Saturday, May 28, 2005

A defense

My little "I'm really not a Star Wars geek ... I promise" disclaimer in the previouss post reminded me of something I was thinking about last week when those Star Wars movies came out. A few of us at work were talking about those people who not only were there for the very first midnight showings, but had camped out in line beforehand - hours, day, maybe even weeks earlier. Do they not have jobs? we wondered. One of my middle aged co-workers said his high-school age daughter was going to see the movie at midnight with some of her friends. He thought that was a great thing to do when "you're a young person" (his words) but that as an adult there starts to be something weird and wrong in your priorities. I almost agree with him.

Midnight movies and cultural events like this are great for teenagers. Everyone should have some of those experiences in high school or college. But, I was rather surprised to find I have a soft spot for the Star Wars dweebs who waited breathlessly, camped out, and saw the movie five times before I ever did.

Sure, there are extremes of obsession and being an obsessive fan of something can be dangerous. It can also be great. I think everyone needs agt least one thing in their life that they love so much that it's a little embarrassing. I have many things I'm passionate about, but the two things that really grip me you all probably know: live music and Harry Potter. I've already been to midnight release parties for the last two Harry Potter books, and you can be sure I'll be there again this July for no. 6. As for concerts, let's see: in 2000 I saw Pearl Jam on consecutive nights in Albuquerque, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. Last year, I went to San Francisco for a Dave Matthews Band concert. This summer I'm taking a trip to visit Tony in Chicago ... as an excuse to see Dave Matthews Band's two-night stint at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin. Dorky? Damn right. Enough so that I don't ever much talk about it except with people who share the same obsession. I can talk to Brianna about Harry Potter. I can taalk to Erin about DMB. But I barely talk about either of those things with anyone else.

I think it's healthy to have an obsession that borders on unhealthy. I think it's one of those things that makes life worth living. Maybe it's self-justification, but I can't imagine a life that doesn't include some things that I'm willing to fly across the country and spend ridiculous amounts of money on. The older I get, the more that changes. Having a wife means I need music somewhat less. Having a full-time job means it's harder to fly cross-country to see a concert, or stay up past midnight to buy a book. Having children, growing older, these things I'm sure will further lessen my obsessions. And sooner or later, the bands in this world that I love enough to travel to another state to see will be gone, the books I count the hours waiting for will be finished. That's life. It's probably also why most of the 45 year-olds who still line up in full dress costume for Star Wars are bachelors.

Friday, May 27, 2005

OK, they're all bad

Being as I had no tickets to the NIN concert tonight and Diana figured she was headed for an early night as her reward for the last day of school, I decided to finally go ahead and watch the original Star Wars movies that I got for Christmas but had never even touched. And, as I kind of suspected, it turns out that when it comes to the acting and the dialogue, the originals are really no better than the prequels.

Maybe it's because I saw Star Wars for the first time when I was so young that I can't even remember the actual first time, maybe it's just that "classic" status, I don't know. But confirming the suspicion makes me like the prequel trilogy more in retrospect. Not that I'm going back to the theatre to see Episode III again. I mean, it's dorky enough devoting two posts in a row to these movies ...

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Hot Time, Summer In The City

So the A/C at work went out this morning around 10a.

Have I mentioned I live in Phoenix, which in May is roughly the third circle of hell?

By noon, it was all but unbearable in the building, which meant a free afternoon for me, so all in all I shouldn't really complain.

So I went and saw Star Wars, being as its one of those movies that I had no hope of dragging Diana to go see and I think most everyone else I know had already gone to see it. I'm glad to have seen it but it wasn't exactly a great film. Unless you're comparing it to the first two prequels, of course. If that were the standard this one would be Oscar-worthy.

Now maybe if they don't get the air conditioning at work fixed I'll get tomorrow off, too, and I can finally go see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Dead Like Me

Starting tonight and apparently running most of the summer, Showtime is going to be running the first two seasons of Dead Like Me. On Tuesdays at 8 ET, though what that means for your local time I can't even begin to guess.

