Two

I generally write for myself and really no other reason. I don't expect to be published. Though it's something I aspire to, it's so unlikely for even a good writer that it's not a priority. I write when I want to write and when I have a story I want to tell, and that's about it.

But Thoreau has told us that, "It takes two to speak the truth -- one to speak, and another to hear." I write for myself, yes, but it's not only about shouting into the abyss. So, I now have another blog, where I will post stories or other things I might be writing. I encourage and hope for your comments, though I don't expect you to read any of it if you don't want to.

But if you do: Please, make your way to The Perpetual Carnival.

Say It Five Times Fast: NaNoWriMo

Over the past couple years I've read several articles about NaNoWriMo and been tempted. Now, I notice Lisa is likely to sign up this year, and I too am tempted.

I've been writing enough that there's at least a chance I could actually get out 50,000 words in a month. My problem is that I'm only maybe a fourth (perhaps not even that much) of the way through the novel I started writing for my class. And yet I'm within just a few pages of having written all that I'm allowed to turn in for that class now, too, so I'm already in a precarious position vis a vis continuing to work on it.

So far, the experience of taking a class to self inflict a deadline has worked. But when the deadline goes away, I can't swear I won't lose track again. Already I spent one night this week revising a completely different story I had written back in January.

So, it would be perfect to work on the current thing for NaNoWriMo ... but that's against the rules. And it's one thing to maybe get started a little early, but getting a 13,000 word head start is a bit much. More to the point, there's a new idea I've had over the past couple of weeks that would be perfect for the "dash one off" format. But I worry it would absolutely kill the momentum for this other one which has otherwise been going along so well.

Hm. This wouldn't really be a problem if it hadn't now been nine years since the last time I finished a whole novel. In all that time, I'm probably as close now to finishing one as I have been in all that time, so I'd really like to not fuck it up. We'll see.

Best Day Of Her Life?

I'm really surprised that Erin has never posted this picture on her own blog, because I know how very excited she was that day when she met Dave Matthews and had this picture taken. Maybe she was embarrassed about those tattoos? Anyway, now I'm sharing it with you all.



And, no, I have no idea who that is on the left edge of the picture. No idea at all.

So, I'm not entirely sure what happened next because there was quite a crowd jostling to get close to Dave, but the next picture has Dave making this face:



Not to be accusatory, but ... just exactly where were your hands, young lady?

You To Thank

So this morning we had a little office meeting to acknowledge those who this month are having birthdays, or anniversaries with the company, or anything else worth note. At the end of this brief meeting, Jeff (not technically a supervisor of mine in any way, but also sort of the guy in charge of the office) says we're going to do a Halloween-inspired trivia quiz. And, as fate had it, the topic was scary movies.

To be honest, these were questions that were easy enough that I probably could have answered most of them years ago, before I ever met all you dear horror-movie-loving friends of mine (ie, match the serial killer to the movie franchise, what state did Blair Witch take place in, etc.). But, a few I certainly wouldn't have known if it weren't for knowing y'all (ie, the movie with the line "Have you checked the children?" is called When A Stranger Calls.)

Anyway, I kicked serious butt in this trivia challenge, and so I got ... Jeff? "Uh, actually I don't think we have a prize yet. I was going to run to Target and get something Halloween-themed at lunch, but we moved the meeting to the morning." He promised my prize would arrive in the afternoon. I figured anything fun Halloween decoration from Target would be good.

So after lunch Jeff and one of the other supervisors (female and, again, not actually one of my supervisors) presented me, very excitedly I might add, with my prize.

A t-shirt that reads: I'LL MAKE YOU SCREAM AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS.

This is an episode that reveals a number of interesting things about my office. For example, planning a contest but forgetting to plan the prize is rather indicative of all our business practices from the top down. Then there's the shirt itself. Now, I happen to like the shirt. Not necessarily something I would buy for myself, but something I'll gladly wear. I like the Halloween theme and I like the double entendre.

