Dispatches from Suburbia

Dammit

2007-05-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "A little more than kin, and less than kind."
-Hamlet

So my girl Natasha was in the final two last week on America's Next Top Model, as in she was second to the worst. And now the other two consider her the absolute worst of the remaining girls.

Suddenly, she's being outshined by both NeNe and Jaslene, both of whom started out the show below par. Suddenly, I'm almost more enthusiastic about NeNe rather than Natasha. Even Jaslene has been more impressive than my favorite Russian. C'mon, Natasha, you're pissing off the guy who is perhaps the then only straight male fan of America's Next Top Model. Work with me, babe.

A Natural Slide

2007-05-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "You walked around
said yourself beautiful
just too bad they stare."
-TV On The Radio, "Hours"

This morning the weather was gorgeous and warm, so my neighbor, my brother, and I went on a hike. For two hours, we pulled ourselves over and through cacti, loose dirt and rock, and slick rock faces that struck us as impossible manage had it been raining.

We climbed to the highest point we could get to and looked out over the city and surveyed the trail we'd just blazed, and we stood, prepared to head back down. Then came the first drops of rain.

There was no established trail to guide us, so we hurried our way down the side of the mountain, often sitting on our asses and sliding to the canyon below, hoping to not take a rock to the groin or worse, a cactus. Then we arrived at the rock faces.

By this point, they were wet and, therefore, slicker. The downpour was coming down harder and harder, and we were to decide whether or not to take the long way, around the slick rock, or the quicker, more dangerous way--using the rock face as a waterslide. Being the irresponsible hikers we are, we chose the latter.

I went first. I sat on my ass and pushed off. For about twenty feet, I slid, gaining in speed. Slowing down, let alone stopping, was an impossibility, until I reached the bottom, where a pile of boulders ended, rather quickly, my slide to the base of the mountain. It hurt like hell and I got soaked, but man, what a rush.

Simon's Current Obsessions:

TV On The Radio
These guys are so weird. But strangely appealing.

Zombie movies.
There is aren't many vehicles for an allegory better than a zombie film. And it helps to be a gore junky.

Welcome to Texas

2007-05-10T19:56:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Every Elvis has his army
Every rattlesnake its charm."
-Elvis Costello, "Episode of Blonde"

My uncle has returned back to Albuquerque from Houston's M.D. Anderson, and has begun his chemo treatments. My brother and I visited him today to find him expressing vehement disgust over our dipshit president. Happy to see the same uncle that left for Houston is the same one that returned. God bless the doctors at Anderson, but I do have my reservations about what Texas will do to a person.

For example:

I rest my case.

Ok, Ok, I apologize to any Texans out there (except, of course, for the one pictured above). But honestly, folks...

I Must be a Zombie Movie Zombie

2007-05-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: " When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."
-Dawn of the Dead

I have a growing obsession with zombie films. At first, I thought George Romero's Dawn of the Dead was one of the stupidest movies I'd ever seen. But lately I've been thinking about its critique of consumer culture--zombies milling around a mall, "survivors" insulating themselves from the outside world with material objects, and I'm realizing that I should have originally taken the film on a more satirical level.

The other night I watched Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. While not as smart as Dawn, Boyle's is worth noting if only for the image of "zombies" congregating in a church. What a compelling idea.

What is with this new obsession? It probably has something to do with the following two factors:

1. Business has picked up at work; and
2. it's finals week.

So I've been very active working and putting together portfolios and writing papers and taking tests. And watching zombie movies.

I get little sleep and I keep hydrated with coffee (by the way, my recent attempt at cutting down my coffee intake is an official failure).

At work, I trudge through my duties (a la Shaun of the Dead, another clever movie) like one of those walking corpses, and I've got the same ugly disposition. I almost made one of the counter girls cry. Hey, at least I didn't tear her open and eat her shiny intestines.

But as of today the semester's over, and my attitudes improved. Now that I have time, I'll be renting the Evil Dead films and Army of Darkness. Sitting in front of my TV, I'll get sunken eyes and maybe even develop a disturbing pallor...

Tying One On

2007-05-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Not only do I think marijuana should be legalized, I think it should be mandatory."
-Bill Hicks

Ty Pennington, the wholesome host of Extreme Home Makeover, was arrested for driving under the influence. I have mixed feelings towards the show--it's generous, and it seems that there is even a glimmer of good intention in the show's premise (God, how naive am I?). But isn't there something overtly exploitative about using the sick, the dying, the despondent to draw tears from T.V. viewers? And isn't their something overtly funny that this guy, this representation of redemption and family unity, was arrested for driving inebriated with an open container in his vehicle?

In his defense, he was very apologetic for the incident, and he'll probably catch more flack than he deserves. But still, I'm consumed by cynicism, so much so that I fear it may be unhealthy.

So Many Uses For The 'F' Word, So Little Time...

2007-05-06T20:29:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I'm ahead, I'm a man
I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah
I'm at peace with my lust
I can kill 'cause in God I trust, yeah
It's evolution, baby"
-Pearl Jam, "Do The Evolution"

Holy shit! The Sopranos really kicked it up a notch tonight! For anybody that criticized the "first half" of this season, I think it's time to reassess those opinions. Things are building quite nicely, and it looks like this brilliant show is building to an epic conclusion of Goodfellas or The Godfather proportions.

I'm interested in writing for television. It's something I want to make a living doing. Damn you, Sopranos, for creating something like this. How can I ever live up to the complexities of this series?

By the way, I haven't been a very good blogger lately, but my last final is on Wednesday--can I get a hollaback! Wow, I must be giddy, for I've never used that phrase. I don't think I will be using again either. Ick.

One more week...

2007-05-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Wish we could give 'em a proper burial."
"The hell with 'em. Buzzards need food, same as the worms."
-The Outlaw Josey Wales

There's a light at the end of the tunnel. I've turned in yet another final paper today, leaving one more and a portfolio and one final exam. Then the semester's over. I feel that yes, I've learned and gained a lot from this semester, and it has built character and made me a better person, etc., etc., but thank God it's coming to an end.

Simon's Current Obsessions:

The Outlaw Josie Wales
Most quotable movie ever.

The Bible, from a feminist perspective.
This semester, I took "Women of the Bible" on a whim. A very enlightening experience.

Astronomical Ambition

2007-05-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "War, children, its just a shot away."
-The Rolling Stones, "Gimme Shelter"

When I was younger, much younger, I thought I'd enjoy being an astronaut, not realizing that there was lots of science and schooling involved. I must've thought that astronauts were on-a-whim adventurers, not the scientific scholars that they most likely are. I think I had a similar attitude towards doctors and lawyers.

Now, I'm going to school to be a writer, and every time I tell somebody I'm an English major the response is a befuddled "why?" It's as if I've set an equally unrealistic goal for myself.

So the astronaut thing isn't going to happen, and I've accepted this. As far as my other goals are concerned, I've settled on a baby-step approach, beginning with a smaller set of ambitions for the summer:

1. Finish a short story and submit it to various magazines (I've never done this, and I'm a little intimidated by the idea).

2. Begin a collection of rejection letters (I need to stay realistic in my ambitions).

3. Get the "Sexy Chemists" writing trio so we can re-evaluate and polish our script.

4. Find somebody to shoot the script.

5. Play some tennis.

6. Write a novel.

Just kidding on that last one. So it's a short list, but these are baby steps, and I'm feeling pretty enthusiastic about these new goals. I'd probably get claustrophobic in rocket anyway. I have everything I need on my laptop: Microsoft Word, iTunes, a scriptwriting program, and even access to images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

A Squarish Hole

2007-05-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand."
-Seneca

When I was in elementary school, there was a little yellow house across the street from the school that was notorious for gang activity. My kindergarten classroom was on the side of the school that faced the house, and I remember quite distinctly an afternoon in which we heard several cracking sounds. Then, two classmates, a boy and a girl who had been doing some class activity just outside the classroom door, came running in, red-faced and breathless after having just witnessed a drive-by shooting.

That evening, the nightly news aired a small, squarish hole in the home's cheap yellow siding, and the hole went unrepaired for at least as long as I remained at the shool. Every morning and every afternoon, my young classmates and I saw that small hole and remembered the crack crack cracks of the gunshots.

It never scared us, I don't think, in fact I remember being quite excited and eager to tell friends and relatives about the incident, as if I'd encountered something amazing and unique, and to an extent I had. But this was when there was at least a street-width distance between the danger and the school, in a pre-Columbine era.

So now I remember our reaction, our childish "Wow!"--my year in kindergarten being the same that Die Hard 2 was released in theaters. The incident perhaps offered a glimpse of certain danger that could possibly even allow me to be a hero, or at least tell my friends and family a good yarn. But now, seventeen or so years later, if I were sitting in a classroom and I heard those ominous cracks, I'd probably soil myself.

The Harmonica Man

2007-04-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "It insisted upon itself."
Peter Griffin of Family Guy, on The Godfather

There is an old homeless man that stands at a local freeway off-ramp and plays harmonica. At least I think he's homeless because he stands at a freeway off-ramp playing harmonica.

What interests me about this man is that, for such a cliche image, I've never actually seen a homeless man playing the harmonica, bobbing his knee to the bluesy whine of his instrument.

I found it a little thrilling, suggestive of a sort of free way of life, an "on the road," romantic hobo existence. In the end, though, I'm not sure he was even a very good harmonica player, and the dreary lines on his face and the stains in his denim suggested something more sad.

Mining for Gold

2007-04-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "We called him Mother Superior on account of the length of his habit."
-Renton, Trainspotting

I read manuscripts submitted to UNM's literary magazine. I pull a small pile of manila envelopes from a larger pile, and I read as many as I possibly can over the course of a week or two. Then I grab another small pile and do it all over again.

After reading the manuscripts, we place them in three other piles: "No," "Maybe," and "Yes." It's an easy task, but it can get so incredibly monotonous. What gets me is the amount of typos I find. I haven't submitted anything to a magazine yet, but you can bet that when I do, their will be no typos on my manuscript. Isn't that considered rude? The editorial board does mind, you know.

Also, I find that those with the most impressive credentials in their cover letter submit the most shoddily written work, as if the credentials give them the right to overlook easy editing. It's totally pretentious.

And another thing: The longest short stories, the ones that take the longest, are often the worst, they beat the same metaphors over your head over and over, as if you won't get the half-baked concept in the first 10 pages.

And I'm so tired of cliches. Oh my God, I feel like I've come across the same stock characters, situations, and phrases that they won't be showing up in my stories not because I'm good at avoiding cliches, but because I am so damned tired of them.

But, sometimes there's a real gem in that manila pile. That's the stuff that needs to be submitted, that (in my opinion) is ready to even be discussed. I'm not expert, and I haven't yet submitted anything anywhere, but all I can say is this: it's a good thing I don't write those rejection letters. Especially now that I'm out of coffee.

Blog Neglect

2007-04-27T18:21:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "No. No, Mother, I have not been drinking. No. No. These two men, they poured a whole bottle of bourbon into me. No, they didn't give me a chaser."
-Roger Thornhill, North by Northwest

This is my 171st post. Unfortunately, I've been a pretty lame blogger lately. I didn't blog yesterday, and I also skipped a day earlier this week. I think this may be because I've drastically cut my coffee intake, and I've been incapable of completing most motor functions, let alone stringing together a complete sentence.

Still, that's no excuse. I've gone from an "everyday" blogger to a "as soon as I get a chance" blogger, and I'm dangerously close to becoming a "whenever I feel like it" blogger. Now my blog feels "patchy," like the time I tried to grow mutton chops. I need to work on that. Step one: Brew a pot of coffee.

Simon's Current Obsessions:

Anodyne Bar
Just a cool hangout. Low ceiling, low couches, killer jukebox.

Really, REALLY Bad Movies
Sometimes, giving movies the MST3K treatment is as good as any moviegoing experience.

Bummer

2007-04-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "But that joke isn't funny anymore
It's too close to home
And it's too near the bone."
-The Smiths, "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore"

I turned in one of my final term papers for the semester. So that's one paper down, two to go, followed by one last final exam. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

So the semester is drawing to a close, and I'm ready to take a breather. In other, more morose news, an inoperable mass was found today on my uncle's liver.

This coming after the Virginia Tech shootings have hit me harder than I ever would have imagined that they could. It's been a very difficult week and a half, and for once I must admit that I'm having trouble dealing with it.

I'm don't feel that I belong to any particular religion, but I find myself turning to the Bible, a book that's best when it comes to portraying life as it is. Ecclesiastes especially, where it is made clear that things happen that we can't change, that we mustn't dwell on changing things we know we can't. It's a lesson that comes in terms that don't talk down to you, and that's the beauty of this controversial tome. Anyway, I like to think that I could do something for myself, for my uncle, and for my family dealing with uncertainty.

And here we are, waiting for more information, something more concrete from the doctors in Houston, where my uncle has been admitted. Sometimes, waiting is all you can do. Maybe that's an early step in this mourning process: realizing that sometimes waiting is the only available option.

Journal Neglect

2007-04-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Everybody knows that youve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows youve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes."
-Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"

About a month ago, I began carrying a journal everywhere with me. I use it to write down random overheard conversations, anecdotes, various thoughts and musings.

Yesterday, I failed to write in it. I felt like a terrible journaler. Then, when I went to school today, I accidentally left it in my car for the nine hours I was on campus. When I returned to my car I wrote, "4/23/07--I am a terrible journaler."

I remember in high school the kids that took the child-rearing course in which they had to carry around this doll that electronically monitored the "parents" treatment of it. I feel that my journal is like those dolls. There is a record of my neglect, just as the blank page from 4/22/07. I feel guilty, like I've let my child down, like I'd planned on taking it out for ice cream and then forgot. Okay, lame analogy, but you get my drift.

Now, I'll be keeping it with me no matter what. I don't need anymore of these reminders of how "non-writerly" I've been lately.

Maybe I Need a Cubicle Job

2007-04-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "This is a... fuck!"
-Samir, Office Space

We all have one of those type of bosses that likes to knock us around simply to illustrate their authoritative position.

Today, our district manager showed up at the restaurant for our "inspection," a monthly event in which he bitches about whatever he can--like the wrong size spoon in the roasted garlic, which happens to be a tablespoon (as it says in our recipe books), and yet he insists that it needs to be a teaspoon. So he pretends that his DM title makes him the expert chef, and then he has us make him a mac and cheese that he proceeds to smother in ketchup.

At one point, he pulled me off the line to berate me for not putting the pickle in the correct position on the plate, which is not only downright silly, but also completely moot--our menu is completely changing in a week. But whatever, he's the man in charge, and I guess that's how it is. I just love how he pretends that nobody can see through his nonsensical corporate facade as he strolls through our kitchen (not his kitchen--that line belongs to the cooks that have made it their second home). He can turn is nose up and float around with that smug swagger and in his condescending way he can dwell on a fucking pickle spear, and I can rest easy knowing that, though I may not place that stupid pickle on the correct portion of the plate, I don't smother everything in ketchup. He the district manager for rapidly growing chain of restaurants, and yet whenever he stops by he can't think of anything else to order but a mac and cheese? Is he four years old?

Maybe I'm being too judgmental. Maybe I should have gotten more than two hours sleep last night. Or maybe he should've just fixed the damned pickle and let it go. But whatever. Again, in the words of Mr. Vonnegut: And so it goes.

Woe is Me

2007-04-20T16:38:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "But with every Jeep I see
My broken heart still skips a beat
I guess it's just my stupid luck
That all of Boston drives the same black fucking truck."
-The Dresden Dolls, "The Jeep Song"

When I was flipping through my journal earlier, I noticed that my writing had gotten very dark and sad. I thought, "Wow, I sound so emo." Maybe I should dye my hair black. I could shave my entire head except for my bangs, which I will grow long so they hang over one eyeliner-rimmed eye. I'll wear really tight black pants that will ensure I never father any children.

Wow, making fun of the whole Emo phenomenon really makes me feel better. I just smiled for the first time in a few days. Why? Because I'm not Emo, so I guess that means I'm allowed an occasional smile.

Defining Disturbing

2007-04-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I think there's something attractive about extreme stories, but it's not a conscious desire to try and find something shocking or miserable or tragic."
-Michael Winterbottom

I told myself I was done blogging about Virginia Tech, but I think I'm going to be shaken up for quite a while...

I'm worried about the effect this is going to have on Creative Writing programs in universities around the country. I'd hate to have my work scrutinized for the wrong reasons. I've taken several writing workshop courses at UNM--nonfiction, fiction, and scriptwriting being my areas of interest--and I've encountered endless pieces that could be considered "disturbing"; from classmates and myself.

But how would an instructor gauge something like that? I've read the two plays of Cho's that have been posted online, Mr. Brownstone and Mr. McBeef (I think that's what they were called), and though they were stupid and quite amateur, but they weren't any more disturbing than anything I or my classmates have written (though I'm sure he has far more unnerving stuff that hasn't been released).

In nonfiction, my writing focused on my father's rather violent suicide attempt, and I describe a tendon sticking out of his wrist as being "a shiny gray noodle." In a following semester, I wrote a short story about a young boy dealing with the horrific rape and murder of his own mother and how the event shapes a small town. This story uses a police photograph of the crime scene as a central image.

