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.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
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.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Further Reading
There is a certain worldview that takes the stance that people are nothing more than densely compressed living murals of random information, agents of contiguous hypermemetic data transfer created, sustained, and ultimately destroyed by the flow of particulate knowledge around and through us. Every observable interaction is in reality an extension of the intangible, Rutherfordian elastic collision of information. This with the caveat that the currency of exchange in this scenario can be arbitrarily introduced or removed from system at specific "endpoints," namely: people.
Umm... bullshit.
However, it is an idea that deserves some degree of consideration. Here is a phenomenally self-indulgent litany of what I consider to be my biggest influences. Did I say self-indulgent already? I did. Good, then there won't be any surprises.
Six things that make me, me (that you can go experience for yourself!):
Penny-Arcade: What can I say? I'm a sucker for dick-jokes. In recent years though, it's been Tycho's newsfeed that I draw amusement from, with the comic serving almost as a beautifully illustrated afterthought. I don't play video games very often and when I do they're usually several years out of vogue, but Penny-Arcade exists within a larger pop-culture framework than the subset they lampoon, and as a web generation business model these guys are one of the most cited success stories. Jerry's propensity for weaving candid, intelligent, and often hilarious observations with the aforementioned juvenile humor is nothing short of amazing, and whenever my own flowery verbosity trends toward the absurd, that's me wanting to be more like Penny-Arcade.
Roald Dahl: It was through the suggestion of a friend (Thanks Drew!) that I reconnected with my favorite childhood author in adulthood, adding his autobiographical works and his more mature themed writing to my personal library. Dahl had a way of handing me puzzle-piece syllogisms one brilliant concept at a time. Their resultant construction suggested that children were in fact superior to adults in many respects; our eyes were open to the world's hidden magic and our inherent morality wasn't plagued with compromise. I had naively assumed he only worked well within those strictures, but as it turns out the man knew a thing or two about telling a story, period. Dahl treats readers- children or not- as inherently intelligent, and the end of "The Giraffe, The Pelly, And Me" almost makes me cry every time I read it.
Firesign Theater- The term "Stream of Consciousness" gets thrown around quite a bit in literature, in film, in comics and in theater, but these Proctor and Bergman radio plays I randomly discovered in High School (thanks Dad!) push the boundaries of the term well beyond anything I've ever encountered, and push the boundaries of comedy in the process. Complex, intelligent, and blissfully absurd, each subsequent listening revealed another layer of hidden brilliance (and complete mastery of every aspect of aural presentation.) What Monty Python was for most people The Firesign Theater was for me. I'm also a fan of their writing style, tightly woven, carefully scripted non-sequitur comedy written and delivered so as to seem completely improvised.
A Thurber Carnival- This one is also my Dad's fault. When I was six I went with him to rehearsals for "A Thurber Carnival," and I fell in love with both the theater and Thurber's brand of reality-muted absurdism. My mom had just bought me "Where The Sidewalk Ends" and Thurber was the other side of the coin. A Thurber Carnival opens as a sort of Proto-Laugh-In, and artfully dances across a series of very mature themes leaving an alternating series of punch-lines and "wait, what?" moments in its wake.
Terry Pratchett- I came to Terry Pratchett late, not picking up Good Omens until High School and not getting into Discworld until after college. Still, no single author has influenced my writing style more than Pratchett. He is the world's single most gifted living author. If Firesign is the nonpareil of joke-density in radio, Pratchett's writing should be likened to a neutron star. The Discworld is replete in its splendor as a model of imperfection, seamlessly transitioning between the fantastic and the familiar. I like a lot of authors' works; I love Terry Pratchett's.
Free Enterprise- On the opposite end of the same scale as Terry Pratchett, Free Enterprise is Mark Altman and Robert Meyer-Burnett's geek comedy I happened across in college, and it's dialogue insinuated itself into every facet of my daily speech. Think of it as Swingers meets The Big Bang Theory (obviously I'm perfectly positioned in the center of that Venn Diagram.) The cumulative effect of this film on my life is virtually incalculable- and I could do an entire article on what the 90's snapshot in the film says about the vagaries of geek culture. Actually, that's not a bad idea.
