As Cliched As It Sounds, I'm Trying To Find Myself

I've read several interviews with author Neil Gaiman where he has stated that the best advice for aspiring writers is to read. I have also heard time and time again that Orson Welles learned filmmaking by watching the films of John Ford over and over again. The main idea in both notions is that to be an effective story teller, you have to learn it from somewhere. Not simply from a textbook or a lit or film class, but from really analyzing and observing the work of others. I really want to believe that that's what I have been doing with the year and a half since I've graduated college. 

Almost every weekend I go to the movies. I purchase new books and DVDs almost every week. I seek out films and books by my favorite directors and writers and the works that have inspired them. Every now and then after taking in the latest film or book, I am struck with a bolt of inspiration that says "Holy crap, this is why I want to do this." A Clockwork Orange, Spider-Man, Rocky II, Shaun of the Dead, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Rushmore, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Rules of the Game; these are just a few films that have made me feel this way the first time I saw them. Each time I've felt that, I have longed to create that response in others. So I go in search of more. I take in more and more tales in the hope that I will discover the way to tell my stories. 

At least, that's what I hope I'm doing.  I wonder every day if everything I've read and seen is working towards something meaningful or if it's all part of some compulsion. I know that there are a few stories that I have written variations of over the years, but I have never been satisfied. I've come close once or twice, but I always worry that I won't be able to do it. Most people worry about finding meaning in the grand scheme of things and don't worry, I'm neurotic enough about that, but I think I worry more about finding meaning in my work. I know I haven't been out in the "real world" that long, but I worry every single fucking day that I'm wasting my time. 

My Head Hurts, Your Brain Works Less

For the past few days, I’ve had one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had in my entire life. I don’t get sick often, though one of the ailments I do suffer from on a regular basis is impatience. Unfortunately for you, that gets amplified the more my head hurts.

If I may answer your question ahead of time: Yes, I have taken something. It seems that as my head hurts more, your opinion of my ability to think declines. My head hurts, yes, but my brain is working fine. So when I say “my head hurts,” you can rest assure that I’m doing everything—EVERYTHING—I can to make it feel better.

It’s not difficult to come to the conclusion of taking something. Sure, my headache kicked my ass at Madden 2007, just barely beat me at Disney Scene It, and rather successfully made me its bitch at Checkers, but you don’t ask about them. “Taking something” is not a full proof way to rid myself of pain, but you can rest assured—even if it still hurts—that I have taken something. So, no need to ask.

An Ode: College, Unemployment & Growing Up

My freshman year of college my suite mates and I shared our dorm with our floors RA.  She was awesome, an unusual quality for a resident assistant and took my roommate and me to our first college bar outing.  I was too shy (but later got over this hurdle) to really enjoy myself, plus Brittney lost my favorite sandals and puked on me.  That Christmas we decided to do Secret Santa and I gave my RA the children’s book “Everybody Poops”.

Four years later working at Barnes and Noble I came across this book again.  Everybody poops is a truism and is as factual as unemployment and the inescapability of growing up.  The one thing they have in common is that they’re all shitty.

If you’re a student like me you went to a school you liked and studied what you loved.  Your talents were nurtured and refined by professors who understood you, cared for you and vice versa.  Your idealist and somewhat liberal beliefs were true and at most time’s reality.  But the “real world” taught me that college is a mythical place you are allowed entrance into for so long and then you’ll be thrust out with your abundantly hope filled trunks and a fifty page thesis sticking to your shoes.  College will forget you as more kids pass through it but you unfortunately will never forget her.  College will always be, perhaps the biggest and best part of you and that is why growing up is so bitter sweet.

The thing is as you grow up you’re continually forced to settle.  Take any job to have money, any apartment to have a place to sleep.  Either way you struggle, struggle to pay your bills or be miserable in a job you hate.  There’s barely a transitional period for you to brace yourself.  Once you’re in the pit there’s hardly a way out.

A seminar on Karl Marx and grueling interview after interview taught me that we college graduates are a dime a dozen.  There will always be some other kid more desperate than you who will take the $20,000 salary even if their 130k education deserves more (and we do deserve more).