Gun violence has always been a concern of mine, and this always finds voice in my work. This semester I wrote a story in which a line cook tries to detain a man robbing the restaurant, only to be shot in the gut. "He bled out right there by the bakery rack," I wrote, and the story goes on to tell how his stepbrother's deal with the death.

And here's the real "disturbing" one: For my scriptwriting classes, two others and I worked on a T.V. pilot about a high school called "American High." The show's hook? The school is dealing with the aftermath of a Columbine-style shooting. We worked so hard on this show, for hours and hours on end, until we had a pilot that we considered "filmable," a show in which we made all our characters real and a show in which we do everything we possibly can in order to not exploit the Columbine tragedy. With our show, we were going to try to explore these tragedies in new ways, not to find answers, but to maybe open different dialogues. Then, Monday's tragedy occurred, shedding things in another light. Mike, one of my writing partners, said to me, "I think we need to re-evaluate 'American High.'" And he's right.

Here's what concerns me: What if my writing were to be misconstrued? I couldn't ask for better writing instructors, and I have faith in their abilities to recognize work that needs revision and work that needs counseling. But will universities be forced to enact regulations regarding "disturbing" work in English programs? And another nagging question, one I've lost sleep over, is one that regards both "American High" and NBC's choice to air Cho's video: What is in good taste and what is exploitative? Where does one draw the line? A re-evaluation is needed indeed.

Anyway, it's time for my Thursday feature, but first I must say that my heart goes out to VT students.

Simon's Current Obsessions:

Homemade sushi.
Check out these California and Caterpillar rolls I made the other night. How awesome-looking is that? So artful I didn't even want to eat it (but of course I gave in).

iPod Video.
I finally got an iPod. How did I go so long without one?

Breaking a Leg

2007-04-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Last night i dreamt
That somebody loved me
No hope, no harm
Just another false alarm"
-The Smiths, "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me"

I have to act this semester. Thinking it was a literature class, I registered for English 421 (Roman Drama). Now I'm playing the part of the porter from Petronius's Satyricon.

I'm a writer. I'm film buff. I'm a neurotic mess and a drinker. I'm an English student, not a drama student, and I'm not an actor.

But oh well. At least in the scene we're performing, I'm a drunk porter. At least I can pretend I'm having fun.

Dwelling on a Dark Note

2007-04-17T22:51:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "But even your company must complemen the Feng Shui."
-Gnarles Barkley, "Feng Shui"

The most surprising aspect of yesterday's incident at Virginia Tech is that this type of thing is no longer surprising. It's "another campus shooting." Besides, in a country so war-hungry, carrying such a "guns a-blazin'" attitude, why would this surprise. I'm very uncomfortable with the fact that I'm more or less deadened, numbed to violence. I was downtown the other night, and after last call I watched a man in the street get knocked unconscious. He was punched in the face and fell to the ground, his head making a sickening thud against the pavement. The group I was with and I reacted with a shrug as two police cars arrived at the scene. "I guess that's downtown for ya," one of us said, or something like that.

So I guess that's the state of affairs. Involvement in another war in the Middle East. Another racial dispute here at home. Another campus massacre.

On my way to UNM yesterday, just after I heard the news of the shooting, I witnessed a woman vomiting on a sidewalk, right next to a busy street. "I know how you feel," I thought. And I kept on driving.

A Lone Gunman

2007-04-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: " Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder."
-Leonard Cohen, "The Future"

At the tail-end of my middle school career, two shooters invaded Columbine High School only one state away.

Today, I'm nearing the tail-end of my undergrad career, and at Virginia Tech a "lone gunman" wreaked similar havoc. In the past hour or so the death toll has been raised to 32, more than twice the toll of the incident in Littleton.

The air feels still, cold and brisk, and even the softest sounds seem harsh and unwelcome. It's as if, yet again, something far too complex for me to ever understand has come to a head. The death toll rises, and here I am in New Mexico, away from the echoing gunshots, the dead and the wounded. But that death toll certainly resonates this far away, that heavy, dulling sensation of somebody else's unimaginable pain. Unimaginable but, apparently, horrifically possible.

In the past couple of years, these shootings seem to have increased in number (the Amish victims come to mind), and every time we attempt to find reasons. But by this point I don't think even CNN attempts to find reasoning. A "lone gunman," a "shooter" with a muddled statement. That's it--just a lone gunman, a man with a gun on a rampage.

Foggy Morning. And Ankle Injuries.

2007-04-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: " The clouds are turnin' crimson
The leaves fall from the limbs an'
The branches cast their shadows over stone
Won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone?"
-Bob Dylan, "Moonlight"

I awoke before sunrise to some very eerie fog this morning. I couldn't see a foot in front of me. On the road, even headlights were difficult to see.

Albuquerque's weather is just getting odder and odder. It's been snowing lately, as well as raining...and it's the middle of April. It was freezing when I went out to my car, and I had to scrape off a layer of ice so I could see--not that it helped, for this fog even made other cars' headlights difficult to see.

Then, this afternoon, the sun came out and everything was warm and gorgeous, so much so that I put on some shorts and played some tennis. Then I violently rolled my ankle, and now I'm bedridden. I hate to say this, but I kind of hope it still hurts in the morning, and it looks painful and swollen. Why? Because then I would have and excuse to skip work on our busiest day!

So it's been a very surreal day. Would have been cool if the fog came yesterday. I like the idea of fog on Friday the 13th.

Sushi, With a Side of American Idol

2007-04-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "When a country has five percent of the world's population but spends fifty percent of the world's military spending, that country's persuasive power is in decline."
-Prince Nasir Al-Subaai, Syriana

Last night, I attempted to make sushi for the first time. I made California rolls and, lo and behold, they looked like California rolls! Next time, now that I've begun developing some confidence in my sushi-making skills, I shall attempt Caterpillar rolls...

In completely unrelated news (my mind is all over the place tonight), Halley Scarnato, the leggy one from American Idol, has been booted off of the show. So now we have to suffer through even more Sanjaya. Like Halley, the guy can't sing. But he doesn't have those legs either.

Simon's Current Obsessions:

The whole Don Imus debacle.
Such an icky, ugly situation. It's like a car wreck, and I can't look away.

Arrested Development
It took me long enought to finally rent the (sadly) cancelled show, and now I'm hooked. My God, I haven't laughed this hard since Sanjaya was sent to Hollywood.

Eulogy for Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

(Normally, on Thursdays, I post my Current Obsessions. But, out of a somber respect for Mr. Vonnegut, I shall postpone until tomorrow.)

Quote of the Day: "You talk about the gluttonous Roaring Twenties. That was nothing. We're crazy, going crazy, about petroleum. It's a drug like crack cocaine. Of course, the lunatic fringe of Christianity is welcoming the end of the world as the rapture. So I'm Jeremiah. It's going to have to stop. I'm sorry."
-Kurt Vonnegut, RollingStone, August 2006

As usual, in the above quote Kurt Vonnegut hints at an imminent apocalypse, and he's been doing it since before I was born, and yet I still agree with him. I'm convinced, and somehow I'm able to deal with it due to the healthy dose of cynicism instilled in me by Vonnegut himself.

In addition to his darkly humorous way of helping me cope with my dire environment, Vonnegut provides a new, fresh perspective, which is why Cat's Cradle or Slaughterhouse-5 sits on so many dormitory bookshelves. In high school, I think most of us have that experience where we get high with friends and discuss how time is a man-made concept, and it seems like a huge epiphany. Then we graduate and realized that pretty much everybody has had that same discussion.

So it's a simple philosophy. But in Slaughterhouse-5 Vonnegut makes it a complex one. Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time," and we're presented a world in which time actually is an uncontrollable confinement. It's undeniably brilliant.

And so it goes. Vonnegut's work, "deceptively simple" as my father so eloquently describes it, forces the reader, in compulsively readable terms, to acknowledge the barriers humans create for themselves. It's absurdly profound.

Through his dark subject matter, his frightening apocalyptic visions, and his portrayal of self-consuming human nature--that strange tendency to lock ourselves in--one is suddenly liberated, and we can breathe again. God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut, and thanks for the real epiphanies.

Burning Sensations

2007-04-11T17:31:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "You know, we're not the only ones destroying trees. What about beavers? You call yourself an environmentalist, why don't you go club a few beavers?"
-Lindsay, Arrested Development

Last week, after some extensive Yoga, Kim's calves hurt so much that she walked slowly with stiff, bow legs, like some kind of old cowboy. Naturally, I made lots of fun of her. This afternoon, my mocking of her came back to bite me in the ass.

You know that crushed red pepper you put on pizza? And it adds a nice bite? Well, my friend's grandfather grows habaneros, and with every year's harvest he dehydrates the peppers and makes a crushed, dried concoction much like the red peppers, only hotter. He gives me some every year.

This afternoon, I sprinkled some on my enchiladas and hash browns, making the meal spicy and even exotic. Then I took a leak. I must've had some habanero remnants on my hands.

Now I can't walk. I figured, since I'm not moving, this would be a good moment to write a post for my blog.

Procratinators Unite Tomorrow!

2007-04-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "That was so fucking money. That was like the Jedi mind-shit."
-Mike, Swingers

First of all, I wanted to treat you to this photorealistic painting by Marylin Minter. It's a stunning piece, totally eye-catching. Also, I hope everybody enjoyed last nights premier of The Sopranos. I know I did. Speaking of HBO, why are they playing two Keanu Reeves movies back to back? The Lake House just ended, and Constantine just started.

Anyway, yesterday I promised myself that I would make a trip to the library during today's break from classes so I could begin research on a paper. I also told myself that a response paper would be done before I went to bed last night.

Well, the response paper didn't get done last night. Therefore, I had to finish it during my break from classes today, and therefore I've had to postpone my trip to the library.

Why can't I get things done semi-early? What's with this addiction to procrastination? Like other procrastinators, I tell myself that I work better under pressure. This is bullshit. I just can't seem to find some motivation.

Five more weeks left in the semester. Now there's some motivation.

Easter Musings

2007-04-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back, he ever wants to see a fucking cross? Kind of like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on."
-Bill Hicks

I had to work today. I figured that I would have Easter Sunday off, especially since they gave us Christmas Day off. It seems reasonable, you'd think that they would even switch it around and schedule us on Christmas and give us Easter off to rejoice. Christ's birth is one thing, but his resurrection--that's miraculous. Everybody has a birthday, but not everybody gets a resurrection.

In any case, I hope everybody enjoyed their Easter Sunday. Let's rejoice by...pretending a giant bunny hid some painted eggs?

Homework Hell

2007-04-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Explain the situation? Yes. 'Excuse me, sir, my friend was the one balling your wife couple of hours ago. Really sorry. He seems to have left his wallet behind. I was wondering if I come in, just poke around, I don't know.'"
Miles, Sideways

For once, I exhibited some self control last night. We purchased two bottles of wine, and both of them have remained unopened. I wish I could apply this same discipline to homework: The semester is quickly drawing to a close, and I've 15 pages of response papers due in Film Theory, as well as a seven-page paper for Women of the Bible, and a short story for Creative Writing (thankfully, this one I've started).

Meanwhile, I've got that wine sitting in my utility room, saying "C'mon, put it off for just one more night."

Warfare at the Tire Store

2007-04-06T19:23:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I accidentally let somebody come home with me. And stay there. In my bed."
-some girl in one of my classes, as she rationalized a one-night stand that she regretted.

This is why I don't want kids. When I was at Discount Tires today, there were three young boys playing war in the waiting room as the sister, maybe one or two years older, followed behind. All of them were loud and obnoxious, and they kept bumping into my feet as they rummaged through the magazines on the coffee table. Meanwhile, their father, a gray, run-down old man kind of drifted among them, too beat to even attempt to quiet these kids.

Kim told me that one of her students had a father that shot himself dead in front of his kids. I thought the act was a strange combination of cruel and curious, but seeing this poor guy at Discount Tires made me understand the act just a little bit more.

On a completely unrelated note, I also saw a man wearing a black Slayer shirt that read in read letters "Do You Want To Die?" I sure do love the subtle nuances of heavy metal.

A Cream-Filled Eclair

2007-04-05T15:13:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "FIRST RULE: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."
-Kurt Vonnegut, "A Lesson in Writing"

Today at work, we discovered that the bakery had sent us a very phallic eclair. It was more than likely a mistake, but the thing really did resemble a dick and balls. It wasn't just us kitchen staff with our minds always in the gutter--our counter staff and management refused to even put the pornographic pastry in the display case. As far as I know, it's still sitting in the back room, never to be sold to an unwitting customer.

Simon' s Current Obsessions:

Basil mojitos
Much crisper than the mint variety, making it an even better summer beverage. Yes, I often indulge in "girl drinks." And I watch America's Next Model. Speaking of...

Natasha from America's Next Top Model
She's adorable. She does grate on the nerves like the rest of them, but I'll be damned if she's not the most impressive model on the show.

Christmas Memories on a Warm Afternoon

2007-04-04T19:29:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I talk to God but the sky is empty."

-Sylvia Plath

I've had this lingering image on my mind since childhood. One Christmas Day, my father took the family out for a drive. It was one of the only Christmases in which it actually snowed in Albuquerque, so we had a more traditional sight of Christmas rather than our usual odd images of yucca and cacti adorned with Christmas lights. Hence the desire for a drive.

Anyway, we saw this lone little old man standing in the falling snow, and trying the door to a restaurant, which of course was closed. It was a heartbreaking sight, though a little cliche, and one that I haven't ever forgotten.

(Why, with Albuquerque's current onset of warm weather announcing Spring, am I suddenly thinking of Christmas?)

Suspension of Disbelief

2007-04-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "How many people had I already killed? There was those six that I know about for sure. Close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time it was an American and an officer. That wasn't supposed to make any difference to me, but it did. Shit... charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500. I took the mission. What the hell else was I gonna do?"
Willard, Apocalypse Now

Apparently there is a huge suspension community in Albuquerque. By "suspension community," I mean those that partake in suspension shows, shows in which people pierce their skin with hooks and hang from a warehouse ceiling.

Among our main focuses in Film Theory is sadism and masochism. A Japanese classmate, Taka, informed our professor that he was working on a film about the topics of sadism and masochism, and he asked for permission to show some of his film. What followed was several minutes of suspension show footage.

It started with the sound of a synthesizer, some kind of simple music that sounded like a heartbeat. On the screen was a man, a pained look on his face, hanging by hooks from the ceiling. His skin stretched like silly putty.

Next the music changed to delicate piano sounds as we watched two tiny vixens--two girls in lacy black underwear and electrical tape over their nipples--hanging from hooks and floating two and fro like some kind of sick ballet.

What was so odd was that I actually recognized these girls (no, I've never been to a suspension show--they seem a little unsanitary). I remembered them from high school. One of them even joined me on a middle school trip to D.C.

It's so strange wear we run into past acquaintances. I told my manager about the incident, and she laughed and told me a similar story. There was this girl she once hooked up with--nothing serious, just a one-night fling that lead no where. Apparently my manager and the girl went different ways, until one day when my manager went to Vegas.

"So I'm walking down the strip," she said, "and I find her picture...on one of those little cards they hand out at the corners."

Doggy Dumplings

2007-04-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "do you understand? i'm a garbageman. aw, jump on and ride... yeah it's just what you need when you're down in the dumps. one half hillbilly and one half punk"
-The Cramps, "Garbageman"

We changed our dog's food. Unfortunately, the cocker spaniel has a weak stomach.

She is house trained, but she thinks that it is OK to bend the rules when she has diarrhea. Last time she got a stomach bug, she jumped on the bed in the night. I pushed her away and squealed "Oh my god, why is she all wet?!" when my hand pushed against some liquid in the fur around her bottom. She also managed to spray my leg like a skunk.

This time around, she left a wet pile on my laptop. Luckily, the computer was closed and all was well, but you'd think that if you could teach a dog to do their business outside, you could possibly teach them to feel guilty.

Well, Isn't That What Animals Do?

2007-03-31T18:27:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "You can think I'm wrong, but that's no reason to quit thinking."
-House, M.D.

Today at work, a man sat at the counter and hit on the woman beside him. The weather was warm enough today for shorts, and this man took this opportunity to sport his blue gym shorts. He had his stool turned so he could face this woman, and his legs were spread just wide enough that we could easily see his nuts.

"Oh my God," one of the servers gasped, "What is he doing?"

I shrugged and said, "Maybe he's trying to attract her with his musk."

Horror Story, Pt. 2

2007-03-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "While all the other kids were out playing ball and stuff, I used to stay in my room and imagine that there was a camera in the wall. And I used to really believe that I was putting on a television show and that it was going out to somewhere in the world."

-Andy Kaufman

Roosevelt High School, a large sprawl of adobe buildings and portables, rested between Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, close to the Wilson residence, a modest home on the eastern edge of Rio Rancho. Nick, having been up late showering bratwurst slime and Ragu off of his body, made it to his first period anatomy class just in time for Mr. Dunn’s quiz on the digestive system of a cat.

