Philosophy of a Hero Killer
The full text of Sophia Martel's "Parva Sub Ingenti," the so-called Common Man's Manifesto, was only published once: by a short-lived Populist Party outlet in Paris, in the Spring of '81. A half-dozen of the constituent chapters have made the rounds among private collectors. Occasionally full pages turn up in university databases, and a few broken passages appear here and there on the net, but not one complete, intact copy has ever been found. The most popular quote attributed to Martel, of course, is "Misérables possèdent les promesse" which, roughly translated, means: The meek shall inherit promises. The common assumption is that Mme. Martel was implying that the meek shall inherit empty promises, that the hopeless state of existence characterizing the lives of the poor and oppressed will continue to be hopeless, and that religion- specifically Christianity- fails to provide a fulcrum by which the meek can improve their lot in life. While this is far and away the most popular scholarly interpretation, it is also incomplete. Sophia equated evolution and revolution, and advocated force in both. While her words are often quoted in socioeconomic or sociopolitical contexts, Sophia's original intention was to address the posthuman problem created by the existence of superheroes. She thought that the promises of previous generations were also challenges to be fulfilled, that ordinary non-superpowered people had a responsibility to not only better themselves but to force ingenuity and innovation to keep the posthuman population in check. I don't have a copy of Parva Sub Ingenti, and if I did I'd sell it and take my million. I was, however, raised by Mme Martel in her spartan flat overlooking Metro Anvers in Montmartre. My father was a poor butcher in Amatrice who moved to Paris believing he'd get rich by investing in Air France. When he died he was still a poor butcher. My mother opened a small café upstairs, and Mme Martel would stop in and visit every single day and always order the same thing: black coffee, and a half-glass of red wine. She'd spend the better part of the afternoon scribbling away into her journal. Occasionally she'd get the Bucatini Amatriciana, because she said that in Paris only an Italian would go to the trouble of making soffritto instead of mirepoix. When the Jupiter League turned the café and everyone inside into a smoldering crater while saving the world from Grandmother Dragon, Madame took me by the hand and led me to her house, where I lived thereafter. When I turned sixteen she put me out on the street with a packed lunch, her old journal, and a head full of dangerous ideas.
Jean St. Caligula saw himself as a hero. I met Jean in Cyprus, although I didn't know it at the time. His target was the Bronze Wheel- a North African slave trade masterminded by a Turkish general whose heart and lungs were burning crystal constructs. The entire judo sub-philosophy of Sophia's book is excised or marginalized in most interpretations, but it formed a foundation for most of her writing. Without these ideas, she can only be considered another existentialist revolutionary. It was the focus on human/metahuman inequality that made Parva so important. Jean was living in the occupied north masquerading as a Sunni, but it didn't take long to discover that he wasn't Turk, Greek, or even a Cypriot. He was American, although he rarely spoke English. It was futbol that outed him- a real Turk would've recognized the game was a rerun. We became fast friends, and I learned from observing Jean's methodology. Here were the high points to fill the practical gaps in Sophia's philosophy. As much as he got it wrong with his typically American faults, (that love of theatricality and an obsession with the psychological,) his score is still very much ahead. Jean was the one who showed me the applied technical judo that exploited strength, leveraging and manipulating with scrabbling claws until a superhuman could literally be killed by his own power. The microwave gun was a brilliant start, if an ultimately incomplete solution: variable settings allowed it to reach behind invulnerability and destroy the soft internal organs beneath diamond-hard skin. An easy modification let it warp and pervert cellular regeneration. All this built from simple parts that you could make or scavenge yourself, for under 400 dollars. Unfortunately it became a liability in North Camden and I had to discard it- I keep telling myself I'm going to build another one. Jean's weakness was in his bravado, in his recklessness, in his disregard for the safety of innocents, but ultimately his greatest failing was the belief that his technical proficiency made him the equal of those he sought to bring down. I still regret it sometimes, my first. It isn't the greater good, or the common man I was concerned with that day, as much as I pretended. I wanted to see if I could do it, to take the life of another man, a man with noble intentions who earnestly believed he was doing good deeds. So much of who we are is wrapped in how we see ourselves, it wasn't until Jean that I really saw myself.
Miss Bengough was an American and a psychologist- and with those two strikes against her it's a wonder we ever became friends. A philosophy and a methodology are both worthless without practicum experience. The time she and I spent together in Arnhem proved invaluable, and I have no doubt that if she hadn't come to trial in an election year her life's work might have been published just like Sophia's. The entire Benelux region is so desperate to achieve any manner of international acclaim that scientific research is generally only restricted by finance. Bea taught me to be scientific, methodical, and observant- to account for and control all circumstances, and to always record your results. You might've heard that The Jupiter League's Mighty Sollus died in an asylum in the Netherlands while patiently waiting for the proper legal channels to clear. Yeah, that was us. The investigators lost two coroners and a very expensive robot before they called off the autopsy. Depending on what you believe Sollus' corpse is now either buried in a bunker in Siberia, powering the Pentagon defense grid, or being used to purify wastewater on the new International Space Station. So yes, Bea holds a very special place in my heart because even though I hunt vigilantes, I had to go through that revenge experience myself in order to really understand the concept for vengeance. She talked me through the emotional catharsis as we used Jean's inventions to strip-mine layers of Sollus' stomach lining. I'd say I owe her, but Bea was never not working, and I was as much an experiment to her as any of the patients we treated. Orchestrating her miscarriage broke her more than I expected, but it was the one piece of mercy I could manage- to spare that unborn child the misery of an existence with the two of us as parents. She lost touch with the science after that, she became unnecessarily cruel and sadistic. I left Arnhem a full year before the now-infamous police raid, but I'll always look fondly on my time there. The scientific detachment I gained allowed me to reaffirm my commitment to such a blasphemous cause. I am not simply seeking vengeance. I am a hero killer by design.
I spent nearly a quarter century married to the research, avoiding the inevitable. Study the art of killing superheroes long enough, and you will come to the same conclusion I faced: to really get anything done, you need to live in America. As a Parisian my options here were limited. I became a New Yorker, where my Italian accent and eye for detail made me a perfect candidate for the NYPD's fledgling Metahuman Investigations Division. I also got the chance to feel like I was giving back- I got to apply all of it; the theoretical and the practical, and hunting superpowered thieves and murderers allowed me to fully experience the self-righteous bloodlust of the heroes I hunt. At the same time, it is a detective's job to hate vigilantes, to curse their names openly and shoot at them whenever the chance presents itself. That pantomime seemed tailor made for a guy like me. I got the best of both worlds, and as a police detective I had unprecedented access to information and resources. It could've ended there, with my days and nights spent in perfect lock-step, killing heroes and villains, slowly making the world a safer place for the common man. I saw a chance for more. The first promotion came inside of a year, I made captain in three and I was the head of the division by '97. I received a medal of commendation from the Jupiter League's October Queen a month before I investigated her death. We were able to pin it on Penny Dreadful, which in retrospect was a windfall for the department since most of us were on Penny's shitlist. We had succeeded where the League had failed, in finding the October Queen's murderer and bringing him to justice. Designing the clues was a thrill, I can see why some guys become obsessed and choose that life. The October Queen thing taught me another important lesson though- nobody is invulnerable to bad press. While we were transporting Penny Dreadful to a maximum security facility, most of my guys bought it in a firefight with Beacon, who was attempting to avenge his teammate. More bad press for the League who, lacking options, reluctantly handed him over to attempt a degree of damage control. The public felt betrayed by their heroes, the League felt like it had betrayed itself, and when Penny and Beacon both showed up on a slab in the same week, there wasn't much anyone could do but murmur about how far the Jupiter League had fallen. The trauma of taking a couple bullets and losing my men, coupled with the controversy surrounding October Queen gave me a good excuse to wash my hands of it all. I retired with full benefits. It was time for a career change anyway. Did you know that you only need to have been a citizen for nine years to run for U.S. Senate?
It has become popular recently to say I won my first re-election because I had the balls to stand up to the Jupiter League on the Benedict Sanction. It didn't pass, of course, but I never expected it to. The idea was planted, and to be honest the media did a great job running with it. Eight months later, when the satellites fell, I looked like a martyr and the League looked dangerously incompetent. Similarly, it has become popular for my opponents to claim that I won the second re-election with a pity vote. It's true, the hired assassins who took out my metahuman bodyguard with Beacon's signature wing-thread bullets certainly helped quite a bit. It looked like someone in the League was trying to send a message. Obviously this endeared me to the general population, but to be honest getting rid of Captain Courage was well worth the price on its own, even if the operation to dig those old bullets out of my femur left me with a limp. There are a bevy of reasons that seem to guarantee my continued employment , but if I had to guess, I'd say it was actually youtube. The video of The Mighty Sollus, deranged, damning all mortals and promising violent retribution was something I thought I'd only ever be able to privately enjoy. As it turns out, Sollus' rage was a more effective driving force than any publicly demonstrable action I could take. The other reason I keep winning, the secret reason, is this journal. Sophia never fully grasped how to use it, and I suspect the rough draft of Parva found its way into these pages- a clue as to why that book is so elusive. Whatever is written within becomes invisible to all but the author, and no amount of psychic prying will uncover any thought that has been written on its enchanted pages. Truth be told, even without all these benefits, there's a good chance I still would've taken it. People are ruled by their emotions, and polarizing voters is part and parcel of the electoral process. Emotional decisions don't carry a lot of rationale or logic, but the world doesn't run on logic. Once my constituents saw the Benedict satellites burning up on re-entry, heard the tearful farewell of the astronauts trapped inside, and decided the Jupiter League was to blame, I knew I had a job for life. The League disbanded last year, and of the four surviving members, three now work for this government. The fourth, Dr. Gemini, disappeared a month ago without a trace. It's funny, I've always told myself I would rebuild Jean's microwave emitter someday, but it took having someone to use it on to really get me motivated.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Actual Computer Magic
As someone whose Photoshop skills are indistinguishable from his MS Paint skills, the full potential of available software is something of a crutch when creating or editing images (something that happens far more often than you might imagine.) This youtube preview of Adobe Photoshop CS5's "Content Aware Fill" option is one of the more amazing things I've ever seen.
Click here to check it out.
Click here to check it out.
Friday, March 5, 2010
And now back to our regularly scheduled apostasy...
...almost. New bits will be up by the week's end. Since I know what's coming, I'm going to temper it with this:
Why not go ahead and vote for the Young Americans on this thing? Tell your friends.
Why not go ahead and vote for the Young Americans on this thing? Tell your friends.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Young Americans, Part 3 (First Tours)
Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.