Like most people you probably haven't even heard of Dead Like Me, which no doubt has a lot to do with why it was cancelled. It was among my favorite television shows ever. It has no genre because it's everything from dark comedy to uplifting drama. Seriously a great show.

I'm not sure why, having cancelled the show, the network is airing all these old epidoes, but it gives me a tiny sliver of hope that it could be revived if it gets some viewers this time around. Or, at the very least, you can watch it now and understand why every time Mandy Patinkin shows up in one of those prescription drug commericals my heart hurts a little.

Trish dun tagged me!

So here goes ...

The total volume of music files on my computer: Well, none on the computer here at work. At home ...? Yikes. At any given time if you include whatever concerts I haven't yet archived to disc in some way, probably 30 GB or more. I think about 4GB is my actual iTunes folder, though.

The last CD I bought was: Dave Matthews Band, Stand Up. But the new Audioslave was released today and I might buy that sometime.

Song playing right now: "Fat Bottomed Girls", Queen. Simple because when the iPod is on shuffle you really never know what's in store. Great song, though. How awesome was it that the guy included it in "Super Size Me"? That was inspired filmmaking, right there ...

Five songs I listen to a lot or mean a lot to me, in no particular order:
Incubus / Wish You Were Here. Probably the least cheesy of all the many songs that make me sigh and think of Diana. Think about this: I was on Spring Break in San Diego in a house with nine girls and only one other guy ... and I spent the week on the beach thinking about some chick I worked with and listening to this song. Good thing I married her, otherwise that would have been quite a waste.

Better Than Ezra, This Time of Year. It breaks my heart that most people, if they remember who Better Than Ezra are at all, think they're a few-hit wonder from the mid-90s. Great song about that first feeling of autumn in the air. I had this song dedicated to me at a concert many, many years ago - and that was before I moved to Arizona and autumn suddenly became my favorite season.

Pseudopod, Shrinks. Back before the lead singer got a brain tumor and the band broke up I was certain these guys were going to be the next big thing. If it had ever been released this song couldn't have failed to be a huge summer radio hit. And manages to say a lot about the way I look at the world at the same time.

Duncan Sheik, That Says It All. Lyrics here. The most inspirational song I know.

Led Zepplein, Your Times Is Gonna Come. The first rock song I remember loving. My neighbor's Dad had Led Zeppelin I on vinyl and most of the album was just noise to me (today, some of it still is). But I can still remember being 4 years old and singing this, seriosuly weirding out my parents.

Who are you tagging and why?:

Looks like Trish got almost the whole list except Lani, whose responses I am very interested to see. (EDIT: Damn. Trish tagged Lani, too. EDIT PART 2: Not only did Trish tag her, she's already updated.) I would so tage Erin, but, oh that's right, beeyotch ain't go no blog yet.

Crying Wolfe

So last night I finished reading a real shit pile of a novel, and it occurred to me the most important question to ask about it is: Why, given that this book was such a tremendous piece of crap, did I read all of its nearly 700 pages? Seriously. Why the fuck did I just do that? (And why, since I started reading the book, has the word “fuck” become a much more prominent part of my vocabulary?)

The answer is Tom Wolfe. Now, as a general rule, I kinda like Tom Wolfe. Just kinda. Bonfire of the Vanities is one of the great novels I have ever read and much of his reporting is excellent, as well. A Man In Full is a very good book, just not one I was able to love. But his newest novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, the immovable doorstop I finished last night, is a miserable disappointment.

I am not in the least against putting a book down if its not worth reading. There are too many books in this world and not enough days left in my life to waste too many reading crap. But I kept reading this book. Maybe it was hardheadedness. I wanted to like this book. Wolfe’s previous two novels do an incredibly good job of really speaking to their topics; here he was turning his focus on college life in the new millennium. Something I’ve experienced! I thought I might like this book so much. I didn’t. Let’s talk briefly about why.