Ah, but that double entendre. Does anyone else wonder if giving an employee a t-shirt with what seems to me a not entirely obscure sexual suggestion is the tiniest bit inapporpriate? Again, it's me and it takes a lot more than that to offend me. But I'm left wondering: Were the people who bought the shirt unaware of the double entendre? Or were they just willing to risk a sexual harrassment charge if I turned out to be offended?

It's all a big mystery to me. But at least I got a free t-shirt. And I have you all to thank.

So ... thanks!

While we're on the subject of cheeky t-shirts, here are two that I enjoy:

It's time

My iPod has been on its last legs for some time now. It pretty much has no battery left at all, so I can use it only if there's a power source available. But I've been waiting, and waiting, enjoying how the new versions just keep getting better and cheaper.

But now, my friends, I think the time has come.

Strangely, I miss this, too

Every time I start to try to sell Diana on moving to Denver - the city, the scenery, the seasons! - the season have to come along and actually be, um, season-y. This is my parents' front yard last night:



And the back:



What else?

I seem to have been blogging a lot lately, but I don't know if it's been especially good blogging. Too cerebral, too serious. But one or maybe two people mentioned they thought the blog was funy and ... ack! Performance anxiety, blog style.

Does anyone remember when TV shows only went into syndication after they weren't airing new episodes anymore? It was one thing when Law & Order became unbiquitous on cable, at least it had been around long enough to feel like an old show. Same with The Simpsons. Then Friends went crazy with two syndicated episodes every day. But this is too ridiculous: TNT now has both Las Vegas and Cold Case in syndication. These shows have only been around for - what? - two seasons? Crazy.

And nevermind the fact that Las Vegas (yes, I'm basing this assessment on having watched all of about half of one episode) is one of the truly worst shows ever.

Nip/Tuck is also on now, but I'm saving it to watch with the girls tomorrow night. It made the cover of EW before the season and it was also in this week's "Must List," but ... I haven't honestly thought very highly of season three so far. Watching it last week, I realized that it’s not really a question so much of whether the show has jumped the shark, but how long ago it happened. Does anyone else remember when it was a show about plastic surgeons who happened to have some crazy stuff going on in the periphery? Now it’s a show that is desperately trying everything the writers can think of to continue to shock us (Transvestites beating someone up and pissing on him? Gratuitous shots of man ass? Threesomes? Foursomes?), oh, and also these people just happen to be plastic surgeons.

It was always a show that required a lot of suspension of belief. But now it’s just getting desperate, and that’s too bad. Of course, the show went places in the first season that a lot of shows would need four or five seasons to get to, so maybe it’s no surprise that the writers are struggling. Pity though. Hope it gets back to a more typically Nip/Tuck level of insanity soon.

I made it up. I made it all up.

A girl in my writing class (one of the more talented ones, sadly) says she doesn’t really like being a writer, but that she doesn’t feel she has much choice. I understand where she’s coming from: I don’t think I have a choice about being a writer. Even if I actually stopped writing I think I would still see the world as a writer, the same way a painter looks at the world as a painter, etc. But for the most part, I like being a writer. I like being effortlessly good at something some people find difficult. I don’t mean that in a cocky way: I have no talent for music whatsoever and I hope that all you musicians out there feel lucky for being effortlessly good at something I (and many others) struggle at. And I like that this talent is useful in many different ways: it helped when I was in school, it helps in the working world, in addition to being a good hobby. But still, I think I understand her frustration. A lot of people have written a lot about the misery of creating art, and I might get to that point in another post, but to me, the main thing is this:

What I don’t particularly like about writing is the tendency of readers to look for “truth” behind the “fiction.” It’s an interesting thing to do as a reader, and I’m guilty of it, as well, although I have found that ultimately I am more pleased as a reader to read something without considering the extent to which it is “true.” For example, I might not dislike John Irving’s new books quite so much if I hadn’t read in countless interviews and reviews of the books that it’s to a very great extent an autobiographical novel. I would be able to recognize Irving in it either way, but it’s more comforting to think that certain scenes of abuse in the book came from his imagination rather than his actual childhood.