College forgets to teach you that only her professors will think the world of your 1^st prize short story fiction essay.  Only the bright, brimming world of academia will give a damn about your talent for iambic or your witty yet tragic protagonist.  However, on an interview they mean nothing and don’t teach you how to answer questions the right way or better yet how to lie properly.

Life after college seems bitter, doesn’t it?   For a few months it is but like any kind of uncomfortable pain it fades (some what slowly at times, like when you’re doing car bombs or keg stands and are reminded of those debaucheries you once did).  Growing up sucks but the inevitability of it is so, so… inevitable that the only thing you can do is deal with it, get a job and hopefully, like me, go to Grad school as soon as possible.

Review: (The Crowd At) Flogging Molly, February 21, Poughkeepsie, NY

Flogging Molly is, hands down, my favorite band to see live. I’ve admittedly not seen Gogol Bordello, whom I hear is right up there with the FM, but I have my allegiances, and they lie with the band sporting the green white and orange (for now). After seeing Flogging Molly several times a year for eight consecutive years, I feel as though—coming from me—a simple review of one of their shows would come off very generic and run-of-the-mill, regardless of how un-generic or run-of-the-mill the shows actually are. All you need to know: fun songs make for fun dancing, and great songs played fast and more energetic makes for fun energetic dancing. Sure, they debuted some new songs at the show, but I’ll save my review on those for when the album comes out (but I’ll give you a preview: awesome).

One thing I’ve noticed eight years into the game—not to sound like a preachy old fart—is that the crowd has gone down hill. To be clear, I’m not against a band’s success. Not only am I proud of the guys who I saw for the first in one of New York City’s smallest venues sell out theaters, but I’m also not one to turn on new fans. My biggest problem lies with the non-fans taking up valuable pit room at a sold out show.

Every time I have the opportunity to see Flogging Molly, it’s a thrice-circled date in my calendar. So when I’m stuck behind some dude chewing gum, not singing a single word the entire night, and blocking my view of the stage with his outstretched arm, equipped with a fancy camera phone, then unfortunately, I revert back to angry purist fan. “Get out of my show,” I think, “I saw them first, they’re mine, and quite frankly, you don’t deserve to be here.” Last night, while being forced to view a live show through the viewfinder of a camera phone, I cursed technology’s advancements for ruining my good time.

Luckily, next week I have the chance to experience the concert all over again, this time at a venue with enough floor space to allow for me to avoid such instances—in theory. The truth is that the scenario is far to ubiquitous. Leave one camera phone, run into another digital camera. It’s a never-ending cycle, and excuse me if I’m not going to feel sympathy when your gadget breaks, but I’m there to rock! (And you should be too.)

Review: Tuesday February 12th, 2008

Some pretty sweet things have happened on February 12th.

• 1894- First artificial ice rink opens in North America is in Madison Square Garden.

• 1924 - Calvin Coolidge is the first president to deliver a speech over the radio.

• 1973- First US POWs released from Vietnam.

• 1999- Bill Clinton acquitted in his impeachment trial.

• 2008- Kyle Lutz had a hilariously awesome day.

• I won three games in EA Sports Hockey by at least 3 points in each game.

• I had a day off from work.
  

• I saw a 300 lb. woman on a bright pink scooter patiently waiting to pull out from a side road in my neighborhood.

• Power lines went down when a transformer blew a few houses down at about 9:15 PM and caused a fire in a yard. The white-trash photographer in me ran down the street, low quality digital camera in hand, and took a couple decent (but blurry) photos before two fire engines and four cop cars showed up. It was glorious.
  

• Most importantly, I had an encounter with yet another crazy person. This time it was not during my morning commute, but at Target. I was in the 'Family Planning' area deciding if I needed 'Ultra Ribbed' or 'Ultra Thin' when, very suddenly, a 55 year old man close to 7 feet tall approached me. "I need some help buying a razor," he said. I stared at this awkward giant for an uncomfortable moment. "I only have three dollars," he continued and held out three one dollar bills in one hand and a pink woman's hairbrush in the other. I wondered if he was homeless, crazy, poor or just all three. "I don't have any cash on me. Sorry," I replied honestly and an bit terrified. The man frowned as if I had crushed every dream he ever had and heaved a massive sigh. "I have to shave. I need a razor," he said, more to himself than to me, and walked away in search of someone else who could cure him of his heavy scruff.

