Jack's Appetite For Strange

Neener, neener, neener.

2006-06-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

First things first: I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest last night. My friend Mark scored a couple tickets to a press screening of the film. It was at the mighty Arclight Theater a couple blocks from my home, and Leonard Maltin sat in the row behind us.

What did I think of it? Well, frankly, in the words of Queen Victoria, "IT FUCKING RULED!" The best sequel I've seen in years by a wide margin.

It was so imaginative, so full of character, and action, and nuance, and spectacle. It actually managed to build off of the first movie and deepen and expand on the world and its characters. Johnny Depp is fantastic in the role he'll be remembered for (obviously), Bill Nighy gives the dreaded Davy Jones a soul, and even with the addition of new characters and situations, everyone has a reason to be there. No character feels shoehorned into the script. Amazing.

If the third film is as good as this one, I'd say Pirates of the Carribean might be the best adventure movie trilogy ever. Cause you know, it's funnier than Lord of the Rings, And? It has PIRATES, and that makes all the difference.

Following the movie, we went to Musso & Frank's for old fashioned meat and potatoes style cuisine and world class martinis. Have you ever been? It's one of my favorite places in L.A.

***

I turned 36 years old a couple weeks ago on June 16th. This year I celebrated by donning a plastic viking helmet and inviting a bunch of friends to the Cat & Fiddle on Sunset Blvd (conveniently located less than a block from my home).

Fun was had by all (or at least I was way to drunk to notice those who were not having fun) and even though I actively encouraged people to NOT buy me presents, I still ended the evening with a fair amount of swag. The viking helmet was a big success with everyone (many took a turn wearing it) and you really get into it as a fashion statement after only two drinks.

The party seemed a success and has inspired the desire to aim for something a bit more ambitious in the future. Halloween, say, or Saturnalia. Heh.

Some of you might remember that I wanted to quit working for the City of Los Angeles by my 36th birthday. I still work for library, etc. so I did not succeed in breaking free yet. Also, I find that I really like having health insurance. Sixteen year old Jack is off somewhere sneering at me, and I am of a mind to agree with him.

It doesn't mean that I've given up, only that I admit to a lack of creative thinking and drive on my part the last half year. I allowed myself to get distracted (or even distracted myself intentionally). I've gone a few interviews to at least transfer out of the department I'm in, but that has not bore any fruit yet.

***

My grandfather had a massive heart attack about a month ago. He's 91 years old and was in Los Angeles only an hour before it happened. He was here to visit Barbara (an old family friend) and myself. I'd had no idea he was anywhere near here until I got the emergency call from my cousin.

It was pretty serious (a simultaneous brain stem stroke was suspected) and for a couple days he looked like a goner. The old man has a stubbornness that takes several decades to perfect though, and has made almost a full recovery. That is pretty awesome.

Some things you should know about him:

He's 91 years old.
He lives alone and up until the heart attack, still drove his car on occasion.
He passed his GED a couple years ago (he dropped out of school during the Great Depression to get a job and help support his family).
Started college on a scholarship recently with plans to study journalism.
Likes the book The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas a lot and mentions it at some point to me during nearly every visit (i.e. if I see him over the course of a couple weeks he'll mention it once).
Enjoys drinking coffee out of china cups.
His name is George.

An odd thing about me...

2006-05-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

When I act like an arrogant prick in order to cover up a crushing emotional blow... no one questions for even a moment as to why I'm behaving in such a manner. Any sort of bullshit answer I give will be believed. Because that sort of behavior is to be expected or something.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about it, honestly. But either mode is okay I guess as long as I don't have to tell anyone what's really going on.

Feynman

2006-04-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple video clips of the late physicist Richard Feynman, here and here. Oh, and this too.

I love reading and especially listening to Feynman talk about anything. There was such a sense of wonder and an earthy joie de vivre about the guy. Check out the photographs from 1965 Nobel Prize ceremony (this one's my favorite) sometime. He looks too mischievious and uncultured to be allowed among all those high society types. Heh.

So he was a genius. But he also had the ability to explain his leaps of logic in an irresistibly engaging fashion. That's a quality few have, and one of the things that must have made him such a great teacher.

Watch Feynman. He's so exuberant he comes off like a ten year old boy who's never been spanked. I've actually talked to people who doubted that he had a world class intellect. The thing is, with his common manner he made his genius look easy --like Fred Astaire dancing, or Picasso painting. It reminds me of a passage from a Sherlock Holmes story, The Red Headed League by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

"Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else."

Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.

"How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?" he asked. "How did you know, for example, that I did manual labour. It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's carpenter."

"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more developed."

"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?"

"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc-and-compass breastpin."

"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?"

"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk?"

"Well, but China?"

"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple."

Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all."

"I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake in explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid."

The clips are from the BBC Horizons program from 1981 I think. The entire show is out there for interested parties to find. Highly rewarding conversation.

From the spam folder...

2006-03-26T21:46:00.000-08:00

Like many of you, I regularly check my junk e-mail folder to make sure that something important is not slipping by. There is another reason though. If anyone is ever going to offer up the secrets of the universe to me (AT AN INSANELY LOW PRICE! FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!), I know it's going to come from a seemingly disreputeable source.

Even mythically this is the way it's always been. Eve got the skinny on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil not from the Big CEO at the top, but from the lowly serpent. Who was probably an intern and not even supposed to be there that day.

When you think about it, omnipotence was probably really easy back in the day, when there was like... one dude and his gal. But then the franchise grew and grew, authority was delegated, and now even when someone really good and worthy prays the request gets caught up in a bureaucratic morass of interoffice politics and middle-management assholes.

Anyway...

Looking through the junk I noticed the sender's names on some of them are just, well, awesome. They sound like they were generated by a computer program with a mad love for Charles Dickens and maybe Damon Runyon and Will Eisner. Check it out:

Peony Burkes, Miltiades Hendershott, Sherlock Gadbois, Ethelinda Krawczyk, Coinneach Whitmarsh, Snooker S. Insists, Angrily T. Bastille, Zipporah Bevel, Odin Raimondi, Madhavi Ambrosino, Lamentation H. Keyword, Urszula Delfino, Vasanta Wease, Herring Josiah, Kaapo Fair, Lorca Verdun, Nanuk Mcquaig, Sakura Barbaro

Fun, fun, fun. For what it's worth, my fave name on the list is Angrily T. Bastille. Is five minutes is too long to speculating on what the 'T' stands for? I hope it's Tourettes.

"Put down your weapons! You are surrounded by armed bastards!"

2006-02-23T08:57:00.000-08:00

Favorite tv show: Ah, at present that would be Life On Mars.

Life has been a bit odd lately. Work has been a piece of cake the past few weeks. One of the reasons for this I'm certain is that the Senior Librarian of our department went on vacation for three weeks. This would be the one that likes to scream a lot.