I walked into the first day of my first tour rehearsal with a decidedly substandard understanding of what I was about to do. I had seen a single show, and had talked to my friends who had been on tour, and that was the extent of my working knowledge. Luckily, about sixty percent of that cast was in the same boat as I was, and two of our cast members- Autumn and O, didn't even have the luxury of a New Kids experience to fall back on. Bill was up in Michigan rehearsing an entirely different cast to go to Germany, and so Robyn put the show together by herself. (To this day only a handful of us can say we've been conducted by Robyn during choral.) There is still something idyllic about that first tour rehearsal experience, start to finish, that made me love YA rehearsal. I honestly enjoy it far more than performing. Young Americans, on the whole, is a testament to the educational doctrine known colloquially as "flow theory," and nowhere is this more apparent than in the intensity of the rehearsal process.
In terms of innate performance ability I am easily one of the least talented people ever to tour with the Young Americans, and I can comfortably say that I am far and away the least talented Young American ever to tour eight times. There is no feigned humility in the statement- I'm also smarter than 95% of the people I've ever toured with (dammit Jeppy!) The reason this is important is that in 2003, the show we were touring with had already been all over the country, we were the last cast that was going to perform those numbers. This is the same show I had seen two years previous, and it wasn't a great fit for the cast. We had a fairly wide margin for error, which was alternately comfortable or debilitating, depending on the kind of person you are. At that time, I was the former.
This isn't to suggest that the cast itself wasn't capable. Some of the most talented performers I've ever had the pleasure of knowing were on that cast (O sang Take My Hand, so you know THAT was amazing,) but as a whole the show really didn't do much to showcase that assemblage of people. What I didn't understand at the time, but would later come to realize, is how little this actually mattered. The first act I had seen- nearly identical to the one I later got a chance to perform- was a collection of moments, and most of them (like seeing Sam play the Bass) were based on a sort of visual acuity that existed independent of the cast as an entity. I hesitate to use the word "formulaic," but there was most certainly a calculated simulacrum of the show I had seen nested somewhere within the one I was performing.
It is impossible to forget your first time teaching with The Young Americans, mine just happened to be extra memorable because it was the hometown of my three New Kids roommates and by the time I arrived there, I knew far more about Grand Island, Nebraska than all of the other cities on that tour combined. It was also where I got the opportunity to teach my first soloist, a guy named Derrick who would later become a Young American himself. Lucky for me Derrick was a patient guy- he could tell I was new at this. Another soloist, TJ, four towns later, also became a Young American and ended up as the Company Manager for my tour to Germany. One of my homestays, (remember that word?) a guy named Nick, became a Young American and a good friend. Nick and I drove a truck from California to Michigan one summer.
I have been on many casts since that first tour, but none of them have ever been quite as magical. Bill told us, when he came out to direct, that we were such nice people that even if we had been terrible performers he wouldn't give us one single note on the show for fear of damaging that sense of kindness. Nebraska tour spoiled me for a lot of things, and it took three years before I was able to really enjoy another as much. The tour staff was both humble and genuinely interested in the workshop. We toured with flats, the old floor, the old curtain, the big scaff AND the tinker scaff, and two-story tall spot towers (rolling death-traps) and we consistently loaded out in half an hour. We also never had lights set up until the second day, and it never made a difference in the workshop. (Sorry for all the emphatic formatting, I get carried away sometimes.)
There were singular experiences on that tour that carved my ideas of what a Young American should be in stone. In Kansas we taught two split two-day workshops to two separate age groups simultaneously, while casting and performing two different shows. We consistently set up and struck the show at top speed without any machismo, cheerleaders, gaff ball awards, or stage manager edification bullshit. Some Fridays after a 12 hour day of workshop, every YA would independently make the same decision to go cheer on the local high school football team. (There were times when our cast of 40 doubled the number of spectators at the game.) This wasn't an enforced decision. Hell, it wasn't even a suggestion. It was simply something that everyone decided to do. Our cast meetings were short and to the point without anyone telling us they should be. Literally everyone on the cast voluntarily ate with the kids, including the staff. On days off we tended to stay as one big group. If you were never a Young American and are thinking "I don't understand," take comfort in the fact that every Young American who reads this and wasn't there is thinking the same thing. This was not atypical behavior on an individual basis, but collectively, unilaterally, it was exceptional. Of course, at the time, I assumed this was the norm. Then I went to Michigan.
That next tour, the one that started in Michigan and ended in UK, gets a bad rap, mostly because of March 15, 2004 in Coloma, MI. How the heck could I possibly remember that date? It was my birthday. B&R had started the tour as our directors (we sang for Muhammad Ali in our first town, Bill's home town,) and then they had buggered off overseas to work with the Germany cast. Apparently, Young American tour casts are like bonsai, and if left unchecked overtime they can require some pretty severe pruning. This was probably the most cited example of the aforementioned psychological warfare for my "generation" of Young Americans. Unfortunately the directors went a little over the deep end in their dramatic exaggerations, and most of what is remembered today is played for comic effect. (At one point Bill told us he'd rather have a cast member smoke a cigarette center-stage in a spotlight than ever have one person use sarcasm. In retrospect this was maybe not the best thing to tell sarcastic people.) This is easily the angriest I've ever seen both of them, and the reality check of going from the bliss of Nebraska to being a total disappointment in Michigan was thoroughly devastating. Being relatively new, it was completely unclear to me what I had done so wrong, other than use sarcasm. If being sarcastic was inherently bad, I was- by inference- probably one of the worst people alive, (the sarcasm hides the sensitivity, see?)
If I had to characterize the entire difference between my experiences in Nebraska and Michigan I could do it in one sentence: "In Michigan, we had a solo section." For those of you who don't know, a solo section is a kind of arbitrary medley where everyone in the cast is showcased on their own, albeit momentarily. It is also a good metaphor for how that tour operated. Forty brief lives, completely independent of one another, attempting to achieve a common goal without first establishing a common dialog. There were some great moments, like the first time I saw the Boyne stage, and getting to make my parents laugh in Cincinnati, but these are largely overshadowed by the negative memories.
Most of the cast went on to tour another three months in the UK, but six of us stopped after Michigan (for whatever reason.) Of the six, I was the one of only two who hung around in California to do the spring production with the resident company, the oh-so creatively titled "Really Big Show." This involved hundreds of students from dozens of elementary, middle, and high schools across Southern California, and was up until that time the largest group of kids I'd ever seen in a single show. Later, as a result of not getting to go to the UK, I was given the opportunity to travel to Ojai, California with the newly returned Germany cast and teach a workshop with them. Although it was only a single workshop, I have always felt that this experience helped redeem a lot of what the Young Americans was for me. It was also an amazing chance to see a brand new show that had largely been written around the Michigan cast take on a life of its own and fit perfectly on the Germany cast. Those three days in a thirteen person homestay (with one bathroom!) were enough to convince me that I wanted to keep being a Young American. The baggage from Michigan wasn't gone, however, and it helped pave the way for trouble to come.
I walked into the first day of my first tour rehearsal with a decidedly substandard understanding of what I was about to do. I had seen a single show, and had talked to my friends who had been on tour, and that was the extent of my working knowledge. Luckily, about sixty percent of that cast was in the same boat as I was, and two of our cast members- Autumn and O, didn't even have the luxury of a New Kids experience to fall back on. Bill was up in Michigan rehearsing an entirely different cast to go to Germany, and so Robyn put the show together by herself. (To this day only a handful of us can say we've been conducted by Robyn during choral.) There is still something idyllic about that first tour rehearsal experience, start to finish, that made me love YA rehearsal. I honestly enjoy it far more than performing. Young Americans, on the whole, is a testament to the educational doctrine known colloquially as "flow theory," and nowhere is this more apparent than in the intensity of the rehearsal process.
In terms of innate performance ability I am easily one of the least talented people ever to tour with the Young Americans, and I can comfortably say that I am far and away the least talented Young American ever to tour eight times. There is no feigned humility in the statement- I'm also smarter than 95% of the people I've ever toured with (dammit Jeppy!) The reason this is important is that in 2003, the show we were touring with had already been all over the country, we were the last cast that was going to perform those numbers. This is the same show I had seen two years previous, and it wasn't a great fit for the cast. We had a fairly wide margin for error, which was alternately comfortable or debilitating, depending on the kind of person you are. At that time, I was the former.
This isn't to suggest that the cast itself wasn't capable. Some of the most talented performers I've ever had the pleasure of knowing were on that cast (O sang Take My Hand, so you know THAT was amazing,) but as a whole the show really didn't do much to showcase that assemblage of people. What I didn't understand at the time, but would later come to realize, is how little this actually mattered. The first act I had seen- nearly identical to the one I later got a chance to perform- was a collection of moments, and most of them (like seeing Sam play the Bass) were based on a sort of visual acuity that existed independent of the cast as an entity. I hesitate to use the word "formulaic," but there was most certainly a calculated simulacrum of the show I had seen nested somewhere within the one I was performing.
It is impossible to forget your first time teaching with The Young Americans, mine just happened to be extra memorable because it was the hometown of my three New Kids roommates and by the time I arrived there, I knew far more about Grand Island, Nebraska than all of the other cities on that tour combined. It was also where I got the opportunity to teach my first soloist, a guy named Derrick who would later become a Young American himself. Lucky for me Derrick was a patient guy- he could tell I was new at this. Another soloist, TJ, four towns later, also became a Young American and ended up as the Company Manager for my tour to Germany. One of my homestays, (remember that word?) a guy named Nick, became a Young American and a good friend. Nick and I drove a truck from California to Michigan one summer.
I have been on many casts since that first tour, but none of them have ever been quite as magical. Bill told us, when he came out to direct, that we were such nice people that even if we had been terrible performers he wouldn't give us one single note on the show for fear of damaging that sense of kindness. Nebraska tour spoiled me for a lot of things, and it took three years before I was able to really enjoy another as much. The tour staff was both humble and genuinely interested in the workshop. We toured with flats, the old floor, the old curtain, the big scaff AND the tinker scaff, and two-story tall spot towers (rolling death-traps) and we consistently loaded out in half an hour. We also never had lights set up until the second day, and it never made a difference in the workshop. (Sorry for all the emphatic formatting, I get carried away sometimes.)
There were singular experiences on that tour that carved my ideas of what a Young American should be in stone. In Kansas we taught two split two-day workshops to two separate age groups simultaneously, while casting and performing two different shows. We consistently set up and struck the show at top speed without any machismo, cheerleaders, gaff ball awards, or stage manager edification bullshit. Some Fridays after a 12 hour day of workshop, every YA would independently make the same decision to go cheer on the local high school football team. (There were times when our cast of 40 doubled the number of spectators at the game.) This wasn't an enforced decision. Hell, it wasn't even a suggestion. It was simply something that everyone decided to do. Our cast meetings were short and to the point without anyone telling us they should be. Literally everyone on the cast voluntarily ate with the kids, including the staff. On days off we tended to stay as one big group. If you were never a Young American and are thinking "I don't understand," take comfort in the fact that every Young American who reads this and wasn't there is thinking the same thing. This was not atypical behavior on an individual basis, but collectively, unilaterally, it was exceptional. Of course, at the time, I assumed this was the norm. Then I went to Michigan.