Above all things, the writing. I’m not of the school that good writing has to be difficult to read, as I think most of you know. I love Michael Ondaatje and James Joyce but I’m also a huge fan of Dickens, John Irving, and Stephen King. It’s not the simplicity of the writing in this book that fails. It’s just bad writing. Most of the prose has the feeling of the first person, except that the story is always told in the third person and alternates between the points of view of the brilliant but naïve Charlotte and the three men who desperately want to get into her pants. Wolfe likes narration of this sort because he can be inside a character’s head but also step outside to wax philosophical, which is often when he gets into the most trouble. His early dissertation on the language of people our age, the Fuck Patois as he calls it, is enjoyable to read, it’s funny, and it’s so right. And yet so wrong. Wolfe wants us to believe it’s an isolated thing, this liberal use of the word. He seems to think it’s a college thing, an under 30 thing. Hasn’t he ever seen a Quentin Tarantino movie? This is indicative of how Wolfe consistently gets so close to the truth and then fails. Throughout the book I found myself thinking, “My God! Yes! This is what it’s like!” Only to read one more sentence in which the author completely obliterates his credibility. Memo to Mr. Wolfe: It’s not news that college campuses are absolutely dripping with sex. It’s not news because it’s been that way forever.

And how bad the sex in this book is. I guess he won the bad sex writing award and I cannot imagine a book more deserving. Characters don’t get fingered in this book, certain parts of their mons get prodded at by the tips of the digits of other characters. Are you kidding me? No one thinks like that. Ever. Especially not while wedged in the front seat of a car making out.

To a great extent, I think Wolfe – one of the great reporters of our time, in truth – didn’t do a very good job with his research here. Its as if he visited a number of college campuses and heard any number of salacious stories and not only believed them all but decided that must be the tip of the iceberg. This is another way the narrator fails. As a reader I can’t discern a difference between a section where he’s overstating reality because that’s what Charlotte would be doing (ie, not every single girl on campus wear Dieseil jeans, is Charlotte exaggerating? Or is Wolfe that naïve?), or because he’s just wrong.

The school setting – Dupont University – is a fictional place with both stellar athletics and academics of the highest standard, as well. That’s hard enough to believe, but generally I found myself thinking of Duke when I thought of Dupont. Now, I remind you that I went to a much bigger school than Duke, but one that is surely no slouch in basketball and one that is pretty rabidly sports obsessed. But not like this. Wolfe spends many pages of his book dissecting what is and is not cool in the college student’s mind, and again he is mostly right except that, given how often random students shout at the basketball player character “Go go, Jojo!” he must think that sort of display is also cool. No. It’s not cool to even acknowledge that a basketball player in your class is anything but a normal student … until later that night when you’re actually at the game.

Finally, and maybe most glaringly wrong, is the bizarre sexual dynamic in this book. It’s one thing for the basketball players to have “groupies.” I can imagine that not being entirely too far from the truth – although in my experience, the players I knew were no more likely to be able to point at a girl and have her come back to his room than I would be if I tried the trick. But the females in this book are disturbingly pathetic. Charlotte’s drunken roommate outside a lacrosse player’s room begging for sex is one of the most ridiculous scenes I’ve ever read. It’s just not like that, and I can’t fully understand where Wolfe got the idea that it’s girls who have to ask for sex. It never has been that way in human history, and it’s sure not now. But that speaks to the larger surreal quality of the book: how completely obsessed it is with the male. I have never read so much about muscles, even in a human physiology textbook. I have never been asked to think so much about what it means to be a man. And in a book where the main character is female. All I’m saying, Tom, is it makes me wonder ...

So why did I read this damnable thing? Well, it’s a good story. It’s not a new story in any way and it has more flaws than I have ever hinted at here, but Wolfe can still move a plot along. Charlotte’s story is implausible, yes, and unrealistic, true, but it’s also moving. It’s engaging. It just ought to have been told better.

