2010/1/27 article
I need to get a job as a writer because my life is not interesting enough to write about myself all the time. I yearn for assignments with early morning deadlines for two reasons: one, pressure makes diamonds out of coal, and two, it will give me a topic to handle that is outside of my own life. Even if the assignment is terrible, it would permit me to bitch and moan about something other than myself, a welcome change. This blog has been self-centered since it’s inception, which is all well and good, but if it continues down this road without detour, I will bore myself to death before I reach that dark place by more natural or, perhaps, synthetic means.
The choice is clear. Either find a job where you can practice writing without playing it so close to your chest, for down that path is certain death, or man the fuck up and write some fiction, the genre where you can write about yourself without really writing about yourself.
Or, for God’s sake, find another hobby, man.
2010/1/26 article
Applying to this Master’s program is a grueling, tedious process. There are endless heaps of red tape and paperwork: not a mechanism for deterring those unworthy, only those unwilling.
The whole process seems backwards to me. I ought to be used to bureaucratic bullshit by now because I’ve had to deal with it my whole life. It’s so unnatural, however, that I don’t see myself ever acclimatizing to such foul weather. In this region, the gutters run with sewage through narrow, crooked streets.
Perhaps this means that I still possess, in some small degree, a sliver of my soul. I should count that as a blessing, but in this process it is more likely a curse. Dorothy made it to Oz, eventually, though the girl who left was not the same one who arrived in a whirlwind, and the path she took was anything but direct. I’ve made a few friends along the way, but friends can only point you in the right direction. You’ve gotta travel the roads on your own two feet.
So I trudge along, my shoes coated with muck, and choke down the impulse to click my heels and wish myself home. It just makes me look silly. Besides, it never works, and my wishes won’t change the system. The only recourse is to do what they say. Fill out this form, submit that application, sign here, file it in the office all the way across town. Wait a week. Hear good news and see it promptly reversed. My own personal battle with the flying monkeys of bureaucracy.
The deadline for the program was today, but it seems like I won’t make it after all, despite my best efforts. We might have made it if the roads weren’t closed on the Base for the snow, but that is out of my hands. More waiting and fruitless emails must entail.
Maybe I’ll play video games, instead. It would certainly make my afternoon more interesting. At least in that world, a soul isn’t an impediment. Plus, if I have to fight flying monkeys I understand their tactics, may even have a badass-lookin’ sword to fight them back.
(The wonderful illustration is by Skottie Young)
2010/1/24 short
Here’s the scoop on Banksy at Sundance. The world renowned film festival is “getting back to it’s roots” this year. I’ve always been a fan of Banksy’s work and I’m sure his film won’t disappoint.
If you’ve never heard of Banksy, he is often referred to as a “guerilla street artist.” Here is a related Banksy narrative at Esquire from a few years back. Esquire always does the most wonderful investigative journalism narratives, and this one reinforces the idea of the anonymous artist that is Banksy in an endearing and somewhat informative fashion:
When I exited the bookstore, a backpack-wearing kid with baggy pants, a Krylon-paint T-shirt, and headphones walked past me. On the back of his backpack was the graffiti tag PEACE NOT WAR. I approached him and asked him if he knew Banksy, and with a smile he said, “Everybody knows Banksy, but nobody knows Banksy.”
Update: Banksy rocks Sundance. No surprise there!
2010/1/21 excerpt
You can read the first chapter of this book here at Scribd. To give you an idea:
As the conservative columnist George F. Will has written, today “we honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton’s country.”
This is no cause for celebration. In fact, the triumph of Hamiltonianism has been mostly a curse on America. The political legacy of Alexander Hamilton reads like a catalog of the ills of modern government: an out-of-control, unaccountable, monopolistic beaurocracy in Washington, D.C.; the demise of the Constitution as a restraint on the federal government’s powers; the end of the idea that the citizens of the states should be the masters, rather than the servants, of the government;
And on and on. An eye-opening book which I simply cannot put down and which you absolutely must read if you have any interest in history, economics, politics, or the past, present, or future of the United States.
2010/1/21 photo
But I don’t mind promoting them. They make some of the best outdoor gear on the market.