Of course, nothing goes into a book that didn’t in some way come from the writer. A reader might extrapolate metaphors or hidden meanings that an author never dream of, but the basic plot and the word choice and the tone is all from the author. I think that’s what ultimately makes me insecure.

For example, I don’t seriously worry that anyone will read the story I’m currently writing about a petty thief and decide that I must be a kleptomaniac myself. (Some people might get that impression, but it’s so patently untrue that such suspicion doesn’t worry me.) All the same, if I can portray the character convincingly and make readers believe that his descriptions and methods of theft are in fact possible, then it follows that I am able to think like a thief whether I’ve stolen anything or not. It’s not such a pleasant thought.

In a different book (one I like a lot more), John Irving wrote: “one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be.” I try to take that to heart. But if I were to write a novel about a man having an extramarital affair, could I blame my wife for being uncomfortable with that? If I were to write a story in which a married couple stalks a college aged “friend” of theirs, could I blame Erin for being apprehensive?

I could not. Because, while I’m reasonably confident that Bret Easton Ellis has never committed a murder, I know that every despicable thing that happens in American Psycho came from his imagination. Thinking isn’t doing, and to a great degree we all probably have terrible thoughts that we never share – but read American Psycho and then tell me that it wouldn’t be just a little awkward to hang out with a guy knowing that he was not only capable of imagining those things, but also willing to share those imaginations.

Years ago, I found I was profoundly affected by such self-censorship. I’m better at dealing with it now. I find I’m comfortable writing just about anything. When I’m writing well I fall into the character’s world and pretty much everything else vanishes. I no longer find myself unable to write a sex scene out of the fear that one day, inevitably, my mother will read it. The problem is that later, I might be disturbed by what I wrote and tempted to change it. Or, the part of my brain that is always thinking about the story (Irving says: “If you’re a writer, the problem is that, when you try to call a halt to thinking about your novel-in-progress, your imagination still keeps going; you can’t shut it off”) might move the plot in a less disturbing direction. And then there’s always the, “Well, I’ve written this story now, but I’m pretty much never going to show it to anyone” problem.

Still, it’s not all bad. When I hand in an assignment to my class I’m more nervous that they’ll think I’m as crazy as my character than that they’ll just think I’m a bad writer. So at least I have some confidence in my actual ability. No one said it would be easy, which is what we’ve all been trying to tell the young lady in class who is on the verge of giving up.

And now for something completely different.

Here’s a joke that was forwarded to me at work, and yes it is stupid but it reminded me of Diana:

This guy is in line at the supermarket when he notices a hot blonde behind him. When she sees him looking at her she smiles and waves with a kind of friendly recognition.

He is taken aback that such a good-looking woman would be waving to him, and although she seems somewhat familiar he can't place where he might know her from. He says, “Sorry, do you know me?”

She replies, “I may be mistaken, but I thought you might be the father of one of my children.”

His mind shoots back to the one and only time he was unfaithful.

“Oh my God," he stammers, “are you the stripper from my bachelor party that I had sex with on the pool table in front of all my friends while your girlfriend whipped me with some wet celery?”

“Um, no,” she replies, “I’m your son’s English teacher.”

Ba-dum-dum!

Hi. It’s October, so that means it’s time for me to recommend some books I think you should read. Not that it’s something I typically do every month or even every October, but just ... y’know. Because. Actually both books are fall / October / Halloween themed, so I guess that’s something. Ah, don’t you just love it when I start writing stream-of-consciousness? Yeah. Me neither.

The first book is The Night Country and it is by a guy named Stewart O’Nan. Now, Stewart O’Nan is a prick, but I mean that in the nicest possible way. The way I see it, a writer can either write formulaic crap and publish a novel every year or so, or a writer can be important and literary but you only can squeeze out a whole new book every 3-5 years. That’s just the only fair tradeoff. Except here’s Stewart O’Nan, who writes and publishes a book pretty much every year ... and they’re all freaking good. That’s just not fair, people.