Friday, May 20, 2005

OMG, CSI goes QT

Maybe last night’s episode of CSI: wasn’t the best episode of the program I’ve ever seen. But, if so, I think that’s only because last night wasn’t so much an episode of CSI: as it was – despite the commercial breaks – the first CSI: movie.

I’m neither a Quentin Tarantino fan nor a hater. Some of the scenes in his movies are among the best and most memorable I’ve ever watched. In the end, however, I’ve never found any of his movies to be truly great (to be fair, I have never watched Kill Bill, though both parts have been waiting for me on the DVR for months). I’ve always gotten the feeling he tries to do just a bit too much, to be too great, or just too too. But I think he did a marvelous job with CSI:. The first hour of last night’s show was right up there with the best network TV I’ve ever watched. Tarantino left a definite stamp on almost every scene, but it was still CSI:, with only a handful of exceptions (the early conversation between Nick and Warrick being the main example).

I am not sure the second half lived up to the promise of the first, but such is the curse of great ideas – the more impossible the situation you set up in the first act, the more the second act will have to cheat to resolve it.

Also, some of the more overtly Tarantino bits worked better in the first half than they did in the second. The scene in which the team first watches Nick on the computer while the Walkman plays the Turtles’ “Outside Change” was brilliant. Sure, it was a blatant rip off of the ear-cutting scene from “Reservoir Dogs,” but it worked. It was completely unlike any moment CSI: has ever had and one of the few times I’ve been happy to dwell on the characters as people. On the other hand, Nick’s hallucination of his autopsy at the hands of his father and the coroner didn’t work for me at all – it was pointlessly gruesome and sort of killed the suspense that had been building before the commercial break. That kind of thing might have worked better earlier on.

It did lack a lot of classic CSI: stuff. I know Diana was disappointed at the lack of triumph at the end – her favorite moments from the show are those scenes when the bad guy finally realizes he’s been caught. I missed that as well, although it would have been inauthentic for the female prisoner at the end to show such remorse. What really bothered me was the relative lack of a villain. The episode was built around a great idea – let’s put Nick in a box! – but never was able to justify the situation. They needed a bad guy but had nothing to do with him – so they blew him up. It might have been more powerful if it was someone from a CSI: past – an old villain who’s grudge against the department would have made more sense to us as longtime viewers of the show.

Still, and here I quote Lani, who had the decency to send only this even though she was finishing the episode just as we started it: “OMG … CSI … just … wow.”

Friday, May 13, 2005

Red shirt

So, I wore a red shirt to work today. Didn't really think anything of it. In fact, I chose my clothes this morning in pretty much the same way I do every morning.

Here is how I choose what to wear each day. It's kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book: Step 1. Grab a hangar. Is there an article of clothing on the hanger? If yes, continue to step 2. If no, go back to Step 1. Step 2. Is the article of clothing wrinkled, dirty, or otherwise unfit to wear in public? If yes, go back to Step 1. If no, put article of clothing on and continue to Step 3. Step 3. Is the article of clothing you are wearing pants or a shirt? Once determination is made, start back at Step 1 with whichever article (pants/shirt) you're not wearing. Then continue to Step 4. Step 4. Try to open your eyes. Look at yourself in the mirror. Do the pants and shirt sort of go together? Even a little bit? Is at least not too offensive to the eye? If yes, you are dressed. Now try to find breakfast. If no, start back at Step 1.

So, that's how I ended up at work today with what I must say are some pretty crisp black slacks and a very red shirt on. But you're just wondering: What the hell is this post about?

Not that it really went through my head consciously, but in retrospect as I walked into the office today I did see an abnormally large number of red-shirted insurance drones. Some of them even smiled at me, which isn't all that common around here in the morning unless you actually know the person. Normally the predminant color around here on Fridays is blue, because everyone is sort of encouraged to wear company logo shirts and while you can get logo shirts in pretty much any color, most of them are blue. Not red. But anyway.