Umm... bullshit.
However, it is an idea that deserves some degree of consideration. Here is a phenomenally self-indulgent litany of what I consider to be my biggest influences. Did I say self-indulgent already? I did. Good, then there won't be any surprises.
Six things that make me, me (that you can go experience for yourself!):
Penny-Arcade: What can I say? I'm a sucker for dick-jokes. In recent years though, it's been Tycho's newsfeed that I draw amusement from, with the comic serving almost as a beautifully illustrated afterthought. I don't play video games very often and when I do they're usually several years out of vogue, but Penny-Arcade exists within a larger pop-culture framework than the subset they lampoon, and as a web generation business model these guys are one of the most cited success stories. Jerry's propensity for weaving candid, intelligent, and often hilarious observations with the aforementioned juvenile humor is nothing short of amazing, and whenever my own flowery verbosity trends toward the absurd, that's me wanting to be more like Penny-Arcade.
Roald Dahl: It was through the suggestion of a friend (Thanks Drew!) that I reconnected with my favorite childhood author in adulthood, adding his autobiographical works and his more mature themed writing to my personal library. Dahl had a way of handing me puzzle-piece syllogisms one brilliant concept at a time. Their resultant construction suggested that children were in fact superior to adults in many respects; our eyes were open to the world's hidden magic and our inherent morality wasn't plagued with compromise. I had naively assumed he only worked well within those strictures, but as it turns out the man knew a thing or two about telling a story, period. Dahl treats readers- children or not- as inherently intelligent, and the end of "The Giraffe, The Pelly, And Me" almost makes me cry every time I read it.
Firesign Theater- The term "Stream of Consciousness" gets thrown around quite a bit in literature, in film, in comics and in theater, but these Proctor and Bergman radio plays I randomly discovered in High School (thanks Dad!) push the boundaries of the term well beyond anything I've ever encountered, and push the boundaries of comedy in the process. Complex, intelligent, and blissfully absurd, each subsequent listening revealed another layer of hidden brilliance (and complete mastery of every aspect of aural presentation.) What Monty Python was for most people The Firesign Theater was for me. I'm also a fan of their writing style, tightly woven, carefully scripted non-sequitur comedy written and delivered so as to seem completely improvised.
A Thurber Carnival- This one is also my Dad's fault. When I was six I went with him to rehearsals for "A Thurber Carnival," and I fell in love with both the theater and Thurber's brand of reality-muted absurdism. My mom had just bought me "Where The Sidewalk Ends" and Thurber was the other side of the coin. A Thurber Carnival opens as a sort of Proto-Laugh-In, and artfully dances across a series of very mature themes leaving an alternating series of punch-lines and "wait, what?" moments in its wake.
Terry Pratchett- I came to Terry Pratchett late, not picking up Good Omens until High School and not getting into Discworld until after college. Still, no single author has influenced my writing style more than Pratchett. He is the world's single most gifted living author. If Firesign is the nonpareil of joke-density in radio, Pratchett's writing should be likened to a neutron star. The Discworld is replete in its splendor as a model of imperfection, seamlessly transitioning between the fantastic and the familiar. I like a lot of authors' works; I love Terry Pratchett's.
Free Enterprise- On the opposite end of the same scale as Terry Pratchett, Free Enterprise is Mark Altman and Robert Meyer-Burnett's geek comedy I happened across in college, and it's dialogue insinuated itself into every facet of my daily speech. Think of it as Swingers meets The Big Bang Theory (obviously I'm perfectly positioned in the center of that Venn Diagram.) The cumulative effect of this film on my life is virtually incalculable- and I could do an entire article on what the 90's snapshot in the film says about the vagaries of geek culture. Actually, that's not a bad idea.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Let there be light.
I've quoted Larry Niven before, specifically with regard to his commentary on collaborative world building, and more specifically, the introduction to his short story "Flare Time" in the N-Space compendium (page 342 for those of you playing at home,) where he says you must have a dictator among the group in order to really get anything done. (That's the whole book, by the way, for those of you who can stand to read things on screens I highly recommend it.)
