I likely need to get on here and rant and rave more often, but the fact is that I’ve just been keeping busy. Staying out of trouble. Keeping myself off the streets, as it were.
However, in the past couple of days, I have seen some things that seem to be worth commenting on, so here goes. Come to the shiny metal bowl and get your scraps, internet puppies.
1) Snow-maggeddon/Snow-pocalypse: While I understand that Washington DC, Philadelphia, and hell, that whole thing nobody really cares about called New Jersey are basically buried under snow, I fail to see why New England shat its collective pants when faced with a Nor’easter. These things are run of the mill here. It’s February, snow’s going to happen. But no, we had 24 hours news coverage, up-to-the-second weather forecasts with live reporters standing on street corners, red-faced in their synthetic parkas. I went to the supermarket Tuesday evening to pick up bananas and protein shakes (more on that later, perhaps), and saw people “stocking up.”
Apparently stocking up means that you go to the store because there’s a panic about potential food shortages (which is bullshit), but then instead of buying sensible things like bread, milk, flour, rice, etc… You just buy shit that is only “food” by virtue of the fact that it’s sold in a grocery store. The guy ahead of me in line? Haagen Dazs AND ice cream sandwiches. Somehow I feel like that’s a poor choice for a snowstorm, should the power go out. Although at least you know it wouldn’t melt. The woman in the next aisle over had a cartful of junk: the makings of S’mores, tater tots, and I think I may even have seen the unpleasant stripes of that-thing-that’s-peanut-butter-and-jelly-in-one-jar.
The point is, the hysteria created by local weathermen apparently convinced these people to go out and spend $100+ mid-week on useless groceries. This leads me to one inevitable conclusion, which is that local weathermen are the largest shareholders in grocery stores, or are getting some form of kickback from said grocery stores in order to freak out about snow.
Don’t get me wrong, the roads were unpleasant yesterday, but even if there had been the 15-20” forecast, it’s not really as though it would kill anyone to say, skip a day of work, or stay home and eat the food they had already purchased. But that’s not what people want. They want excuses. They want a reason to purchase two things, both of which are ice cream. They want a reason to make S’mores while not camping, a reason to eat tater tots, and a reason to be lazy and sit in front of the TV and eat largely-synthetic food-like products. God help us if there actually ever IS a disaster here in New England. Everyone will be shooting heroin into their genitals and eating Weatherman Brand™ LARD-N-SUGAR (NOW WITH MORE NITRATES!)
2) I have, in the past month, engaged on the most reasonable yet surprising endeavor of bettering myself physically. That is, I go to the gym daily and you know, pretend to be a hamster on a giant wheel. Running imaginary miles aside, it gives me a sense of accomplishment, a boost in self-esteem, and that ever-needed “something to do today.” On the (probably) negative side, it has caused me to do such questionable things as wear a spandex shirt in public, and come to think of myself as attractive. The other issue, which I don’t see as a negative but is somewhat difficult, is as follows.
Not being employed right now (which is a whole other set of rants that I could easily go on but choose not to), I don’t do a lot during the day. I apply to jobs, do crossword puzzles, work out, and play the guitar. That’s about it. That way I can hopefully keep my professional, mental, physical, and creative lives active. It’s a fine system. The big problem is when other people come into it. I have very little to talk about, outside of… how frustrating the job hunt is, how I just did a crossword puzzle (doesn’t thrill anyone, believe me), or the gym. The gym is the one area in which I’m seeing progress, which means that odds are, if I have to talk about something positive, it has to do with how many minutes I successfully punished myself for—The punishment of course being for the youthful indiscretions that led to my former fatness—or how great a weight I was able to repeatedly lift in what is arguably a completely unnatural motion.
I feel like I’m in danger of becoming one of those guys. You know the ones. The ones who work out all the time and don’t have anything to discuss except lifting technique and buttock definition. But for me, it isn’t because I’m obsessed with it, it’s a dearth of other topics. I find it difficult to tell people things like “Yes, I applied to 4 jobs today. I don’t really remember what they were because I’ve been doing this for a month and a half and they’re all starting to bleed together.” When I can just be a bit more positive and say things like “I ran 3 miles in 20 minutes and my heartbeat didn’t even go above 150!” Despite the fact that I’m left with the sense that I am, in terms of being interesting, an enormous disappointment.
Ah well. I’m sure at some point someone will hire me. And if they won’t, then I’ll just do the logical thing and get a job working at a gym. Wait… is this how people end up doing that?
3) Google and Facebook conspire to make my life more-invaded, less-communicative. Facebook recently updated their interface so that you can get even more advertising crammed into your eyes. I don’t really have a serious problem with that, other than the fact that I only really use it as a communication tool, and frankly, mostly for posting stupid things like articles about ducks having bizarre genitalia, or this. It’s become so entrenched in my life (given my distance from most people and the fact that I spend most days on a computer) that no matter how grumpy I may become about it, I can’t give it up. I need that connection, one-sided as it may be. Because, frankly, people don’t make active connections anymore. At least not most of them. I have maybe 5-6 people I feel really genuinely connected to in my life, but that doesn’t mean I stop giving a crap about the other ones. Facebook and social media (or whatever the term of the week is) allow for a sort of… proxy-connection. Something like “I’ll log what I’m doing on here, and you come look at it whenever you get a chance. Oh, and do try to make a pithy comment, won’t you?”