I can't speak for anyone else, but it was like five days before I realized that the general feeling about my department was transformed. Maybe a little more relaxed. Unclenched even. Certainly less stressful and working more efficiently. Man, it was weird. Like finding out the Souix had named her "She Who Makes The Room Better By Her Absence" or something. Others noticed the phenomenon as well. In a move that surprised no one --I was the most vocal about it. But you know, discreet.

Anyway, she's well-rested and returned now. I'm wondering how much time we have before the screaming starts.

Through a circuitous trail of links I'll not bore you with I ran across the essay "Why America Is Polarized by Philip Slater. I urge you to read it. I think the man is definitely on to something there.

Clearing some debris out of the draft folder...

2006-01-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

When I was a boy, I thought I grew older I'd have the feeling of actually being smarter. You know, like there'd be some sort of mental click and I'd realize that a new plateau had been reached or it would be like a power up in a video game. "I am twelve years old now. That last level was pretty tough. That bonus round must be around here somewhere!"

As near as I can figure, what getting smarter really feels like is every year getting a more accurate picture of my own ignorance in relation to the world around me. Which is fine I guess, but it lacks a certain oomph! that I cherished in the "power up theory" years.

No, I don't know where I was going with that either.

So, how was Christmas for everyone? Mine, strangely, was pretty great. My cousin Anthony invited me down to San Diego to spend the holiday with his family and as it turns out, much more of my extended family than I was expecting.

I took the train down on the 24th where they were having a traditional Italian Christmas Eve fish feast. This was the first I knew of the tradition as my father doesn't care much for fish and so it made infrequent appearances at the dinner table. There were about twenty people there.

On Christmas Anthony and I went out for a three mile walk. We talked about politics, the state of the world, religion, etc. He said something I found interesting, the gist of which was that in his experience, people with a religious aspect to their lives tended to have more wisdom than those that did not. As he put it, they were better at recognizing evil.

I told him that my experience of the world was vastly different to his. People who are very religious tend to see evil everywhere and tend to lack the wisdom necessary to discern the difference between Real Evil (censorship, war profiteering, violence to another human being) and Perceived Evil (homosexuality, stem cell research; the depiction of violence in a movie, tv show, video game, etc.)It's important to note that Anthony is not very religious himself. He was just pointing out something he'd noticed. So, something for me to think about.

After our walk, he urged me to jump into the freezing swimming pool. His wife Antonia told me I didn't have to and that her husband might not even follow me in (he is tricksy sometimes), but I would not be swayed.

Anthony gave me a swimsuit to put on, and I jumped in and swam the length of the pool. As my testicles shrank to the size of peanuts I distinctly remember thinking that the water was not as cold as I'd feared. Anthony did follow me in, by the way.

The day after Christmas I uh... got to see the Doctor Who special "The Christmas Invasion" featuring the new 10th Doctor David Tennant (recently seen as Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).

It was pure geeked out bliss I tell you. I think Tennant is going to be great. The 21st Century is Really Fucking Cool sometimes.

"What is your dangerous idea?"

2006-01-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

You might have seen this elsewhere. If so, I apologize but really, THIS is what I call awesome.

That's 119 essays by some of the smartest people drawing breath right now. With all the genius and wonder available in the world today, I cannot understand why anyone could bear to spend time watching the bulk of reality television, listen to...

Ah, you've heard it all before from me.

KONG!

2005-12-16T07:49:00.000-08:00

Last week I saw Peter Jackson's KING KONG. Thanks to a friend with sneak preview tickets I got to see it a full week ahead of most people. Go me. Also, there was free food involved, which never irks me.

For the few days after when I told people I had seen it, they would of course ask, "How was it?" My response was always an enthusiastic, "It RULED!" or "Awesome!" or something to that effect.

To which they would respond....

"Really?"

This happened to the point where I started to wonder if everyone else saw a different trailer than I did. Possible evidence of dimensional shift at the very least.

"Yes! Really! It was fucking incredible! Why is everyone so shocked?"

I thought KING KONG was all gobsmackingly terrific. I don't know as I've ever watched a movie that nailed that pulpy, romantic 1930s adventure feel so well. Andy Serkis outdoes his Gollum from LOTR here. For the scenes on Skull Island alone I'd think it's the best adventure movie since RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Naturally, the fight between Kong and the t-rex is worth the price of admission by itself. And as thrilling as it all is, you'll still cry at the end.

Incidentally, there are some scenes in the movie that are a bit intense. You might think twice about taking a small child to see it. Some parents in our theater did and by the time of the human sacrifice scene... the poor kid sounded positively terrified. He was whimpering. Luckily his parents saw that he wasn't liking it and took him out early.

On Saturday, I'm going to see the original Merian C. Cooper KING KONG in a double feature with MIGHTY JOE YOUNG at the Egyptian. I've been holding off seeing for years, hoping to catch it for the first time on the big screen.

Finally posted.

2005-11-11T08:49:00.000-08:00

Last week was one of those weeks. The kind where not only does nothing go right but if "Nothing Going Right" were an Olympic event you'd take home the gold and set records that wouldn't be toppled for years?

First off, I was late getting to my improv class on Tuesday night. I've never been late to class before, but I had to vote and wouldn't be able to afterward (class runs from 7-10 pm). So I called ahead and that was all good.

Ah, but then there's class itself. Imagine spending three hours a week feeling a complete moron among some of the best and brightest you've met in the past few years. I have one of the best teachers the place offers, the students in my class are great; nevertheless the concepts presented do nothing so much as skip across the surface of my mind, never sinking in.

Every week it's the same thing:

1. Go to class.
2. Feel like the Special Needs kid.
3. Wait for the short bus to take me home.
4. Realize there is no bus.
5. Wonder "What the fuck is my problem?"
6. Walk home.
7. Be depressed for days over my near crippling inability to do this improv shit.
8. Repeat the following week.

I've been so miserable about it lately that I felt like quitting. I wanted to quit so badly. So I called a couple friends for encouragement and all got nothing but variations on, "The trick to doing something tough is to get more engaged!" and "You've got so much fortitude! Stick with it! There's bound to be a breakthrough soon!"

Sometimes I think my friends are all just blood enemies lacking a firm resolve. So I didn't quit, and also dutifully checked off items number two through seven above.

By Thursday I was still thoroughly depressed, and I suspect not really suitable for human interaction. Naturally, I ignored all the signs and started to chat with Maureen on MSN Messenger. That was such a mistake.

I started out by trying to compliment her on the uniquity and sheer wonderfulness of her Halloween costume. Somehow this devolved within minutes (possibly seconds) into taking the losing side of a puerile argument over how some works of art are better than others, etc. This has always pissed her off in the past, and it was a total success in that regard once again.