So I'm here, checking messages, starting up my computer, and generally bemoaning the next eight hours of my life, when a co-worker we'll call shipDit walks by. You don't have to have met shipDit to know him. First of all, he used to be the manager for the entire office. Then he was re-assigned to "special projects." Now he's back working at my level, which is to say about three levels lower than where he was about a year ago. You might think that's rough for shipDit except that ... well, it's just a little bit funny. Seriously, if Bill Lumbergh had been demoted would his employees have really felt for him?

shipDit is the sort of co-worker who always has at least a semi-witty response ready for any situation. How? Well, he has about three semi-witty responses committed to memort and really isn't afraid to use them in any situation. So you might say, "Hi, shipDit, how are you this morning?" and he'll say, "Fine as frog's hair split three ways." He might say it to every person who asks him how he is. All week long. You probably know who I mean.

So shipDit, who still hasn't entirely figured out that he doesn't have any actual authority over anyone anymore, says, "Matt, I'm happy to see you in that shirt." And I just kind of nod and sort of smile and make a slight noise because that's really all I ever do now that my desk isn't right next to shipDit and I don't really have to even pretend to listen. But I'm thinking, HUH? Could shipDit mean that he's happy I didn't come in shirtless? Probably not. I do notice that shipDit is wearing a red shirt himself and that's striking since men of shipDit's, um, stature don't usually wear red. Probably because it's embarrassing to be mistaken for a firetruck, but I'm just guessing about that.

This had me confused for the entire morning. Not that I was dwelling on it, exactly, but surely you can understand how even the slightest potential that a man like shipDit could say something too witty to be understood could cause paranoia.

And then I got the email.

This email was titled "Wear red on Fridays." It took a moment for the synapses to connect, but even before I started reading, I gasped. Out loud. Not too loudly, though. If we actually had cubicles probably no one would have heard. As it is, four people heard but I think they all ignored me.

So apparently the movement is on to get people to wear red on Fridays to show support for our troops overseas. Which is a nice thought, although I do think the whole phrase "Support Our Troops" is now completely divorced from its actual meaning. But I'd rather not get into the politics of the phrase. I'm just here to issue a warning: Be careful what you put on in the morning. If it's not red, you could be inadvertently disrespecting the military. On the other hand, if you do wear red, you could be mistaken for a shipDit disciplea. Or, possibly, a fire truck.

Friday, May 06, 2005

What I Gained From Working At My College Newspaper

I always used to write out the word okay. Then in a reporting class where we had to study AP Style I learned that AP prefers OK. Probably just to save those two characters, which can be all important. (Sadly, I'm not being saracastic about that). So I knew that if I was writing anything for a journalism class I needed to make sure I used OK instead of okay. Not that you would use that word very often in journalism. You'd cut it from most quotes even. Anyway, I continued to use okay in all other uses. I don't know why, but I remember that I did.

Then I got a job as a copy editor at the student paper and suddenly I had to take AP Style much more seriously than I ever had previously. Plus, by my senior year I was not actually writing very much that wasn't journalism-related.

And, three years later, it occurs to me that I never write out okay anymore. I just don't. So, apparently that's the lasting mark the Wildcat has left on my life.

(Oh, and Diana. I found her there, too.)

In other news of me and words, I just moments ago learned that fierce is a really awkward word to spell. Seriously. It's not hard to spell, it follows the basic rules. But it just looks wrong. So that's another strike against you, fierce. First Tyra Banks and now this. One more and you're done.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Cookies Are a Sometimes Food

I’ve said it before and I just need to point it out again: whether or not you like a given work of art (whether it’s a painting or a movie or a song) isn’t a function of good/bad, it’s just your personal taste. There’s no right or wrong. So get over yourself. Argh. (As you might guess, I think maybe I’ve been spending too much time on message boards again.)

On an unrelated note, my wife makes the best cookies ever. You should definitely ask her to make you some because then I can sneak up behind her in the kicthen and have some of the cookie dough. And maybe even an actual cookie or two. Thanks for your help on this.