2010/1/21 article
No one sells Dr. Pepper. Not restaurants, not gas stations. You can’t even get it in the checkout line at the grocery store where they have individual cans of everything from Ginger Ale to Cherry Pepsi. They still make Cherry Pepsi? Who drinks that anymore? The fridge full of Pepsi products is missing the best one, the only one worth drinking: Dr. Pepper.
With the exception of Texas, of course. In Texas you find Dr. Pepper as readily as crack cocaine in Compton, because it’s made there. You can even get these little glass bottles that they call Dublin Dr. Pepper (see, Dr. P was invented in Dublin, TX): the original recipe. They make it with cane sugar. But you can only get those in Texas. And in the rest of the world? Forget about it. I buy Arizona Iced Tea instead, because, apparently, only Texans have good taste in soda.
And yes, I said soda. Not pop, or coke, or cola. It’s soda. Deal with it.
2010/1/14 excerpt
This is a short story by Wells Tower about bloodthirsty vikings and, strangely, the cost of love. Below is a colorful excerpt, or, if you found the title as interesting as I did, you can skip straight to reading here at Macmillan.
The clouds were spilling out low across the sky when we shoved off. Thirty of us on board, Gnut rowing with me at the bow and behind us a lot of other men I’d been in some shit with before. Some of their families came down to watch us go. ØrlStender fucked up the cadence waving to his son, who stood on the beach waving back. He was a tiny one, not four or five, standing there with no pants on, holding a baby pig on a hide leash. Some of the others on board weren’t a whole lot older, rash and violent children, so innocent about the world they would just as soon stick a knife in you as shake your hand.
2010/1/10 article
My neighbor has a three-year-old son named Leon. He was playing with a train set while all the stuffy grown-ups talked and drank coffee the other night. I can’t speak much German, so I watched Leon build his train track instead.
He started with the three-way split piece in the middle of the kitchen floor. Then he added one piece to the left, and another to the right, jumping between the parts so that the track grew organically. If he ran into a wall, or things didn’t connect like he wanted them to, he would adjust the pieces or move the track so that it fit better.
I was surprised because he didn’t start at the beginning, as I would have. He left his options open. If he ran into trouble, he adjusted the track to fit to his idea, instead of adjusting his idea to fit to the track. His only limit, then, was the extent of his own imagination.
Just watching him build his track (I was certain not to interfere with the little genius) taught me that things don’t have to be perfect, or proper, or even done in the right order. There are a million different ways to build something, and you are better off following your gut than anyone else’s instructions.
As a person with a strong affinity to order, I’m certain that learning to apply some of Leon’s liberal building habits to my writing would help me to improve.
Of course, things rarely turn out right on the first try. When Leon decided he didn’t like what he had built, he broke it back to pieces. No remorse or frustration, just kaput! and he started over. And he seemed to enjoy breaking the train track to pieces as much as he liked building it again.
2010/1/4 photo
2010/1/1 article
The first day of the New Year never feels any different to me than the day after yesterday usually does, except that it comes with a vicious hangover. Sometimes I think we drink on New Year’s Eve so that the next day’s pounding headache will guilt us into keeping the resolutions we drunkenly pronounced at the party the night before.
I’m not being cynical, just realistic. How many promises to yourself have you broken in the past year? I don’t need science or statistics to support this conclusion; I know from experience what it means to break a promise to myself. What makes you think your New Year’s resolution will turn out any different than the promises you failed to keep before?
As far as New Year’s resolutions go, it’s impressive if you make it through the first two weeks. If you’re a gym rat, you know exactly what I mean.
As for me? I don’t make any resolutions. I can’t break a promise I never made to begin with, so I’m in familiar territory. There’s no reason to start the year with a disappointment.
Not that resolutions don’t work, or that no one can affect a change in their life by sheer power of will (possible, but unlikely). I’m simply pointing out that just because it’s the start of a new decade doesn’t mean you’ve got more gumption than you had yesterday, or two weeks ago. Today is still the day after yesterday no matter how proudly you turned the page on your calendar this morning, while holding an icepack to your throbbing head.
If you’re going to make a resolution, don’t do it out of hangover-induced guilt, or because all the cool kids are doing it. I’m all for bettering yourself, but change doesn’t work unless you believe in it too.