Everything I have read by O’Nan is good, but there are a few of his books that make me especially crazy. As I’ve said before, I can pay a writer no greater compliment than jealousy. Usually it’s abstract: I’m jealous of Toni Morrison’s talent and voice, but I have no desire to write like her. But O’Nan’s books are all very familiar. He writes with a plain voice that reminds me of my own writing and he often writes stories that I might write, if only the idea had come to me first. This is true of A Prayer for the Dying and Snow Angels, both of which are books that I love dearly and hate because I feel like I could have written them, but he just got there first.

Two years ago, O’Nan published The Night Country, yet another book that made me feel that way. It’s a ghost story but it uses ghosts more like Shakespeare did than the way Stepehn King does. (Did I mention Stephen King was one of O’Nan’s mentors? How is that fair?)

In the book, it’s Halloween and the one year anniversary of the night a group of teenagers went out driving and all but one ended up being killed in an accident that an overzealous young police officer may or may not have helped cause. The ghosts of the dead children are haunting the living – the friend who survived, the cop, their parents – but really they are not haunting so much as observing. It’s a bit like Alice Sebold’s Lovely Bones but more immediate. The ghosts are sometimes angry, sometimes sad, sometimes jealous. Some want the remaining friend to die. Some want the cop to die. At least one of them just doesn’t want to be a ghost anymore.

It’s a dark story, sometimes almost heartbreaking, but often countered by the ironic voice of the teenage narrator. Also, the mystery (not only of what will happen but of what happened the year before) drives the story and makes the short book a very fast read. I highly recommend it to you, even as I wish I could share it with you with my name on it instead.

And I don’t say that lightly. Snow Angels and A Prayer for the Dying felt like books I could write. But The Night Country was a book I was already writing in my head when I read it. I had somewhat recently read the aforementioned Sebold book as well as another book narrated by the dead called Hotel World by Ali Smith. I was in the mood to write a book narrated by the dead. I had the idea of a car crash, and I’m always tempted to set books around holidays, Halloween being the most appropriate for a ghost story. With all that, it was almost creepy for me to read The Night Country. It’s not a perfect book, though it is good. But even the things that aren’t great in it seem like things I might have screwed up if I wrote the story. So, I recommend it to you as a pleasant and not too long Halloween read: both because it’s worth your time and because reading it may actually reveal something about me, as well.

The other book I have to recommend is something very different from anything I would ever write. This is called House of Leaves and is by Mark Z. Danielewski, who is the brother of the singer Poe (remember "Hello" or "Angry Johnny"?) In fact, Poe's second album Haunted is sort of a companion piece to the book.

I recommend this one to you not because it is a great book (it’s been a while since I read it but I know there were parts of it I found tedious and some definite plot holes), but because it’s the only book I’ve ever read that has scared me.

I’ve read lots of horror, King, Koontz, Straub, Barker, etc, but the thing is that, really, books just can’t be scary. As a reader I can “fall into” a good story and be quite involved with it, but … it’s still just a book. Even as a kid, things in books just didn’t scare me. But this book, which I read when I was in college, scared the shit out of me.

Partly that’s because it plays to my fears. I’m just not scared of monsters, even in visual form something corporeal is something that can be dealt with. It’s not that scary (the girl from The Ring here being an obvious exception). What does scare me is the unknown. Things that don’t fit into reality. The impossible. So, The Mothman Prophesies freaked me out. And so did the House of Leaves book.

Part of why the book works is also part of why it drags at points. The book is supposedly a collection of all the materials that could be found relating to this mysterious case. So we read some boring letters and some pointless journal entries, and we read descriptions of some video tapes that were made. It’s a bit like Blair Witch but in book form.

The story revolves around this house that’s too big. The inner dimensions are larger than the outer dimensions of the house can account for. See, that’s creepy. The more the owners look into this strange issue, the more the house seems to grow. But only on the inside. See? Creepy. Soon they’re off exploring whole huge underground passages in the dark and doing all kinds of other incredibly stupid but definitely scary things.