At this point I got offline feeling more than a little annoyed with myself. I admitted to myself that maybe I was totally wrong in this instance --not due to the strength of Maureen's arguments but because of the way my heart nearly seized up when I tried to defend my side of it. No position that is right or defendable could ever make you feel that wretched. Right?

So, I was wrong and she was right. Again. I think it's possible that I'm wrong about that particular issue to a degree that I'm not able to fully comprehend at this time. So when I speak to her again I'll probably apologize.

P.S. It's been a while now. Much has happened. I quit my improv class for one. I don't like quitting anything I've started but came to the compelling conclusion that I was not enjoying myself, sucked really bad at it, and need to work far harder on it than I am willing to at this time in order to become merely adequate. On the bright side, I'm not depressed nearly as much.

In re: Murrow, McCarthy

2005-10-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

In response to Chris, about Edward R. Murrow, McCarthy, etc.:

Murrow's exposing McCarthy's tactics, etc. on national tv didn't pave the way for advocacy journalism. That's been around since almost the instant after Gutenberg got his bright idea. There was tons of the stuff written both in favor of and against abolition, women's rights, the Confederacy, etc.

No, the main difference between broadcast journalism today and in Murrow's time is that back then the networks ran their news departments at a loss. The news was considered a public service if you will.

While Murrow did not believe it was possible for a journalist to be completely objective in all matters, he thought it was always possible to report the news fairly and show all sides of a story. He was scrupulous in this. His See It Now shows are still considered by many as the greatest news programs in tv history, and the Radio-Television News Directors Association & Foundation give out a yearly award "honoring outstanding achievements in electronic journalism" that bears his name.

Now of course, everything's changed: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, etc. have all realized there's much money to be made in the news; which can only be a detriment to any actual reporting being done. A friend of mine who writes for a news program on a major network once joked on the phone to me that he "had to get back to writing the day's fiction." I laughed at the remark, but in a slightly chilled to the bone kind of way.

In regards to McCarthy, it's not as if Good Night, And Good Luck is the fifth movie in as many years dealing with subject. I think this might be the first done about any of it in my lifetime, which means it's also the first in yours; so you can't be that sick of it.

The McCarthy era was a dark one in American history. The issues at stake then are just as important now, and will remain so for as long as there is an United States. That being the case, it's necessary to bring it up from time to time; to inform the younger generation if no one else.

If you really want to get mad at a subject that has been done to death, can you all stop it with the Jesus nonsense already? Please? It's been two thousand years. Time to face the truth: He's never coming back, and you wouldn't get along with Him if He did (you think there's a generation gap with your folks, try coming to grips with your messiah's couple of millennia gap), and He's never heard of you. Let it go.

Also, Christian rock really sucks. Surely any divinity that encourages such things should be um, avoided.

More later, about other subjects.

"Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts."

2005-10-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

I had my two day suspension last week. It was pretty relaxing. I am not sure if giving me two unpaid days off is as an effective act of punishment as it sounds on paper.

Tuesday night I began on Level 3 of my improv classes at the IO West for the second time. Don't know if I mentioned it, but I was held back the last time and took a bit of a break before jumping back in.

After that class I believe I have an idea as to why I'm not progressing as fast I would like in improv. I've been trying to Not Look Stupid too much. I have to be willing to look Very Stupid Indeed, and that's just the nature of the animal.

On Wednesday I saw the movie Good Night, And Good Luck. Have you seen it yet? You must, as it is mighty.

In the early 1950s the Communist 'witch hunts' were full swing in this country. While not solely responsible for the climate of hysteria, no one made more hay of it than Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. His smear tactics destroyed the lives and careers of many, and scared even more.

In short, Joseph McCarthy, Republican Senator from Wisonsin was a fucking ASSHOLE.

Into the fray stepped broadcast journalism god Edward R. Murrow. Murrow made his reputation during WWII, reporting on live radio from the London Blitz. When the Allies marched into Buchenwald, it was Murrow who told the world of the horrors found there. His credentials and integrity were beyond reproach. Murrow was a hero.

The movie tells how Murrow used that same sort of courage and tenacity to help bring down Joe McCarthy. It's a shame they couldn't have gone into it even more, but what they have is awesome. The movie is as factual as possible, everything in it has been "double sourced" as if it were a news story and not a movie about one.

Oh, and it's filmed in the crispest, most glorious black and white this side of Frank Miller's Sin City. The soundtrack contains a bunch of jazz standards sung by Diana Reeves. Everyone smokes in the movie, EVERYONE, and I think that's cool too.

You can find a long radio interview with the George Clooney about the making of the movie here. An interview with Bob Edwards, author of the book Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism can be found here.

Good Night, And Good Luck is a film well worth your time and money.

I answered a quiz and came up with...

2005-10-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

Which Member of the Endless Are You?

Well that's all right. I was kind of hoping for Destruction though.

The Locked Room Mystery

2005-10-13T09:05:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday I woke up at about 6:45 a.m. Feeling the first stirrings of a cold coming on, I stumbled to the bathroom.

The bathroom has a built-in-the-wall space heater. I closed the bathroom door, turned the heater on and jumped into a hot shower, hoping to create a sort of sauna effect. Done showering, I dried off and opened the door.

The knob turned easily and gave every indication that it was going to open, except for the part where it actually opened and I left the bathroom to continue my day. The door was resolutely stuck on the first part.

I jiggled the knob, put my shoulder into it, banged my fist near the lock. After five minutes of that left me still standing on the wrong side of the door, I turned to look at the room around me.

My bathroom is not large. It has a small window (with burglar bars), a medicine cabinet, two drawers on either side of the sink and three cabinets below that.

Looking into one of drawers I found the bent into a rectangle zipper handle from a bag and a pair of vice grip pliers. (I had used the pliers in here previously to fix something and had left them in the drawer.)

Using the pliers I bent the zipper handle into a 'c' shaped piece of wire. I then slid the wire in the doorjamb over the lock and around. Now the two ends of the wire we're extending above and below the lock. Simplicity itself to just use the pliers to get a good grip on them and spring the lock, right? Man, how clever am I?

The lock would not budge. Obviously no one had told it how monstrously clever I was being. That kind of bugged me. Trapped though I was, I was not without resources. I had a pair of heavy vice-grip pliers did I not? I decided to get all Lord of the Flies on it.

I brought the pliers down hard on the doorknob. Repeatedly. There were a few times when I imagined individuals that will have to evolve a few millenia before I can embrace them in the warm folds of the word "loathe." That spiced it up a bit.

When hitting was not entirely successful, I used the pliers to rip pieces of the doorknob off in strips. Beneath the knob I saw that the lock mechanism was encased in a sort of circular box of harder metal. I began to hit at that.