Well, I do pith it up, on occasion, but the interface is now standing in my way. Because I now have to dodge pickles having more fans that *INSERT THING IT’S COOL TO HATE HERE, THANKS* or a comment someone left on their grandmother’s photo, or the simple fact that someone I barely know anymore “likes” the post of someone I literally don’t know.
All I want is the plain old fashioned status update thingie. Where I can be like “Hey, I’m a dickhead, joke joke etc” and then my friends can be like “Yep.”
Is that too much to ask for?
In a related topic, Google unveiled some shit no one knew they were working on and nobody likes. Google buzz is yet another way for every piece of information your friends, business associates, and slight acquaintances put on the internet to be mercilessly crammed down your throat by Google’s shiny chrome fist.
Coming from my somewhat dorky background in IRC and PHPBB messageboards, I’m actually okay with it, provided I can pick and choose what to view. But I was quite upset at the fact that I was receiving an email every time someone posted something related to me or commented on something I had written. It reminds me of how on messageboards, you used to be able to click that “email me when someone replies to this thread”… AND NO ONE EVER CLICKED IT EVER. Because it’s horribly annoying.
To sum up: I have become counterdependent towards the internet. I rely on it for communication, social life, and escape. Yet I absolutely hate it when it forces itself upon me, or insists upon itself. I am, like so many other internet users, a whiny bastard.
That’s all I got for now. Comment at will, and for God’s sake get to the store, it might snow. Oh, and happy birthday to my brother, James, who is 32 today. I look forward to getting all drunk about it at some point soon.
RJC
So, I haven’t written anything in nearly two months, since that faithful, Total-Recall-reference-titled entry summing up my mood two weeks from my return to the United States.
I’ll sum up what’s happened since then fairly quickly. I have returned to the United States. Much to my pleasure, my mood has not crumbled. I came back home, yet somehow avoided returning to the anxiety and general funk that has permeated my life for some years. Admittedly it was getting a bit better before I went, but I can’t help but credit my experiences in Australia with some of the good feelings.
But, I have to draw a sharp line here. Australia is old news. The new news is… Well, it’s a laundry list of observations and silliness. Of course.
A year ago today, I was toying with the idea of creating this site as a sounding board, a posting place for my fiction, my music, and my thoughts. The only one that really came out all that well was the thoughts. But I’m still pleased with it. It’s a good outlet, and tends to use more complete sentences than many blogs, for which I hope to be lauded and raised on high by the people. Not that people will care.
An example of how poor internet grammar has infiltrated our lives: I was just doing a crossword puzzle. Not an online one, a proper one in a newspaper. Anyways, I’m working my way through it and having a bit of trouble with the last across. The clue was “dismissive on-line sign off.” I completed the downs and nearly vomited at the horror of it. The answer? “KTHXBYE.” Lolcat-isms invading the pasttimes of a largely idle intellectual quasi-elite? I won’t stand for it!
(I actually don’t really care, but punditry requires a bit of, you know, zazz. Gotta zazz it up.)
Another thing that has struck me since returning to America is how pervasive erectile dysfunction medication advertising is. Apparently the TV gods have decided that the target audiences of BBC America, Mixed Martial Arts, and Food Network (basically the only things I tend to watch) are all in need of a mouthful of boner pills. Now, while I recognize these commercials have been around since Bob Dole first stole our ability to sleep at the Superbowl 10 years ago, I also believe that they are getting more ridiculous. Not in showing how they improve people’s lives, that’s not what I mean. I mean the disclaimer at the end informing potential Viagra users that they should consult with their doctor to see if they are, in fact, “healthy enough to have sex.”
It seems to me to make a very basic evolutionary sense that if there’s even a chance that you aren’t, you shouldn’t be introducing yourself into the breeding pool.
There is the chance that there are legions of thrill-seeking denture-whistlers craving to go out mid-coitus. These suicidal would-be fornicators would find Viagra and the other various and sundry erectile medications a Godsend. Can’t believe I just wrote that sentence. I’m sorry, God.
To change topics completely, one of my main concerns in renewing the eLease on this site was that I wouldn’t have enough to write about. My social commentary skills tend to degrade when I lack my once-driving force of grumpiness. And I have nothing to be grumpy about. At all. I could use a job, but I seem to have acquired this unique combination of a work ethic and patience, so I don’t really have anything to worry about. I’m doing what I can, and someone will respond to me once my immense greatness becomes obvious.
I can only pray they don’t find this receptacle of dick-jokes before calling me.
That’s all for now. Happy 2010, folks. May it be as good to you as it has been to me thus far.