The bell rang just as he took his seat at the far end of class, beside Kaja’s sister Whitney, who had taken his virginity only two months earlier, just before the school year started. Since then they sort of “drifted,” having never been an official couple in the first place. When they found themselves in the same anatomy class, their former fling made it was almost obligatory that they became lab partners since neither of them really knew anybody else in the class and both of them were aware of this. Over the first month of school, it became a sort of unspoken agreement that they wouldn’t be hooking up again, and this understanding gave them a sense of comfort, and soon the awkwardness wore away. So much so that, as Nick settled in his seat and Whitney pulled her red hair into a pony tail, she turned to him with a frightened expression on her face and whispered, “Dude, I’m pregnant.” She held the expression as Nick sat up and stared at her in disbelief. Then he put his face in his hands and mumbled, “Oh my God.”

Whitney laughed and said, “Just kidding!” She had that same wild nature as her sister, a similar quirkiness that allowed her to change topics after such a heavy joke.

“So,” she asked, “did you study?” Nick had no response. She snickered.

Mr. Dunn, a man in his sixties who had gone completely bald up top but still had the dark brown color in his hair with only a few speckles of grey, walked up and down the rows of lab desks passing out quizzes to his students. He was fit and had a dominating presence, with his muscular build showing through his yellow polo and defined jaw and cheekbones that were similar to Charlton Heston’s. Nick swore the old fart was on steroids.

“Hurry it up,” Mr. Dunn said to the class. “This should only take you 15 minutes. If it takes any longer, you should’ve studied harder.” He finished passing out the quiz and took a seat at the front of the class. “Go ahead and start. When you’re done, bring it up to the front and go get your cat from the fridge. I’ll let you know when your time is up.”

In front of Nick was a black and white illustration of a cat’s internal organs, the digestive organs outlined in bold black lines. He was to label everything from the liver to the rectum.

He couldn’t remember which dark splotch was the spleen and which was the kidney (or kidneys). He couldn’t remember which portion of the winding tube was the duodenum, the ileum or even the colon. They all looked the same. Dismayed, he turned in the quiz when the fifteen minutes was up.

Horror Story

2007-03-29T20:56:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not 'Mr. Lebowski.' You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing."
-The Big Lebowski

So I'm focusing my blog more on fiction writing from now on. So here's some of my newest short story, "Horror Story":

Nick crouched between the toilet and the bathtub and held his guts in place against his stomach. The intestines were covered in some clear slime, something like gelatin, making it difficult to keep a grip on them. Around him, the tiled walls were speckled with blood and gore. Something chunky had dried on the linoleum. It looked like old meat sauce.The tubby guy in a sinister vulture mask—a large, curved beak protruding from the middle of his face—stood above him with a chainsaw, meat and gristle hanging from the blade. He wore bloodied denim overalls and dirty workman’s boots. Beneath the overalls he was shirtless, and his flabby arms jiggled whenever he revved the saw.

The blade spun and came awfully close to Nick’s forehead. Pieces of fat and flesh flew from the saw and spattered his glasses. Something tough and slimy caught in his mouth, and Nick felt the burning sensation of vomit rising in this throat.

“Alright, cut!” Matt called out. He was obviously discouraged. Matt’s spiky purple hair poked out from behind the camera. “Something’s not working.”

Nick checked his watch. It was almost midnight, and the juices from the intestines, which had been formed from a case of raw bratwursts, chicken gristle, and tomato sauce, had soaked through his clothes. “I’m sorry, Matt, but I’ve got school in the morning.” He began to stand, the meat sliding off of his lap.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Matt said without looking out from behind the camera. Kaja, Matt’s rambunctious girlfriend, trotted over to Nick and lightly pushed on his shoulders so he’d sit back down. Her nose curled and she dry-heaved as she readjusted the intestines.

“Yuk,” she said. She stood, looked at her handiwork, and squatted once more to make some minor adjustments.

Matt rose from behind the camera. He wore a loud, orange Hawaiian print shirt and torn jeans. He brought a jar of Ragu to Kaja.

“Perfect,” she said, pouring the entire jar onto the brats and standing once again. She tossed the jar in the waste basket and patted Nick on the leg, living a dainty red handprint on Nick’s khakis. She washed her hands, popped a stick of gum in her mouth, and winked at Nick.

He watched her walk away. She was tall, like Matt, and had her short blonde hair fashioned into wayward spikes. Nick thought she’d be a total fox if she didn’t look so much like his brother. Still, her white sleeveless undershirt (which probably belonged to Matt) hugged her curves and really complemented her breasts, and her tight black Dickies made her butt look pretty damned good.

No matter how good her butt looked, Nick still had to study for his Anatomy quiz. “Hurry up,” he said.

“Ok, this time really scream,” Matt said, “I want you to really squeal like a girl.” He took his seat behind the camera.

“The other motel guests will really love that,” Nick muttered. He eyed the gore around him. “So will the maids.”

“Let’s roll,” Kaja said.

Simon's Current Obsessions:

Shrek 3
The first two rocked, and hopefully this one does too. Anything this anti-Disney is alright by me.

House, M.D.
Eight weeks of brand new episodes. I'm not available on Tuesdays, 8-9 p.m.

Constant Surveillance

2007-03-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason."
-Margaret Atwood

Once upon a time, even in our own lifetime's, not everybody had cell phones. Now, I think I'm the only person in the country without one. It's not that I can't afford it--I honestly don't want one.

One day, I'll probably have to break down and get one, when I actually am involved in things so important, like a real job, in which it is necessary to get a hold of me wherever I may be. But right now nothing's important enough that it can't wait until I get home and check my messages. I think a cell phone goes off everyday in every one of my classes. I've even heard one go off at a funeral.

What kind of sick desire compels people to give up every private moment they could possibly have? I think I'll hold off on getting my ankle bracelet.

Or Whatever

2007-03-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since."

-Salvador Dali

There is this girl in my Women of the Bible class that wears obnoxious sunglasses and loves to hear herself talk. I call her the class tumor. Oftentimes, without even raising her hand, she'll go off on a tangent, completely monopolizing the lecture and, though my professor hides it well, it must drive her nuts.

What is most irritating is that this girl hardly ever has anything useful to say. She usually interrupts the lecture with some half-baked comment that is only slightly relevant and usually totally wrong. I only raise my hand when I've thought about what I've had to say so that when I do say it, I not only want it to be worthwhile--I don't want to sound like this girl.

Last night I had to give a presentation in Film Theory. Here was my time to shine--the stage was mine, and I was to articulate ideas that I've had quite some time to prepare. Unlike the girl in Women of the Bible, I wouldn't be commenting on Samson when I mean Samuel and bark, "Ah, they're both S's anyway."

The problem with giving a presentation is the awkwardness that comes with the quiet moments. Though the presentation went well, there were a few of these moments. This was unavoidable--I was presenting on an essay about the parallels between Plato's cave, psychoanalysis, and cinema and the essay was badly translated from the French. I'd pored over the piece for over a month, and I'd carefully outlined my presentation, but that didn't stop my presentation from having those awkward, quiet moments. I found myself filling those spaces with the phrase "or whatever." For example, I'd say, "so in this way the Lewin's dream screen, the shadows on the cave wall, and cinema all deal with a projection of reality"--pause--"or whatever." It was an unconscious thing, filling the empty space with a sort of verbal ellipsis.

It reminds of those high school girls and boys that tend to use "like" between every word. I used to find it annoying. Next time I'm about to judge them I'll have to think about my own speaking tendencies. I've heard that this is a sign of working through our thoughts, trying to find the right word. At least I'm trying, and not settling for the hit-and-miss class disturbance that has been adopted by my classmate.

Sadism at the Movies

2007-03-26T20:46:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Do you find me sadistic? You know, I bet I could fry an egg on your head right now, if I wanted to. You know, Kiddo, I'd like to believe that you're aware enough even now to know that there's nothing sadistic in my actions. Well, maybe towards those other... jokers, but not you. No Kiddo, at this moment, this is me at my most masochistic."
-Kill Bill
In Film Theory, we're discussing some fairly dense material about a spectator's participation when it comes to watching a movie. It real brain twisting stuff. For example, here's an excerpt from a paper I wrote in response to Kaja Silverman's essay "Suture":

"The shot/reverse shot helps us to find comfort by having our own being replaced by an element in the film. The shot/reverse shot allows us to 1) see something from the point of view of a character, 2) see something from the point of view of an object (she [Silverman] uses the envelope of money in Psycho as an example), or to 3) see something from the point of view of an 'absent other.' This form of gaining comfort is what is referred to as 'suture.' If we consider our perception and our own capabilities of forming a narrative as an extension of our body, it’s easy to see how the surgery analogy fits. I find myself mostly fascinated by the concept of the 'absent other.' One might think that if we are not in the point of view of a tangible character or object we must be in the point of view of the viewer—but this is totally wrong because then we would have total control. Instead, we are guided by this 'other'—'the speaking subject of the cinematic text, a subject which…finds its locus in a cluster of technological apparatuses.' The term I prefer to 'speaking subject' is 'narrator,' because this 'other' is a totally omniscient guide, taking us places that, due to our lack of knowledge of what’s outside the frame, we certainly crave to go, and even allowing us to step away from the view of this 'absent one' and into the shoes of a character of object."

So has your mind been blown? Probably not. Anyway, the whole discussion leads to sadism and masochism, and in the end I'm left wondering if I'll ever be able to enjoy a movie again without worrying about my own participation as a spectator.

It's mostly disconcerting when these readings discuss the ways we give up our own "being," or how our "being" is replaced by elements within the film to ensure our participation. I'm not a film major, I'm an English major, so this material is not as applicable as it is to others in the class (though it may come in handy in my scriptwriting). Still, being an English major, I can't help but notice the existential slant, the questions of our being, though in film theory the discussion is not only about the art form, but the spectator's own relationship to it, how it is a process that "castrates" the spectator by removing his being, and "sutures" it through the narrative process and the manipulation of the spectator's perception.

It gives me the willies.

Stewart and Lily

2007-03-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "The piano's been drinking, not me."
-Tom Waits

Since Tom Perrotta's Little Children has me on a "dark side of suburbia" kick, here's an excerpt from a short story that I adapted from our "American High" script. Stewart, a teacher, is developing feelings for a student. Enjoy.

Throughout the semester, his main interest became Lily. He'd notice
her in the halls, applying lip gloss at the locker of her best
friend, Vivian Hughes, and he just knew that he had begun to
understand Lily better than anybody. Like everyone at American,
Stewart knew who Vivian was. She was the gorgeous brunette, the
leader of the dance squad, the daughter of a popular English
teacher and a girl who was so dark and cynical and just plain cool
that the guys would do anything simply to be with her. And, unlike
Lily, Vivian did not even try to look pretty. Her beauty was just
natural; her brunette locks cascaded and bounced upon her shoulders,
she wore little make-up (her amazing blue eyes did the work for her),
and she looked phenomenal simply wearing sandals, a t-shirt, and
jeans.

Lily, on the other hand, simply stood in Vivian’s shadow and
constantly primped. Stewart, more often than not, would find her
fixing her blond bangs or applying mascara or lip gloss or concealer
or whatever else she carried in that little pink makeup bag. How he
wished he could walk up to her and snap that compact shut and, with
a warm smile, tell her that she needn't try so hard, that he saw that
there was something attractive about her beneath the cosmetics.

He began to resent Vivian, though she did nothing wrong. He imagined
that Lily resented Vivian also, that Lily hated how Vivian dated Jake
immediately after Lily and Jake had broken up (he carefully monitored 
that whole saga). He wanted to say to Lily that Jake was just a drug
dealer--everyone at American knew this--and that she was better off
without him, that she truly deserved better.

Oops, I Did it Again...

2007-03-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another? Most people just fell in line like obedient little children, doing exactly what society expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they'd actually made some sort of choice."
-Tom Perrotta, Little Children

First of all, I have to apologize for the Britney Spears reference in the title of the post. Don't worry, this isn't yet another Britney post (I've grown rather bored with her). What I've done yet again was forgotten that on Thursdays I include my current obsessions on my blog. If you haven't noticed, it's Friday.

I'm a terrible blogger. Anyway, here it is.

Simon's Current Obsessions:

Little Children, by Tom Perrotta
I bought it two days ago, and I'm halfway finished. The characters are so real, and I love the way suburban life is dissected and exposed in the novel. Great stuff, and nothing's more compelling than infidelity.

Starbuck's
As an English major, I'm supposed to frequent smaller, independent coffee houses. I'm a sellout. I can't help it--nothing beats a drive-up window when you need that drink that packs the caffeine equivalent of half a pot of coffee. Not even meth dealers have drive-up windows.

Conclusion to "Tragedy T.V."

2007-03-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "So kill your health and kill yourself/
And kill everything you love/
And if you live you can fall to pieces/
And suffer with my ghost."
-Soundgarten, "Burden in my Hand"

So here's the premise: The narrator has created a hit reality T.V. show in which all the stars are people with terminally ill diseases. He has fallen in love with Cherisse, and does not know she has an allergy to mangoes, while she does know. Unknowingly, he feeds her mango, and here is the conclusion to my story:

By the time we even realized that Cherisse was having an allergic reaction—she was so quiet, so graceful about it—both of her lungs had collapsed and she’d begun to drown in her own mucus.

The cameramen swarmed upon us as I stood in a panic. Our determined medics pushed through the throng, carrying their red medical bags with white crosses on the sides. A huge microphone brushed the side of my face as somebody forced it past me. Surrounding Cherisse with the audio/visual equipment, the tourists, the medics, and the other contestants, I was back at my father’s side. I had known the exact moment he’d died. He was there, and then he wasn’t. We’d felt his life exit his bedroom and a stillness took its place like a cool breeze.

I watched Randall, awkwardly standing on his toes and craning his neck to find the source of the commotion, and I thought how he kind of looked like me, in this confused state of wonder. I imagined Phil Lawrence, waiting at his desk for a confirmation of Cherisse’s demise before popping the champagne. Dan carefully sat on a step away from the crowd, looking winded and not in the least bit surprised, a look that suggested he’d seen it all before. He became my grandfather, watching the death of his own son. Then Lucy shuffled up next to me. She wore an expression of astonishment on her shrunken face, and she became my little sister, who had looked up to me with watery eyes as soon as that moment occurred, as soon as Dad slipped away, and said nothing. She just gave my hand a small squeeze and turned her eyes back to the corpse of our father.

A cameraman stood next to me, his hat turned backwards, all of his focus on Cherisse’s demise taking place in the middle of the frenzy. Bill approached, red-faced and glistening with sweat, and he forced himself beside me without even an acknowledgement of my presence. He gripped the cameraman’s shoulder and said, “Please tell me you got that.”

Rummaging Through Old Books and Other Lives

2007-03-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

Quotes of the Day: "[the Song of Songs] deserves to be destroyed in order to prevent simple souls from being ensnared by it."
-Meir of Narbonne
"The whole world is not worth the day the 'Song of Songs' was written."
-Rabbi Akiva

I went to the used book store today. I love these places--the musty smell, the disarray that, I can imagine, would be what my office would look like if I had one, and a quiet clerk happy to answer any questions in their mild-mannered way.

I picked up two books: For Kim, Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks; and for me Little Children by Tom Perrotta (which, I must add, is excellent--I'm already 70 pages into it). I love used books. I love new books to, but used books always seem to have that extra layer of depth. Inside of Little Children, I found a white plastic coffee stirrer from McDonald's and a small, yellow slip of paper with "to do" notes, one of which was "call Cynthia Izaguirre-KOAT" (Izaguirre is a local newscaster). So, along with Perrotta's richly drawn characters I've been given a glimpse into the lives of even more. The notes on the slip of paper were weren't in what looked to be female's hurried cursive, though I've known men with fairly "feminine" handwriting. Anyway, I've given the former owner a sex and I've deduced that they drink coffee from McDonald's. And, for some reason, they have to speak to a local newscaster about something.

In a way, I've created a character. It feels a bit like a writing exercise from class.

A Real Action Hero

2007-03-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I'm saying."
-Oscar Wilde

When I was younger, I used to spend most of my time playing with G.I. Joes. My cousin and I would throw them from their plastic armored vehicles in immense fake explosions, imagining ourselves as the only surviving figurines (those that still had limbs remaining), as true action heroes, saving the world from the dark forces represented the Cobra Command. I think that I had this idea of growing up to be some kind of gun-wielding muscle man, dodging explosions and flying bullets to be the one true saving force of the country, or even the planet.

Now, I'm a line cook and a college student. This is how my life usually goes: I spend the day cooking at a restaurant and doing homework on my breaks. My routine rarely strays, except for today. At work we ran out of yogurt, bananas, and brown sugar, so I was asked to drive over to another location and pick up said items.

Since it was on the way, I decided that it wouldn't be so bad to stop by my parents' house. I felt like a total rebel, being on the clock and blatantly defiant as I visited my parents' home.

This was the high point of my day. That, my friends, is excitement for you.

High Tension

2007-03-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I won't let anyone come between us any more."
-High Tension

I've never been a huge fan of horror flicks. I could be considered a gore junkie, I suppose, with my attraction to war films and Scorcese pictures, but I tend to shrug off horror movies. Maybe it's the bad acting.