That next tour, the one that started in Michigan and ended in UK, gets a bad rap, mostly because of March 15, 2004 in Coloma, MI. How the heck could I possibly remember that date? It was my birthday. B&R had started the tour as our directors (we sang for Muhammad Ali in our first town, Bill's home town,) and then they had buggered off overseas to work with the Germany cast. Apparently, Young American tour casts are like bonsai, and if left unchecked overtime they can require some pretty severe pruning. This was probably the most cited example of the aforementioned psychological warfare for my "generation" of Young Americans. Unfortunately the directors went a little over the deep end in their dramatic exaggerations, and most of what is remembered today is played for comic effect. (At one point Bill told us he'd rather have a cast member smoke a cigarette center-stage in a spotlight than ever have one person use sarcasm. In retrospect this was maybe not the best thing to tell sarcastic people.) This is easily the angriest I've ever seen both of them, and the reality check of going from the bliss of Nebraska to being a total disappointment in Michigan was thoroughly devastating. Being relatively new, it was completely unclear to me what I had done so wrong, other than use sarcasm. If being sarcastic was inherently bad, I was- by inference- probably one of the worst people alive, (the sarcasm hides the sensitivity, see?)
If I had to characterize the entire difference between my experiences in Nebraska and Michigan I could do it in one sentence: "In Michigan, we had a solo section." For those of you who don't know, a solo section is a kind of arbitrary medley where everyone in the cast is showcased on their own, albeit momentarily. It is also a good metaphor for how that tour operated. Forty brief lives, completely independent of one another, attempting to achieve a common goal without first establishing a common dialog. There were some great moments, like the first time I saw the Boyne stage, and getting to make my parents laugh in Cincinnati, but these are largely overshadowed by the negative memories.
Most of the cast went on to tour another three months in the UK, but six of us stopped after Michigan (for whatever reason.) Of the six, I was the one of only two who hung around in California to do the spring production with the resident company, the oh-so creatively titled "Really Big Show." This involved hundreds of students from dozens of elementary, middle, and high schools across Southern California, and was up until that time the largest group of kids I'd ever seen in a single show. Later, as a result of not getting to go to the UK, I was given the opportunity to travel to Ojai, California with the newly returned Germany cast and teach a workshop with them. Although it was only a single workshop, I have always felt that this experience helped redeem a lot of what the Young Americans was for me. It was also an amazing chance to see a brand new show that had largely been written around the Michigan cast take on a life of its own and fit perfectly on the Germany cast. Those three days in a thirteen person homestay (with one bathroom!) were enough to convince me that I wanted to keep being a Young American. The baggage from Michigan wasn't gone, however, and it helped pave the way for trouble to come.
Young Americans, Part 2 (New Kids!)
Continued from Part 1
Ostensibly, my Young Americans experience started the second I met Alex Jones. Alex was one of three assigned roommates, and the only one home when my parents and I first arrived at my new apartment. He showed us the way to the building I would come to refer to as "The Warehouse," (back when there was only one!) I met another roommate, Don, the office manager Kat, and one of the directors, LB. They were laying dance floor in this building, turning it into a rehearsal space. Kat not so subtly suggested that I should drop my things off and come back and help. Manual labor, on my first day in California? Screw you, lady, we've got tickets to see Leno. Besides, who knows when I'm going to get to see my parents again? (Turns out it was three months later.)
My roommates informed me that our fourth member, Jason would be joining us in a week. They all knew each other from high school, an excuse I used to never really try to get to know them. After all, these guys had grown up together. These were show choir people. What would we even talk about? Later that evening more Young Americans appeared: Joel and Mystique. Joel seemed like a decent guy; I wasn't too sure about Mystique. Slowly but surely, over the next few days the rest arrived. We met Courtney and her then-boyfriend Tom, who was an "Old Kid." I met John, Bryant, and Gweedo, and immediately wanted to live in that apartment instead. The benefit of hindsight makes these admissions somewhat embarrassing. My Roommate Don would go on to be my stage manager at my first Young American dinner theater and Jason would follow suit as the stage manager on the fall tour immediately following that. Alex Jones is a coworker, I saw him today.
Our first YA-related function was a pizza party at (I think) Cameron Coy's brother's house. Miss Robyn talked to us and introduced us to our New Kid directors (it would be another two months before we met Bill or Milt,) and made it a point to remind us not to suck up to Kat, because Kat didn't decide who goes on tour. I remember thinking "woah... what a slap in the face," but I didn't particularly like Kat so my sympathies were only marginal. I suppose it is worth mentioning that Kat sat next to- and conferred with- Bill and Robyn at every tour audition for the next four years. This is the first instance I can recall of what was to become a curious trend: namely where the leadership of the Young Americans dabbles in unrestricted psychological warfare. What was said was in direct conflict with the observed data, and no explanation was ever offered. This wasn't a condition endemic to any single person; years later I would hear at least two other directors (both of whom happened to be from my New Kids class) quote Machiavelli's The Prince: "It is better to be feared than loved, but it is best to be feared AND loved." This remains a sore spot with me, in part because The Prince was written as a satirical criticism and not an instruction manual, but mostly because these kinds of people are impossible to maintain an honest friendship with.
The first Young Americans rehearsal held an absolutely life-changing moment for me, but it also helped set a precedent I've always regretted. While learning the dance to The Lion King I stood in the back corner. I quickly let my frustrations overcome me, having never danced in my life and being much bigger than most everyone there. I've always found learning new choreography to be painfully embarrassing. I had literally never NOT been good at learning something before, and the Young Americans inopportunely chose that specific process to gauge our capacity for learning. In my anger I gave up. F(orget) this, I'm not dancing. I was on the verge of just walking out entirely when the rehearsal suddenly switched gears. The assembled "Old Kid" cast, who were about to depart on a tour to the East Coast, surrounded us and sang "One by One" from the Lion King. That sound! I had never heard anything like it.
People tend to compare choirs to angels, but this wasn't in the least bit angelic. This was real, dirty, tangible sound. It was rooted in passion, in anger and hope and fear and love, in the earth and in every part of the body. It was a moving wall of palpable emotion, a wave that knocked you down, swept away your defenses, left you naked and vulnerable, and then picked you up and carried you, connecting you to a room full of other vulnerable people. A family, born of necessity from that moment of vulnerability, a framework to build a new world, a context on which to hang the stars. Ok, I'll stay.
The intervening three months brought a bevy of diverse experiences. There was one crazy night with a meteor shower and a bunch of naked people in a hot-tub. There were Ice Cream and Brownies and movies with Courtney, Comics and strippers (don't ask) with Drew, and "prospecting" with John and Gweedo. I drove to Hollywood with Kristy Bonner to meet some guy who was filming a commercial for MADD. Ellen brought me a sandwich, just to be nice. On an intensely personal note, since the second grade I had been medicated with a cocktail of stimulants (Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall) and antidepressants (Celexa, Paxil) all of which I stopped cold when I moved to California. As a consequence, I spent the better part of my New Kid semester in withdrawal; either asleep or wishing I was. That part isn't an experience I'd ever like to repeat.
The New Kids Show came and went. It had its moments, like everything else in Young Americans, but when most people think of the show they remember me, shirtless, running around the stage as The Genie. I also sang Old Routine with Gweedo, and nobody but the New Kid Directors noticed that we switched parts mid-song. This was meant to be impressive, but it went wholly unnoticed. This was the slow start of an eventual lesson that, in a YA show, blatant and ridiculous beats subtle and clever every time. I would eventually learn to find the balance of this, whereby blatant and ridiculous can showcase subtle and clever, but not for a very long time.
The first Christmas Show rehearsal brought my second experience with the YA Director's brand of psychological warfare, employing my parents as unwitting adjuncts. "You can really tell the kids who want to be here." No, you're right. I didn't want to spend my day sitting silently, trying to cipher some meaning from people I've never met (because they were all on tour,) who half-remembered what they did a year previous. I would've liked to spend the day with my parents, since I wasn't able to go home for Christmas. Didn't bother to ask, did you? As I mentioned previously, I love the group with all my heart, but this tactic has only ever served to infuriate me. No sugarcoating. Christmas show was a mild diversion that year, (lightyears away from the joyous occasion subsequent years would become,) and as everyone left I settled into a long mild winter depression. On New Years Eve I took my sax and played Auld Lang Syne on the street corner. It was meant to be cathartic more than anything, but I managed to make eleven dollars in an hour.
That spring semester of Young Americans was... empty. My apartment was lonely, all three of my roommates having made their first tour. All of my close friends: Gweedo, John, Bryant, Joel and Drew had likewise gone on the road. Courtney was still around but that was complicated by a burgeoning unrequited attraction ("unrequited" was a trope that would reiterate itself throughout my entire YA experience.) There was no Overture program, no classes during the week, nothing at all to do but hang out with the same two guys who spent most of their time smoking pot. Hilariously, this association-by-default caused me to be acquire a label I've never entirely shaken. The habits I'd learned from a semester in withdrawal didn't help much either.
The abject hollowness of this period of time helps counterpoint the rare important moments. Bill told me, in our first actual conversation, that I was loyal to my friends. This compliment still seems largely baseless to me, but the pollyanna psychology has a way of tickling one's ego. He also later told me that I was inconsistent, which was absolutely true. There were a total of fourteen Young Americans around for the week of Dance Excellence in 2003, and nine of us were New Kids. Every Young American who reads that previous sentence is going to do so at least twice. Those seem like fictitiously small numbers. DE was almost a disaster that year, and the company show relied heavily on those four or five old kids to do everything. Bill pulled the New Kids aside and really laid into us, one of only two times I've ever seen him that frustrated and far and away the most understandable. What he told us was 100% accurate, and he was justified in being upset. Nobody likes to be yelled at, but in a strange way it made me feel important. I had never imagined that I had any impact whatsoever on Bill, but I had skipped just one of his classes that day (classes that had 150 other people) and he knew precisely which one.
The tours returned home in time for all YAs to perform a spring show together (an incredible experience that has since been supplanted by Tarbell,) and then audition for Summer dinner theater and Fall tour. Two unique things happened then. First, I saw Bill and Robyn call up a random line of people, ask them to stand in a specific order, shift them around a bit, and then divide them in half and announce two dinner theater casts simultaneously. The second is that my name was announced to go on the midwest tour. This made me happy, but it seemed to make a lot of other people happy too. Apparently people had been rooting for me. My friends who I was about to tour with seemed to be more excited about me than they were about themselves. This is a phenomenon that would only repeat itself one other time, almost exactly four years later.