At this point, I could hear my upstairs neighbor begin to get ready for work. I yelled her name "Tamara!" over and over. Nothing could dissuade her from her goal. I listened to pee, shower, brush her teeth and gambole off to work. She never heard me.

Back in my bedroom, I could hear my cellphone ringing. It was probably work calling. I was supposed to be there at 8:40 a.m. If they were ringing me, that put the time at close to ten.

Sizing up the door and my magnificent vice-grip pliers, I saw that it might be possible to take the hinges off. Some struggle later, the hinges were off the door and on the counter. The door stood closed, unbeaten.

I sat back against the tub. You have got to be fucking kidding me. Why can't I get out of here? This wasn't just a closed door. It was beginning to take on the aspects of an existential crisis.

I think it was here that I started kicking at the door like an insane person and hurling abuse at it in voluminous supply. The word 'bitch' was screamed, and 'motherfucker'; then I strayed off the path of known obscenity and wound up in a linguistic patch best known to the children sired of merchant sailors, raised in the Catholic church, and run off to be carnies.

Resigning myself to the idea that I wasn't ever going to leave my bathroom without help, I put my face in the window and listened for activity. When I heard some, I yelled. Much of my yelling consisted of things like, "Hello! Can anyone hear me? I'm trapped in my bathroom! Helloooo!" I was not heard, or roundly ignored.

I heard someone punching the security keypad to the parking lot next door, and yelled louder. Nothing. Finally, I said "YOU, PUNCHING THE KEYPAD! CAN YOU HEAR ME OR NOT?"

Guy: Who is that?

Me: It's me. I live in one of the lower apartments over here. I'm trapped in my bathroom. Can you let my landlady know? She lives in the front apartment.

Guy: Ummm... okay. Which apartment do you live in.

Me: The lower rear one.

My landlady appeared a few minutes later with Dean, the handyman. They passed me my cellphone through the window and I called in to work. I had to repeat myself alot to be heard over the gut laughing of everyone there.

Dean eventually had to take the moulding off the outside of the door to get it open and let me out. He said that a spring had broken inside, forcing the 'male end' of the lock farther into the doorjamb and making it impossible to open.

The end. Those vice-grips were awesome, but now I wish I'd had a fire ax instead.

The inevitable response.

2005-10-13T08:12:00.000-07:00

I heard back from Personnel on my big case. They read my letter and decided to suspend me to the tune of two days. Next Tuesday and Wednesday to be exact. No surprise there, really. I am preparing my Netflix queue even now.

I offer now the meat of their remarks:

Upon review of the letter submitted by Mr. Jack's union representative and the written comments attached from Mr. Jack himself, it is the hearing officer's opinion that there is no remorse or lesson learned by Mr. Jack. he presents himself as a target that has been singled out and implies that the no internet policy is "19th century and old-fashioned. He also states that his job as a Clerk Typist is at a high level of performance. The tone of Mr. Jack's written response is indicative of someone who believes it is not necessary to amend his work performance even after supervisory counseling. In his written statement, he clearly understands that he violated the rules and admits to both charges.

"No remorse or lesson learned..." You just have to love that. It makes me sound kind of tough, like the rest of the clerks should all start titheing me a portion of their cigarettes.

The outcome of all this was never in question. I was always going to be suspended for two days. My union rep turned out to be less than helpful; rescheduling my hearing twice, then having me write my letter instead of appearing in person. She probably saw nothing to be gained in paying attention to my case.

The truth is, though my letter was a minor thing at best --I got an obscene amount of pleasure out of writing it. I actually prefer this outcome to one where I had never written the letter and never got suspended.

So, no internet at work for me. Not because I've seen the error of my ways. No. It's better lose gracefully now, so that I can win loud and disgracefully later.

Hmmmm. This arrogance occasionally feels very good on me.

My Statement to The Powers That Be

2005-10-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

So in the big Los Angeles Public Library vs. Jack internet case I was required to write a statement. This would be it:

Hello,

In reviewing my case, no doubt the number of times that I've been written up for using the internet with come across as very damning evidence indeed. I ask that you consider some other factors in making your judgment.

At no point in my time as a clerk typist in Access Services have I ever been written up for an inability or unwillingness to perform my duties. In matter of of fact when assigned to the circulation desk I have invariably chosen to work at station #4, a center position affording high visibility to patrons and a corresponding higher volume of work for the clerk sitting there.

Because of my experience and knowledge of the library I think that I have earned a good reputation for my facility and dispatch in assisting patrons. Many have commented to me or to my superiors that if it weren't for my actions at the desk they would have despaired of ever getting out of the line at all. Certainly no patrons have ever complained that I was too busy reading or surfing the internet to pay attention to them.

So, I have to ask: Why does this rule exist? What purpose does it serve? I have asked this question of my supervisors repeatedly in the past and have always been told that why the rule exists doesn't matter, only that it is followed. However, I have my own theories as to why it was enacted.

Up until last week, clerk typists were allowed to read at the circulation desk (this by the way also caused more than one person to do a double take on the non-use of the internet rule). Now we've been told in a staff meeting that no one is allowed to read at the desk.

While the reason for this decision was not given, everyone in the department knows: One clerk typist in particular would position herself at the circulation desk in such a way as to be nearly invisible to patrons and thereby ignore them to continue reading. Instead of doing the logical thing and just punishing her, all of us are made to suffer.

I surmise that it is much the same with internet use. Some employee somewhere misused it and rather than punishing offenders on an individual basis it was believed that a blanket rule would be simpler. Except that no one to my knowledge follows it, including every single library assistant, senior librarian, etc. that wrote me up for the transgression. No, really.

Perhaps you worry, "What would the public think?" They wouldn't think anything of clerk using the internet or reading a book if they were in turn helped in a courteous and efficient manner. Do you worry over what employees of the U.S. Post Office do when you are not in line to buy stamps? Of course not. No one does.

Being a clerk typist in Access Services is a simple but stressful job. Largely this is due to the constant activity in the department. But the Los Angeles Public Library is not a 19th century factory environment and should not be run like one. It is a hard job sometimes and does not need to be made harder still. It's rules like this one, hypocritically enforced at best, that cause drops in morale and productivity in the workplace.

I believe that I do my job as clerk typist to a very high level of performance. The fact that I've never been written up otherwise would surely indicate this to be true. However, what I have repeatedly been made to feel over time is that it is not how well I do my job that matters, but how well I conform.

I am good at a great many things, conforming to rules that seem illogical has never been one of them. In regards to the non-use of the internet rule, I think the rule is unjust. At the very least it is unjustly applied. Benjamin Franklin would be appalled.

Thank you for your time,

Jack

255 days and counting down...