Tonight, I made an exception to my movie-watching habits and rented High Tension. Honestly, I was impressed. Good acting, and there is an often overused twist (which I won't give away) that is actually presented in a new way. Voyeurism, as with any good horror movie (think Hitchcock), is acknowledged, and the final frame of the film even acknowledges the audience--maybe it's even an implication. Why do we go to a horror film? To be scared? Or is it to fulfill some unmentionable desire to see others in pain?

They're uncomfortable questions, and what's even more uncomfortable are horror films that don't ask them. High Tension, though an admittedly audience-pleasing bloodbath, does not avoid such ideas, making it even more worthy of the term "horror."

Also, this one--rather than presenting us with bimbos and meatheads being slaughtered--gives us a lead that we can root for. Questions of sexuality, and society's version of sexuality and the "norms" are raised, all of which are crystallized in the final act. To explain more would give away too much. Let's just say that I couldn't help but sympathize with the slasher.

Exhaustion Can Be Fun!

2007-03-18T19:45:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I have always been a huge admirer of my own work. I'm one of the funniest and most entertaining writers I know."
-Mel Brooks

I had to be at work at five this morning, which is a shame because I stumbled to bed around one or one-thirty last night. When my alarm went off at four-thirty, I lay in bed pretending that it wasn't happening, that the sounds coming from my clock radio were just part of a terrible, terrible nightmare, until Kim finally pushed me out of bed.

Still in a drunken stupor, I arrived at work and did a very half-assed setup of the kitchen. It was my worst open ever, but I was tired and nobody can be at the top of their game every day. Plus, yesterday was St. Patrick's Day...

After a while, exhaustion took over and I became a giggly mess, clapping and singing "Karma Chameleon" in front of the restaurant's perplexed guests.

Thank God spring break is over. I don't think I could possibly survive another week of this. My back still hurts from sleeping on the bathroom tiles.

A St. Patty's Sandwich

2007-03-17T16:11:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: ""Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
-Oscar Wilde

Well, I'm not sure of St. Patrick's significance, but I'm sure he was a fine lad so Happy St. Patrick's Day to everybody! Enjoy your green beer and corned beef and cabbage!

I was thinking that one year I'd like to break the mold ever so slightly by having a corned beef and cabbage sandwich. It's called a Reuben (I'm not sure if that's supposed to be capitalized or not). Actually, any excuse to eat a Reuben is fine with me. There is no such thing as a bad Reuben.

To tell the truth, I'm not just a Reuben fan, I'm a sandwich fan. My brother once declared himself the Sandwich King. Ha! I usurped the throne when he claimed that pickles would be terrible on a barbecue brisket sandwich.

Pickles make the barbecue sandwich. I piled my brisket and pickles onto the bun and cried out, "Call me Dagwood, bitch!"

E.R. Eavesdropping

2007-03-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Though it nearly took a miracle to get you to stay/
It only took my little fingers to blow you away."
-Elvis Costello, "Watching the Detectives"

So, yesterday Kim had some severe pains in her arm. She called her primary care physician, who said that she needed to get to the ER.

Alarms went off. We're thinking blood clots. As with any ER's, it was a series of hurry up and waits. The doctor said that it wasn't even a situation for an emergency doctor. Boring.

Meanwhile, I listened through the curtains to all the excitement taking place around me. An older man, who had apparently been pissing crystals, was told that he had a 6.2 mm kidney stone. "That's a little bigger than a pencil eraser," the doctor said.

On another gurney was a man with a bruised rib. A doctor awoke the man, and to thank the doc for his painkillers the man said, "You're a miracle worker."

The most interesting was a blonde who was no older than 30. A nurse lead her to a gurney as she frantically said, "I need help. I want to die, so I came here." The nurse instructed her to change into a hospital gown. Then he closed the curtain and left.

Later, I listened in on her conversation with a doctor. I learned that she'd recently been through a divorce. That she could not live with herself. That if they discharged her, she'd kill herself that night.

All of it--the kidney stone, the bruised rib, the emotional train wreck, was engrossing. This must be why I like House so much.

I Finally Remembered!

2007-03-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance."
-Steven Wright

Today, I'm actually remembering my Thursday feature! Tomorrow, don't hesitate to return and read about today's anticlimactic visit to the ER that include lots of yawning and eavesdropping on far more interesting lives.

Anyway, here it is:

Simon's Current Obsessions:

Babel
Despite the contrivances--such as the American couple's children ending up in a similar international fiasco--this writer/director team (21 Grams, Amores Perros) prove that they are more than capable filmmakers. They know how to take a central image (or several) and manipulate it to its deepest effect.

Pastrami Burgers
Ate one at a bar recently. It changed my life almost as profoundly as puberty (minus the zits and despair).

Manipulation and Perception

2007-03-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "Well, it would've been, could've been worse than you would ever know./
Oh, the dashboard melted, but we still have the radio."
-Modest Mouse, "Dashboard"

I built a fountain in my backyard. I used this nice green pot from Mexico, and I placed it atop a bucket that I buried. I filled the bucket and the pot with water, and I rigged up a pump so that water overflows in the pot and trickles into the rocks below. It looks cool, and now I get that zen-like sound of trickling water.

What I find rather ironic, however, is that the fountain looks so fluid and serene, as if it was put there by the natural elements, and to get this natural look takes such manipulation.

I wrote this same idea in a Film Theory class. "The 'natural' effect of film," I wrote, "requires such manipulation of both the images and the narrative. The camera is often compared to the human eye...yet we perceive time as an unstoppable, continuous force, whereas film pieces together images to create a sense of continuity. Film can stop and go at any moment."

Perception is totally peculiar.

Cold Tiles and Vomit

2007-03-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I do not take drugs. I am drugs."
-Salvador Dali

Last night, I slept on the bathroom floor next to my friend Mike. My other friend, Brian, and I had earlier decided on a whim that we fancied some Irish car bombs. A case of Guinness, a bottle of whisky, and a bottle of Bailey's later I was kneeling before the toilet, heaving everything I had in me, including soap. Yes, in our drunken stupors we convinced each other to chew on soap. I guess we found the cold bathroom tiles quite comfortable, for that's where we stayed. I was told that at one point we were even spooning.

Soundtracks of our lives

2007-03-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day: "I am the passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the citys a rip in the sky
And everything looks good tonight
Singin la la la la la-la-la la"
-Iggy Pop, "The Passenger"

I love burning mix CDs. Maybe it's because I imagine my life as a film, and I like having a rockin' soundtrack, as if the music I listen to defines me as a person.

Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" tends to end up on several of my CDs, as does the Danger Mouse remix of Jay Z's "Encore." A friend of mine once got in a pretty pad car accident, and he remembers exactly what was playing on his stereo: Jimi Hendrix "Angel." I can just imagine what a surreal that moment must've been.

Some are taught to wear clean underwear to church, in case they pass out, fall over, and accidentally expose their underthings. I have a variation of the same idea: Keep good music in your car stereo. You never know when you may get in accident. God forbid the paramedics catch you blasting The Backstreet Boys.

In all your mix CDs, make you sure you have a good mix-and-match of awesome tunes, an awesome trail mix of jams. Recommended reading: Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. He knows what I'm saying.

Elvis the Pelvis

2007-03-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "We're bigger 'n Jesus."

-John Lennon

The following is from a story I wrote last semester:

When Mom went missing, Gramma took me in. I suppose that once it was learned that Mom had died, Gramma was stuck with me. She was living in that tiny house all alone (three years earlier a heart attack had killed poor Grampa) and certainly she needed the company.

We spent much of our time in the living room, me watching the television while Gramma knitted. Sitting on her favorite chair, a plaid recliner with deflated cushions, Gramma often set her knitting aside to cry out, “Toby, for Pete’s sake, turn down that T.V.” Whenever I watched my cartoons on Saturday mornings, I sat on the floor directly in front of her recliner. This didn’t stop Gramma, with her poor hearing and worse eyesight, to yell as if I were three blocks away. “I swear that goddamn box put your Grandad in that casket,” she’d cry. This was in response to Grampa’s often vehement reaction to the Ed Sullivan Show or to American Bandstand. Of course I wasn’t born at the time, but I’ve heard enough stories involving Elvis’s suggestive dancing and Grampa’s violent reaction that it’s become family legend, how Grampa would leap from his chair and point and shake his hand at the television in this same living room, spit flying from his lip as he damned Elvis to hell. This was such a spectacle that I think Gramma, perhaps traumatized, has equated all television with music television, and now she thinks that Elvis gyrating his hips in the sixties put Grampa in the grave in the seventies. Grampa had a decade-long heart attack.

Yesterday's Feature, Today

2007-03-09T18:15:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Don't use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."
-Kurt Vonnegut, "Here is a Lesson in Creative Writing"

I realized today that I forgot my Thursday feature on yesterday's post. In fact, I think I forgot it last week. Sorry.

So here it is.

Simon's Current Obsessions:

South Park: The Complete Ninth Season
Really, really disgusting. And really, really funny.

The Best American Non-Required Reading 2006
As always, a great collection. Thoroughly entertaining from the first page and on. It starts with a bang: the first story in the collection totally rocks.

The weather
Finally, the weather grew warmer. I played tennis today and yelled at some kids starting a fire in the park. Everybody's out enjoying the weather.

That's just nuts

2007-03-08T21:35:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Men compelled by fear/ To praise, may be by fear compelled to hate."
-Seneca, Thyestes

Today I had no desire to be at work--it's midterm week, I'm exhausted, and we were slow anyway. I figured that discomfort might convince my general manager, Shelly, to allow me to leave.

"I have a dull pain in my left testicle," I said. "I might need to see a doctor."

Saying nothing, she walked away. I figured that guilt might convince her. "What if it's cancer?" I called to her. No response.

Later, I said, "I sure hope they allow me to keep my testicle after the surgery. Then I could bring it in jar and show it around." By this point I'd been bugging Shelly so relentlessly about the fake pain in my manhood that I think I even had myself convinced of my cancer diagnosis.

One of the girls that works the counter overheard. "You'd need to keep it in formaldehyde," she explained.

"You're right," I said, thinking about what I could do with my nut after the hypothetical surgery. "Or I could dehydrate it and where it as a necklace. I could just macrame some hemp. That be pretty sweet." Shelly rolled her eyes.

So I didn't get sent home. But with such engrossing conversation, the day went by in no time.

See My Movie-film

2007-03-07T20:27:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "We support your war of terror."
-Borat

Last semester, my Bible as Literature professor began a class for apologizing for being unavailable the previous evening. Flushed, she rolled her eyes and, in her southern twang, said "I saw Borat last night, and it was some kind of funny."

She loved it. First of all, you must understand that this professor is a true scholar, somebody I would trust completely in guiding me through a book as complex as the Bible. And this scholar, this truly knowledgeable human being, is a fan of a movie in which a skinny mustachioed man and a huge bearded man wrestle each other, nude, even assuming a 69 position.

I finally watched Borat last night, and I must say that it was a deceptively simple critique of American society. Am I giving the film too much credit? Maybe. But I find it incredibly clever how the film's absurdities have been played alongside footage of unsuspecting interviewees, shocking footage of "real" people bearing it all to this strange little Kazakh.

Plus, you've gotta hand it to a guy (and the same goes for his costar) that would allow himself to engage in that wrestling match on camera. "My mustache still smells like testes," he says later in the film.

Dumb Animals

2007-03-05T20:59:00.000-08:00

"You'd be damned to be one of us girl/ Faced with a dodo's conundrum/ Ah, I felt like I could just fly/
But nothing'll happen every time I try."
-The Shins, "Australia"

At work we serve free-range chicken breasts. I've been told that these chickens are massaged like Kobe beef, they play music during the killing, and the chickens are fed all-natural organic meals. The chicken costs a fortune, and it tastes just like any other chicken.

Chickens are the stupidest animals on the planet. They live in their own filth, they have wings but can't fly, and to top it all off, as a food they are the most boring protein on the planet. Don't get me wrong; I like plenty of dishes that include chicken as an ingredient. But it takes a lot to make chicken special-there's not a lot you can do with it. I just think it's ludicrous to spend so much on it.

As for the humanity of free-range chicken: Do they really recognize that they are being massaged? Here we get into a very existential discussion, and even Plato's allegory of the cave comes to mind, but do the chickens realize the difference between death by a quick beheading and death with massage.

A Trip With Paris

2007-03-04T20:52:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "I'm coming over to lay some tracks."
-Paris, the mystery man

Yesterday, Kim received a call on her cell phone from some guy named Paris. "Tell Simon I'm on my way over. I'll be there in half an hour."

So Kim called me at the house and told me Paris would be there in about half an hour, and I asked, "Who is Paris?"

"I don't know," she said, "but he's on his way."

She gave me the number from her caller ID and I called Paris.

"Hey Simon, what's up Bro?" he asked. "I'm on my way, dawg."

"Do I know you?" I asked.

"Yeah, bro," he said, and he sounded offended. "I'm coming over to lay some tracks, remember?"

I figured this was urban slang for recording music. Plus, I don't have any railroads nearby.

"Um, I don't have and equipment to...lay tracks?" I said, raising my voice at the end as if answering a question.

"This is Simon, right?" he said.

"Yeah."

"Kyle's cousin?"

I do have a cousin named Kyle, so I said, "Well, yeah."

"Yeah bro, Kyle. The one with 'Katie' tatted his arm," he said. Wrong Kyle.

"Sorry, but that's not my cousin Kyle," I said. There was a moment of silence.

"Do you live on Seven Bar Loop?" he asked.

"No."

"Whoa," he said, with the same kind of stunned laughter that comes after a mind-blowing bong rip. "That's a trip, bro."

"Um, that is a trip," I said. And that concluded our conversation. It was a trip.

Firestarter

2007-03-03T19:22:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "While, in dreams and hallucinations, representations appear in the guise of perceived reality, a real perception takes place in cinema, if not an ordinary perception of reality."

-film theorist Jean-Louis Baudry, "The Apparatus"

(Now did this quote blow your fucking mind? Or are you scratching your head like I am?)

This weekend is the annual Fiery Foods Show. We made our pilgrimage there today, and we stopped at practically every booth to try the diabolically hot sauces, the spicy jellies, the barbecue sauces with a bite, the mustards that burn up to the back of the nose, and other flaming this 'n thats. My tongue is raw and my lips still burn, and I'm left wondering just why New Mexicans are so into this form of masochism.

It's almost like a wine tasting. We move from one booth to another, saying things like, "the garlic overpowers the other spices," or "the heat takes away the flavor." Except at this tasting there are paramedics on hand.

At one booth, a man in African garb offered me a strange liquid fromthat he said would boost my immune system. It took less than an ounce to sear my tastebuds and cauterize my throat.

Kitchen Conflict

2007-03-02T08:06:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.
-Julia Child

We have a new dish at work--a tasty jambalaya dish that is a tad more complicated than our other menu items to prepare. It is done in the sautee station over a burner, and it includes cooking three different proteins--chicken, chorizo, and shrimp--in the same pan. All three must be put in at different times for them to cook all the way through, and it requires undivided attention in order to keep the garlic from burning.

Our weekend sautee cook is slow, and he can't cook. In a way, I'm dreading Saturday and Sunday, when I know he's going to go down in flames, but for whatever reason I'm kind of looking forward to it. It'll be a real spectacle. Why do I do this?

The other day, I coworker told me that the night before he had gotten into a fight with his girlfriend. "She even slept on the couch," he said.

She worked later that day. I couldn't wait for her to get there so I could see the crackling tension between them. When she arrived, her boyfriend said, over-enthusiastically, "Hi!"

"Hi," she said, and she followed it with a fake grin.

"Wow," I said. "That was awesome."

Why do I thrive on conflict? I feel like a sadist.

Bathroom Pixie

2007-02-28T15:16:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "We've been waiting here an hour. He's peed three times already."
-Fargo

If David were to reveal to Boomer that he had some kind of pixie—a small, glowing woman with silvery wings, a creature no bigger than his palm—living in his apartment, sharing his food, and sleeping in a birdcage hanging from his bedroom ceiling, he’d never hear the end of it. Boomer might laugh. Or Boomer might be concerned about David’s mental health. Either way, David wants none of it.
“Where’s your head at?” Boomer asks as the wrench slips and David smashes his hand on the edge of a keg. They still have six refrigerated beer boxes in three more bars encircling the venue that must be ready to pour beer in the next hour, before the doors open and crowds swarm the hall.
“I’m just tired,” David says. He reapplies the wrench to the nut and twists, attaching the hose to the air tank. He releases the air from the tank and watches the gauge. He stands and pulls the tap handle. Beer flows into the stainless steel drain beneath the tap.
“Done,” he says. “Next bar.”
Boomer pushes the dolly carrying a keg while David frantically wipes the black gunk from his hand with a blue bar towel. “You’re wasting your time,” he says. “We have more kegs to hook up. You’re only going to get dirty again.” But David can’t stand the gunk.
As he scrubs between his fingers, he listens to the keys hanging from Boomer’s belt. It reminds him of the faint jingle he hears from the pixie, or fairy, or whatever it is back at home. He thinks her wings make the sound. In a tinny, confident voice, she’d told him to call her Lucia. “It’s a pretty name,” she’d chimed, “I like the way it sounds.”
“Hey, space cadet, we’re here,” Boomer calls from behind. David had continued to walk while Boomer had stopped at the door of the next bar. Boomer unhooks the set of keys from his belt and searches for the right one. He shakes his head. “Seriously, wake up. Is Rachel on your mind, or what?”
“I’m just tired,” David says.