Continue to Part 3.
Ostensibly, my Young Americans experience started the second I met Alex Jones. Alex was one of three assigned roommates, and the only one home when my parents and I first arrived at my new apartment. He showed us the way to the building I would come to refer to as "The Warehouse," (back when there was only one!) I met another roommate, Don, the office manager Kat, and one of the directors, LB. They were laying dance floor in this building, turning it into a rehearsal space. Kat not so subtly suggested that I should drop my things off and come back and help. Manual labor, on my first day in California? Screw you, lady, we've got tickets to see Leno. Besides, who knows when I'm going to get to see my parents again? (Turns out it was three months later.)
My roommates informed me that our fourth member, Jason would be joining us in a week. They all knew each other from high school, an excuse I used to never really try to get to know them. After all, these guys had grown up together. These were show choir people. What would we even talk about? Later that evening more Young Americans appeared: Joel and Mystique. Joel seemed like a decent guy; I wasn't too sure about Mystique. Slowly but surely, over the next few days the rest arrived. We met Courtney and her then-boyfriend Tom, who was an "Old Kid." I met John, Bryant, and Gweedo, and immediately wanted to live in that apartment instead. The benefit of hindsight makes these admissions somewhat embarrassing. My Roommate Don would go on to be my stage manager at my first Young American dinner theater and Jason would follow suit as the stage manager on the fall tour immediately following that. Alex Jones is a coworker, I saw him today.
Our first YA-related function was a pizza party at (I think) Cameron Coy's brother's house. Miss Robyn talked to us and introduced us to our New Kid directors (it would be another two months before we met Bill or Milt,) and made it a point to remind us not to suck up to Kat, because Kat didn't decide who goes on tour. I remember thinking "woah... what a slap in the face," but I didn't particularly like Kat so my sympathies were only marginal. I suppose it is worth mentioning that Kat sat next to- and conferred with- Bill and Robyn at every tour audition for the next four years. This is the first instance I can recall of what was to become a curious trend: namely where the leadership of the Young Americans dabbles in unrestricted psychological warfare. What was said was in direct conflict with the observed data, and no explanation was ever offered. This wasn't a condition endemic to any single person; years later I would hear at least two other directors (both of whom happened to be from my New Kids class) quote Machiavelli's The Prince: "It is better to be feared than loved, but it is best to be feared AND loved." This remains a sore spot with me, in part because The Prince was written as a satirical criticism and not an instruction manual, but mostly because these kinds of people are impossible to maintain an honest friendship with.
The first Young Americans rehearsal held an absolutely life-changing moment for me, but it also helped set a precedent I've always regretted. While learning the dance to The Lion King I stood in the back corner. I quickly let my frustrations overcome me, having never danced in my life and being much bigger than most everyone there. I've always found learning new choreography to be painfully embarrassing. I had literally never NOT been good at learning something before, and the Young Americans inopportunely chose that specific process to gauge our capacity for learning. In my anger I gave up. F(orget) this, I'm not dancing. I was on the verge of just walking out entirely when the rehearsal suddenly switched gears. The assembled "Old Kid" cast, who were about to depart on a tour to the East Coast, surrounded us and sang "One by One" from the Lion King. That sound! I had never heard anything like it.
People tend to compare choirs to angels, but this wasn't in the least bit angelic. This was real, dirty, tangible sound. It was rooted in passion, in anger and hope and fear and love, in the earth and in every part of the body. It was a moving wall of palpable emotion, a wave that knocked you down, swept away your defenses, left you naked and vulnerable, and then picked you up and carried you, connecting you to a room full of other vulnerable people. A family, born of necessity from that moment of vulnerability, a framework to build a new world, a context on which to hang the stars. Ok, I'll stay.
The intervening three months brought a bevy of diverse experiences. There was one crazy night with a meteor shower and a bunch of naked people in a hot-tub. There were Ice Cream and Brownies and movies with Courtney, Comics and strippers (don't ask) with Drew, and "prospecting" with John and Gweedo. I drove to Hollywood with Kristy Bonner to meet some guy who was filming a commercial for MADD. Ellen brought me a sandwich, just to be nice. On an intensely personal note, since the second grade I had been medicated with a cocktail of stimulants (Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall) and antidepressants (Celexa, Paxil) all of which I stopped cold when I moved to California. As a consequence, I spent the better part of my New Kid semester in withdrawal; either asleep or wishing I was. That part isn't an experience I'd ever like to repeat.
The New Kids Show came and went. It had its moments, like everything else in Young Americans, but when most people think of the show they remember me, shirtless, running around the stage as The Genie. I also sang Old Routine with Gweedo, and nobody but the New Kid Directors noticed that we switched parts mid-song. This was meant to be impressive, but it went wholly unnoticed. This was the slow start of an eventual lesson that, in a YA show, blatant and ridiculous beats subtle and clever every time. I would eventually learn to find the balance of this, whereby blatant and ridiculous can showcase subtle and clever, but not for a very long time.
The first Christmas Show rehearsal brought my second experience with the YA Director's brand of psychological warfare, employing my parents as unwitting adjuncts. "You can really tell the kids who want to be here." No, you're right. I didn't want to spend my day sitting silently, trying to cipher some meaning from people I've never met (because they were all on tour,) who half-remembered what they did a year previous. I would've liked to spend the day with my parents, since I wasn't able to go home for Christmas. Didn't bother to ask, did you? As I mentioned previously, I love the group with all my heart, but this tactic has only ever served to infuriate me. No sugarcoating. Christmas show was a mild diversion that year, (lightyears away from the joyous occasion subsequent years would become,) and as everyone left I settled into a long mild winter depression. On New Years Eve I took my sax and played Auld Lang Syne on the street corner. It was meant to be cathartic more than anything, but I managed to make eleven dollars in an hour.
That spring semester of Young Americans was... empty. My apartment was lonely, all three of my roommates having made their first tour. All of my close friends: Gweedo, John, Bryant, Joel and Drew had likewise gone on the road. Courtney was still around but that was complicated by a burgeoning unrequited attraction ("unrequited" was a trope that would reiterate itself throughout my entire YA experience.) There was no Overture program, no classes during the week, nothing at all to do but hang out with the same two guys who spent most of their time smoking pot. Hilariously, this association-by-default caused me to be acquire a label I've never entirely shaken. The habits I'd learned from a semester in withdrawal didn't help much either.
The abject hollowness of this period of time helps counterpoint the rare important moments. Bill told me, in our first actual conversation, that I was loyal to my friends. This compliment still seems largely baseless to me, but the pollyanna psychology has a way of tickling one's ego. He also later told me that I was inconsistent, which was absolutely true. There were a total of fourteen Young Americans around for the week of Dance Excellence in 2003, and nine of us were New Kids. Every Young American who reads that previous sentence is going to do so at least twice. Those seem like fictitiously small numbers. DE was almost a disaster that year, and the company show relied heavily on those four or five old kids to do everything. Bill pulled the New Kids aside and really laid into us, one of only two times I've ever seen him that frustrated and far and away the most understandable. What he told us was 100% accurate, and he was justified in being upset. Nobody likes to be yelled at, but in a strange way it made me feel important. I had never imagined that I had any impact whatsoever on Bill, but I had skipped just one of his classes that day (classes that had 150 other people) and he knew precisely which one.
The tours returned home in time for all YAs to perform a spring show together (an incredible experience that has since been supplanted by Tarbell,) and then audition for Summer dinner theater and Fall tour. Two unique things happened then. First, I saw Bill and Robyn call up a random line of people, ask them to stand in a specific order, shift them around a bit, and then divide them in half and announce two dinner theater casts simultaneously. The second is that my name was announced to go on the midwest tour. This made me happy, but it seemed to make a lot of other people happy too. Apparently people had been rooting for me. My friends who I was about to tour with seemed to be more excited about me than they were about themselves. This is a phenomenon that would only repeat itself one other time, almost exactly four years later.
Continue to Part 3.
Young Americans, Part 1
For the better part of the past decade I've been a member of a California-based performing arts organization known as The Young Americans. As I prepare to once-again enter the "real world" I thought a retrospective would be interesting. For obvious reasons, this will be a serialized, although I'll try to avoid it becoming too terribly episodic. These are my memories, my feelings, my impressions- for better or worse, and I won't attempt to sugar-coat anything. Having said that, this may still read like a ringing endorsement for all things YA at times. I love the Young Americans, and I hope to someday find a way to give back a fraction of what I've received. (Also, I'm still vain enough to believe they could use my input in a couple places.) Here we go.
**
Nine years ago, on a whim, I went to watch a show. My mom had opened up our house to two young ladies, Benny and Autumn, who were doing something with kids and music. It all sounded very nebulous and unorganized. As a thank-you, my mom got two tickets to see the show. It just so happened that my dad was working late that night, and so mom asked if I wanted to go. No, I didn't. Please, mom asked, I don't want to have to sit by myself. I capitulated, partially because I really had nothing else to do but mostly because those girls were cute, and I reasoned that there might be more of them at the show.
My memories of the first act are more than likely an amalgam of what little I actually remember and everything I've learned in the intervening near-decade since, but some moments that still stick out are the sound of the first three guys (their opener was Trashin' the Camp,) how clean-cut and classy the tap outfits looked (red sweaters and black ties for the guys, red flapper dresses for the girls- my opinion on that would be heavily amended later,) the guy with the glasses (Sam Eames) making the stand-up Bass come alive, and especially the encore, where the cast, dressed in all white, sang America the Beautiful a cappella in a line in front of the stage, (this was maybe two months after 9/11 and it really hit home.)
The second act was full of students from the school district where my mom teaches. This was going to be a disaster. I knew about these kids. This was the ghetto, these were bad kids. I had graduated from the wealthier, whiter high school just up the road. I had grown up learning to make fun of these kids. There was no way this was going to top what we had just seen. Not fair, I thought. They should've let the kids go first. This is going to be such a disappointment. Then Chip came out.
I would later have the opportunity to tour with Chip as Stage Manager on my very first National tour, and he is actually the first Young American I stayed with in a host family situation (known henceforth as "homestay," a word that is so embedded in my personal lexicon I was genuinely puzzled that spell-check had a problem with it.) Chip divided up the audience into four sections, and wordlessly assigned each section an elongated alluvial utterance. Ours was "Eeeeee." The joke became apparent when the final quarter was given "Ting-Tang." As I watched Chip conduct each bracketed chorus in the appropriate order, various members of the audience began to chuckle to themselves as they understood what was going on. A lady in the front row had figured it out and Chip handed her a microphone. We all went through the motions one more time and, on cue, she chimed in with "Walla Walla Bing-Bang." Our nice, ordered world suddenly became a cacophony of strobing lights, techno-bass, and dancing children. Holy shit.