RJC
I’ll start off by saying that I feel like something of an asshole for constantly lamenting my lack of interesting things to say, then spouting 1000+ words of apparent opinion, fact, and bullshit.
The fact is that sometimes I do get ideas, concrete building blocks on which to build bloggery. Most of the time though, I’m winging it. This has been true of many things in my life. And continues to be true about this. So here goes.
As of today, I have 2 weeks left here. I am eager to return to the familiar comforts of home, and the warm embrace of a family I didn’t really think I’d miss. I’m sorry to any of you who happen to be reading it. It’s interesting what a concentrated absence can do. I suppose the old cliche about hearts growing fonder is true. But I’d like to think more of it lies in an appreciation for what’s warm when you are in a cold place. Metaphorically speaking, of course. It’s late Spring here and early Winter back in New England.
I recognize that my family, like all of them, have their flaws. But the thing that has become apparent to me here is that the flaws of the families of others are virtually intolerable. The absence of unspoken support, the hazily defined sense that no matter what happens there will be a relationship tomorrow… That’s what tends to get to you. Not that I think these people would kick me out on my ass were I to wrong them. It’s more that my time here has become, increasingly as of late, a sort of countdown to the inevitable. There is no longer a great reason to bond.
I had always thought that the key to my personal happiness was to step outside of my family. To evade their seemingly long-reaching tentacles and rebuild a support structure around myself. Tightly bonded to friends, non-biological family as I thought of them, I could survive semi-insularly (is that peninsulaly?) without worrying about the family and what they think or do. Which was important to me, as I most often considered myself a disappointment.
Now I’m seeing it a little bit differently. Not entirely turned on its ear, but at least its mangy temple is scraping in the dirt. The main reason I felt like a disappointment is that I actually care what my family thinks. The reason I yearned to escape them, to set up self-sufficient, was in fact that I wanted to show them it was possible. And now, having survive three (admittedly rather cushy) months abroad, I feel like I can do it, and it will be all the easier with their support.
This trip has given me a wealth of random knowledge about how I want my life to be. Because here, I don’t have control. Or at least I don’t want to engage in the lengthy arguments that would be required to get it, which, while they likely wouldn’t be heated, would be draining and frustrating. I feel no need to slam my head into that particular wall over and over and over just to determine what we’ll eat for dinner.
And at the same time, living amongst another family has given me ideas for what I would want my family to be, long term. Not the parents and brother that wait at home, but some vague idea of a wife and kids hiding behind the hazy muslin of the future.
I suppose this constitutes, in some boring way, a form of maturity. Maturity is something I’ve been grappling with since I first left the womb of college education. I still think it’s largely illusory, but there are certain facts one can’t avoid. The fact of requiring an income and stability. That maybe spending an entire day off playing video games when you could be cleaning isn’t the best idea. Not that I’m going to turn into Martha Stewart. It’s just an idea.
And most importantly: Maybe moving to a place with a dream of what you will do there is a terrible idea. When I moved to New York, I had grand visions of musical works, attempted acting, writing, whatever creative endeavor I could get my hands into. I wanted a piece. I was scattered, lonely, and confused. And I moved there because I already knew people, already knew places, and thought that I could accomplish incredible things there.
I was wrong. Not because I can’t accomplish incredible things, but because I couldn’t do it there and then. Not with the lack of planning and frankly, sheer ignorance I possessed at the time.
I stagnated and faltered, finding myself unhappier by the day, the week, the month. At the end of the year, I had no idea what to do, so I came here. Halfway around the world to find whatever it was I was looking for.
I don’t think I found it. I think I learned about it by process of elimination. Or sheer necessity. But the important thing is that I have some vague idea of what I need to do, regardless of what I want to do. There are certainly days where I would rather sit on my ass and do absolutely nothing, but someone else’s life intercedes, here. When I return home, I will force my life and my needs to interrupt the cycle of self-imposed bullshit that I’ve been victim to and purveyor of.
I feel motivated, alive, and strangely at peace with all of this. Even though this blog entry in and of itself is deeply embarassing and stupid, on many levels. I find it easy to shout this into the void. I doubt anyone will comment on it, because it’s a sort of… self-analytical coming of age story, set years after one would expect it to occur in a young man’s life.
But, that doesn’t really matter. Because it’s happened to me. And if I can hold onto scraps of it, my life will be better for years to come.
RJC
Image of the surface of Mars taken by HiRise, the imaging part of the Department of Planetary Science at the University of Arizona. Here we see pink dunes being eroded by winds, which are exposing the grey material beneath. Trippy. Felt like sharing.
RJC
I begin writing today at 10:17PM, and it is a slightly unpleasant 82 degrees fahrenheit in the house. Outdoor temperatures got up to over 100 today, which is not really that fun. I spent much of the day at the mall engaging in air-conditioned browsing, something I normally wouldn’t do. Sheer heat, illness and an urge to see a movie compelled me, despite the dearth of anything hugely exciting in theaters.
Now, onto the scrappage!