Lucia had appeared one morning in his apartment’s small bathroom. David was following his normal routine:
8:00 a.m.—Wake up, start coffee.
8:05 a.m.—Take piss, brush teeth.
It was here that David had heard the jingling. At first he didn’t hear anything, the sound of his urine hitting the water overcoming the sound of Lucia’s wings. But when he was done he grew confused—his mind in that his early-morning, groggy daze—because he’d finished pissing, and yet he still heard some jingling that, at first, he’d assumed was still piss hitting water, though he wasn’t even pissing, but then he sensed the glow somewhere to his left. He turned his head and there she was, floating above the sink, a tiny pixie, a glowing figure of a woman suspended by such fragile looking wings, similar to those of a dragonfly. She seemed nude, but she had no distinguishing features, not even nipples or a navel, just the shape of a perfectly-formed woman floating above the sink, two bright white pinpoints for eyes, peering from her yellow glow.
Embarrassed, David pulled himself back into his boxers and flushed the toilet.
“Excuse me,” he said, slowing moving towards the faucet handle. As he washed his hands, Lucia said, “My, for a bachelor you sure keep a clean home.”
“Thanks,” David said apprehensively, turning off the faucet. He dried his hands. Suddenly, he felt a tightness in his stomach. He checked the clock above the toilet: 8:10. “Shit,” he said. He’d fallen two minutes behind schedule.

2007-02-27T19:26:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together."
-Hunter S. Thompson, "He Was a Crook," his eulogy for Nixon

Hunter S. Thompson practiced what he proclaimed to be "Gonzo" journalism, a sort of freelance, down-the-last-minute, no-time-to-edit journalistic endeavor in which the author becomes one of the main focuses of the piece, journalism in which there really is no focus, a fly-by-night approach to one subject that becomes several.

It was the 1970s that Thompson brought this about, and ever since there have been countless imitations. However, it seems that today Rollingstone's political articles and articles on various social issues have become very polished and streamlined, far different from Thompson's approach. These articles are professional and polished, nothing like Thompson's work, but still quite relevant.

My question is this: Is blogging the new Gonzo? It's an online journal, work that becomes published with little or no editing. It's an approach that almost always makes the bloggers themselves the topics, and their surroundings become secondary. Our reactions become the main focus of our work.

Zombies

2007-02-26T20:09:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Just look at the face: it's vacant, with a hint of sadness. Like a drunk who's lost a bet."
-Shaun of the Dead

Tonight in Film Theory we watched the original Dawn of the Dead. Like any zombie movie, it was pretty ridiculous.

I've never been a huge fan of horror movies, with the exception of very few (The Exorcist comes to mind). I can't say I was all that impressed with this one, despite it's being regarded as somewhat of a classic.

In our next class, I know that my professor will explain to us something along the lines of the ways Dawn of the Dead illustrates those complex filmic concepts of time and space, of alternate realities, of the development of a fictional world and the similar development of a new lifestyle in the mall in the, and all that wonderful post-modernist stuff. Honestly, I don't even know what makes something "post-modern," but it's a term that gets bandied about a lot in class and I think it's important.

Anyway, I think I prefer Shaun of the Dead. It's a film that finds the humor in zombie films and totally feeds off of. Dawn of the Dead, I think, does this to an extent, but Shaun of the Dead can easily be labeled a comedy, while Dawn is more of an unintentional comedy.

On the box for the Shaun of the Dead DVD, the film's honest approach to it's subject matter is recognized and embraced: "The Smash Hit Romantic Comedy," it says, "With Zombies."

A Cigar is a Cigar

2007-02-25T23:06:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "This is the first baby born in 18 years and you want to name it Froley?"
-Children of Men

Yesterday afternoon, at a wine tasting, conversation turned to cigars. I like cigars, though I don't know a thing about them. I think I find the appeal in the process: clipping off the tip, lighting it, and spending the next half-hour or so puffing away.

Cigar smoking, because they take so long to finish, is a way of forcing yourself to take a break. Once you've lit it, you know you're going to be there for a while. It's actually like a bottle of fine red wine--once it's been opened, it's necessary to spend the time finishing it, or else it goes to waste.

You sit their, brain stimulated by the tobacco and nicotine, but there isn't a lot you can do but think or converse. Once you've gotten into the cigar, you settle in, you embrace the stillness, the time you've set aside, and it is quite enjoyable.

Of course, depending on the cigar, a brushing of the teeth and a shower is often required afterwards, when you must reacquaint yourself with the world after your short respite. But it's totally worth it.

Were You Like This When We First Met?

2007-02-24T18:17:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "You see life is like that. We change, that's all. You see, the guy I am now is not the guy I was then. If the guy I was then met the guy I am now he'd beat the shit out of me. Those are the facts."
-Stevo, SLC Punk!

An old coworker of mine, from my very first job, happened to get a job where I currently work. In my first job, this guy actually trained me and helped get me initially get acquainted with the restaurant industry.

Now, we once again work together in a kitchen. "I've been a cook for eleven years," he proudly claims to the other cooks. Unfortunately, he sucks.

He's slow. His food comes out looking terrible. And his attitude is awful. "I'm gonna punch him in the fucking neck," another coworker said to me today, after my old acquaintance accused him of being wrong about an omelet that, after 15 minutes, was no closer to the customer's table. Needless to say, my former acquaintance was wrong.

The worst thing about this whole situation is that my former acquaintance goes on and on about how he and I go way about, as if the two of us were best of friends. How embarrassing.

And yet I feel for the guy. I think he's trying. But, out of sympathy, I'd rather him get fired or quit than remain in the same kitchen. Is that bad?

Christ Lives Next Door

2007-02-23T06:59:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails."
-James Joyce

When I lived next door to Jesus (I'm not kidding, the bearded carpenter next door really did look like Christ himself), the walls between our homes were so thin that I could hear every one of his phone conversations.

He'd awake at 5:30 or 6 in the morning and immediately begin banging around his home, making his phone calls. I'd awake to "Hi, Ma!," then he'd circle around his home and my apartment and roam the backyard that we shared as he continued his converstion with Ma in such a loud tone that I usually would get up and start my coffee rather than go back to sleep.

He had a cat that seemed to be about a thousand years old, a little black thing that would begin meowing incessantly on the few days that my neighbor did not awake at the crack of dawn. "Shut up, Nefirtiri!" he'd cry. "Goddammit, shut up!"

He was a trip, and though I had to change my sleeping habits, he remains my favorite neighbor. He was truly talented when it came to carpentry, and he enthusiastically joined me in constructing a pond in our yard.

One morning, Nefirtiri disappeared, and we searched everywhere for that old thing. Finally, Kim and I noticed a clump of gray and black fur in a nearby street. We told our neighbor, and he absorbed the information in his usual demeanor: in that loud voice he said, "Well, she was blind. She probably wondered out into the the street." Then, looking contemplative and slightly morose, he went back to whatever project he had going on the garage."

Does UNM Offer a Blogger Class?

2007-02-21T19:39:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Kids. They're not easy. But there has to be some penalty for sex."
-Bill Maher

Today I found out that my human sexuality class is not going to count for anything--it gets me no further to graduation. Looks like I'll be dropping down to fifteen hours for the remainder of the semester.

Unfortunately, this means that I'll have to take summer school. While it's not too late to drop a class without a grade (luckily), it is too late to register for a different one. Bummer. I really didn't want to take summer school, but I also really want to graduate by next fall.

I guess I'll have to bite the bullet this summer and take a class. There is some good coming out of this, though. I now have the time I'd devoted to my human sexuality class. Now I can start commenting on the blogs of others! Sorry I haven't been around lately, but I'm back.

Vulnerability

2007-02-20T19:12:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable."
-Craig Ferguson

In my film theory class, the audience is often compared to the voyeur and somewhat of a sado-masochist, watching others in conflict. It's something similar (and completely inexplicable) that drives us to watch September 11 footage over and over, to slow down when we pass a car wreck.

Is this why we're so compelled by Britney Spears, who has shaven her head and checked into rehab? We all saw this coming. We knew it was inevitable. We've reached the climax, the third act. Her story has become a predictable melodrama.

I really want to poke fun at the girl, but I find myself agreeing with Late Late Night host
Craig Ferguson. She's vulnerable, and in a unique situation. I still think she's an idiot, don't get me wrong, but at least she's honest enough to check into rehab.

I can't wait for her to sober up though, and lose that vulnerability, because then I have every right to poke fun at her. As for now, at the height of her breakdown, I hate to admit that I like her pain. You do too. We may have to bite the bullet and wish her good luck.

Sleep is Overrated

2007-02-19T21:01:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "The only people that make love all the time are liars."
-Gigi

As you may know, I go to work at 5 a.m. I do this four days a week, about 35 hours altogether. During the other three days of the week I spend 18 hours in class. During the time in between I (try to) do homework.

Of course, somewhere in there I try to pack in what little social life I have, my time with Kim, my family time, my me time. I don't sleep anymore.

I need to get up 7 hours from now, which isn't so bad considering the maybe 5 or 6, often 4 hours that I usually end up getting. Much of my sleep isn't really even sleep--my mind continues to race after I shut off the lights and this has made night and day into indistinguishable static. I feel like I've been robbed, as if I'm coming down from a drug binge, but I missed out on the high.

I've had to decide into which area I need to allot my mental energy: work or school. Since I'm in school, I won't always need my current job. My mental energy is being stored up during my work days and expelled in class. I suppose it's a wise decision.

But I need a time for my brain to stop altogether--I really need my sleep. Or do I? Maybe not. Sleep is for sissies. Night time is for us caffeine loyalists anyway.

Brains

2007-02-18T21:30:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Ever hear the one about the joke with no punchline?"

I had a writing assignment to begin a short story with a brief summary of that story. So how does mine begin?

"When Samuel Morris turned sixty, he courageously went into the burning home of his neighbor, Rich Sedberry, in a valiant attempt to save him. Unfortunatlely, a burning rafter fell from the ceiling and crushed the head of Mr. Sedberry before Mr. Morris could save him. When the rafter fell on Mr. Sedberry’s head, brains spurted out and into Mr. Morris’s mouth. He contracted Hepatitus C."

Isn't that gross? What the hell is wrong with me?

I Like Words

2007-02-17T20:37:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
Mark Twain

There are some words that are just fun to say. They roll off of the tongue, and you can say them over and over because they sound so neat. Here's some of the words that I like saying:

sausages
smorgasbord
blanc
erogenous
Shiraca
cucaracha
herring
labia
bagel

...and lot's more. You get the picture. What are some of your favorite words?

Rooftop Shenanigans

2007-02-16T07:05:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man."
Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver

When I was in high school, my friends and I used to sneak up to the roof of the Sheraton. For whatever reason, the roof access at the hotel was never locked. They'd always leave the padlock, open and hanging from the access door, almost as an invitation.

So we'd go to the roof and look off of the side, maybe watch our spit drop to the bottom. Once, my friend Chris, whose car was a moving trash bin, had a roll of toilet paper in the backseat. We brought it with us to the rooftop and tossed off the building and into the night. The toilet paper unraveled and seemed to stop, caught midair, a white streamer floating in the dark. It caught in the trees, and we shrugged and left.

Later, Chris had a bachelor party at the same hotel. His buddy Taka decided to bring a blowup doll, which he'd left in the car. Taka and I went downstairs to bring the doll to the room. When we got to the parking lot and to his car, I found that the doll was already blown up, its mouth formed into a permanent "O."

We carried the woman to the elevator and stood her up next to us. She was our vinyl escort.

An elderly couple joined us on the elevator, and they stayed very quiet. It was an awkward moment, one that screamed for explanation. Taka turned to the couple and said, "Bachelor party." The couple responded with a "Hmm," and they smiled apprehensively. The elevator dinged and we exited, red-faced and struggling to keep from laughing.

Raw Pancakes

2007-02-15T19:13:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "The man who said 'I'd rather be lucky than good' saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose."
-Match Point

Recently, two of my kitchen managers were fired. Food costs were too high, the kitchen was falling apart, and nothing was going right. They had to take the fall.

Today, I discovered that one of those managers really didn't like me. Adrian, a coworker from Guadalajara, said to me today, "Si, he no like you."

This left me wondering why. Why would somebody not like me? Was it because he was my supervisor, yet I had to correct him all the time? "Dude, stop sending out raw pancakes!"

Not that this really bugs me that much. At least I still have my job, bucko.

Simon's Current Obsessions:

The Departed
my DVD finally came in the mail. I'll probably watch it about 17 times this weekend. Then I'll fall behind on my blog and my homework. But it's totally worth it.

The Magic Kingdom
by Stanley Elkin

This book, which is even more death obsessed than The Departed, is phenomenal. If anybody can construct a sentence, it's Elkin.

Valentine's Day Massacre

2007-02-14T19:53:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
-Lewis Carrol, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Tonight I finally made my lobster.

I purchased the creatures this morning. When the woman from the grocery store removed them from the tank, the lobsters stretched their arms out wide, as if to make themselves look larger and more intimidating, or maybe they both knew what was coming and just wanted a hug.

After I brought them home and used them to chase the dogs, I befriended the crustaceans. I put them in a pan and covered them with a wet towel before placing them in the fridge. All day long, whenever I went for a snack, I asked how they were doing, if they needed anything, if they had any last requests.

I considered using dental floss to create lobster marionettes. I one point, I thought it might be fun to having them play out scenes from classic films. I could put a hat on one and have it say to the other, "Here's looking at you, kid."

Instead, I chose to let them live their final moments with dignity. Even when I put them in the boiling water they didn't fight back. I just tossed them in and closed the lid. No screaming, no rattling, nothing. It was very anticlimactic.

They tasted delicious too. The missus and I gorged ourselves on lobster, shrimp, scallops, bacon-wrapped filets, sauteed mushrooms, and basil berblanc (sic?). But the lobsters got me back. Turns out I have a minor allergy to shellfish.

I never knew this. I've had lobster before, but I always thought that the itching on my hand was from squeezing lemon in my palms to kill the shellfish smell. This time, immediately after cracking open the shell and having lobster juice spill across the back of my hands, they swelled, began to itch, and I broke out into a speckled rash.

I've decided to take it like my lobster friends. No big deal, just an uncomfortable allergy. I finished my meal with a quiet dignity, and I concluded the feast with a respectful nod to the carcass of my lobster buddy.

Cops or Criminals

2007-02-13T16:59:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "You got a nice suit at home or do you like coming to work everyday dressed like you're goin' to invade Poland?"
-Colin Sullivan, The Departed

Today, The Departed finally gets released on DVD. Like most people, I like crime movies. I absolutely loved this one.

I was once told that sex is like pizza: When it's good, it great, and when it's bad, it's still good. The same goes for Martin Scorsese films. Even his mediocre movies--Casino and Bringing out the Dead, for instance--are still far better than most of the fare that is out there.

I consider The Departed one of his greats. The horrific violence and naughty language make it an arguable "guy movie" (though I know women who are just as passionate about this flick as I am), but the movie also offers some commentary on masculinity. When DiCaprio's character, Billy Costigan, orders a cranberry juice at a bar, another patron asks him if he's on his period. DiCaprio responds by smashing him in the head with a glass.

When maleness comes into question in this film, violence is often the response. It is implied that Matt Damon's character, Colin Sullivan, is impotent, and even his sexuality comes into question. It's no surprise that his actions have the most damaging consequences in the film.

Then, of course, there's Jack Nicholson's character, Frank Costello. Nicholson has been criticized for the performance being "too much Jack, not enough Frank." That's like saying there's too much of a good thing. Jack hams it up to the maximum, and it works.

The film's main flaw is the contrived love triangle. A remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, The Departed combines the original's two female characters into one, which hurts the film' integrity. With the being said, Scorsese has found a unique beauty (I'd compare her to Patricia Arquette) and impressive actress in Vera Farmiga, so I can't say I was all that concerned with the contrivances of the film.

The Departed is a certain crowd-pleaser. The direction is top notch, and William Monahan's script is a damn good yarn.

In other news, tomorrow's my big day: I'm cooking lobster. I've been looking forward to this almost as much as I've been looking forward to The Departed getting released on DVD.

A Tale for Children

2007-02-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

"Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten shellfish."
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"

Today, I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings."

What an incredible story. Marquez calls it "A Tale For Children," and though a child would never fully grasp the story, but an adult (except for Marquez) would never actually even consider a man with wings, an angel, falling to earth.