Again, my memory is colored by the fact that I toured with a version of this same show not eighteen months later, but there are still some high points that stick in my memory. Adam (a cast member) had a bit with Merrilee (the conductor) that showcased the entire YA/Director relationship in under two seconds. The Pantomime Tennis bit. Oh my god, Tennis. Again, having toured with "Imagination," "Happiness," and every hideous amalgam in between, it's difficult to reconcile that this was my favorite part of the show. Strangely this almost certainly was the first time I witnessed the Young American version of The Lion King, but the number left absolutely no impression on me at that time.
At the show's conclusion, I sought out the director, and told her how much I enjoyed the show. I was in college at the time, and had literally just done Oedipus, Julius Caesar, and The Crucible all in a row at school, and was in the middle of a month-long intensive dissection of Our Town. I don't know if there is medical documentation detailing the human capacity for dramatic tragedy but I'm sure I was well beyond that theoretical limit. I let her know, in no uncertain terms, that what I just saw represented a beautiful, entirely unfamiliar aspect of the human condition, and that I wished college theater were more like that. It should be noted here that I had no intention of auditioning at this point, I was simply hoping she would pass my sincerest compliments onto the cast.
In the lobby I found my mom talking to the high school choir director, who asked me if I was planning on auditioning. No, I wasn't. Was I sure? Again, no. How would I even go about auditioning? Down the hall, turn left, left again, the door's on your right. Ok, I figured, why not. I was an actor, not a singer, but I was taking a musical theater class (where we were inexplicably studying Sweeney Todd, another contributor to my tragedy overload,) and another audition experience couldn't hurt, right? I walked in, and I recognized the guy with the glasses and the director lady. They asked me to sing something. I sang something. We talked, I wrote my name and address down and that was pretty much it. I left firmly convinced that after my singing, the rest of the audition process was deemed wholly unnecessary, and the conversation was simply a formality so that I didn't feel too bad about the entire ordeal. Oh well. Monday, I went back to school and Young Americans faded into obscure memory.
The letter came in late spring, and for whatever reason I was unsettled by its arrival. Rejection isn't any easier to stomach in the privacy of your own house. I didn't need mine delivered on letterhead. The thickness of the packet should've been a clue, but at the time I simply thought to myself "how many pages does it take these people to say no thank you?" I read the whole thing twice, just to make sure there wasn't some mistake. Uhh... Mom, Dad? I think I'm moving to California.
Continue to Part 2
**
Nine years ago, on a whim, I went to watch a show. My mom had opened up our house to two young ladies, Benny and Autumn, who were doing something with kids and music. It all sounded very nebulous and unorganized. As a thank-you, my mom got two tickets to see the show. It just so happened that my dad was working late that night, and so mom asked if I wanted to go. No, I didn't. Please, mom asked, I don't want to have to sit by myself. I capitulated, partially because I really had nothing else to do but mostly because those girls were cute, and I reasoned that there might be more of them at the show.
My memories of the first act are more than likely an amalgam of what little I actually remember and everything I've learned in the intervening near-decade since, but some moments that still stick out are the sound of the first three guys (their opener was Trashin' the Camp,) how clean-cut and classy the tap outfits looked (red sweaters and black ties for the guys, red flapper dresses for the girls- my opinion on that would be heavily amended later,) the guy with the glasses (Sam Eames) making the stand-up Bass come alive, and especially the encore, where the cast, dressed in all white, sang America the Beautiful a cappella in a line in front of the stage, (this was maybe two months after 9/11 and it really hit home.)
The second act was full of students from the school district where my mom teaches. This was going to be a disaster. I knew about these kids. This was the ghetto, these were bad kids. I had graduated from the wealthier, whiter high school just up the road. I had grown up learning to make fun of these kids. There was no way this was going to top what we had just seen. Not fair, I thought. They should've let the kids go first. This is going to be such a disappointment. Then Chip came out.
I would later have the opportunity to tour with Chip as Stage Manager on my very first National tour, and he is actually the first Young American I stayed with in a host family situation (known henceforth as "homestay," a word that is so embedded in my personal lexicon I was genuinely puzzled that spell-check had a problem with it.) Chip divided up the audience into four sections, and wordlessly assigned each section an elongated alluvial utterance. Ours was "Eeeeee." The joke became apparent when the final quarter was given "Ting-Tang." As I watched Chip conduct each bracketed chorus in the appropriate order, various members of the audience began to chuckle to themselves as they understood what was going on. A lady in the front row had figured it out and Chip handed her a microphone. We all went through the motions one more time and, on cue, she chimed in with "Walla Walla Bing-Bang." Our nice, ordered world suddenly became a cacophony of strobing lights, techno-bass, and dancing children. Holy shit.
Again, my memory is colored by the fact that I toured with a version of this same show not eighteen months later, but there are still some high points that stick in my memory. Adam (a cast member) had a bit with Merrilee (the conductor) that showcased the entire YA/Director relationship in under two seconds. The Pantomime Tennis bit. Oh my god, Tennis. Again, having toured with "Imagination," "Happiness," and every hideous amalgam in between, it's difficult to reconcile that this was my favorite part of the show. Strangely this almost certainly was the first time I witnessed the Young American version of The Lion King, but the number left absolutely no impression on me at that time.
At the show's conclusion, I sought out the director, and told her how much I enjoyed the show. I was in college at the time, and had literally just done Oedipus, Julius Caesar, and The Crucible all in a row at school, and was in the middle of a month-long intensive dissection of Our Town. I don't know if there is medical documentation detailing the human capacity for dramatic tragedy but I'm sure I was well beyond that theoretical limit. I let her know, in no uncertain terms, that what I just saw represented a beautiful, entirely unfamiliar aspect of the human condition, and that I wished college theater were more like that. It should be noted here that I had no intention of auditioning at this point, I was simply hoping she would pass my sincerest compliments onto the cast.
In the lobby I found my mom talking to the high school choir director, who asked me if I was planning on auditioning. No, I wasn't. Was I sure? Again, no. How would I even go about auditioning? Down the hall, turn left, left again, the door's on your right. Ok, I figured, why not. I was an actor, not a singer, but I was taking a musical theater class (where we were inexplicably studying Sweeney Todd, another contributor to my tragedy overload,) and another audition experience couldn't hurt, right? I walked in, and I recognized the guy with the glasses and the director lady. They asked me to sing something. I sang something. We talked, I wrote my name and address down and that was pretty much it. I left firmly convinced that after my singing, the rest of the audition process was deemed wholly unnecessary, and the conversation was simply a formality so that I didn't feel too bad about the entire ordeal. Oh well. Monday, I went back to school and Young Americans faded into obscure memory.
The letter came in late spring, and for whatever reason I was unsettled by its arrival. Rejection isn't any easier to stomach in the privacy of your own house. I didn't need mine delivered on letterhead. The thickness of the packet should've been a clue, but at the time I simply thought to myself "how many pages does it take these people to say no thank you?" I read the whole thing twice, just to make sure there wasn't some mistake. Uhh... Mom, Dad? I think I'm moving to California.
Continue to Part 2
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Twilight Primer for Dudes
Eight(een) simple rules for dating Twilight fans:
1. Start your first real conversation with all the times you've murdered people.
2. Append the murder revelation with light banter about drinking her blood.
3. She rides in your car. Period.
4. Disable her vehicle to make sure she stays put.
5. When you decide to let her see her friends, tailgate her the entire way there.
6. Tell her you're only doing these things because you're so in love with her.
7. Promptly lose interest.
8. Make sure she knows she'd die if you weren't around to protect her.
9. Repeat #6 until she starts believing it.
10. Once she starts to believe it, take off for Europe.
11. Condescend, condescend, condescend. Also, lose interest again.
12. Sneak into her room and watch her sleep. It's romantic.
13. Relationships are about sacrifice. She should give up her friends and family.
14. Sacrifices are for girls. Also, Condescend some more.
15. Insist on carrying her on your back like a small child.
17. When in doubt, Body Glitter.
18. Make sure you're at least five times her age.
1. Start your first real conversation with all the times you've murdered people.
2. Append the murder revelation with light banter about drinking her blood.
3. She rides in your car. Period.
4. Disable her vehicle to make sure she stays put.
5. When you decide to let her see her friends, tailgate her the entire way there.
6. Tell her you're only doing these things because you're so in love with her.
7. Promptly lose interest.
8. Make sure she knows she'd die if you weren't around to protect her.
9. Repeat #6 until she starts believing it.
10. Once she starts to believe it, take off for Europe.
11. Condescend, condescend, condescend. Also, lose interest again.
12. Sneak into her room and watch her sleep. It's romantic.
13. Relationships are about sacrifice. She should give up her friends and family.
14. Sacrifices are for girls. Also, Condescend some more.
15. Insist on carrying her on your back like a small child.
17. When in doubt, Body Glitter.
18. Make sure you're at least five times her age.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Sleeping is half the battle...
I've been trying to keep better track of these, but I'll only post them when I think they give some kind of insight into my own disorganized thought process.
I'm watching a "classic" famous episode of G.I. Joe. I'm playing Duke. I'm given the task of stopping what is described as a giant robot general who is organizing some of the more aggressive pre WWI European societies into a loose cabal, uniting various militaries. under his leadership and innovative technology. This is a desperate last chance measure, many assassins have been killed trying to take him out. They give me a ray gun that is useless against normal humans. It'll work if I hit him in the eyes, but he knows about the ray gun and won't look at it directly. I am in a sparse forest, having just watched the "good guys" lose a battle to his superior technology when I see him walking by. I thought he'd really be a giant, this guy is maybe seven feet tall. He also looks human, at least from a distance. He's got a special reflective control panel about the size of a pocket watch that he's using to control some machines remotely. I try to hit his eyes in the reflection. The first shot misses, I curse since I've just made him aware of me. He's smart, he won't look at me, but he's still holding the pocket watch. I fire at it, and the beam reflects into his eyes. Immediately he becomes stiff and robotic, saying in a stiff and calculating voice "fusion source detected." The gun is irresistible to him now, and he's mentally degenerating. He starts to quote H.G. Wells to me, tells me how Europe won't survive in its current state, and war is a necessary condition of human existence. He is blindingly intelligent and I'm afraid to drop the ray gun, but I'm horrified to watch his intelligence diminish as I keep the trigger pressed. What am I destroying? He threatens me and seems about to overcome his fixation with the ray gun when one of his generals bursts in and announces that all of their war machines have stopped working, what should he do? As the robot turns his gaze to answer, I point the ray elsewhere on his body, I can hear it tearing through internal circuitry, sizzling and popping as it heats up. He asserts his gaze and I again direct it into his eyes, mostly out of fear. As he deteriorates further he comments on my stoicism, saying that I'm some kind of soldier and I didn’t even offer him the classic "but you're one of us" argument to convince him to stop the war. "Never" is all I say as I shudder, watching his hollow mockery of humanity go inert. His generals are gathered, as are my commanders. None of them can believe it. They're finally free. Everyone is suddenly celebrating, joyous and drinking and united. I see Germans and English, Turks and French, Austrians, Russians, and even the occasional American GI and they're all joyous and celebrating together. "You did it! You're a hero!" Everyone congratulates me but I am strangely taciturn. "H. G. Wells was right," I say with grim certainty to a young, awkward German man next to me. "It's going to take a war to unite this continent." The show concludes and I'm back in the living room, watching a historian comment on how the episode was "controversial" and "ahead of its time." He goes on to characterize the formation of the European Union as an eventual part of Hitler's legacy. I become disgusted with the realization that fantasy is just as terrible a place to live as reality.