2005-10-04T03:33:00.000-07:00

I am perhaps coming down with a cold. This could be due to a marked lack of sleep as of late. My mother would be so concerned right now. Since she is not here I will make my own prescription: Hot tea, cold medicine, and a shot of bourbon.

Oh, like your cure is any better.

Work is going to beckon in a few hours. Before that I have to write something. No, not this. Something in addition to this. Something that is most likely distinctly not fun. It's for work and well, hypothetically I guess it could be fun.

When I started working at the Los Angeles Public Library five years ago I signed this little disclaimer that I don't have in front of me at this moment. But the gist of it was that I would follow library policies, blah, blah, blah, and not use the internet while I'm at work.

At first, it wasn't all that big a deal. I was quite honestly happy to have a regular job after trying for one for over six months. Over time it became obvious that my job was not really intellectually full enough to occupy my every moment. Also, there was the fact that everyone in the library was using the internet: Librarians, library assistants, you name it.

So, since it didn't impair my ability to do my job, and in fact the library is a place mainly about the dispensation of information, and because the last time I checked it is the 21st Century, and the rule is Really Fucking Stupid... I used the internet. More importantly, I used the internet... and got caught.

In five years I got caught about ten times all told. In every case, the people that wrote me up for this transgression used the dreaded internet themselves. Without a doubt there was important library related business to be done on the Mervyn's website. Oh, and if you think porn is important to you How Much More Urgent must it be to an institution like the Los Angeles Public Library? Thankfully, certain of my managers have done the important initial research into these matters.

So now my boss is really pissed at me about using the internet. I'm not obeying any ridiculous rule I'm given and she's nothing if not maniacal about rules. She's usually to be found marching around Access Services screaming in a manner that says "I wish I were a Mongol warlord vanquishing my enemies!"

Sad to say, the woman has all the people skills of a woodchipper. I keep hoping she'll rise to the level of her incompetence and thus be out of my hair. Unfortunately I am beginning to think this has already happened when she took over the Senior Libarian position in my department.

Sigh.

After getting written up the last time for internet use, I was informed that I have a hearing to go to with personnel. I was told that I just didn't realize How Serious This Is and that I was facing a possible suspension from work for two days.

I'm allowed to have union representation at the meeting. My union rep has told me that "saying everyone does it (including my managers) and only I am being singled out for punishment" isn't a workable defense. Why am I paying these guys again?

Now I have to write a thing for a written presentation for this hearing. I know I should care, but honestly I don't feel like bothering. Maybe if I go in there and beg they'll attach my suspension days to one of my weekends so I can four or five days off, huh?

At last!

2005-10-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

This weekend at work was pleasant. Mainly because of the following exchange:

She was a blonde of about college age, of the freshly scrubbed and beautiful variety. She wore jeans and a t-shirt with a message on it. Bright smile. She was checking out a play.

The entire transaction was all business until the end. Then I looked her in the eye and said, "I've been waiting my entire life to say something but I didn't know it."

She smiles. "What's that?"

I pause.

"You look completely adorable in your 'Search and Destroy' t-shirt."

This broke her up, and she walked away giggling.

In place of a title.

2005-09-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

So. I went to watch Serenity last night as promised. Due to a widespread strain of insanity amongst my friends, the only one who joined me at the theater was K., but she's enough.

K. loves Bruce Lee, zombies, samurai, science fiction, and weird genre stuff enough for any three of the others. She has tattoos and I suspect that one of them is a picture of Meryl Streep with a red circle and slash through her face.

The movie started at 12:20 and I got home at around 2:45. I am writing on just south of three hours sleep. My nerve endings are like live wires, and that's before I started drinking the coffee.

The movie was great. Like all of Joss Whedon's work, it was full of character, action, and shocks. It isn't necessary to have seen the tv show Firefly to enjoy Serenity, but those that have will get even more out of it.

I don't want to say more about the movie at this time. You should be allowed to see it without being spoiled.

(Incidentally, look at that Amazon page for the tv show dvds. It has a five star rating based on 1644 reviews. If you shop Amazon often like I do, you know how rare it is for something to get beyond three or four hundred reviews. Also, said reviews are on the whole very thoughtful and cogent. Which is also a rarity.)

You'll be hearing much more about Serenity in the coming weeks I think. It was far more affecting and surprising than Star Wars: Revenge of the Shit by the way. It certainly has me anxious for a sequel.

As for the writing, well, I am in the process of throwing myself into the thick of it. I am thrashing out ideas for a ground level tv show. It's not for a network or anything. It would be all DIY and use supposed weaknesses as powerful strengths.

Before you ask: No, I don't know what I'm doing. If I did, I wouldn't have any need to do it.

Job, and SERENITY

2005-09-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

I was glancing through a book in passing at work the other day, Bonjour Laziness: Jumping Off The Corporate Ladder by Corinne Maier. One passage leaped out at me. It was something like, "It doesn't matter how well you do your job. What matters is how well you conform."

Chills to the bone, eh? Yet still SO TRUE. The heads of my department seem on the whole hugely uninterested in hiring bright people who can do the job. (I was hired by personnel and put in there at the last minute.) We have several substitutes who would love full time employment but when it comes to choosing... my boss is totally bent on always selecting the dullest, most bovine candidates. Any occasion when they don't follow this rule of thumb is cause to celebrate.

Let me make something clear: My job as library clerk is not hard. Being a really good library clerk is nothing to shout about. But it's such a not difficult job to do that you really have to struggle to find someone who can't do it to a professional level.

I get morbid and depressed when I think of all the fascinating work my synapses could be firing over. Then I go to the library and go livid when what a job that should be Grand Theft Lollipop becomes an ordeal because someone else's synapses fire naught but blanks.

Remember when I said that working in Access Services was the hardest job in the library? Well, sometimes I think that on some level that it was just me. Good friend and consumer of umbrella drinks Randall informed me that no, I was correct: Access Services is Hell: Library Division.

More on that stuff some other time.

Right now, I wanted to mention that I have tickets to see Serenity tonight at 12:20 a.m. Gentle Reader, It Is Going To Rule. My favorite review for it so far has been this one by Ken Tucker in New York magazine. Be warned: There are spoilers. Some choice quotes from the review:

Joss Whedon proved in his long run on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (seven seasons) and his short one on Firefly (eleven episodes), he has two distinct yet complementary gifts: He can write quick, gabby banter for an array of heroes and oddballs better than any auteur since Preston Sturges, and he can dramatize the camaraderie within an ensemble better than anyone since Howard Hawks.

and:

Serenity frequently plays like the best sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark that Steven Spielberg never made.

So basically, Mr. Tucker would have you know that Serenity has been perfectly tailored to fit my ever demanding movie watching needs. Which can only be great for the rest of you, barring those perverse individuals who watch Tarkovsky movies for fun.