1) Just returned home from seeing ‘The Box.’ For those of you who don’t know or care, this is based on the short story ‘Button, Button’ by Richard Matheson. Matheson has come back into fashion a bit lately for the adaptation of his novella ‘I Am Legend,’ the kooky vampire tale which was bastardized into a Will Smith vehicle (it had already been twisted into a film twice before, with Vincent Price in ‘The Last Man On Earth’ and Charlton Heston fighting off doomsday hippies in ‘The Omega Man’). Matheson was also responsible for Steven Spielberg’s first movie, ‘Duel,’ ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man,’ ’What Dreams May Come’ and that episode of the Twilight Zone where Shatner freaks out on an airplane. He’s a pretty big deal, and a damn fine writer.
There are quite a few reasons, without knowing anything about it, to see ‘The Box.’ Whether you get off on 70’s period pieces, love ‘Donnie Darko’ to death and will follow the director to the ends of time, or even just wanna see the guy who played Cyclops without red sunglasses. Personally, I wanted to see it because I wanted desperately to know how they could make a movie out of a 12 page short story originally published as a two pager in Playboy magazine. Yep.
So I went along, taking an airconditioned break from this hellish inferno of a house, and watched. Frankly, I was baffled. They expanded the plot in ways I wouldn’t have thought of, genuinely creeped me out, and kept me guessing. It’s really rare to see a movie nowadays and not have any idea where its going, while still enjoying it. So I’m glad for that, and I feel like Matheson might even like it himself. Maybe.
Regardless, it will flop horribly. It’s too slow paced, the morality angle is kind of neutered with the additional explanation, and the two main characters are too pretty to be sympathetic. Former models aren’t the best choice for your average 70s couple. Just what I think. Again, I enjoyed it, these are just the issues I see in the way of it gaining mainstream success.
At the very least, there is a sci-fi (or whatever it is) film out that draws and expands on a story, which might well lead to people reading again. Matheson has a huge library of work. He’s the very definition of prolific, and yet we’ve gotten but a relative few glances at it, as it trickles out in the form of Hollywoodized adaptations. Sort of like Philip K. Dick, without all the drugs and Harrison Ford.
But hey, at least his adaptors give credit, unlike James Cameron, who’s been ripping stuff of ever since ‘The Terminator’ (See: Harlan Ellison’s Outer Limits episodes ‘Soldier’ and ‘Demon with a Glass Hand’… See also: Philip K. Dick’s short story ‘Second Variety’) and is now continuing to do so with his half-cartoon soon-to-be-blockbuster Avatar (which rips off, apparently, both CG miserable failure ‘Delgo’ and Poul Anderson’s novella ‘Call Me Joe.’) Man. Nobody has new ideas anymore. Also, sorry about all the parentheses, but it was really necessary to get across how little respect I have for James Cameron.
Sigh. Too much ranting on this topic. Moving on.
2) The aforementioned heatwave. It’s November, which here is the equivalent of May, season-wise. I feel like it being 38 degrees celsius (100.4 F) is a bit much. This isn’t spring. This is hell. To make matters even better, I’ve spent the past few days oscillating in and out of a fever, unable to breathe through my nose, due to some germ or other I picked up from a child. I assume the children are to blame. I can’t wait until a pandemic of “Child Flu” hits the Earth. It won’t kill us, it’ll just render us useless, if my experience is anything to go by.
I’ve had no energy whatsoever. No drive, no ambition. Writing and hell, even reading have fallen by the wayside as I seek someplace cool to lie down and recover. That place can’t be found though, outside of shopping centers, where you are inundated with Christmas spirit that feels very premature and generally… strange.
For one, it’s fucking hot out. Secondly, since it’s hot, things work a little different. It’ll likely be over 100 degrees on Christmas day, meaning things have to work differently. I don’t mean that Santa will be wearing board shorts and a wifebeater, but according to the current promotion at the local mall, he will be arriving at the mall this weekend… BY HOVERCRAFT. I kind of want to go just to see a guy in a Santa suit glide up to the shopping center’s doors on a cushion of propelled air. Hopefully he gets inside before succumbing to beard-related heat stroke. That would likely traumatize some kids.
Christmas in the summer.. I can’t get over it. I mean, it’s not really surprising, what with roughly half the world experiencing it (admittedly probably not half the Christmas-celebrating world). And it would be kind of cool, if you got a bike, or you know, an airconditioner, to be able to test it out right away. But Christmas, for me, has to be cold. You have to WANT to stay inside. You should want to do nothing but curl up with family and shower each other with (ideally meaningful) gifts. You should want to cook dinner all day, feeling the warmth and smelling the smells of something roasting in the oven. Preferably an animal. You can’t eat anything with gravy when it’s 100+ degrees out. It’s just a fact. And until I leave and arrive in NY in mid-December, I will continue to feel that way. Christmas in the summer gets a big thumbs down.