I think I beat Bill Clinton, barely, for the best February 12th in the history of time.

REVIEW: GONE BABY GONE

While home from work yesterday I rented Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone. I haven't shared in all the Affleck hate that has gone on, he's earned enough good will in my eyes for his work in Kevin Smith's films, and I am one of the few people that didn't hate Daredevil. I thought he was one of the few things in that movie that didn't suck, and his passion for the character of Matt Murdock is obviously greater than Nicholas Cage's for Ghost Rider because one movie sucked a lot more than the other. Anyway, Ben Affleck deserves a lot of credit for his first film because while making a decent movie, he also managed several other noteworthy accomplishments.

1) He further cemented Casey Affleck's role as a leading man. With this film, The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and the little seen Lonesome Jim, Casey seems to be headed towards a much better career than his brother. He's had a string of supporting roles since the brothers first became famous and has never really sold out like Ben has. Movies like this are what will continue to make him an actor to be taken seriously.

2) He made me extremely happy I didn't grow up in any part of Boston. Affleck shows a much less idealized version of the underbelly of Boston than Scorsese did in The Departed by using real people and shooting in real neighborhoods. These are poor, overweight, ugly people who are not normally put in front of a camera unless its the 10 o'clock news. They are also (mostly) the same kind of people in the world that I hate no matter where they're from except they have annoying Boston accents, thus making me hate them more. Let me elaborate, I don't hate them because they're poor or ugly and I don't hate all of them. I hate the ones that are like Amy Ryan's character, Helene McCready, a stupid irresponsible person with no regard for life's consequences. It just so happens that when you put a really heavy Bostonian accent on that type of person, my hate just flows out towards them.

3) He changed how people will think of Ben Affleck...well, how some people will. He's still going to have the J-Lo Jersey Girl/Gigli stigma, plus all the bad movies he made without Ms. Lopez, but for those who see Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck will be a director whose work is looked forward to. If he can follow up with a film just as strong, he has quite a career ahead of him. 

I’m Dirty, and so is “Boy Toy”

It’s hard to write critically about something you feel close to. It took me probably a total of six hours to finish Barry Lyga’s second and latest novel “Boy Toy,” (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) and now, less than an hour after I’ve finished it, I feel almost like I just finished the last “Harry Potter” book. That is to say, I’m feeling very “damn, I wish I could continue reading!!”

I first picked up “Boy Toy” because I enjoyed Barry Lyga’s first novel, “The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl,” (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) which was a novel about a comic geek who loved Bendis, and the goth girl who sort of understood him, but didn’t really, but really did—sort of. I liked it, but I didn’t like like it. It was a fun read though, especially for teen lit. I was expecting more of the same from “Boy Toy,” but the only things the two books had in common were the high school where each took place, and the idea of a real-world running theme (“Fanboy…” featured comic books, and “Boy Toy” featured baseball*).

(The following paragraph may contain spoilers. Maybe? I don’t know. Perhaps these plot points were well known to those who had sought out the book, but for me, each reveal was just that: a reveal).

Where “Fanboy…” was a fun teen book, here we have something much more. “Boy Toy” is the story of a Josh Mendel, an 18 year old math and baseball wiz who is less than patiently looking forward to the end of his senior year so that he can get the fuck (or, to more accurately express the tone of Josh and the book, get the fucking fuckety fuck!) out of his hometown. He has good reason to want to leave: when he was 12, he (if I may quote the book) fucked his history teacher, Mrs. Evelyn Sherman. A lot. In fact, he fell in love with her. Josh feels stigmatized, and like most teen lit, he has but one good friend with whom he can feel safe.