Time to murder and create.

2005-09-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering the last few months how to talk about this without sounding like a complete ass. I've come to the inescapable conclusion that there isn't one and that I have to write about it anyway.

Earlier this year, I had a dream. Not a dream in the Martin Luther King Jr. sense of the word, but in the "Freudian Wonderland" sense.

For whatever reason, I usually don't remember my dreams. Most of the time it's like I don't even have them. It's just go to bed; nothing, nothing, nothing... and wake up. The joke I tell myself is that I dream so much during the day that my dream center is too tired to bother at night.

Because of the nothing, when I do remember any dreams --I pay attention to them. Examine them for meaning, say. Of course most of them come off like my brain running a regular diagnostic test. There does not seem to be much of anything to parse.

Then... there are the others. The ones where my subconscious seems to step out from behind the curtain and state what it wants me to know in no uncertain terms. This has happened now... three times? Well, twice for sure.

I first noticed the phenomenon when I was twenty. There was a girl I was quite interested in who was still in high school (Shut up). This girl, we'll call her Grace, went on a choir/band trip to Virginia Beach for a competition.

The morning of the day her class arrived at the hotel in Virginia Beach, I had a dream: Singer k.d. lang's face appeared on the palm of my left hand and said, "Today at three o'clock in the afternoon, Grace will have sex with another man." Then I woke up.

The day was spent with me feeling a bit torn. On the one hand, I didn't like the idea of Grace with anyone else. On the other, wouldn't it be supremely weird if my dream turned out to be spot on?

That night, Grace called me up at seven. I immediately told her about my dream and asked her if it was correct. Yes, it was, even down to the time of day. Was I mad with her? Not really. We weren't serious or anything and I was still a bit jazzed over the strange occurrence of the morning.

In fact I was so thrilled that I'd gotten a message from Something, that I paid very little attention to the actual content of what it was telling me. In my youthful naivete I believed the event indicated that Grace and I had some sort of deep connection. Now? I think the dream was meant to serve as a warning to me. (Incidentally, Grace and I are still friends. As for our relationship, it's stayed 3:00 in Virginia Beach ever since.)

Years pass. In May of this year, I had another dream of a very different nature:

It's night. I am outside under the sky standing in the center of a circle.

People surround me on the outer rim. They dance, chant, and beat drums. Some have torches, others swing whirling braziers of fire. The blood of a freshly killed animal is on the wind and in the lungs of everyone present.

I'm scared, and don't know what's happening, or why. Clearly I'm the focus of what's transpiring, but I'm not sure if that's such a good thing.

A shaman enters the circle with me. He's all creeped out in the current fashion of bones and mystic regalia.

The chanting, the dancing, the drumming all build and intensify. My heart slides into an unrelenting Art Blakey solo. Then the shaman speaks. He intones slowly and is not unsure of the words:

You were given a Responsibility.

You are running out of time.

You will not live forever.

BOOM! Everything STOPS, and I wake up. For the next three days I was by turns intrigued and terrified over the dream. My main thoughts were, What the hell was that? and Just how much time do I have?

Which brings us up to Right Now. After much consideration, I have decided that I am going to be quitting my job at the library soonish. I don't know when or how, but before my 36th birthday on June 16th, 2006 for certain; quicker than that when I figure out the means.

Now before you all launch into me, I know what I'm saying sounds bizarre. "How can you afford to quit your job?" Well, um, I can't.

Getting another 'straight job' is also not a solution. The problem with those jobs is that they value conformity over excellence. Try as I might, I am just hopeless at conforming. I stick out like a sore thumb in a sargasso of clawhammers. And frankly? I am thoroughly sick of taking on work that requires me to stifle the best most valuable parts of myself in favor of a bland automaton type 'productivity.'

So no new straight job. Neither do I feel I can afford to ignore either the dream or my gut feeling on this. But do I really have to quit? What purpose does that serve?

It's like this:

Life is short. Every hour spent doing things that bore me senseless and dull my imagination is an hour I'm going to regret on my deathbed. Looking back on even this much life it's never been the stupidly brave things I've done that I regret --always the chances not taken in favor of some foolish sense of security.

Anyway, this post is not about giving answers. I don't have any answers yet. But I am asking the questions right now, and because I've got a big fucking brain I expect that I will come up with some workable answers in time.

(As an aside, do you know what the life of a genius is like? I'll tell you: Everyone goes on and on about how smart so-and-so is... until he or she says something that the other party disagrees with. Then said genius is felt to be misguided or still has a lot to learn. This is true even if both parties agree that one is a genius and the other is not, by the way.)

Jack, I can hear you saying, what is your responsibility anyway? Simple: To be a writer and create. To have the thoughts that others can't and go to the places in my imagination that others would shrink away from.

Maybe it doesn't sound like much to you. But it is all that I have been entrusted with, and it is big enough.

In my more fanciful moments I'd say that the message in my dream was given to me by the gods. More likely, it's just my subconscious making obvious something I already knew on a very deep level. It's no matter either way. As Alan Moore wrote, "The one place gods inarguably exist is in our minds where they are real beyond refute, in all their grandeur and monstrosity."

So there you have it. Do I sound a little pretentious to you? Well, okay then. I warned you at the beginning that I was probably going to sound like an ass. You have only yourself to blame for reading this far. Truthfully, I feel somewhat ridiculous writing about it. But there's a great sense of relief too.

How about that?

Two quick notes.

2005-09-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

Lisa's grandmother is fine. Since Rita didn't turn out to be the monumental bitch her sister Katrina was in Louisiana. All donations of food, money, etc. (including my paltry $25.00) are being passed on to the people that can use them. So if anyone did donate anything, thank you.

Moving on...

Last year on the BBC radio program CHAIN REACTION, Alan Moore interviewed Brian Eno. I listened to it and was amazed, but you can read the transcript of the two geniuses engaged in conversation here. The 'giant man-eating spider' question remains a favorite.

A Global Frequency of sorts.

2005-09-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

First things first:

My friend Lisa needs your help. She's from Houston and most of her family has evacuated because of Rita, but not all. The gig is "Operation: Rescue My Grandmother" and you can find out more about it here.

To anyone who happens to be reading this: Please offer her any assistance you can, even if it's just a $1 or a can of food. Lisa is very important to me, and if Hurricane Katrina has shown us anything, it's that this kind of stuff just cannot be left to the supposed experts right now.

Hmm. We are on the Global Frequency after all.

Dewn't

2005-09-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Let us suppose for a moment that you were thirsty and in need of a cold drink. What would you drink? Wa-

No. Skip that. Let me instead show you what on no account you should ever drink: .THIS. It's called Mountain Dew Pitch Black II and it promises "a blast of grape flavor with a SOUR BITE." (Emphasis theirs.)