This one, in all honesty, isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. But in the end I really liked it. I read it in the midst of summer, often during daylight, during a happy time in my life. And it still freaked me out. So either this book is totally creepy, or I’m a big wuss. (No voting on that, please, at least until you’ve read the thing.)

all the world just stopped now

So I have been informed that “Pieces of Me” is a song by Ashlee Simpson. (I actually Googled this at first, just to make sure I wasn’t being toyed with. But it seems to be true. The Google experience has given me even more reason to hate her, however, as I now know that she spells her name “Ashlee.” Maybe that’s not technically her fault, but too bad.)

Maybe, like me, you live in blissful ignorance of Ms. Saturday Night and the majority of her music. Maybe you thought I was being cheeky? Maybe you didn’t notice I had changed the blog title at all. Or, maybe you recognized that whether the full line “pieces of me you’ve never seen” is part of Ashlee’s song or not (I didn’t really do that much research) it’s also a line from a Tori Amos song, which is where the title actually came from.

And OK, maybe it’s a little weird for a guy to take inspiration from Tori Amos, but … well fuck off. She’s awesome.

Still, I’m thinking of changing the name again now.

This Time Of Year

Some of you who live in parts of the country with seasons might think that a tribute to fall is well overdue. Those of you who live in Arizona might still think it's premature. But I had a lovely afternoon *, it's Friday, I'm home early, and I am thus inspired.

Fall is my favorite time of year. Halloween is coming, cooler temperatures are coming, it is a beautiful time to live in Arizona. I have whole playslists of "fall" music and I watch lots of "fall" related things, and ... yeah, I'm a dork. You know this. My favorite "fall" song is truly a song about fall and it's by Better Than Ezra and it's called "This Time Of Year."



There's a feeling in the air
Just like a Friday afternoon
You can go there if you want
But it fades too soon

So go on, let it be
There's a feeling coming over me
Seems like it's always understood
This time of year

There's a football in the air
Across a leaf-blown field
There's the first car on the road
And the girl you steal

So go on, let it be
There's a feeling coming over me
Seems like it's always udnerstood
This time of year

I know there's a reason to change
I know there's a time for us
You think about the good times
And you live with all the bad
You can feel it in the air
Feeling right this time of year

That first line has just always enchanted me. It's so right. What else can I say? I've always loved this song.

When I was a senior in high school, I actually got a chance to meet Better Than Ezra backstage at the Paramount Theater in Denver, on an afternoon before a concert they were playing on a weekend in early October. And they decided to play a couple songs for those of us who got to meet them back there and did just a fun, amazing little acoustic set and ended it with "This Time of Year."

Anyway, before starting the song, they said that they think of it as their "campfire" song, but since they play most of their concerts electrified and highly amplified it doesn't always feel that way when they play it. Then they played a quiet, acoustic, slower and almost sad version of the song that I will never, ever forget. Evereyone was singing along at first, but very quietly, and then louder and louder until it really was like a campfire singalong.

The thing is, I didn't always like fall. In a place like Denver that has seasons, fall means winter is coming and when I was in junior high and igh school and had a bit of depression, winter was the worst. By my senior year, I was beginning to really fall in love with fall. ** But something about the slow, quiet version of the song really hit something in me. I damn near ended up in tears, but didn't feel too foolish because there were people in the room crying. It was an emotional moment like that.

Later that night during their main set, the lead singer told a brief story about playing this song in a sad way and how he felt so awful seeing people feeling sad because of it. And they then proceeded to play a perfect, upbeat, loud version of "This Time of Year." It's a moment that has always satyed with me, and I never fail to think of that day when I hear the song.

So fall is coming. Good movies are coming to theatres. Apple cider is in the stores. Pumpkins and Halloween decorations are everywhere you look. Football is being played. Baseball has finally started the playoffs. It's October. It's fall.