I'm watching a "classic" famous episode of G.I. Joe. I'm playing Duke. I'm given the task of stopping what is described as a giant robot general who is organizing some of the more aggressive pre WWI European societies into a loose cabal, uniting various militaries. under his leadership and innovative technology. This is a desperate last chance measure, many assassins have been killed trying to take him out. They give me a ray gun that is useless against normal humans. It'll work if I hit him in the eyes, but he knows about the ray gun and won't look at it directly. I am in a sparse forest, having just watched the "good guys" lose a battle to his superior technology when I see him walking by. I thought he'd really be a giant, this guy is maybe seven feet tall. He also looks human, at least from a distance. He's got a special reflective control panel about the size of a pocket watch that he's using to control some machines remotely. I try to hit his eyes in the reflection. The first shot misses, I curse since I've just made him aware of me. He's smart, he won't look at me, but he's still holding the pocket watch. I fire at it, and the beam reflects into his eyes. Immediately he becomes stiff and robotic, saying in a stiff and calculating voice "fusion source detected." The gun is irresistible to him now, and he's mentally degenerating. He starts to quote H.G. Wells to me, tells me how Europe won't survive in its current state, and war is a necessary condition of human existence. He is blindingly intelligent and I'm afraid to drop the ray gun, but I'm horrified to watch his intelligence diminish as I keep the trigger pressed. What am I destroying? He threatens me and seems about to overcome his fixation with the ray gun when one of his generals bursts in and announces that all of their war machines have stopped working, what should he do? As the robot turns his gaze to answer, I point the ray elsewhere on his body, I can hear it tearing through internal circuitry, sizzling and popping as it heats up. He asserts his gaze and I again direct it into his eyes, mostly out of fear. As he deteriorates further he comments on my stoicism, saying that I'm some kind of soldier and I didn’t even offer him the classic "but you're one of us" argument to convince him to stop the war. "Never" is all I say as I shudder, watching his hollow mockery of humanity go inert. His generals are gathered, as are my commanders. None of them can believe it. They're finally free. Everyone is suddenly celebrating, joyous and drinking and united. I see Germans and English, Turks and French, Austrians, Russians, and even the occasional American GI and they're all joyous and celebrating together. "You did it! You're a hero!" Everyone congratulates me but I am strangely taciturn. "H. G. Wells was right," I say with grim certainty to a young, awkward German man next to me. "It's going to take a war to unite this continent." The show concludes and I'm back in the living room, watching a historian comment on how the episode was "controversial" and "ahead of its time." He goes on to characterize the formation of the European Union as an eventual part of Hitler's legacy. I become disgusted with the realization that fantasy is just as terrible a place to live as reality.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Obligatory 2010 List of Shit
A Decade of Blogging
Because every blog is doing Best of the Decade lists, here's mine. The top 8 wtf moments from my blog 2001-2008. (I'd include 2000 but I didn't write letters to the internet back then, and if you want to see my wtf moment from 2009, you can just scroll down to any of the previous posts.) I've probably had as many different blog locations as there are entries on this list, so I'll include the name of the blog I posted that particular entry on. I'm also going in reverse-chronological order because these will no doubt get more and more ridiculous the farther back we go.
2008
The Cake is a Lie
Everyone's favorite misanthropic organization, PETA, recently released a Cooking Mama ripoff, ostensibly to protest of the original game's inclusion of delicious, nutritious food. Since most of the dishes in Cooking Mama are traditional Japanese fare, PETA might actually be protesting Japanese culture here; the distinction is unclear. In any case, they've actually managed to improve the game a bit, and I doubt even PETA cares enough about real animals to not enjoy savagely eviscerating their respective digital avatars. While the cartoonish supervillainy inherent in PETA's typical list of suggested environmental improvements ranges from eliminating millions of jobs to displacing thousands of homeowners, I draw the line at the ham-handed inference that murdering something in a video game should make me feel the least bit guilty, (unless you count the Weighted Companion Cube.)
I suppose one could take this whole thing as a sign of our larger success as a species. The rationalization process for PETA's existence starts with the idea that humans are so well adapted for survival that we have to engage in self-sabotage just to keep our numbers down. Follow that line of thinking through to its' logical conclusion and you end up with PETA. The E in PETA is supposed to stand for Ethical, (which is as hilariously subjective as the M in FEMA,) a term that PETA has broadened to include the promotion of under-aged drinking on college campuses in an apparent effort to reduce dairy consumption. That's right, PETA hates milk enough to suggest Milwaukee's Best as a suitable replacement for enjoying your Captain Crunch. PETA's been working overtime paving the road to hell of late, but I can't imagine the "Got Beer" campaign was all that well-intentioned. I know half a dozen hot girls who can stand to drink Silk, and seem no worse for the wear. Put a beer in their hands, and suddenly they're dry humping the fridge door. Subtlety, it seems, doesn't evoke enough outrage. Like most organizations whose membership numbers less than the distinct subset "people who went to see Meet Joe Black," the disdainful public perception of PETA is eerily accurate. In an ironic twist, Shithouse Squirrels everywhere locked arms in protest.
-Originally posted October 31st, 2008 on mrvain (it later appeared on myspace)
I can't say this one caught me offguard, but I was a little surprised which quarter the flak came from. I also squeezed in a shot at FEMA, which in 2008 was about as topical as a Sars joke would be today. This one is still fairly recent and I maintain that faint shred of hope that someone will someday look at it and go "Oh, that IS funny… kind of." That vanity is somewhat muted by the fact that I'm aping Tycho throughout.
The Lesson: Get your own voice.
2007
"There are decisions made you'll never know about."
It has come to my attention lately (in a cogent and dramatic manner,) that there is some talk of a rift between two groups of people, both of which I love dearly. This is absurd, in that the two groups are in fact one; their delineation being nothing more than a consequence of location, (or as it is so often succinctly sung, "We're all in this together.") Being a proud and law-abiding member of one of the two groups (we'll call it "group B,") may or may not afford me any unique insight into the nature of this schism, but I intend to put my thoughts and feelings into words now, so lets pretend it does.
Group B is unilaterally comprised of passionate, penitent individuals who have recently - as a group - encountered and - as a group - overcome a series of what we'll whitewash as "obstacles." The ramifications of Group B's initial actions have been far reaching and well publicized. There is, to be sure, a discrepancy here between the real and the perceived. The truth suffers with every retelling, naturally, and retelling is something of a hobby for both groups. Similarly much of the shock and disappointment directed toward Group B has run the gamut of negativity from merely poorly worded to wholly unnecessary. In my experience it has been easiest to forgive those whose sins I am myself familiar with. I hope it isn't assuming too much to say this is universal. This being the case, Group B is certainly not unique in its indiscretion. That statement holds true both on a relative and a universal scale; all experience is equatable.
Although I have the right to exempt myself from scorn, having not personally committed any action to that end, I won't. I do not condone what was done but I cannot pretend to be surprised or outraged by something that I know to be an annual occurrence.
-Originally posted August 9th, 2007 on myspace.com
Young Americans generally don't read my blog -thank God, (although they might learn a few new words) - but this one was directed straight down their throats anyway. I went out of my way to make this visible and the results were consistent with what I've come to expect from that group of people. In fact, I had to feign contrition for the post later to re-ingratiate myself with the group proper. I'd worry about admitting that if I wasn't absolutely sure the only people who would be offended by it have no clue what "feign contrition" means.
The Lesson: This taught me that no matter what my politely proffered, highly reasoned, totally objective viewpoint might be, I will forever be an outsider with these people. Great, grand, wonderful, beautiful people, but not my people.
2006
"Just to clarify, I firmly believe children are rampant creatures of impulse and destruction and need to be physically intimidated far more than is the current practice in American society. Children are inherently chaotic and will destroy themselves and their environments at the first available opportunity. Read "Lord of the Flies." That actually happened. I was spanked by my parents, my grandparents, my neighbors, my babysitters, even my elementary school principal. It didn't teach me to hit other people, or to fear adults, it taught me to avoid getting spanked. The avenues of misbehavior were cut off one after the other each time I was spanked, until I was left no choice but to walk the straight and narrow. The only time in my entire life I was spanked that I disagree with was the day when I was eleven years old that I said I hated church and didn't want to go. (Still, I probably shouldn't have run around the house sloshing a snifter of strawberry wine and saying "Fuck Jesus."")
-Originally posted December 2006 on (the sadly now defunct) consummating.com
This was more or less par for the course for consummating; I'd bait and switch between anecdotal, faux-informative, non-sequitur, and blasphemy-based comedy all in one smug little paragraph. What is noteworthy about this comment is that an abridged version of it showed up on youtube in response to a video about corporal punishment, and still gets violent retribution TO THIS DAY. I can't imagine how anyone could take a single word of that seriously.
The Lesson: I've heard people say "If you're going to tell the truth, be funny, or they'll kill you." I've learned that if what you say is neither true nor funny, this can somehow still hold true.
2005
Unless you are intimately familiar with the inner workings of gmail chat and/or keep a rather aberrant sleep shedule, you've likely not heard from me in a while. I apologize for nothing. Well, thats not true, I apologize for some things, but not a lot of things. A few things. Several things... I apologize for half the things. To this end, please enjoy not only the typical howd'ya do formalities, but a great degree of editorializing as well. Heck, I may even throw in a Celebrity News section just to keep you interested.