Yes, there are a lot of teen lit stereotypes here. There are at least two “you just don’t get it, do you”s in the book. But there are some not-so stereotype moments: like the sex scenes between the teacher and the 12-year-old boy. There are moments when Mrs. Sherman asks Josh “don’t you love me?” There’s the part where Josh, thinking making out will undoubtedly lead to fucking, rips the underwear off the 13 year old girl he is in the closet with at a party. There’s the trial, when Josh wouldn’t testify against Eve because she loved him and he loved her. There’s the scene where Eve’s husband George beats the shit out of a 13-year-old boy for fucking his wife.

The book paints a very clear picture for the reader, one that I admittedly wasn’t prepared to buy into. Naively, I read the book thinking that Josh lived the dream: he banged the hot teacher—and at just 12 years old! The sex scenes were merely evidence of this fact. Then my attitude started to change: Eve asked Josh if he loved her. Eve said she loved him. Eve had Josh lying to his parents. Eve would call Josh on weekend to say she missed him. Eve would have Josh watch porn and ask if he wanted her to be that satisfied. My mental image went from hot teacher in lingerie, to some sort of terrifying image—something clearly predatory.

The sign of a good book might be how well it’s written, how many obvious stereotypes it avoids, or how well it gets it point across. This book changed my way of thinking. This book literally made me sick. I became disgusted with teachers and parents and police and lawyers and myself**.

When I closed the book for the last time, I put it down. For lack of a better phrase, this book touched me in a way that made me uncomfortable. When I finished, all that mattered to me was Josh being ok. If the sign of a good book is caring about the characters, then there you have it.

This book might not be a great read; I don’t know if I think it’s one of the better written books I’ve read or not; I don’t even know that I liked it. But I’m glad I read it, and I wish it had existed so I could have read it earlier.


*I hate baseball. Remember?

**Partly because I cared about baseball while reading.

Commute Rambling: The Political Historian

For anyone who rides a train or subway on a regular basis, you can point out that person who will say or do something that you will be sure to tell everyone at work about. Here in Atlanta I have the distinct pleasure of hearing a crazy rant more often than anyone else. On Sunday, one such rant occurred which will top my list of 'Commute Ramblings'.

I was in the last car heading eastbound towards Indian Creek. A man in a purple LSU sweatshirt and matching leather visor sat across from me and my co-worker. After this encounter, I plan on carrying a tape recorder with me during all train rides. The following are points the half-black, half-Italian semi-drunk man, who shall be named "Warren" from this point on, made.

• Only White People Understand Education. 'Warren' mentioned Yale in his ramblings about G.W. Bush (half of his tirade), then stated that Caucasians (me and my co-worker being the ones he pointed at) were the only people near him that understood that Yale means "good education".

• Yale = Free Pussy Pass. According to Warren, by being a student at Yale, whether you earned it through intelligence or genetics, it means you have bragging rights and therefore can use your educational institution as reasoning with a female to get some easy poon. I will also note that he said the word "pussy" about seven times in two and a half minutes in front of a sixty year old woman and her granddaughter of eleven.
  

• William Jefferson, King of the African-Americans. The blackest president is Bill Clinton. Warren had legitimate, undisputable proof. He said, "Bill Clinton plays the saxophone, wears sunglasses, and even made the woman that gave him a blowjob famous. He is a black man."

• JFK. We took a bigger leap back through time when the Political Historian made sure to bring up the fact that JFK was having "all kinds of crazy sex with Marilyn Monroe." At this point a crazy woman in the corner in a wheelchair yelled out "Joe DiMaggio!"

• I Will Not be Robbed. Before my co-worker and I (again, the only Caucasians nearby) disembarked from the train, we were assured by 'Warren' that we don't need to be afraid of him. He promised he would not follow us to our cars to rob us at gunpoint. I felt the weight soar off my shoulders.

All in all, the encounter with 'Warren' is probably one of the best Commute Ramblings I have... so far. I have no doubt that somewhere out there is someone crazier, drunker, more homeless, and wiser that will just so happen to pass me on the walk to work or, if the gods are kind, sit next to me on the train.

Here’s Your Review, (Not That You Asked)!

Steve Almond is a former adjunct professor at Boston College. As the author of several books, he taught creative writing with good reason. I wonder what his professional opinion would be about the use of commas in the title of this review. I hope he would find it as delicious as he finds candy*.