Chalk a point up for the marketing department at Pepsi Co. They got the bite part of that description just right. This stuff tastes so filthy sweet they should have just called it Diabet-Ick!. The bottle claims that MDPB2 is a combination of "black grape and other natural flavors", which you have to admit sounds punchier than black grape and the corpse of an old man rotting in a greenhouse filled with fetid orchids.

Oh, and the bottle says that this particular type of Mountain Dew is a "Limited Edition" flavor. Once it's gone, that's it! That's really the only good thing you can say about it.

That's what happens sometimes when you try something new. Ewwwwww. Ick!

Comfortable hell with extra throw pillows.

2005-09-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

I work as a clerk at the Los Angeles Public Library. To be more precise, I work in the circulation department (called Access Services) and have since June 2000.

The library is the best job I've ever had: Insurance, dental, good pay, much difficulty in order to get fired. Plus: BOOKS, eh? Big plus there.

The circulation department is the busiest one in the library. No, really. People who work in other departments talk about how busy they are but one thing they all have in common is that they don't want to work in Access Services. That's because despite protestations to the contrary, they know.

In other departments like Science, or Literature there is time to slack. My friend Randall just transferred to Science and when he talks about his mornings now, they all sound like short vacations punctuated with lots of e-mail and the occasional burst of filing. "I got so much read this morning." I could kill him, but then who would I eat lunch with?

Working in circulation, interacting with the public as I do, you might think: I bet Jack has amassed a few pet peeves. You are so right, Gentle Reader. So. RIGHT. Here are a few, in no particular order:

1. People who bitch about miniscule fines. The poor jerks who owe fifty dollars or much, much more in library fines usually don't complain that much. They know why they owe so much, you know? If they do complain, well they sort of earned the right to be upset in a roundabout fashion. More often than not it seems the less someone owes the more nuts they go in response to it. I'm sorry, but if you have time to bitch about two dollars to a city employee, then no amount of telling me how important you are is going to convince.

2. People who are obsessive/compulsive about paying their fines. Then there's the ones who spaz out and slow the check out line down for infinite moments looking for that last quarter. Because they "don't want it hanging over their heads. "As if somehow, owing that last twenty-five cents could spell out karmic disaster for them. Please. No one cares. That line of people that stretches off behind you to the bad part of town in Mordor really doesn't care. Oh, and I couldn't raise my care level above NIL if I was to paid to, which in fact I am. Your fines are under five dollars and you can still check stuff out. So piss off, already.

3. People who return items that are wet. I shouldn't even have to explain this really. When you hand me something that is recommended to be stored in a cool dry place like oh, virtually anything you could possibly want to check out from the library --it shouldn't be wet. EVER. I don't mean you shouldn't have left that copy of The Great Gatsby out in the rain or dropped it in the tub. That goes without saying. I mean I don't want you handing me a book or video that is mostly dry (as it should be) but oddly wet in places. Because it sets me to wondering how this intrinsically dry object got patina of wet about it. Did you place it in next to the water bottle in your bag? Did your hands sweat from the activity of holding it on the bus? Did something more outre happen between you and this book? I have no way of knowing. If you're one of our filthier patrons (jerks who return videos with cockroaches in them represent), I really have NO WAY OF KNOWING.

4. Why is it that people who smell bad need to lean over the counter as far as they can? Well, Brainiac? Why? Incidentally, oftentimes women with flattering cleavage and large... fines also have on occasion been known to lean over the counter. That's not a pet peeve though. I just wanted to mention it.

5. People who cannot alphabetize. This one is actually directed at co-workers of mine. We have a big shelf where we keep the holds and several times a week (or even several times a day) I can't find the item a patron wants to pick up because Helen Keller decided to drop by for a spot of shelving. This really pisses me off because when I'm fantasizing about all the rocket science jobs I'm capable of, it strikes me that this one is so easy to get right. It's only the alphabet we Use Every Day.

6. Bureaucratic horseshit. This job could be so easy, I shouldn't have to put up with any of it. The soccer moms that are my bosses think otherwise. You know, one does the right thing because it's the right thing to do --not because it's in a manual. There's actually too much to write about on this subject. So particular explanations will have to wait.

But not long.

Belated Birthday

2005-06-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

For those completely unaware of the fact, I turned 35 on June 16th. I celebrated the day in sort of understated fashion: My friends Randall and Irma took me out to dinner at a Morroccan restaurant Dar Maghreb. We ate an eight course meal in the traditional way (i.e. with our fingers after first washing our hands in a huge tureen of soap and rosewater brought to the table). Squab turns out to be pigeon and tastes rather salty. Who knew?

Oh, and there was bellydancing! I must say I quite enjoy the impression of myself my friends reflect back at me.

Oh, and before I forget: When I saw this I laughed mightily. My birthday is the REAL Number Of The Beast.

This bit of information is very exciting. Are there career opportunities available for me to become the Antichrist? My high school guidance counselor so didn't hip me to this. What a dick.

"Evil" is a growth industry. The best part is, I already have the cds for the job.

Can you dig it?

I knew you could.

DVDs I have bought and loved...

2005-06-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

I waltzed into my Level 3 Improv class last night walking a bit taller. I was inordinately satisfied with a DVD purchase I had just made on the way to class and I fairly glowed from the experience. Dear Reader, I offer my list of purchases:

Moonlighting, Seasons 1 and 2 -There have been various tv shows that I've been obsessed with over the years, but this was the first. Detectives + Screwball Comedy - the Banal Car Chases that infected just about every other show of the period. For a change, the mysteries they solved were actually compelling as well, occasionally even slightly perverse. If Moonlighting broke the fourth wall a little too often, well hell, even that was unique and different at the time.

(Incidentally, when I mention Banal Car Chases above I am not speaking out against ALL car chases, just lame ones. In particular the cookie-cutter-here-we-go-again exercises in stupid repetitiveness that earmarked most of the adventure shows of the 1980s. We're talking mostly of the Stephen J. Cannell and Glen Larson stable here I think.)

St. Ives -This is one of my favorite Bronson movies, based on one of my favorite Ross Thomas novels (The Procane Chronicle by Ross Thomas writing under his Oliver Bleeck pseudonym). Bronson plays Raymond St. Ives, a professional go-between hired by an aging millionaire to get back his stolen diary. Said diary is important because it contains within its pages plans for the perfect robbery. The book is better than the movie as I recall, but Bronson gets to offset his crude appearance with a bit of class (His St. Ives has expensive tastes you see). Jacqueline Bissett also stars, and sexier than her is difficult to imagine.