3) I did something today that shocked me. Given that it’s hot, I’m sick, and I was trapped at the mall waiting for the next showing of ‘The (aforementioned) Box,’ I ate in a mall food court. My options weren’t terribly varied, but I fell prey to some combination of marketing and a sort of… Nationalist instinct as an American, I guess. I ate at McDonald’s. Now hold on, I can practically hear all four of you who read this standing up and hurling vitriolic fat-jokes at the computer screen. I have to say this.
In Australia, McDonald’s does something rather remarkable: it serves food. I don’t mean the wholly processed, semi-gelatinous food-like products we get back home. It’s straight up food. Admittedly not very healthy, but food nonetheless. Lately they’ve been playing nonstop advertisements for some new ‘Fancy Angus’ burger, an example of their frightening business plan of assimilating to the culture their franchises operate in while simultaneously assimilating said culture into fatties. They claim to use Australian angus beef, which they flatteringly advertise as being world renowned for its apparent greatness. They also top said burger with a slice of Australian cheese, red onion, and relish. The relish is a bit odd, because it bears no resemblance to the chopped up pickles we think of as hot-dog fodder. It’s sort of more like chutney. I couldn’t tell what was in it.
But I could tell this: the beef was beef, seared slightly crisp on the outside, with the texture of actual meat on the inside. It was cooked to grey, but I’m not going to ask Micky D’s to gimme something medium rare, am I? It tasted beefy and not all that seasoned. The cheese appeared to be actual cheese, melting slightly in the heat of the nearby patty (also the heat of the day), and the red onion was crisp and bitey. I swear to God, it was food. I don’t know what to make of it. Also, in Australia, the portion sizes are utterly under control. Back home, you get a large and you get a bucket of everything. Here, I was satisfied and not overfull, and felt like a respectably human being afterwards. Which is in sharp contrast to US McDonald’s. At a McDonald’s in its country of origin, I usually wind up feeling (metaphorically) like a used condom, thrown lazily and left to hang on the edge of a vomit filled plastic trash can.
That’s kind of gross, but then again, so is American fast food. It’s not really food, it’s not really that fast, and it’s not cheap. The only reason I don’t want that to change is that I don’t want to eat it that often. Even if it did get better, our health would still suffer due to the painful meat-and-potatos-ness of it all. So, in closing, I did it, I liked it, I may or may not do it again. Huzzah.
4) Lastly, I have embarked, yet again, on a fiction writing escapade. It was inspired by a random Tweet (internet talk for 140 characters of bullshit) made by an old friend. Something about setting a goal and going for it. This has taken up the better part of the last 2 months and is slow going. My aim this time is to produce something longer, something more interesting. At the same time I working steadily to reduce my use of flowery language, bad metaphors, and my literary best friend, the listing, run-on sentence. See what I did there? At any rate, I feel like I’ve made enough progress without quitting to share a tad of it with the internet public. The beginnings of this came about from a series of vivid nightmares I had, mostly while reading my typical blend of dark fantasy and sci-fi. The first line is directly inspired by Chuck Palahniuk, although more by his style than his content. This will be the first page or two. Enjoy if you can, skip if you must.
Imagine a world without adverbs.
Imagine your most baseless fears.
Imagine, if you will, threads of mucosy saliva stretched rubber-band taut in the gaping jaws of some unnamed creature. The clattering of a pearlescent carapce in a darkened cave. Imagine running late, unprepared and undressed, aboard the bus to your daily grind.
These worlds come to life as you sleep each night. They wink in and out of your existence as your body lies slowly breathing. In and out. In these worlds, we are gods — creators — made powerless. Trapped by the things we handily dismiss in the cold light of day.
Imagine deep sea fish, luminous, toothed and skeletal, floating through the air before you. Their eyes onyx pebbles in the sun.
The world’s don’t go away just because you do. You wake up. Shake off the sense of wrongness, the anxiety, the fear. They carry on.
The dead still walk. The plane keep crashing. Co-workers point and laugh at the empty spot in the center of the room, your bare footprints etched into the carpet. The creature you could only see in the periphery as you ran into darkness; it hangs leaping at where your back should be.
You are conspicuous by your absence.
And that is where the Cheroi get in. They fill the holes. Molding themselves to fit the shape you imagine yourself to be. They accept your fears, your fantasies. These sustain them, for the time being. They are the surrogate gods of the dream world, and their power grows each time you wake gasping. As you sit, sweat-beaded and wide eyed in the dark, know this: They are there.
That’ll do for now. Comments are, as always, welcome.
RJC
Meshuggah’s “Bleed” is one of those tunes that makes you feel really overwhelmed and frankly, a little afraid. First off, the speed the drummer’s feet must be travelling at for most of the song is terrifying. Second, the whole thing has an off, seasick feel to it. Sliding around somewhere outside the rhythmic constraints of conventional Western music. Combine that with the visual wackiness dreamed up by Ian MacFarland and Mike Pecci, and you’ve got instant nightmare material on your hands. Enjoy, and good night.