As the duly appointed dictator of FPL continuity, I've managed over 20,000 words on the subject, and run damage control on various egos (including my own,) but the project still feels like it has yet to GO anywhere. Admittedly I was a bit sidetracked by Nimbia, which is my own little tribute to Terry Pratchett, but I even put that on hold just to try and get people submitting. I've never been plagued by a dearth of ideas, and I could easily fill in every minute detail myself, but then it isn't a shared world anymore and we're all just playing in Ivan's sandbox. I already invented a highly suspect form of social government, balkanized the Soviet metahuman contingent, and built a self-aware computer with a fondness for dogs. What else do you people want from me?
There are other noteworthy concerns in crafting the environs for a shared experience, including several places where the world we inhabit doesn't live up to it's potential. Penny Arcade's Jerry Holkins has been forthcoming with the following bit of hilarity:
Like other atheists, I can see some of the rookie mistakes in the "world building" God has done, by which I mean Jehovah, with his cryptozoological fascinations, underutilized themes, flat protagonists, and the prevalence of barbarism - but my own work is rife with genuine concerns. When I have my way, I gin up a world where life is a doomed accident, a planet whose crust is nothing more than a prison for an inconceivable evil, while a floating city of half-angels wages a genetic pogrom to scour mortality from their race. If anything, I've managed to create a scenario where leprosy actually sounds pretty good.
Of course I've come across the opposite problem, not wanting to stifle creativity once the character submission engine comes online, I've possibly made things too easy for Khazanians and their ilk, although any system in place to maintain the Superheroic status quo necessarily tips Khazan's needle toward "Top 10." The problem is, in spite of my insistence that superpowers are by no means ubiquitous, the creator itself requires the expenditure of Ability Points, meaning one has to be both willful and creative if one wants to craft an ordinary person.
In any case it looks like it'll be year's end at least before the system architecture is in the beta stages of testing, so I've got at least another month to populate this world before I start having to deny characters based on the fact that they're misrepresenting the Arcanus Obliques or whatever.
Needless to say, when Khazan is finished, we will have built THIS city on fundamentally more than Rock and Roll.
As the duly appointed dictator of FPL continuity, I've managed over 20,000 words on the subject, and run damage control on various egos (including my own,) but the project still feels like it has yet to GO anywhere. Admittedly I was a bit sidetracked by Nimbia, which is my own little tribute to Terry Pratchett, but I even put that on hold just to try and get people submitting. I've never been plagued by a dearth of ideas, and I could easily fill in every minute detail myself, but then it isn't a shared world anymore and we're all just playing in Ivan's sandbox. I already invented a highly suspect form of social government, balkanized the Soviet metahuman contingent, and built a self-aware computer with a fondness for dogs. What else do you people want from me?
There are other noteworthy concerns in crafting the environs for a shared experience, including several places where the world we inhabit doesn't live up to it's potential. Penny Arcade's Jerry Holkins has been forthcoming with the following bit of hilarity:
Like other atheists, I can see some of the rookie mistakes in the "world building" God has done, by which I mean Jehovah, with his cryptozoological fascinations, underutilized themes, flat protagonists, and the prevalence of barbarism - but my own work is rife with genuine concerns. When I have my way, I gin up a world where life is a doomed accident, a planet whose crust is nothing more than a prison for an inconceivable evil, while a floating city of half-angels wages a genetic pogrom to scour mortality from their race. If anything, I've managed to create a scenario where leprosy actually sounds pretty good.
Of course I've come across the opposite problem, not wanting to stifle creativity once the character submission engine comes online, I've possibly made things too easy for Khazanians and their ilk, although any system in place to maintain the Superheroic status quo necessarily tips Khazan's needle toward "Top 10." The problem is, in spite of my insistence that superpowers are by no means ubiquitous, the creator itself requires the expenditure of Ability Points, meaning one has to be both willful and creative if one wants to craft an ordinary person.
In any case it looks like it'll be year's end at least before the system architecture is in the beta stages of testing, so I've got at least another month to populate this world before I start having to deny characters based on the fact that they're misrepresenting the Arcanus Obliques or whatever.
Needless to say, when Khazan is finished, we will have built THIS city on fundamentally more than Rock and Roll.
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