I'm always just a tiny bit sad during fall in Arizona. I miss Colorado autumns. I miss trips to Estes Park to see the aspen changing to a brilliant gold and the elk bugling in Rocky Mountain National Park. I miss that crisp feeling in the air that we don't really get in Arizona until around Thanksgiving. I miss putting on heavy jackets and gloves to go to the movies and going to football games that start off warm in sunlight and end well after dark when it's chilly so you have to huddle together with a girl for warmth. I miss not wanting to drink apple cider unless it's warmed up.

But those feelings will reach our southern desert climate soon enough. This afternoon, I'm thrilled just knowing it's on its way.



* Our office won a contest this week and was rewarded by being able to watch a movie this afternoon. It was actually quite fun and I laughed a lot and got to leave about 20 minutes early and the afternoon I walked out into was sunny and the sky was blue and it was not too hot. And I was able to drink it in and think, Ah, the weekend.

** ba-dum-bum!

PS. When I first published this blog one of the books that showed up "from my library" on the side of the page was Stewart O'Nan's "The Night Country," which is a fall/Halloween book that I love and have long intended to write a blog about. I'll try to get to that soon.

it's 11:30 pm, do you know where natalie portman is?

Maybe I’m having a moment of selective memory here, but for me there really weren’t any two better movies in 2004 than Closer and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Both are movies that linger – I haven’t stopped thinking about them since the day I went to the theater. Beyond that, they don’t really have much in common. Both are about relationships, I guess. Though Closer is more about people interacting while Eternal Sunshine is more about our inner lives, our memories. I’ve been having the urge to sit down and watch Eternal Sunshine again lately, but tonight Diana turned on Closer before she went to bed, so I’m watching it all the way through for the first time since in the theater, I think. I own it, but it’s not really the kind of thing you’d watch on a summer afternoon. I’ve put in the DVD for a few scenes, but not the whole thing.

I’m struck by the pessimism of this movie, which is really just a kind of honesty, an open discussion of a reality we gloss over in day-to-day life. I am tempted to write that I do not know people who behave this way in real life, but in fact I do. I just don’t like to think about it. Still, it is reassuring to me to feel put off by these characters.

I’ve been in a dark mood lately. Not depressed, in which case I would probably embrace Closer’s ugliness, but dark. Maybe it’s my job, or Diana’s job. Maybe it’s the combined fatigue we all feel about our jobs. Do any of my friends really like what they do? I guess Robert doesn’t hate his gig, oh and Kane gets to make out with some German chick. (What’s that Trish? That should go in the “jobs that suck” column instead? Gotcha.)

Maybe it’s because October is here and I have decorated for Halloween and Corpse Bride is in theatres and yet ... it’s still ungodly hot. Fall is not really here in any meaningful sense. Maybe I just need a cool fall breeze on my face to brighten my mood. I tried to trick myself by breaking out “fall” songs and clothes and the like, but “This Time of Year” just really doesn’t work when it’s 99.

Added into this, to some degree, is the story I’m writing, which is an undeniably dark story. I tend to listen to “appropriate” music when writing and that’s starting to carry over to the rest of my day, as well. Gone from my speakers the last couple of weeks are the happy, carpe diem invocations of Dave Matthews Band or Jack Johnson. And that’s not unusual. DMB tends to be “summer music” for me, and I tend to listen to a lot of U2 and Pearl Jam in the fall and winter. But this isn’t like that. I’m listening to the really dark Tori Amos songs, and Nine Inch Nails, and Daniel Lanois. For God’s sake I found myself listening to Brian Eno yesterday. So clearly it’s getting a bit out of control.

I need to stop indulging it, I suppose. I went to the movies this week and saw A History of Violence, a dark and brutal movie. Strange how that didn’t help. But I have a thing about not really enjoying comedies when I’m by myself. Upside? There are still plenty of stupid comedies to be seen. 40 Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers are still in theaters and that Waiting movie comes out ... son, I think? Plus Wallace and Gromit this weekend. And maybe not so much with the Closer before bedtime anymore.