Anyway, the reason why I know so much about Steve Almond is that I just finished his latest book, “(Not That You Asked)” (Random House, 2007), a collection of essays full of too much information that no one explicitly asked for (except, apparently Random House, though I doubt they chose the content). The book begins with a series of fake letters from a fictional Steve Almond to a real Oprah Winfrey, giving her hell for her place in the publishing world and the real world. It’s a bit of a weak beginning, though I do find it entertaining.

Though the Oprah letters started me off on the wrong foot for things to come, the remainder of the book is pretty strong. The second chapter of the book is a three-essay-collection about Kurt Vonnegut, and Almond’s connections (physically, inspirationally and otherwise) to the author. It’s a fun few essays that I think should have started the book. In fact, Almond originally wanted to write a book about Kurt Vonnegut, but apparently his publisher preferred for him to write a collection of essays instead (hence Random House’s explicit requests).

My biggest problem with the book is that its pretty clear Almond wanted to write about one thing, and was told to do something else. Where many of the essays are fantastic to read, oftentimes hysterical or thought provoking (like his essay about dealing with a conservative backlash and comparing it to Dante’s Inferno), others seem like filler (like the essay on Tesla).

To Almond’s credit, even when the essay feels forced, or just seems to be out of nowhere and not necessarily fit into any of the themes that lead off each chapter, it’s still incredibly well written. Almond has a style of writing that proves that his heart’s in it, no matter the content. He can make me care about things I absolutely have no interest in. Case in point: one of the longest (if not the longest) essays in the book is about baseball, a sport that I’m quite vocal in hating**.

Knowing that Random House was the catalyst to this collection, I don’t hold the filler and random essays against Almond—especially since they were a joy to read just because of the way he writes. Being all over the place in the book makes it hard to characterize, and even though this book can be found in the humor section at Barnes and Noble, don’t expect knock out laughs the whole time (I’d venture to say that if Almond had written his Vonnegut book, any laughs would have been just happy coincidences). What you can expect is a decently quick, fairly easy, and extremely fun (and yes, usually funny) read.

* See another of Almond's non-fiction works, "Candyfreak" (Heinemann Group, 2006)
** I hate baseball.

REVIEW: THE ZEN OF ZOMBIE

As an amateur zombiologist, I often wonder what I would do when placed in the scenario of a zombie outbreak. I've contemplated the best ways to destroy a staircase and the best methods for taking out various undead without exerting too much energy or wasting ammunition. On colder days, before going out, I make sure I have enough layers to protect me from the cold and from the frigid walking death a bite from a zombie would bring. Although never a boyscout, my motto is definitely "Be prepared."(For some fucking zombies)

To support my research, there were two texts that I held above all others: The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z both of which were written by Max Brooks. These expanded my mind with such radical ideas like going to a prison instead of a suburban mall or using a sword instead of wasting ammo in close combat. However, not once did I stop to consider the zombie. The zombie was simply an obstacle to me and my loved ones' continued existence. Until now. 

Scott Kenemore has written a groundbreaking book called The Zen of Zombie: Better Living Through the Undead. Mr. Kenemore takes a radical approach of presenting the zombie as a role model. He believes that we will all lead better lives if we are as unrelenting and ruthless at work and in our personal lives as the zombie is in pursuit of some fresh brains. By adapting the single-minded nature of the zombie, Kenemore believes all of our goals can easily be accomplished. This is all well and good, but Mr. Kenemore doesn't go far enough.

If we are able to think and act like the zombies, then they should be easily defeated. However, Mr. Kenemore thinks that bettering one's own life is enough. He focuses on trivial issues like dating and promotions. Why not make your goal to remove the stink of rotting flesh from the globe? I guess the survival of mankind against the zombie plagues isn't that important. Were he to take his ideas and put them towards the more constructive task of ridding the world of the undead, Mr. Kenemore would be a celebrated scholar and prize winner like Mr. Brooks. As it is, he's written an entertaining and funny book, but not one that should be considered an accurate text of zombiology. The employees at the book store should really do a better job of categorizing things.