RJC
Random comic art appreciation. I’ve been reading 100 Bullets recently, Brian Azzarello’s epic crime/grit series which focuses largely on a mysterious criminal organization called The Trust, who used to employ hitmen called The Minutemen. In issue 26, the art gets farmed out in a series of would-be covers, single pages displaying some serious talent. Above is Dave Gibbons’ contribution, the artist likely best known for Watchmen. I dig it. It’s grim, surreal, and fits the mood perfectly.
For anyone who thinks comics are for kids and/or social lepers, I would make a lengthy argument regarding their literary merit, but why bother. You can miss out on this stuff. It’s too good for the likes of you.
RJC
Hrrrk.
That’s the first thing I said this morning, and I feel like it should go on here. I just spent a day dealing with children who did not want to be dealt with, and that’s still how I feel. It’s a somewhere between the sound of someone realizing they made a mistake and the sound someone would make as a slender blade slips between their ribs. A sharp intake of breath colored with the resignation of the trapped.
Not that life is all that bad. Just sounds good.
Onto the scraps!
1) Whilst watching the Australian comedy/news program “Good News Week,” I heard something that made my face hurt with laughter. It was a simple bad pun, but I feel the desire to share it here. Some oddball actor/comedian named Frank Woodley interrupted an otherwise focused segment to add: “You know how to titillate and ocelot? Oscillate its tit a lot.”
And I nearly died laughing. That’s all I can say. It could be that I just appreciate a turn of phrase, or possibly that the idea of small-cat bestiality is comedy gold. It also could be that Australian accents make really dumb jokes funnier. I also laughed, last week, at a reference to Madonna’s neighbors complaining about the “sound of her granny flange rubbing against her leotard.” Australia seems to have a way with filth.
For one thing, they’re not shy about making dick and fart jokes, dropping the F bomb, etc, on national television. This is likely because they were sent from England as debtors and whores, and did not willfully and puritanically go like early Americans. We were stone-faced high-horsers with noses in the air. They were dirty and laughed often, half-toothed grins and yellowing gums. We might have done better, but I bet they had more fun.
Aside from being thought of as drunken racists, of course.
2) A good friend of mine, Ed Giza, is undergoing a sort of… public self-discovery on his blog. Essays on self-consciousness in creativity and finding ones place in creative endeavors that are a joy to read. If nothing else, maybe he has a shot at writing about creating. If only there were a way to do that outside of the nefarious sweaty undercarriage of criticism.
At any rate, the highlights for me thus far have been numerous, but the topper is as follows: “Honestly, the idea of dumping the contents of my brain onto tape provokes the idea of dumping the contents of my bowels into my underpants.” Winner. Do yourself a favor and check out the two entries thus far titled “On faking it, playing along, and the great American search for inspirado.” Best of luck to him in figuring out what he should do and make, because it’s certainly something.
3) I’ve become strangely addicted to the band Muse recently. I fear slightly for my credibility as a hardcore rock ’ roll type, but frankly that was out when I started unironically listening to Darude’s “Sandstorm” and anything by David Lee Roth aside from his first solo album. That’s the trouble with irony. Whether you’re doing it as a joke or not, you end up doing it. And usually, liking it.
Regardless, apparently my life was had a hole in it the shape of melodramatic British art pop or whatever the hell you would call this band. Having it in your headphones adds a subtle gravitas to anything, from walking through a park to riding on an airplane, and that’s kind of nice. It’s also easy on the ears, melodic and unchallenging, to a degree. That’s important too. It can’t all be crazed time signatures and screaming.
If the 17 year old me met me now, he would try to kick my ass. But you know what’s great? I would win that fight every time.
4) A reply to my last post cited the gaping hole in the ozone layer as a reason for the sun’s strength in this part of the world. I knew that, but left it out. The sun is much more easily romanticized when we’re not constantly reminded that it is a ball of flames and plasma hurling carcinogenic particle/wave combos at us. I’m not saying I’m mad at her for pointing it out, just saying that it was my intention to omit the fact that along with this tan comes supercilious mole scrutiny. I’m watching those ticking melanin timebombs, no worries.
But there is a pleasure that comes from nutty brownness. Even an extremely blanco gringo like myself can imagine himself as looking healthy and let’s face it, handsome. That’s not something I get to do in my normal, indoor-bound winter life, so I’m enjoying my November bronze, consequences be damned. I won’t be here long enough to end up looking like a catcher’s mitt, or worse, Robert Redford, anyways. So leathery. His eyelids are like shaved bat wings.
5) 5 scraps! Ambitious! Admittedly they’re just half-developed thought fetuses, but left in the prom-night dumpster of the internet. So don’t get too excited. Shit, that’ll be thought of as a Family Guy reference if I don’t dig up a link to the original story. Here. Now get off my back.