The story conveys that childish sense of wonder, something magical, but it also undermines it with a cynicism in the reaction that people have to the old man. The man himself, perhaps an angel, in not described in an "angelic" way, but rather he is decrepit, his wings flea-ridden, his body old and worn. I'm not sure what to call this story: fantasy realism, maybe?

Though the locals reaction to the angel is depressing, when the old man finally takes flight there is somehow a sense of resolve, but not overly so. Like a good haiku, the story makes a point but does not leave us with a "bowtie" ending. It's like a breeze, making one shudder but appreciative of the fresh air.

Bad Manners in the Workplace

2007-02-11T16:43:00.000-08:00

"If I need a favor at four o'clock in the morning, whether it's a quick loan, a shoulder to cry on, a sleeping pill, bail money or just someone to pick me up in a car in a bad neighborhood in the driving rain, I'm definitely not calling up a fellow writer. I'm calling my sous-chef, or a former sous-chef, or my saucier, someone I work with or have worked with over the last twenty-plus years."
-Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential

Our prep cook called in sick all weekend. This wouldn't be a problem if she didn't do this all the time.

Plus, our other prep cook decided to change his schedule and now he doesn't work weekends anymore, either. Of course, he informed our kitchen manager last week, but the manager never told anybody before taking the weekend off. Basically, it was a really hard, busy weekend at the restaurant that could've been avoidable if 1. Our prep cook was considerate enough not to call in every time she sneezed, 2. our other prep cook had given fair warning before changing his availability, 3. our supervisors actually reprimanded employees for this behavior, or 4. our kitchen manager gave us a heads up before abandoning our understaffed kitchen for our busiest weekend in months.

I should be graduating in less than a year, and at that point I will be (I hope) through with restaurant jobs for good. So why do I let my job, my temporary job, bother me? Do I care too much? Obviously, mediocre employees can get away with practically anything without consequence, so what's stopping a good employee, like myself, from calling in for a weekend?

In the entire time I've worked there (it's been about a year and a half), I've never called in sick. I went home early once, but considering that it was either that or puke all over the flat top grill I think I made a wise choice. Imagine the smell of sizzling vomit.

One morning I went in with such a wicked hangover that I had to leave the kitchen to puke every 15 minutes, but I still came to work. I had one coworker who seemed to call in sick whenever the Cowboys played. It took months for him to get fired.

One of these days, I'm hoping this ultra considerate attitude towards work will one day be pay off. It helps to believe in Karma.

Homework Sucks

2007-02-10T19:18:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "I came up with a new game-show idea recently. It's called The Old Game. You got three old guys with loaded guns onstage. They look back at their lives, see who they were, what they accomplished, how close they came to realizing their dreams. The winner is the one who doesn't blow his brains out. He gets a refrigerator."

-Chuck Barris, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Today, my cocker spaniel got groomed. She was matted so badly that they had to shave the poor thing. Now she looks like a rat with a head that is much too large. It's really quite hideous.

Otherwise, nothing much is new. Homework's kicking my ass, though, so I must log off of Blogger and focus on school for tonight. I'll be back tomorrow with a longer post.

I hope everybody has had a fantastic weekend!

Gettin' Clipped

2007-02-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Leave the gun. Take the cannolis."
-The Godfather

To benefit the Albuquerque Children's Hospital, the Lobo Theater has been hosting an Italian Film Festival. Last night, my brother and I were lucky enough to attend a screening of The Godfather. There is no better place to view this film--the theater is very old, and upstairs is a balcony and a pair of ancient bathrooms with slender, knobless doors and red and white tiles. What's really odd is that the bathroom looks almost identical to the one in which Michael Corleone must find the gun hidden behind the toilet. This theater has a certain 1930s or 40s elegance totally reminiscent of The Godfather's Gangland Elite atmosphere.

When we arrived, outside of the theater we noticed a glass door splattered with red paint, and we commented on the splatter's similarity to the countless blood splatters on my favorite film of 2006, The Departed. We laughed.

Leaving the theater, looking over our shoulders in the dark and, fueled by The Godfather's plot of paranoia and betrayal, we eyed that same splatter with far more caution. Before we got in the car, I think we both peeked into the backseat to be sure nobody was waiting with a piano wire.

My Blog's New Feature! (and Screams from the Kitchen, part III)

2007-02-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "If you're going to kill someone, do it simply."
-Johnny Aysgarth, Suspicion

A worker who got his degree from some culinary school made some suggestions for my Valentine's Day lobster dinner. He suggested a butter/basil mix to go along with the lobster and a mushroom sauce for the filet. Something fancy to make the dinner less barbaric.

Still, I'm now planning on a ritualistic boiling of the creatures, like that initiation of Nemo in the fish tank. It'll be as if I'm sacrificing virgins to a volcano. I'll beat drums, I'll dress in warpaint, and hopefully by the time the lobster is ready Kim is still around for the fancy part of the meal.

Be happy that you dropped by "Dispatches From Suburbia" today for you are witnessing the unraveling of a new feature! When I'm rich and famous you can tell people you remember when Simon unleashed a new section of his blog!

Every month, there is a section in RollingStone magazine entitled "Our Current Obsessions." Well, I've completely stolen that idea. So every Thursday, expect my own obsessions. Behold:

Simon's Current Obsessions:

Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion

My favorite of his films. I love the glowing glass of milk (sound familiar?).

Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology. Edited by Philip Rosen
This is my textbook for my film theory class. The essays are dense, the ideas extremely complex, and every page is a total pain in the ass to trudge through. Still, the big words and brain-bending concepts blow my mind, and I think I might actually be grasping it, making me feel smart.

Dirty Plates and Homicide

2007-02-07T20:13:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Though it nearly took a miracle to get you to stay,/ it only took my little fingers to blow you away."
Elvis Costello, "Watching the Detectives"

Yesterday, I mentioned the unnerving thought that we never know exactly what our proximity to violence is. We can never truly fathom the histories of the people that surround us everyday.

When I worked in catering, the restaurant hired a new dishwasher named Rolfe. He was a grizzled, older man that reminded me of the boat captain on Jaws. He was redheaded and toothless and shorter than me but he was certainly built. He had unrecognizable tattoos peeking from beneath the hair of his arms, and outside of work he wore boots, jeans, and a gray cowboy hat. Oftentimes grumbles could be heard from beneath his bushy red mustache as he pushed dishes through the machine, and his social skills were non-existent. He frightened the waitresses and made the line cooks uncomfortable with his raspy laugh.

I usually took my breaks outside by the dumpster, where I could find some peace from the hectic kitchen. One evening, he came outside, and out of habit I immediately tensed up.

He lit a cigarette and asked how old I was.

"20," I replied.

"Hmm," he said. "I've been in prison for almost your entire life."

I didn't know if it was rude to ask why, though I was dying to know, so I didn't. Fortunately, he told me. "Anger and alcohol don't mix. I killed a man in a bar fight."

The strange thing about it was that, after he told me this story, I was more comfortable around him. At least I knew his story, and the mystery surrounding him was dispelled. At times, he'd tell jokes and smile his toothless smile and I'd even enjoy being around the old fart.

Then, one night he asked me for a ride home. I told him "No problem." It bothered me that I didn't even feel hesitant or worried that this man could snap and kill me. I often saw him in the kitchen, angry and shouting at the dirty plates, as if they were responsible for some unhappiness that lingered within him. And yet I never felt any fear for my own safety.

In my car, listening to him talk about nothing in particular, I tried to find fear within me, some kind of anxiousness that maybe this man, a convicted murderer, could pull a knife and command me to pull over.

Obviously, he never did. I gave him several rides home after that, and every time I'd drop him off at his small, yellow apartment in a dodgy part of town, I'd feel not fear, but sympathy for the man.

We're Not in Santa Rosa Anymore, Nana

2007-02-06T14:59:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Come gather 'round people/ Wherever you roam/And admit that the waters/ Around you have grown
And accept it that soon/ You'll be drenched to the bone."
-Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

Stacy, a coworker, lives across the street from my grandparents. During the holidays, my gentleman grandfather, who'd never spoken to Stacy, brought them some Christmas treats.

Stacy responded by making them a plate of treats. When she brought them to my grandparents, they invited Stacy, Stacy's son, and her roommate in. They sat them on the couch, offered them posole and something to drink, played with her kid, and treated them as if they were old friends.

When Stacy told me this I laughed. "Sounds like they've adopted you into the family," I said. "You know," I told her, "If Charlie Manson came to the door, I wouldn't be surprised if they let him in too and offered a bite to eat."

This is a scary thought. In the past few months, Albuquerque has seen a rash of "home invasions." Is there a more frightening phrase than "home invasion"? Apparently, a group of people has been all over town, going into homes, roughing up the people living there, and robbing them blind. It's a matter of being careful--just don't let strangers into your home, right?

It's one of those types of stories that my mother would tell me when I was younger to remind me why we don't open the door to strangers, stories that I now take with a grain of salt (kind of like the "terror alerts" or whatever the color-coded system is called). I'm careful, and the chances are slim of this even occurring to me. Still, people are mysterious. Stacy told me that, about a month ago, her roommate's boyfriend was in the bathroom when he noticed somebody staring in the bathroom window. He ran out into the snow, in his boxers, carrying a knife and a tazer gun, but it was too late. Peeping Tom got away. And I'd always thought of my grandparents' neighborhood as quiet and peaceful.

Then, last week, a man came to my grandparents' house and asked to use the phone. "He looked scruffy," my grandfather explains. So what did my grandparents do?

They let him in.

This scruffy man has been back three or four times since, and they've allowed him in every time. At one point he came over with a nasty sore on his cheek, saying he needed a ride to the hospital and asking to use the phone once again. My grandfather finally drew the line when the man asked for $20. "No sir," my grandfather said, "I live on Social Security."

My grandparents are members of a totally different generation and two people that raised their nine children in the small New Mexican town of Santa Rosa, "where everybody knows your name." But over the years, even Santa Rosa has developed a crime and heroin problem.

Thankfully, they finally grew afraid that maybe this guy was casing the house for a future break-in. When they mentioned to their children what was happening with this stranger, that they'd let him in the house, everybody replied, "Don't ever do that!"

"At the time," my grandmother says, "we thought nothing of it."

This afternoon I went over to visit them and to make sure nobody was hiding in the bushes. I was surprised to find that their front door was locked. In my 22 years of living, my grandparents have never locked the front door. I find it sad that they now have to, and that I come from such a different generation in which locking a front door is a no-brainer. I even envy them.

I like to think that I'm over-reacting, but things happen. Even in my grandparents' time and even before, human beings have often acted in evil ways. We kill. We engage in warfare. We steal and we backstab. It can be a hostile world. But when was it that we became prisoners of not only the external threat of hostility, but our own mistrust of the world around us?

I like to think that I could leave my front door unlocked and not worry about anything happening to me or my Hi-Def TV or my laptop. But it happens. A few years ago here in Albuquerque, a man broke into a couple's home, bound the wife, and killed her husband right in front of her. These more recent home invasions were less brutal--the burglars reportedly roughed up the homeowners but luckily went no further than that--but still, I suppose it can't hurt to be wary.

My other grandfather used to sell paint to the Clutters, which makes me wonder just how close I am to any sort of violence. Sure, these recent burglaries were not as brutal as they could have been, and we ought to try to maintain some of our innocence, but whenever I hear the term "home invasion," this is, sadly, what first comes to mind:

I've Moved On, Steve, and You Should, Too

2007-02-05T14:04:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Serenity now!"
-Frank Costanza

After yesterday's post, I received some wonderful comments in which people shared their own horror stories about jackass neighbors. I especially liked the Pine-Sol story from "anonymous" (who I later discovered was my mother).

I've had an entire day to think about this, and fume, and though I'd love to get a drum set or an electric guitar--two instruments I'm sure the fascist next door would absolutely love--I've decided to give it a rest for now.

After yesterday's altercation, my neighbor, Steve, was smiling. Plus, my landlord likes me and I like him, and I'd hate to make him feel like a babysitter. When confronting me about the volume of my television, my landlord even said in regards to my neighbor, "Some people have to go to the landlord. They can't just ask you to turn it down."God forbid my neighbor has to leave his lair and walk the few steps to my door.

So I've moved the TV. I've made it clear to everybody I know that the parking lot is reserved, so visitors MUST park in the street so Sir Cry-a-Lot doesn't have another fit. By the way, this was never a chronic problem. ONCE, Kim's grandmother misunderstood, and she (gasp!) parked in his space. He totally went off on her--he screamed at the poor old woman because she misunderstood.

Then, last night, when our friend parked in Steve's spot, that was strike two, and he had another fit, and blah blah blah--if you read yesterday's post, you know the story.

What bothers me the most is that I've let this anger me so. I feel as if I'm a lesser person for allowing myself to dwell on this for a full 24 hours. I can't even focus on my schoolwork. The way I'm so consumed by this, so irritated and irritable, makes me sound like somebody I know--Steve!

But two posts is enough to spend on Steve. He deserves no more. Here's the new Simon Serenity Prayer:

Now it's time to let it go.
I will not speak to Steve or even think about him anymore.
Breathe deep--life's too short.
In the time that it took me to write this post,
I've found peace with the situation.
Now I can forget about Steve and enjoy my apartment.

That is, until Steve's next complaint.

Superbowl Buzzkill

2007-02-04T20:12:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: “I don't think much new ever happens. Most of us spend our days the same way people spent their days in the year 1000: walking around smiling, trying to earn enough to eat, while neurotically doing these little self-proofs in our head about how much better we are than these other slobs, while simultaneously, in another part of our brain, secretly feeling woefully inadequate to these smarter, more beautiful people.”
-George Saunders

When my landlord, a soft-spoken, gentle man, came by to pick up the rent a couple of days ago, he informed me that my neighbor had complained about my television being too loud.

I don't blame my neighbor. I got a new TV for Christmas, along with a surround sound system, and I've probably gotten a bit carried away. Plus, the TV and subwoofer are against the wall that we share with this man.

Not wanting to be rude neighbors, I apologized to my landlord and Kim wrote a long apology letter and taped it to our neighbor's door. She explained in the letter that if there are any further problems, the neighbor should immediately let us know and the problem will be remedied.

Then, we moved the TV to the opposite wall and completely reversed the surround sound system that had taken me an entire day to install, just to avoid any future nuisances for our neighbor. Besides, as the apology letter stated, if he had any further issues he had the friendly invitation to let us know.

Tonight, we invited a few friends over to watch the big game. The parking lot has reserved spaces at our apartment, and though we instruct our friends to park in the street, somebody parked in our neighbor's spot. What impeccable timing.

Instead of recognizing a simple mistake, my neighbor parked his 4-Runner directly behind our guest's Miata. I went next door to apologize, yet again, and to ask him to please allow our friend to move his car.

Keep in mind that, by this point, I've never spoken to our next door neighbor. He went directly to the landlord, not to me, to complain rather than to simply ask us to keep it down. Ever since Christmas, I'd never known there was a problem so the volume went up and up. Am I that difficult to approach?

So, tonight, he answered his front door and without even opening the cast-iron door he barked out of the shadows, "What do you want?"

"I'm really sorry, we had a misunderstanding, can my friend move his car?"

He still refused to even open the door. "I'm not leaving for another hour," he said. "And I called the landlord and a tow-truck." He said that his car would not budge until the tow truck arrived. Ouch.

After some pathetic pleading (thank God I'd been drinking), I got him to move his car. "Thank you," I said. "My name's Simon, by the way."

He shook my hand. "Steve," he said. "Oh, and I've also told the landlord that you're music is too loud." Then Steve, a little guy, victoriously strutted home. His screen door smashed shut, and I was left feeling that this was not over.

It's not. I think that, in the middle of the night, I might begin a steady tapping on the very wall that I share with Steve, that wonderful ball of sunshine next door, just to drive him completely insane. I've considered jumping the back wall and going into his backyard to tap on his sliding glass door. I will drive him absolutely nuts. I will make him miserable. He may not hear my TV or my music anymore, but he will hear these strange tapping sounds in the still of the night that may or may not be his neighbor's doing. All of this because he had to go directly to the landlord rather than growing some balls and asking me to please keep it down. It's on, Steve.

A Very Pleasant Surprise

2007-02-03T17:21:00.000-08:00

(This picture is from the "Random Photo File" and has nothing to do with the following post. So don't be startled when you realize that what you're reading has nothing to do with sailing, or vacationing, or the Mexican sea captain in a visor and a dirty shirt, or the guy in a gray polo trying to figure out his camera, or Simon looking terribly sunburned and seasick. -S)

Quote of the Day: "It tastes like the back of a fucking L.A. school bus. Now they probably didn't de-stem, hoping for some semblance of concentration, crushed it up with leaves and mice, and then wound up with this rancid tar and turpentine bullshit. Fuckin' Raid."
-Miles Raymond, Sideways

Since I must arrive to work at 5 a.m. every Saturday and Sunday, I've basically given up the nightlife activities of a college senior, that is unless I want to show up to work unshaven, useless, and still pretty tossed.