The biggest news this month is my new car. I have once again joined the unbounded ranks of American Automobile Enthusiasts- known to Republicans as "$uckers" and to Democrats as "Republicans," with my shiny new Honda Accord. The car came with a CD player, power windows, and its own webpage. I have used two of those things so far; I don't own any CDs. A few people have been surprisingly critical of my choice of manual transmission, but- to be fair- I have been critical of those peoples' choices to pass by me like they know me. Speaking of great music, I won a free 2G ipod nano from Marriott, which I like even more than the ex girlfriend I got from them last year. One of those two things is easy to understand, lightweight, and shares my taste in music. Sadly they never let me use either one at work.
Work is Night Audit at a Marriott Courtyard hotel. During the week this means I quietly process paperwork and computer tasks in the wee hours of the morning, then get to eat the breakfast buffet for free. During the weekend (today, for example,) it means I get to stand listening politely at 3AM to people who demand things for free, then promptly label me ugly, misogynistic, racist and stupid. Thats just unfair. I'm not ugly. All things considered I do enjoy my job as it affords me ample free time to write or, more frequently, sit and not write. There was a bit of a snag at first based on my inability to put the larger number on top when subtracting, but they bought me a special calculator that gives answers in absolute values, so we're set.
Now, the promised celebrity news. I don't know anything about this stuff so I did a quick google blog search of Ohio Celebrity News (I've been boolean free since 83) and found an older blog entry about Katie Holmes claiming to be the most famous person from Ohio. (Who cares if this is true or not, it makes good copy.) Eight US Presidents and the first man to set foot on the moon notwithstanding, she is pretty famous. The entry was backlinked to an article about Katie Holmes home town of Toledo, Ohio and how that city considers its most famous resident to be Jamie Farr. Yeah. The guy with the dress on M*A*S*H. This is indicative of everything I like about the midwestern mindset; some tabloid journalist went to Toledo to dig up dirt on Katie Holmes and everyone he interviewed opted to talk about the time they had pancakes with Corporal Klinger instead.
-Originally published July 22, 2005 on "Reflexive, Recursive, Redundant" and also emailed to a whole bunch of people, only one of whom ever responded.
The $uckers gag never worked as well as it should, because some people saw the dollar sign not as a replacement for the letter "S," as was intended, but for the letter "F." Fuck those people. I also made a 2pac reference which exactly zero people got, and I was riffing on Erma Bombeck a little, although admittedly our comparative demographics probably don't overlap much. The Boolean operator joke is also a bit dated now, but the thing that really bugs me is the conciliatory tone of the whole thing. In 2005 I had apparently given up on ever achieving anything in life.
The lesson: Clad your mundane, humble, bullshit lifestyle in whatever trappings you like, but people just aren't going to give a shit unless they identify.
2004
Traverse, Tacos, and Tangents
Like any menu item upgrade, the new Grande Soft Taco combines the familiar elements its name would imply with a "new" twist. The twist is twofold. The first is fairly straightforward as far as upgrades go. Taco Bell offerse more of what you love; More beef, cheese, and lettuce inside. The second element is the addition of an extra tortilla shell outside. Taco Bell afficionados will be familiar with this maneuver, first debuted in the "Double Decker Taco" whereby two shells are cradled together using a sort of bonding agent. Whereas the Original Double Decker Taco employed refried beans, the new Grande Soft Taco takes a leap into the quasi-dairy arena with the use of Nacho cheese. While it would seem this would make a welcome economy addition to the prestigious "Cheesy Gordita Crunch" line, the dish is not without it's faults. The first is the use of two soft flour tortillas, which causes this item to lack the pleasurable textured "crunch" it could have, if one of the tortillas were to be swapped with one of its crisp corn counterparts. Secondly, owing to both the double-soft shell and the nature of the nacho cheese adhesive, the internal shell actually does quite a bit of slipping and sliding during consumption. the nacho cheese, unlike the Gordita Crunch's delicious solid cheese blend, acts as a lubricant rather than a bonding agent, thus making this a more difficult dish to devour. Finally, the lack of any real spice or kick make after-market additions a must. Stock up on the Hot, Mild, or Fire, because you won't be getting any flavor from the Grande Soft Taco on its own.
All in all, 2 out of 4 stars. Don't think of it as a Poor Man's Cheesy Gordita Crunch, think of it as an 89 cent soft taco that jumped on the nacho cheese-powered slip and slide of mediocrity.
-Originally posted July 17th, 2004 on "mike26"
This entire entry was written to make a single person laugh. It achieved that goal, but then what? The topical comedy is way too specific to be useful anywhere else (except maybe in a "Best Of" post highlighting some of my more fantastic failures…) Also the tone is internally consistent with what I thought a review was supposed to sound like, and as a consequence I actively avoided making specific jokes that would risk breaking the format. Whatever, I'm pretty sure Taco Bell executives aren't reading my blog. The ultimate lesson though, was when I tried to show this to other people.
The Lesson: Familiarity is played out. You can't tell people shit about tacos, they already eat tacos.
2003
Donc si vous me croyez, mignonne...
Ah me. What a thing. I've found a new source for free talk therapy, so I've been neglecting this weblog. I know many of you check daily for new posts (yeah, right) and I've decided to stop disappointing my addoring fans. Okay, fan. (Not to be confused with Fan. One person gets that.)
So anyway, I found at least one reason to not want this summer to end. Which is wierd, because now I've started to worry that I won't be ready for tour. It'd be nice to get a call from some of my YA friends! Well, John calls me, he's The Man. The Dude. Abides. Whatever, kitschy slogans were never my thing. Kiss My Grits, Mel.
Also, I'm handing out free tickets to my next show. It's called "Next Time You Cause Trouble, I Will Punch You In The Face." It's part of a new interactive series I'm trying out. All you have to do to get a free guaranteed ticket is to act like a jerk! Limit one per Face.
-Originally posted July 26, 2003 on smote.org
Wow. Now we're getting back there. First of all, for those of you not well-versed in classic French poetry, that title is a reference to "Mignonne Allons Voir Si La Rose," which is like the "To The Virgins" of French poetry, at least subtextually. I spent the whole post saying "Katie is a Bitch" without ever saying "Katie is a Bitch" which seemed clever seven years ago, but now it feels like a big waste of time. Also, the only humor in this post can be derived from how pathetic it is I thought any of this was ever funny.
The Lesson: "Katie is a Bitch." Just say it and leave the veiled non-sequitur stuff to livejournal crowd, ok?
(Honorable mention from 2003 goes to this joke: "Where do broken hearts go... when they find their way home..." is a stupid question because everyone knows they go to Denny's it unexpectedly made me laugh here in 2010.)
2002
Posted on keenspace between February 16th and 23rd of 2002.
I apparently spent most of 2002 sharing my FPL writing, complaining about someone named Cindy, and making a quotes.txt out of the whole thing. I did find these "gems" however: the hilariously infamous (or is that infamously hilarious) Gafy webcomic. I can't draw, (clearly,) and MS Paint only helps make this more apparent. Still, Gafy exists as an inside-joke to a few close friends to this day. Fun fact, Gafy, the name of the main character, is an acronym.
The Lesson: Stick to writing, sparky.
2001
I've been thinking about this why men and women have such problems maintaining relationships and I think I have been able to isolate the source of the problem. Women.
-Originally posted on March 27th, 2001 on I Hate Irony.
This is one of the first things I ever wrote on the internet.
The Lesson: Occasionally you get it right the first time. Happy 2010.
Because every blog is doing Best of the Decade lists, here's mine. The top 8 wtf moments from my blog 2001-2008. (I'd include 2000 but I didn't write letters to the internet back then, and if you want to see my wtf moment from 2009, you can just scroll down to any of the previous posts.) I've probably had as many different blog locations as there are entries on this list, so I'll include the name of the blog I posted that particular entry on. I'm also going in reverse-chronological order because these will no doubt get more and more ridiculous the farther back we go.
2008
The Cake is a Lie
Everyone's favorite misanthropic organization, PETA, recently released a Cooking Mama ripoff, ostensibly to protest of the original game's inclusion of delicious, nutritious food. Since most of the dishes in Cooking Mama are traditional Japanese fare, PETA might actually be protesting Japanese culture here; the distinction is unclear. In any case, they've actually managed to improve the game a bit, and I doubt even PETA cares enough about real animals to not enjoy savagely eviscerating their respective digital avatars. While the cartoonish supervillainy inherent in PETA's typical list of suggested environmental improvements ranges from eliminating millions of jobs to displacing thousands of homeowners, I draw the line at the ham-handed inference that murdering something in a video game should make me feel the least bit guilty, (unless you count the Weighted Companion Cube.)
I suppose one could take this whole thing as a sign of our larger success as a species. The rationalization process for PETA's existence starts with the idea that humans are so well adapted for survival that we have to engage in self-sabotage just to keep our numbers down. Follow that line of thinking through to its' logical conclusion and you end up with PETA. The E in PETA is supposed to stand for Ethical, (which is as hilariously subjective as the M in FEMA,) a term that PETA has broadened to include the promotion of under-aged drinking on college campuses in an apparent effort to reduce dairy consumption. That's right, PETA hates milk enough to suggest Milwaukee's Best as a suitable replacement for enjoying your Captain Crunch. PETA's been working overtime paving the road to hell of late, but I can't imagine the "Got Beer" campaign was all that well-intentioned. I know half a dozen hot girls who can stand to drink Silk, and seem no worse for the wear. Put a beer in their hands, and suddenly they're dry humping the fridge door. Subtlety, it seems, doesn't evoke enough outrage. Like most organizations whose membership numbers less than the distinct subset "people who went to see Meet Joe Black," the disdainful public perception of PETA is eerily accurate. In an ironic twist, Shithouse Squirrels everywhere locked arms in protest.
-Originally posted October 31st, 2008 on mrvain (it later appeared on myspace)
I can't say this one caught me offguard, but I was a little surprised which quarter the flak came from. I also squeezed in a shot at FEMA, which in 2008 was about as topical as a Sars joke would be today. This one is still fairly recent and I maintain that faint shred of hope that someone will someday look at it and go "Oh, that IS funny… kind of." That vanity is somewhat muted by the fact that I'm aping Tycho throughout.
The Lesson: Get your own voice.
2007
"There are decisions made you'll never know about."
It has come to my attention lately (in a cogent and dramatic manner,) that there is some talk of a rift between two groups of people, both of which I love dearly. This is absurd, in that the two groups are in fact one; their delineation being nothing more than a consequence of location, (or as it is so often succinctly sung, "We're all in this together.") Being a proud and law-abiding member of one of the two groups (we'll call it "group B,") may or may not afford me any unique insight into the nature of this schism, but I intend to put my thoughts and feelings into words now, so lets pretend it does.