Where was I? Right, the elusive 5th scrap. Truth be told I don’t really have one loaded up. I don’t have a topic that I can QuikRant™ about. Yeah, I’m trademarking QuikRant. I view it as being a “near-inconcievably quickly deployed, seemingly well-thought-out argument against an idea, object, product, or person, lodged on the internet with haste abated only by spellchecking.” One day, it will come in a can, and allow anyone to rail against the cosmic unfairness of something as simple as an infomercial. Or as complex as an infomercial. The socio-economic details in the marketing of products is actually kind of fascinating. It would be a hot-button issue if people weren’t already so worried about “President Osama’s Socialist Death Panels and Mandatory Sterilization For The Mentally Unfit” (POSDPMSFMU, for short).
Target demographics, with regard to informericals, come to one horrible conclusion. All those products are for white people with more money than sense. And since the American dream is essentially to accumulate property and thereby not have to DO as much: exercise machines and unnecessarily specific kitchen gadgets come to mind.
Actually what comes to mind is a topic. Steelcase, a company whose name indicates they are far more badass than they are, have announced a new office desk. Ready?
Now you can walk an abysmally slow 2 miles an hour (fast enough to raise the heartrate, but not leave your breath ragged and shallow for those office calls) while working. Thank God someone invented this. There’s nothing worse than sitting in an office chair, and finally someone has combined the two most important pieces of animal technology into one. The nobility and slow mental decay of existing as a human drone bee has finally met that paragon of recreational fitness, the hamster wheel.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into this. Maybe people will buy them and get fit and do great things. Life will turn around, the sea level will fall, the Tasmanian Tiger will once again walk the earth. Oh but wait, it’s essentially a desk and treadmill combination that costs more than any desk or treadmill a normal person would own. The price tag: $6500. In other words, the only people who buy this will be white people with more money than sense. Stupid, stupid honkeys.
Right, that feels like a good stopping place. Hope all is well in all of your respective netspaces, and goodnight.
RJC
Seriously. I had no real idea. I was dimly aware that the last day of October was passing me by, but instead of the autumnal pastiche of yellow leaves and party vomit, I was basking in sunlight. I took in summer sights and weather, and saw only a modicum of particularly enthusiastic young people dressed in costume. They wore black and wigs. Make-up ran with sweat. I chuckled and trundled onwards.
I spent the weekend in Sydney, a city whose harbor provides many overseas with their iconic view of Australia. This view, in fact:
It shouldn’t be hard to see, hopefully, why I wasn’t feeling particularly spooky. Although the famed Opera House’s insectoid carapace is a little alien. But under the bright sunlight, with music blaring from street musicians, it was hard to be anything but fascinating by its scaly design.
Halloween hasn’t historically been my happiest time. From psychological troubles to the onset of a general seasonal depression—I like that it’s called “Seasonal Affective Disorder” as though one shouldn’t be affected by seasons and “SAD” is a passable acronym, cheeky shrinks—it’s generally been a time, for me, of retreat. Crawling back into a shell of bad attitude and protective cynicism. That’s not that fun, but you know what? It was damned comfortable. So maybe it served its purpose.
Whatever purpose that was, I guess I’m done with it now. I’ll eschew a clumsy cocoon metaphor, and even refrain from one of hibernation. It’s a little hard to call the majority of your life a transitory period. And more than a little hasty. Instead I will dive right in, and describe my experience of the city, and why I wasn’t concerned with Halloween or getting hammered.
We arrived at 830 on Friday night, a nearly disgustingly short plane ride from Melbourne. Around an hour after we initially took off, I was wandering blearily from the plane, praying silently that the hotel wasn’t too far off. It wasn’t, thankfully, although it became apparent fairly quickly that the reason for its low price was its proximity to the airport. Airports are, by and large, loud places. It might have something to do with the enormous, fossil-powered machines that defy gravity and ferry people from one continent to the next. Or it could just be the taxis, bleating their impatience into the night like ewes in heat at a ram brothel. Technically that wasn’t a bad metaphor, by the way, I used “like” so it was a simile.
We checked in and I slept hard on a folded out sofa bed, after watching a Korean movie. It was a drama, all people cheating on one another, the separation of a family. It also had subtitles, which is helpful, given that I was trying to be quiet, you see.
I awoke ridiculously early by having a 2 year old plopped onto the bed next to me, and spent a few minutes allowing him to poke me in the face and say things like “beard” and “nose.” If I can be a teaching aide, then so be it. It’s a purpose, right? We got our collective shits together and headed for the harbor.
Sydney harbor is, as I mentioned before, iconic. Like the Empire State Building, or the Eiffel Tower, or one of those other large lumps of metal and rock that instantly identifies the location. The kind of thing that sets the scene in a movie, leaves absolutely no question about the protagonist’s whereabouts. The only movie I can really think of with Sydney Harbor in it is Finding Nemo, but I stand by that. We arrived before the early morning cloud cover burned off, and took in an upclose view of the famed Opera House.
It’s a bizarre structure, equal parts artistic inspiration and seemingly organic growth. The concrete and whatever-the-hell-its-made-of paneling merge to create a building that looks simultaneously dated and futuristic. I like it. It weirds me out. Sends little shudders of strangeness down to the spot where sweat drips shoulders to the small of my back. That’s my initial reaction.