If I do some heavy drinking on Friday or Saturday nights, it must be done before 9 (10 at the latest), which is when I go to bed. Since I don't start school until noon on Mondays, I can actually stay up late on Sunday nights--which is unfortunate because at this time everybody else is catching up on sleep that they've lost over the weekend. Luckily, tomorrow's Superbowl Sunday, in case you were unaware, which means that I have an excuse to get tipsy and even be social for once, even though I don't really watch football. I don't even know who's playing. Whatever. Game on!

We went to the nearby liquor store today to stock up on beer. I love this place--it's not a seedy, run-down joint, but a rather quaint (but with a large selection) store run by some pleasant Koreans. We noticed that, in the corner of the store, was this shorter guy pouring wine for and chitchatting with customer. It turns out that every Friday and Saturday, in the afternoon (those are my preferred drinking hours), there is a wine tasting at this liquor store.

I don't know much about wines, and I'm not about to pretend that I do. I hate how everybody that has ever seen Sideways suddenly thinks that they're a wine expert: "Uh, do you happen to have a Peenit Noyr?" Still, I can at least pretend on Fridays and Saturdays and enjoy afternoons of free wine. Game on!

The Fine Line Between Homage and Blatant Rip-Off

2007-02-02T16:57:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "No, now I'm recording Tony fucking Wilson."
Marin Hannett, 24 Hour Party People

Remember that really bad Jet song, “Look What You’ve Done,” from a couple of years ago? (Yeah, I know, this post is a bit outdated, but while the song has been around for a couple of years, my blog has only been here for a few months).

Anyway, the song is lame and goes something like this:

Take my photo off the wall
If it just won't sing for you
'Cause all that's left has gone away
And there's nothing there for you to prove

Oh, look what you've done
You've made a fool of everyone
Oh well, it seems like such fun
Until you lose what you had won

Give me back my point of view
'Cause I just can't think for you
I can hardly hear you say
What should I do, well you choose

Oh, look what you've done
You've made a fool of everyone
Oh well, it seems like such fun
Until you lose what you had won

Oh, look what you've done
You've made a fool of everyone
A fool of everyone
A fool of everyone

Take my photo off the wall
If it just won't sing for you
'Cause all that's left has gone away
And there's nothing there for you to do

Oh, look what you've done
You've made a fool of everyone
Oh well, it seems like such fun
Until you lose what you had won

Oh, look what you've done
You've made a fool of everyone
A fool of everyone
A fool of everyone

Does that seem familiar? Especially the part that goes “Oh, look what you’ve done/ You’ve made a fool of everyone”? Wait a second, that does ring a bell:

Sexy Sadie what have you done
You made a fool of everyone
You made a fool of everyone
Sexy Sadie ooh what have you done.

Sexy Sadie you broke the rules
You laid it down for all to see
You laid it down for all to see
Sexy Sadie oooh you broke the rules.

One sunny day the world was waiting for a lover
She came along to turn on everyone
Sexy Sadie the greatest of them all.

Sexy Sadie how did you know
The world was waiting just for you
The world was waiting just for you
Sexy Sadie oooh how did you know.

Sexy Sadie you'll get yours yet
However big you think you are
However big you think you are
Sexy Sadie oooh you'll get yours yet.

We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table
Just a smile would lighten everything
Sexy Sadie she's the latest and the greatest of them all.

She made a fool of everyone
Sexy Sadie.

However big you think you are
Sexy Sadie.

You may notice, however, that the Beatle lyrics are much more involving, poetic, and moving (One sunny day the world was waiting for a lover/ She came along to turn on everyone) than the amateurish crap churned out by Jet (“Give me back my point of view/
'Cause I just can't think for you).

And, the Jet song sounds almost exactly like the Beatles one, except that Jet’s rip-off is more shoddy and very little, if any, talent shows through.

For some reason, I felt the need to vent tonight, and I found a victim in Jet. Sorry fellas.

But seriously, guys, this could've all been avoided if any one of you had an original bone in your body.

It Puts the Butter on the Skin; or, Screams from the Kitchen, part II

2007-02-01T14:40:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home...it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you're tilting it from a container into a steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to cling to teh container's sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle's rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof."
-David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster"

So I've already mentioned that I am cooking live lobster for Valentine's Day ("Screams from the Kitchen"), but it wasn't until recently that I realized that, since I will be cooking two lobsters, I'll have lots of fun opportunities.

I considered making one watch the other boil to death, just so I could see if it reacts. Then I thought maybe I could make them fight and tell them the winner will be allowed to live. Then I'd cook them both anyway, despite the winner. He's a cruel, mysterious God, the winner will thing as a dunk him into the boiling water.

I wouldn't have to boil them both if they were were cheaper. Then I could buy three lobsters and actually allow one to go free. Then he'd take off and soon die in the hot Albuquerque sun. As he dies on the pavement, this lobster's momentary joy from being set free will soon wear away and he'll think, What a cruel, mysterious God.

I mentioned to a coworker that these were my fantasies. He told me I should talk like Buffalo Bill when I eat the lobster: "It puts the butter on the skin or else it gets the hose again." Then I could tuck my genitals in and dance about in costume made from lobster skins.

I don't know, maybe I'll actually think they're cute when I bring them home. In that case I'll have to remove the rubber bands from their claws, so that they feel that they actually have a chance. Then I'll boil them and enjoy my dinner.

Even More Junk T.V.

2007-01-31T19:18:00.000-08:00

(This photo comes from Kim's faux modeling portfolio--she and a friend got drunk and decided on a photo shoot. I don't actually have permission to put this photo up, so consider yourselves privileged.)

Quote of the Day: "When you decide to be something, you can be it. That's what they don't tell you in the church. When I was your age they would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I'm saying to you is this: when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?"

-Frank Costello, The Departed

Like any heterosexual male, I like Tyra Banks. Unlike any heterosexual male, however, I love her show America's Next Top Model, or as we fans call it, ANTM. In fact, I think this is my third or fourth post about the show.

Recently, an Australian tabloid published a photo of Banks in a bathing suit, looking a tad heavier than what supermodels "should" be.

Rather than going the straight denial route, she took the issue head on. She went onto her talk show in the same bathing suit and compared herself to a life-size version of the tabloid photo. Needless to say, her negative features in the tabloid photo seem heavily exaggerated.

She didn't stop with that. She openly admits that, at 161 pounds, she is thirty pounds heavier than she was at the height of her modeling career, and she's proud of this. Rock on, Tyra.

She's even gone on to discuss cellulite and other "realities"--a concept that other supermodels don't quite grasp.

When I see your figure-less body prancing up and down that catwalk, with prodruding ribs and collarbones, I'm not thinking glamour. I'm not thinking about the product you're selling. I'm not, believe or not, even thinking about sex. At that moment, my mind is accosted by images of you hulked over some toilet, puking your brains and guts out of your mouth and nose. And it's totally not sexy.

I've never given much thought to Tyra. I've always found her business moves impressive and I'm a big fan of ANTM, but otherwise a I thought she was another flash in the pan model, here today, rehab tomorrow. I've had to reconsider. I wonder if this sense of ethics is something she's always had, or if it's a newfound thing. I hope it's always been there, and even if it hasn't, I find it admirable.

Also, another curvy beauty, Scarlet Johannsen, was recently named Sexiest Woman Alive, or something like that. I wonder if we're finally seeing a change in American tastes? That would be awesome.

What's even better is that Johannsen is a fantastic actress. That's right, I'm not only interested in looks. But when you pair up these looks with such talent--wow.

There's a particularly creepy American Idol audition on T.V. at the moment, so I need to to go fulfill my nightly junk television fix.

A Blast From The Past

2007-01-30T13:41:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Nothin' so nifty/as food fun and fifties/ at YesterDave's!/ Yum! Yum!"

-theme from YesterDave's Diner commercials.

I got my first job when I was 14 as a busboy at a local fifties-themed restaurant called YesterDave's. Fifties-themed diners are a dime a dozen, but they're still fun. This one had a DJ booth, a soda fountain, and hostesses who wore poodle skirts and called you "hon."

One of these hostesses, I swear, was bound and determined to take my virginity. She often sent me home, beaming, with lipstick on my cheek. At the time I was pretty proud, being a young man with an older girl (she was in her twenties) hanging off of me and telling everybody how darned cute I was. In hindsight, I now find her actions a tad predatory. Not that it matters--nothing ever went further than a kiss on my cheek. At the time, though I definitely enjoyed the attention, this sex kitten certainly scared the hell out of me.

I was trained by Josh, another busser who, like me, stayed with the restaurant until it finally closed. Theme restaurants are often cursed--the novelty wears off and people lose interest, and YesterDave's was no exception. I was there for three years, and during that time I branched out by working at the soda counter, on the kitchen line, and even as a dishwasher before the restaurant closed it's doors and we all said our tearful goodbyes.

Fast forward to today. I still work in restaurants (that is, hopefully, until I graduate one year from now) as a line cook. Recently, I was surprised to see Josh, the guy that trained me in my very first job, applying as a cook. After YesterDave's closed, he'd gone on to father a child, get married, get divorced, and put on a surprising amount of weight. For some reason, I found this very disconcerting.

I've been with this current restaurant for over a year now, and because of this I am a certified trainer. All this jargon basically means that I am now Josh's trainer.

This whole story is thick with irony. Here I am, training the guy who originally trained me in a restaurant meant to maintain the innocence and naivety of the fifties, a restaurant inevitably forced to close because people's tastes change. People themselves change, though I don't think any of us YesterDave's employees every quite grasped that until the official announcement that YesterDave's was, in fact, closing. It remindes me of a Smith's lyric: "Time's tide will smother you."

Anyway, it feels as if Josh, who was still in high school when he trained me, has lived an entire lifetime and undergone one phase after another since working in that time capsule for however many years. I wonder how he sees me. Have I changed as much as he has? My nostalgia for a decade I've never actually experienced hasn't, and therefore I still have a deep fondness for YesterDave's diner.

Now, I despise the owner of YesterDave's, but when I worked there I loved the place. I couldn't get enough of it. I'd come in even when I wasn't working. I'd hang out and somehow feel important.

I loved everything about that cheesy diner--the jukeboxes, the dark red bar, the stainless steel of my first ever kitchen job, the vinyl booths that made a fart sound whenever somebody sat in them, and the floozy in the poodle skirt that left lipstick on my innocent cheek nightly.

OK, This Semester Needs to End Already

2007-01-29T21:02:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "There can be no understanding between the hand and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator. "
-Maria, Metropolis

Tonight was my second class session of film theory. Already, I'm terrified. I'm an English major, and yet, of all the classes I've taken, the one that requires the largest vocabulary is film theory.

Everything is vague and abstract and incredibly complex. In our syllabus, my professor recommends that we have a Dictionary handy. Sure, that'll fit in my backpack with my multitude of binders, spirals notebooks, and books for my literature classes (including a Bible).

At least now I know how the architecture on Fritz Lang's Metropolis reflects Marxist ideals, or how the movement of the workers was admired by Hitler. In case anybody's wondering, I can now rattle off a whole bunch of film theorist analyses of this silent film that really bores the tears out of most contemporary audiences. Hopefully, Metropolis doesn't come up in conversation at a party. I'd be a total buzzkill. Maybe that's why I don't get invited to parties anymore.

Yes, the class will teach me a lot and yes, I will probably gain some sort of personal growth and blah blah blah. Too bad I will never be able to sit somebody down, show them Metropolis, and explain all of the nuances. Hell, the only reason I watched the film is because my film theory class completes my minor.

Screams from the Kitchen

2007-01-28T21:07:00.000-08:00

(There is a "Far Side" that involves cooking a lobster and is much more pertinent to this post, but I couldn't find it on the net. But I do like this one--at least it involves seafood)

Quote of the Day: "Annie, there's a big lobster behind the refrigerator. I can't get it out. This thing's heavy. Maybe if I put a little dish of butter sauce here with a nutcracker, it will run out the other side."
-Alvy Singer, Annie Hall

I've decided on our Valentine's Day dinner. We'd originally planned on an expensive restaurant, perhaps followed by a movie. No gifts, just lots of money spent on a meal. But we came to realize that we wanted to do something different. Well, I've never cooked a live lobster. Dinner will be at home this year.

I can't wait to bring the lobster home. I'm looking forward to my dachsund's reaction to the giant cockroach. That should be entertaining.

If you haven't already, check out David Foster Wallace's essay "Consider the Lobster," a wonderful piece on the cooking method of boiling the animal alive. I've heard they scream.

Hopefully, after hearing the screams, we don't decide that maybe lobsters for dinner might be a bad idea. Hopefully we won't say, a la Putty from Seinfeld, "Feels like an Arby's night."

Pranks, Jokes, and Creative Writing

2007-01-27T14:23:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Have you heard about the pygmy prostitute? A li'l fucker 'bout yea high."

-my grandfather

My grandfather is the most phenomenal joke-teller. Sitting in his little workshop, among the smell of freshly cut wood and cigarettes, he like to tell his grandchildren, no matter what age (anywhere between 1 and 40) his sometimes innocent, sometimes shockingly filthy jokes.

This question came up recently in my creative writing class: What made you want to write fiction? My answer: A love for joke telling inherited from my grandfather. Many of his jokes are long, detailed story jokes that only work if told right. If they are filthy, innocent, or otherwise, they won't get so much as a chuckle if not executed with the utmost care.

Writing fiction is similar. Your job is to tell a story delicately and uniquely for the desired effect. It takes lots of practice and thought, but the result is incredibly rewarding.

Pranks are the same way. When I was much younger, my cousins sent me on a snipe hunt. After a long while spent banging shovels on the ground and carrying a trash bag, trying to coax the snipes into my possession, I learned that they weren't real. I was pissed.

That didn't stop me from sending my brother on a snipe hunt the following year. The biggest reward is convincing your audience of something that isn't real.

Here's a short joke for today:

This guy is sitting in his living room, watching T.V. There's a knock at the door.

He answers the door to find a snail on the porch. Disgusted, he picks up the snail. "Get the hell outta here!" he says. Then he tosses the snail away and slams the door shut.

One year later, the same guy is sitting in his living room and watching the T.V. There's a knock a the door.

The guy answers the door to find the same snail sitting on his porch. The snail says, "What the fuck was that for?"

The Origins of Humanism

2007-01-26T21:04:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "I am a human being. I consider nothing human alien to me."
-Terence

I wrote the following after the trip I took to Vegas for my twenty-first birthday:

Atop Las Vegas’s Stratosphere, over 100 stories above the Strip, I am reminded of Sandia Crest, towering over Albuquerque. From however many miles above sea level, Vegas—Sin City, chewing up lives and resources and ruthlessly spitting them out—is not all that different from my hometown, Albuquerque. Especially during the day—just a sun-scorched settlement randomly set in the middle of a brown desert wasteland. A small bustle of cars and people crammed into a tiny blackhead surrounded by…nothing.

Just a stop on your way out west. Perhaps stay for a few drinks and maybe some attempts at the slots. Even in Albuquerque we have our casinos, calling from the reservations on the outskirts of our city, our town that sits on historic 66. Most come and go, but some never leave either my town or Vegas, and those people never actually intended to stay in the first place.

Despite the tragic, black hole, suck-you-in, cheesy nature of these forsaken cities, they each have an odd beauty about them, mostly noticeable from high above. Or maybe I’ve just turned 21, and everything is beautiful at that point in my life, but I like to think that maybe there is something strangely exciting about realizing that our existence, our planet, is merely a grain of sand, a fleck of dust, wandering the cosmos.

The window panes are set at an angle, so one could look down towards the Strip.

“It makes me queasy,” I mention to Pat and Yvette, the married couple joining me on my weekend trip to Vegas. The sun shines through the glass and reflects off of Pat’s shaved head.

Yvette, with her surfer shorts and short, spiked, bleached blond hair, is the adventurous member of our trio. “Let’s go outside,” she suggests.

Being a large ball atop a relatively narrow stick, the Stratosphere creaks and moans in even the slightest breeze. It’s common, it’s supposed to do that, and we know this, but it is still quite unsettling to hear this structure creak, signifying a waver in stability. I just keep telling myself that the Stratosphere was built for this very reason, to thrill us as we stand 1,149 feet over Vegas. Still, the popping of my ears unnerved me on the elevator ride to the top.

More people are gathered outside, and the city spread around us is more visible in the open. A chest-high rail surrounds this balcony, followed by a chain-link fence set a few feet out from the rail, so you have not one, but two barriers to keep you from hurtling to your death. An accident is impossible, but if you really wanted two you could jump the rail and quickly climb the fence before anybody realized what you were doing. But what kind of asshole would do that to the pedestrians at the bottom?

For the ultimate Stratosphere experience, the world’s highest thrill rides are provided at the top. There is Insanity, a ride that hangs a group of people in seats at the of each person’s own individual rope. The seats spin in a circle.

I went on a similar ride at the New Mexico state fair, except the one in Albuquerque was not attached to a large arm protruding from the top of a Stratosphere, dangling the ride over 1,000 feet above the ground.

Then there’s the High Roller, a red rollercoaster that wraps around a spire at the top of the Stratosphere. And the spire is a part of the Big Shot, a ride that fires you up the spire and drops you back down.