Group B is unilaterally comprised of passionate, penitent individuals who have recently - as a group - encountered and - as a group - overcome a series of what we'll whitewash as "obstacles." The ramifications of Group B's initial actions have been far reaching and well publicized. There is, to be sure, a discrepancy here between the real and the perceived. The truth suffers with every retelling, naturally, and retelling is something of a hobby for both groups. Similarly much of the shock and disappointment directed toward Group B has run the gamut of negativity from merely poorly worded to wholly unnecessary. In my experience it has been easiest to forgive those whose sins I am myself familiar with. I hope it isn't assuming too much to say this is universal. This being the case, Group B is certainly not unique in its indiscretion. That statement holds true both on a relative and a universal scale; all experience is equatable.
Although I have the right to exempt myself from scorn, having not personally committed any action to that end, I won't. I do not condone what was done but I cannot pretend to be surprised or outraged by something that I know to be an annual occurrence.
-Originally posted August 9th, 2007 on myspace.com
Young Americans generally don't read my blog -thank God, (although they might learn a few new words) - but this one was directed straight down their throats anyway. I went out of my way to make this visible and the results were consistent with what I've come to expect from that group of people. In fact, I had to feign contrition for the post later to re-ingratiate myself with the group proper. I'd worry about admitting that if I wasn't absolutely sure the only people who would be offended by it have no clue what "feign contrition" means.
The Lesson: This taught me that no matter what my politely proffered, highly reasoned, totally objective viewpoint might be, I will forever be an outsider with these people. Great, grand, wonderful, beautiful people, but not my people.
2006
"Just to clarify, I firmly believe children are rampant creatures of impulse and destruction and need to be physically intimidated far more than is the current practice in American society. Children are inherently chaotic and will destroy themselves and their environments at the first available opportunity. Read "Lord of the Flies." That actually happened. I was spanked by my parents, my grandparents, my neighbors, my babysitters, even my elementary school principal. It didn't teach me to hit other people, or to fear adults, it taught me to avoid getting spanked. The avenues of misbehavior were cut off one after the other each time I was spanked, until I was left no choice but to walk the straight and narrow. The only time in my entire life I was spanked that I disagree with was the day when I was eleven years old that I said I hated church and didn't want to go. (Still, I probably shouldn't have run around the house sloshing a snifter of strawberry wine and saying "Fuck Jesus."")
-Originally posted December 2006 on (the sadly now defunct) consummating.com
This was more or less par for the course for consummating; I'd bait and switch between anecdotal, faux-informative, non-sequitur, and blasphemy-based comedy all in one smug little paragraph. What is noteworthy about this comment is that an abridged version of it showed up on youtube in response to a video about corporal punishment, and still gets violent retribution TO THIS DAY. I can't imagine how anyone could take a single word of that seriously.
The Lesson: I've heard people say "If you're going to tell the truth, be funny, or they'll kill you." I've learned that if what you say is neither true nor funny, this can somehow still hold true.
2005
Unless you are intimately familiar with the inner workings of gmail chat and/or keep a rather aberrant sleep shedule, you've likely not heard from me in a while. I apologize for nothing. Well, thats not true, I apologize for some things, but not a lot of things. A few things. Several things... I apologize for half the things. To this end, please enjoy not only the typical howd'ya do formalities, but a great degree of editorializing as well. Heck, I may even throw in a Celebrity News section just to keep you interested.
The biggest news this month is my new car. I have once again joined the unbounded ranks of American Automobile Enthusiasts- known to Republicans as "$uckers" and to Democrats as "Republicans," with my shiny new Honda Accord. The car came with a CD player, power windows, and its own webpage. I have used two of those things so far; I don't own any CDs. A few people have been surprisingly critical of my choice of manual transmission, but- to be fair- I have been critical of those peoples' choices to pass by me like they know me. Speaking of great music, I won a free 2G ipod nano from Marriott, which I like even more than the ex girlfriend I got from them last year. One of those two things is easy to understand, lightweight, and shares my taste in music. Sadly they never let me use either one at work.
Work is Night Audit at a Marriott Courtyard hotel. During the week this means I quietly process paperwork and computer tasks in the wee hours of the morning, then get to eat the breakfast buffet for free. During the weekend (today, for example,) it means I get to stand listening politely at 3AM to people who demand things for free, then promptly label me ugly, misogynistic, racist and stupid. Thats just unfair. I'm not ugly. All things considered I do enjoy my job as it affords me ample free time to write or, more frequently, sit and not write. There was a bit of a snag at first based on my inability to put the larger number on top when subtracting, but they bought me a special calculator that gives answers in absolute values, so we're set.
Now, the promised celebrity news. I don't know anything about this stuff so I did a quick google blog search of Ohio Celebrity News (I've been boolean free since 83) and found an older blog entry about Katie Holmes claiming to be the most famous person from Ohio. (Who cares if this is true or not, it makes good copy.) Eight US Presidents and the first man to set foot on the moon notwithstanding, she is pretty famous. The entry was backlinked to an article about Katie Holmes home town of Toledo, Ohio and how that city considers its most famous resident to be Jamie Farr. Yeah. The guy with the dress on M*A*S*H. This is indicative of everything I like about the midwestern mindset; some tabloid journalist went to Toledo to dig up dirt on Katie Holmes and everyone he interviewed opted to talk about the time they had pancakes with Corporal Klinger instead.
-Originally published July 22, 2005 on "Reflexive, Recursive, Redundant" and also emailed to a whole bunch of people, only one of whom ever responded.
The $uckers gag never worked as well as it should, because some people saw the dollar sign not as a replacement for the letter "S," as was intended, but for the letter "F." Fuck those people. I also made a 2pac reference which exactly zero people got, and I was riffing on Erma Bombeck a little, although admittedly our comparative demographics probably don't overlap much. The Boolean operator joke is also a bit dated now, but the thing that really bugs me is the conciliatory tone of the whole thing. In 2005 I had apparently given up on ever achieving anything in life.
The lesson: Clad your mundane, humble, bullshit lifestyle in whatever trappings you like, but people just aren't going to give a shit unless they identify.
2004
Traverse, Tacos, and Tangents
Like any menu item upgrade, the new Grande Soft Taco combines the familiar elements its name would imply with a "new" twist. The twist is twofold. The first is fairly straightforward as far as upgrades go. Taco Bell offerse more of what you love; More beef, cheese, and lettuce inside. The second element is the addition of an extra tortilla shell outside. Taco Bell afficionados will be familiar with this maneuver, first debuted in the "Double Decker Taco" whereby two shells are cradled together using a sort of bonding agent. Whereas the Original Double Decker Taco employed refried beans, the new Grande Soft Taco takes a leap into the quasi-dairy arena with the use of Nacho cheese. While it would seem this would make a welcome economy addition to the prestigious "Cheesy Gordita Crunch" line, the dish is not without it's faults. The first is the use of two soft flour tortillas, which causes this item to lack the pleasurable textured "crunch" it could have, if one of the tortillas were to be swapped with one of its crisp corn counterparts. Secondly, owing to both the double-soft shell and the nature of the nacho cheese adhesive, the internal shell actually does quite a bit of slipping and sliding during consumption. the nacho cheese, unlike the Gordita Crunch's delicious solid cheese blend, acts as a lubricant rather than a bonding agent, thus making this a more difficult dish to devour. Finally, the lack of any real spice or kick make after-market additions a must. Stock up on the Hot, Mild, or Fire, because you won't be getting any flavor from the Grande Soft Taco on its own.
All in all, 2 out of 4 stars. Don't think of it as a Poor Man's Cheesy Gordita Crunch, think of it as an 89 cent soft taco that jumped on the nacho cheese-powered slip and slide of mediocrity.
-Originally posted July 17th, 2004 on "mike26"
This entire entry was written to make a single person laugh. It achieved that goal, but then what? The topical comedy is way too specific to be useful anywhere else (except maybe in a "Best Of" post highlighting some of my more fantastic failures…) Also the tone is internally consistent with what I thought a review was supposed to sound like, and as a consequence I actively avoided making specific jokes that would risk breaking the format. Whatever, I'm pretty sure Taco Bell executives aren't reading my blog. The ultimate lesson though, was when I tried to show this to other people.
The Lesson: Familiarity is played out. You can't tell people shit about tacos, they already eat tacos.
2003
Donc si vous me croyez, mignonne...
Ah me. What a thing. I've found a new source for free talk therapy, so I've been neglecting this weblog. I know many of you check daily for new posts (yeah, right) and I've decided to stop disappointing my addoring fans. Okay, fan. (Not to be confused with Fan. One person gets that.)
So anyway, I found at least one reason to not want this summer to end. Which is wierd, because now I've started to worry that I won't be ready for tour. It'd be nice to get a call from some of my YA friends! Well, John calls me, he's The Man. The Dude. Abides. Whatever, kitschy slogans were never my thing. Kiss My Grits, Mel.
Also, I'm handing out free tickets to my next show. It's called "Next Time You Cause Trouble, I Will Punch You In The Face." It's part of a new interactive series I'm trying out. All you have to do to get a free guaranteed ticket is to act like a jerk! Limit one per Face.
-Originally posted July 26, 2003 on smote.org
Wow. Now we're getting back there. First of all, for those of you not well-versed in classic French poetry, that title is a reference to "Mignonne Allons Voir Si La Rose," which is like the "To The Virgins" of French poetry, at least subtextually. I spent the whole post saying "Katie is a Bitch" without ever saying "Katie is a Bitch" which seemed clever seven years ago, but now it feels like a big waste of time. Also, the only humor in this post can be derived from how pathetic it is I thought any of this was ever funny.
The Lesson: "Katie is a Bitch." Just say it and leave the veiled non-sequitur stuff to livejournal crowd, ok?
(Honorable mention from 2003 goes to this joke: "Where do broken hearts go... when they find their way home..." is a stupid question because everyone knows they go to Denny's it unexpectedly made me laugh here in 2010.)
2002
Posted on keenspace between February 16th and 23rd of 2002.
I apparently spent most of 2002 sharing my FPL writing, complaining about someone named Cindy, and making a quotes.txt out of the whole thing. I did find these "gems" however: the hilariously infamous (or is that infamously hilarious) Gafy webcomic. I can't draw, (clearly,) and MS Paint only helps make this more apparent. Still, Gafy exists as an inside-joke to a few close friends to this day. Fun fact, Gafy, the name of the main character, is an acronym.
The Lesson: Stick to writing, sparky.
2001
I've been thinking about this why men and women have such problems maintaining relationships and I think I have been able to isolate the source of the problem. Women.
-Originally posted on March 27th, 2001 on I Hate Irony.
This is one of the first things I ever wrote on the internet.
The Lesson: Occasionally you get it right the first time. Happy 2010.
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