As the day wears on, I begin to get a better feel for it. I feel less haunted by the foreignness of structures and accents (although, in fairness there were plenty of Americans milling around). I wander through crowds and watch street performers. Contortionists and jugglers, b-grade guitar players. A man plays a digeridoo, haunting and droning, over some heavy techno beats. I buy a CD, because why the hell not.
I continue weaving and wandering until my time of responsibility is at hand. The mother has a lunch-date to celebrate a friends 40th birthday, so I collect the nearly-2 year old and we head straight for the best place to take a kid: The museum of modern art.
You see, the thing is that old art is just paintings and sculptures and the occasional giant mobile. Modern art, on the other hand, is a self-indulgent slurry of video, projections, and garbage sculptures. It’s a mixed-media nightmare of creativity and uselessness. It’s exactly what children want. Example: Take a landscape painting. It’s okay, I guess, but what’s a kid gonna say? It looks like a field. That’s not very exciting. Take the same picture, point a projector at it, and have a man walking around on it, disappearing and reappearing at various distances. Now you’ve got a 22 month old fella who wants to sit and look at a painting for 20 minutes.
So we did. We saw chandeliers sticking out at random angles from walls, electric bulbs flickers. We saw a 17 minute video of a man playing the drums not-very-well-but-on-top-of-a-waterfall. He was mystified, I was lightly amused. We saw a helicopter made of garbage, a projector in the cockpit spraying the video documentary of its creation onto the wall.
Then, when we had exhausted the meager offerings of the smallish museum, we returned to wandering. He tired quickly, falling asleep in stroller, in a pathetic and adorable display of the unique ability children have to pass out anywhere, even while moving over bumpy wooden docks. I sat with him in the shade, killing time until I could return him to his rightful owner, and watched as a skywriter scrawled “JESUS something something” across the sky. The wind took it before his message could be completed. It ended up floating upside down on the other side of the bridge for the rest of the afternoon, which I thought was poetic justice. Perhaps God doesn’t care for aerobatic proselytizing. Perhaps I’m reading too much into the wind.
I returned him to his mother, who was finishing up a large-scale expensive lunch at a dockside restaurant. They were parked in umbrella shade, beneath a mighty cruise liner parked at the dock. They seemed to be having fun, but it wasn’t much that I wanted anything to do with. No offense intended to ladies making a big expensive deal out of turning 40, it’s apparently significant. Just not where my interests lie.
Freed from the burden of ramp-only walking, I headed straight uphill, climbing stairs to hit the harbor bridge. I got up there and walked out, seeking a post-card perfect shot, which I got (the first pic above). I saw numerous touristy folks, and had a good hearty walk alone. I returned to the street performers, thought strange thoughts and felt my skin absorb the heat. I took a train back to the hotel a couple of hours later, and spent the night watching “The World’s Fastest Indian.” Which is, in point of fact, about a New Zealander, played by a Welshman.
I awoke the next morning in a similar fashion, small person clambering towards me. I eschewed the wake-up routine and headed straight for the shower. The water felt fantastic on my rapidly browning skin, driving out the last of the sleep heat and general eye crustiness that comes along with sunny days and warm nights. We took a train, then another train, then a bus to Bondi Beach, apparently a famed surf spot and the subject of a life-guard based reality show.
All I’ll say is this: It was damned nice. I can’t say that all that much interesting happened, other than some kind of terrible art installations mounted on a cliff, and the occasional rippling body of someone who spends 6 months a year on a beach and the other 6 months staying toned and tanned for the beach. It was relaxing, and involved a large sandwich. It was a fine day, but not the caliber of day that Halloween had been.
I got back to Melbourne about 6 hours ago, and have been recuperating. My legs ache, the skin of my arms is freckled and slightly red. But I feel great. And all without the usual drunken stupidity and costume-anxiety of Halloween. It’s interesting, and a different place to be, mentally.
Slipping into Autumn usually proves to be the death of my good mood. I am either “seasonally affected,” or maybe just reminded of past misdeeds and mistakes that occurred around this time of the year. I have a bit of an anniversary complex sometimes, but this year was different. I didn’t realize what day anything was. Hell, I find it really hard to believe, when I’m in shorts and a T-shirt, that it’s November right now.
I don’t think that this season-reversal has cured anything in terms of negative tendencies or reactionary self-abasement, but I do think it has provided me with a great opportunity. It’s giving me a vacation. A year off, a chance to break old habits. It also gives me the unique chance to have a bitchin’ tan at Christmas, which in the Northern hemisphere is impossible without resorting to airbrushing or staining oneself orange.
I would normally go for some sort of pithy conclusion here, but I feel like Australia’s sun has drained it out of me. It’s different from our sun, you see. Our sun is a light source and occasional heatlamp. Australia’s sun is a raging ball of flame perched perilously close to the Earth’s surface. Or so it seems. It saps you and invigorates you at once, paradoxical and not unlike the weight of experience.
That seems pithy enough for me for now. Goodnight all.
RJC