My fear of heights made me choose to pass on the rides, including the X Scream. The Stratosphere’s website offers a description of this popular thrill ride:

At 866 feet, X Scream is the world's third highest thrill ride. Shaped like a giant teeter-totter, X Scream is an open vehicle that propels riders head-first, 27 feet over the edge of the Stratosphere Tower and dangles them weightlessly above the Strip before pulling it's riders back and over again for more!

I don’t know who in their right mind thinks this might be fun. But this ride, along with the other four, has its apparent appeal—an appeal that is lost on me. I have a feeling that the blonde on the X Scream no longer sees the appeal either.

She was maybe 30, and seated at the very back seat of the “giant teeter-totter.” The operators of the ride, two young men, each checked the safety bars, making sure they were firmly clamped on the riders’ laps. Then the operators chuckled and stepped off the ride.

Pat, Yvette, and I approached the ride to watch it in action. It began to move forward. Clack, clack, clack.

“Aaaaaaaagh!” the woman wailed. And the ride had not even yet dangled “them weightlessly above the strip.”

“OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGOD!” Tears were streaming down her face. Then there was that final clack and the ride quickly tipped forward so that its passengers were looking straight down at the strip.

“Waaaaaaaaahhhh!” I was laughing. Other bystanders were laughing. Even the guy at the very front of the X Scream was laughing.

But for the blonde, this was anything but funny. She was envisioning the ground coming at an alarming rate: faster, then faster, then faster, and then…concrete.

“Oh that poor thing,” Yvette said.

The X Scream propelled them and dangled them a few more times, before they shakily exited, the blonde weeping and barely able to walk.

Of course, that night she probably laughed about it over a few drinks that night. But it was obvious in her eyes that this was traumatizing. She had the glazed look of a victim.

The three of us went to the lounge, where drinks were surprisingly cheap (It did cost us ten bucks a head just to get to the top of the Stratosphere).

Just below us was the revolving restaurant, and ahead of us were the giant windows, and past them was Vegas, sprawled out in the Nevada desert. Vegas, in all its glory, all the money, the extravagant hotels, all of it—reduced to an anthill.

Each of of us completely insignificant. Except for that blonde on the X Scream who, through tragedy, realized her own importance. Through the nasty thought of imminent death she found importance. I wondered which of the ants was her. The queen ant. That sounds right.

I sipped my Harp Lager. We ordered two more rounds and sat in those plush leather chairs, pointing out Vegas hotspots, as if we were looking at a map, not the actual city. God it was gorgeous. When you’ve lived in a desert all your life you’ve need to look at it from a new angle to find its beauty.

Dear Spiderman: Thanks for the Moves!

2007-01-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Just once, I want to hear a black man say, 'Today I got on an elevator, and there was a Jew there, and I got really scared.'"
-Gilbert Gottfried

Kim works in a middle school. Yesterday, she came home looking completely flustered--it had obviously been a rough day. "Oh my God," she said, plopping down on the couch, "one of my students got fingered at school today. She's been expelled."

I just laughed. I remembered one of the scandals at my middle school being almost exactly the same thing. A girl got fingered in class. A male classmate simply reached over and slid his hand into her overalls and the rest is Hoover Middle School history. Apparently it's a common trend: 12- and 13-year-olds engaging in foreplay. At the time, I was still terrified of the opposite sex, so the whole situation totally blew my mind.

(By the way, ladies, I apologize for the use of "finger" as a verb in this post. But let's face it--that's how young men talk.)

Anyway, when I was in my early teens, I remember a classmate explaining his own method. He almost sounded scientific as he explained that one mustn't use their forefinger and middle finger, which is apparently a common mistake. "The rest of the hand gets in the way," he said. "You need to use these fingers." He wiggled his two middle fingers.

"Oh," I said, "like Spiderman."

After we graduated high school, this lively individual went on to permanently damage his brain with a heroin overdose. Also since graduation, I've had friends in and out of rehab, and two or three classmates have died, all in their later teens and early twenties. Others have become parents (I'm happy for them though) and some are, more than likely, in prison. In a way, all of this makes me yearn for those days of middle school, a time when vaginas scared the shit out of me, and the biggest scandal was a little classroom fingering.

Poor Taste and Television

2007-01-24T19:46:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "That was absolutely horrid."
-Simon Cowell

In celebration of American Idol, the wonderful phenomenon that promises evenings of spectacular entertainment (specifically, the auditions), here's a section of my short story, the one that focuses on a creator of a reality-T.V. show that revolves around five terminally ill people:

Soon, the Network got things rolling. We went from city to city, rounding up the terminally ill (“termies” or “termites” we’d begun calling them) and weeding out potential candidates for our show. After a while, we’d whittled it down to our five most compelling, the five people that would, in Bill’s words, “hopefully die in the next year or so.” We even did the American Idol thing—we aired the auditions. That wasn’t quite as entertaining as Idol. A bunch of dying individuals peering into a camera in their eerie, vacant way, asking, pleading for a chance to impress the world, to make their mark before God takes them away to a place without television, can be pretty depressing.

Somewhere in Seattle, I’d sat in a dirty motel room (the Network heads could be pretty cheap) watching our two-hour audition special through almost unbearable static when my ex-wife called. She was watching the show too.

"Haven’t heard from you for a while,” I drawled into my cell phone. I’d been drinking.

“What you’re doing is wrong,” Rita had snapped. Then she hung up. I haven’t spoken to her since.

Every week, we flew our five termies to some place in the U.S. for a group activity. One week it was Six Flags, another time it was New York City. After learning that Lisa really wanted to see Mount Rushmore, we flew them to South Dakota.

My favorite termite was Cherisse. She was very lively, especially for somebody that was dying. I stood and chatted with her by the railings at Rushmore’s base. In front of me was Dan, slumped over in his wheelchair, and in front of Cherisse was Randall in his wheelchair, peering at the huge stone faces of dead presidents. Further up the railings was Lisa, standing alone, apart from the frightened tourists, oblivious and in awe of the mountain. She appeared to be a little elderly person for the obvious reason, her visual appearance. But she also had a certain quiet restraint, making the only things childish about her the small stature and a bug-eyed, upward stare marked by a youthful sparkle of wonder. While Lisa stood staring at the carved mountain, Cherisse and I stared at Lisa. It hadn’t taken very long for everybody to get used to the cameras and to begin acting as normal human beings: They began to share emotions, stopped trying to always look so good (besides, most of them had no hair to style anyway, ha ha), and even allowed themselves to occasionally be rude.

“Lisa is so heartbreaking. I hate to say it, but she kind of freaks me out,” Cherisse confided in me, despite the small microphone affixed to the collar of her Berkeley sweatshirt. “She looks like a mini Ross Perot.”

“Cherisse,” I began to scold through a half sigh/ half stifled laugh. It was a funny comment, I thought, but not one that others would find all that hilarious. Luckily, I was in the shot, which meant it would probably be edited before the show aired, saving Cherisse’s reputation. Not that she would’ve cared. Like the others, she was dying anyway.

Gregory seemed to materialize out of nowhere, his gaunt frame engulfed in a giant coat, his small bald head making his black beanie look huge.

“Next week, we should hit up a casino somewhere, or a bar.” Gregory had become a bit of a downer.

“That would be fun, Gregory, but we can’t with Randall and Lisa.”

“Take them to a Mickey D’s or something.” I wished I could help him, that I could maybe bring him out of his eternal bleakness by taking them somewhere that he’d actually enjoy.

“Look, Gregory,” I said, matter-of-factly, “First of all, the last thing you need is some alcohol. Secondly, the Network wanted to put you all together every week so they’d have footage of some interaction—”

“Fuck the Network,” he interrupted. “They’re not dying.”

It took all my strength not to say You signed the contract, you Negative Nancy. If I were Bill, I would have said it without thinking twice. Speaking of Bill, this is when he pulled me aside, away from the cameras and the group of condemned T.V. stars.

“We’ve gotta talk,” he said. “privately.”

We made our way towards the restaurant—you know, the one on North by Northwest, where Cary Grant pretends to get shot. Anyway, Bill spoke as we walked.

“Listen, Jason, it’s been six months. Nobody’s died yet.” He fired up a cigarette.

I stopped walking. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Look, we promised people a competition.”

“I didn’t promise that. Your buddies at the Network did.”

He took a drag and rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that, your righteous B.S. We promised our audience that the last one alive would get one million donated to his or her charity, which would imply some sort of impending doom. Right now, everything’s all sunshine and roses. That’s not a good thing. Not for ratings.”

Film Theory and Fishnet Stockings

2007-01-23T18:53:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not."
-Roald Dahl

This semester I'm taking 18 credit hours, which is more than I'd ever taken, but I was feeling rather confident about my classes. That was until last night, when I went to my film theory class.

First of all, I don't even know what the hell "film theory" means, but the class completes my media arts minor so I figured I could learn something when I registered. My professor, a tall, slender blonde woman, entered the class wearing a grey wool skirt, a matching top, a black fur neck wrap, black heels, and fishnet stockings. The neck wrap and heels mader her already intimidating stature look even larger, and she left the wrap on for the entirety of the three and a half hour class. She talked in a quiet, steady, and very stern tone and emphasized just how difficult the class would be. She had these green eyes that were so light that they gave her this certain intensity that gave her a reptilian gaze, making one fear that she may strike at any minute. She looked like a darker, hotter version of Cruella Deville.

And all of this would have certainly been quite sexy if I wasn't relying on this femme fatale to give me a grade that would earn me my minor. So, as she dimmed the lights and turned on Metropolis, I sat in my plastic seat and quaked in the dark when she paced the room and surveyed her students, her victims, with that terrifying gaze. It's going to be a long semester.

Damage

2007-01-22T07:01:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "You could put walls around this place and call it an insane asylum."
-Seinfeld (the quote goes something like that, but maybe not exactly. It's the part that Jerry is talking about his parents apartment complex, Del Boca Vista)

Last night, I watched Jackass #2. This is one of those movies that one is ashamed to admit he saw and even more ashamed to admit that he laughed.

What can I say? It wasn't The Godfather, but it wasn't meant to be. Lots of pain, lots of sophomoric chuckling. What I find shocking is that, while Steve Irwin died in a freak encounter with a stingray, Steve-o can put a fish hook through his cheek and swim with a bunch of hammerheads and not even lose a limb.

What's really fun is to try to look deeper into these guys, which sounds impossible when you're dealing with a bunch of giggling, well, jackasses. But they have to be torn up and damaged inside, emotionally, that is, to engage in such self-destructive behavior. You want to take a hold of them and say, to quote Heathers, "what's your damage?!"

These guys are complete morons, but its fun watch them in their idiocy. Still, everything's fun and games until somebody gets killed. Honestly, was anybody all that surprised when Steve Irwin died in his his line of work?

Eating Habits That Baffle Me (causing me to make fun of them)

2007-01-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Where's the beef?"

I work with a vegetarian that I never skip an opportunity to torment. He's a skinny, lanky fellow that has probably never hurt anybody, but I'm too weak not to poke fun at him whenever he orders his employee meal. It doesn't help that I'm often the one to make his food.

Recently, when he ordered his meal, I put a huge tray of plain leaf lettuce in the expo window and told him his order was ready. Another time when he ordered a meal, another cook placed a raw hamburger patty in the window and said, "Order up!"

I learned that we also have a vegan working at the restaurant. She is a small, quiet person that I haven't had the chance to torture quite yet. Unfortunately, though we use pure canola oil in our fryers, she already knows that we fry everything, meats and all, alongside each other. So I guess I won't have the opportunity to give her an order of fries and wait until she finishes eating to say, "Ha! I fried that with some cod and breaded chicken!"

It's mean-spirited and even ignorant, which is something I need to work on, and I truly apologize to any vegetarians or vegans that might be reading this. But my actions are fairly tame compared to some of my coworkers who worked up the courage to ask the poor girl, "So, do vegans swallow?"

"Stranger Than Fiction" Film Review

2007-01-20T16:27:00.000-08:00

"This may sound like gibberish to you, but I think I'm in a tragedy."
-Harold Crick

Last night, we saw Stranger Than Fiction at the dollar theater. I must say I was pleasantly surprised.

The film focuses on Harold Crick, an IRS auditor who begins to hear his own life being narrator by some unfamiliar voice. Soon, the narration tells us, and Harold, of his "imminent death."

Come to find out, Harold is a character in a book-in-progress. The author of the book, and the owner of the voice, is popular writer Kay Eiffel. With the help of professor Jules Hilbert, Crick must find Eiffel before she writes the ending to her book, an ending that would certainly mean Crick's demise.

Faced with death, Crick breaks from routine to pursue guitar playing and a love interest, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. This odd match would usually be hard to swallow, but these two actors had me convinced.

Coming from Monster's Ball director Marc Forster, it is no surprise that this film has a preoccupation with death. I've never seen such a light-hearted film with such dark subject matter. Forster manages to find a very delicate balance, and it works marvelously.

Crick is played with shocking restraint by funny man Will Farrell. This performance is quite a surprise coming from such a rambunctious actor, and it is quite a revelation. This is such a different role for Farrell, and yet I can't imagine anybody else playing Crick with such subtle effectiveness. In other words, Farrell blew me away. He even outdoes respected veteran actress Emma Thompson.

Thompson's performance (and I would've expected this from Farrell) is rather overdone. She hams it up a bit to play the author with writer's block. She was not a disappointment, and I enjoyed her character, but she could have toned it down a bit. I would've preferred a bit more restraint. Still, I respect Thompson, and her character's obsessive search for an appropriate way to kill off a character is a joy, as is her later fear that she could be killing Crick or, even worse, she may have already killed off characters in her former, death-obsessed novels.

The always-wonderful Dustin Hoffman plays Professor Hilbert, and nobody plays quirkiness better. Hilbert a literature scholar, caffeine addict, and the faculty lifeguard, and he is a delight in every scene he's in.

Like Adaptation, Stranger Than Fiction has one of those hyper-clever, "I wish I'd thought of that"-type plots. But it doesn't just rely on cleverness--there is a very real sense of depth to this film, with it's existential themes and it's lessons in living as one sees fit. Also, having taken several creative writing classes, I found myself giggling at Eiffel's dilemmas. I was reminded of numerous lectures from my instructor last semester that involved a tendency for writers to kill off their characters. Those out there who happen to be writers (so anybody with a Blogger account) really should see this film. You'll be able to enjoy it even more with that extra level of depth from understanding Eiffel's plight.

That Picture Looks Like I Just Woke Up; or, I Couldn't Think of a Title for This Post

2007-01-19T15:28:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "Since you have no choice but to begin in uncertainty, you must learn to tolerate uncertainty and, if possible, to turn it into excitement."
-Stephen Koch

For school credit this semester I will be working on the Blue Mesa Review, a literary magazine. This, I can imagine, will be quite the experience. I will be working in the fiction department, and today I was given a whole stack of manuscripts to divide into "no's" and "maybe's."

This has really put things into perspective. I was given last year's issue for comparison purposes. So far, I've only read three or four of the manuscripts, and some of the writing was, well, no better than some of my own short stories at home. It was only three stories, but none of it was on par with the published work.

While I say that it was no better then some of my own stories, I'm not saying that my work is better. One of these days, I'll be sending work off to literary magazines, and somebody, just as I did today, will look at my writing and place it in the "no" pile without second thought. It's humbling to read published stories and know that there is a ton of work I need to do to even work my way up to a "maybe."

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the writer's life that hopefully lay ahead of me will probably be a thankless one. One full of pain, full of the disappointment of knowing that I thought I had something publishable but editors thought otherwise.

Then again, I have the fleeting joy of knowing that there's a short story lurking in the "fiction" folder on my computer desktop, a piece waiting for some nourishment, waiting for me to go back to it and maybe one day be transformed into a bona fide finished product.

From my CD Collection

2007-01-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day: "He freely gave to charity/ And had that common touch/ They were grateful for his patronage/ And thanked him very much/ So my mind was filled with wonder/ When the evenin' headlines read/ That Richard Cory went home last night/ And put a bullet through his head."

-"Richard Cory"

There are certain aspects of this world that we all know and have adopted as universal truths. For example, we know that the earth is flat. We also know that sodium and chloride combine to make salt. And, of course, one of my favorite universal truths: Everybody loves Van Morrison. Nobody can honestly say that they don't enjoy "Brown Eye Girl." It's physically impossible, just like falling off the edge of the earth.

My favorite work of his comes from his first band Them. It was with Them that Morrison originally recorded the classic "Gloria." Them also recorded a fantastic version of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (Their version of the song was later sampled in the Beck song "Jackass" on the very likeable album Odelay).

Them does not have a very wide catalogue of music, which means that everything they've recorded can be found on the 2-disc Them anthology The Story of Them. The charm of this bands music comes from the fact that, as artists, it is fairly apparent that they do not take themselves quite seriously. They have a garage band feel to their music (albeit, an excellent garage band). Of course, Van Morrison went on to become a huge success with "Brown Eye Girl," but I recommend checking him out as a real rocker. The Story of Them is a fine, affordable anthology and one of the best jam CD's I have. It's up there with The Who Live at Leeds and the Rolling Stones and Ry Cooder's Jamming With Edward, another fun album worth picking up.