The Essential Steve McQueen Collection -Woo hoo! Bullitt, Papillon, The Cincinatti Kid, and The Getaway. Combined with The Great Escape 2-Disc Collector's Edition you might have Man Movie Awesomeness to turn boys into men. As it is, the mere contemplation of the set makes this man geek out like a boy all over again. Oh, and Tom Horn and Never So Few are just gravy combined with the others in the set.

Ong Bak -I confess I've never seen this one before and can't even find the Special Uncut DVD version I bought. Anyway it looked cool, and at $13.95 was very affordable.

When I got to class everyone was interested in what I had bought. I showed them and discovered to my horror that excepting one other guy in class NO ONE HAD EVER SEEN A STEVE MCQUEEN MOVIE. They kind of knew who he was, sure, but that was it.

I was shocked. These are all straight men in their mid-twenties to early thirties. None of them are what you would call ignorant or uninformed. They all ran to see the new Star Wars, etc. Did these men not have fathers? Were they all the products of broken homes? I was about to venture a few questions about Clint Eastwood but was more than a little afraid of what I'd find out.

The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: These are rites of passage for any American boy of a certain age, aren't they? The watching and appreciation of these movies is as American as baseball.

What happened?

The Sacred And The Profane

2005-03-07T00:59:00.000-08:00

A conversation I had tonight with Jeremy:

Jack: A question: Do you think people who cannot appreciate the profane in the world (i.e. the clever use of profanity, expression of ideas that might be considered dirty, etc.) also have a corresponding lack of appreciation of the sacred?

Jeremy: I believe that the more simplistic view of the world you have, the weaker your soul. So, yes.

Jack: You know, I don't know what I like and am impressed by more: My question, or your answer.

Jeremy: (Laughs) Hint: It's your question.

Jack: Ah, but your answer to the question was sublime.

Jeremy: I've got to stop putting this essay off. Seems you've worked your way into my theme.

Jack: Excellent! My fifteen minutes of fame is assured! Now I can focus all my energy on achieving another gratuitous fifteen that I wasn't even allotted!

Jeremy: You've heard of the Turing test, of course.

Jack: Yeah.

Jeremy: No program has been able to pass it yet. The reason is because of a lack of nuance. There simply aren't enough programmers in the world to put that much character into an intelligent system.

So the point is, since I always approach these things obliquely for some damn reason, and also because you're currently fascinated by Dawkins & the complexity of nature, it's become clear to me that simplistic views, ones that summarize (as in racism or stereotypes), or are absolute (with us or against us), or are a work of accounting (health of a child is worth some dollar value) are the exact forms of thought that steal our souls.

Jack: Interesting. You know, we had a conversation about this kind of thing a few months ago.

Jeremy: Really?

Jack: Yeah. It was expressed differently, though. We were talking about the American Revolution and came to the conclusion that if you looked back at the great figures of history... (Benjamin Franklin, Marie Curie, Victoria Woodhull, Gandhi, Winston Churchill, etc.) what you notice is that the greater the subject, the more complex as people they were.

Jeremy: Oh yes, I remember that conversation. They were Shakespearian in stature, with flaws as great as their presence.

Jack: Right. And your real fucking bastards were simplistic in comparison. Everything was an either/or, black & white proposition with them.

Jeremy: E.g., In religio-fanatic world, everything is a summarizing symbol. "Cross", "tit on the TV", "Flag on the Floor," "Muslim/Christian": It all strives to simplify.

Jack: You know what I find really cool?

Jeremy: What? Redheads?

Jack: I notice that when all ideas of 'Fate' or 'Destiny' or 'Religion' are expunged from my worldview (but not the possibilities of same), when everything I am becomes my sole responsiblity...

I suddenly feel capable of anything.

Jeremy: Perhaps it's comforting to know it's all a playground anyway.

Security!

2005-03-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

Since the beginning of '05 I've been taking improv comedy classes at the Improv Olympic West. Guess I grew tired of making an ass of myself in front of the same old crowd.

I took the Level 1 class back when I lived in Chicago (the original Improv Olympic is located less than a block from Wrigley Field). Ultimately I couldn't continue on at the time though, as my income (derived solely from medical research studies at the time) had temporarily dried up.

Why would someone fork over hard earned money ($300 for each eight week course, six levels in all!) to learn what seems from the outside to be nothing so much as getting up on stage and making shit up on the fly? Is this a worthwile skill? Is it something that can even be taught?

My reasons for doing this are as follows:

1. Getting up in front of complete strangers and spouting off whatever comes to mind scares the shit out of me. Reason enough to take it on right there.

2. It will free up and get the creative juice flowing. This is just one method to use. Others include: imbibing strange substances like absinthe when they present themselves, shufflings of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies cards (look it up), perusing books of magic and religion (Aleister Crowley's Book Of Lies currently with something by Austin Osman Spare later on), and giving myself over to the occasional mad impulse that seizes me.

3. The social aspect. I now spend three hours a week minimum playing at this stuff with a room full of people smarter and funnier than I am.

The first four weeks of this endeavor (i.e. January) were very hard for me. Learning to let go and stop thinking so much takes some doing. I just began Level 2 last night. I am definitely improving.

Last year I had a conversation with a friend of mine, Phaedra. She's going to college right now to study Educational Systems or somesuch thing. I told her that if I ever went to college I would definitely end up majoring in something functionally useless that interested me a great deal like "Fire Eating" or "Inveterate Gambling" something. Attending Clown College also holds some appeal.

Flash forward to a few weeks ago: Randall and I have a conversation over lunch. He's studying to get his library science degree right now. Turns out, he's paying pretty much the same amount for his classes as I am for mine.

Okay, so improv isn't as glamourous as fire eating or earning a degree in Clownology, but you know what? It'll do for now.

Time to clean house.

2005-03-01T07:09:00.000-08:00

Salon has had an article up for almost a month now on the growing trend of men sans children having vasectomies. You can read it here. This was of some interest to me, as I...

a. Have no children and desire none of same.

b. Had a vasectomy almost two years ago myself.

When I had the operation done (Only a $10 co-payment with my insurance! That's a savings of oh, roughly... $190,518.00! WOOT!), there was no indication of it being a trend or anything of the sort. I knew one guy who had done it back then. He has not had occasion to regret his decision.

For that matter, neither have I. Incidentally, unlike one of the guys in the article, I spent a good SIX years pondering the question. Oh, and I haven't joined any groups of the "childfree" or what have you because I'm not a joiner by nature, and all of that smacks a little of desperation. But what do I know? I live in L.A. If I lived in Nebraska, or Michigan, or wherever I might beg them to let me join.

So even though I spent six years thinking over the matter I expect someday I will live to regret the decision. The tragedy that triggers this feeling of regret will not however, be the one that so many friendly doomsayers in my acquaintance have imagined: I am not going to suddenly fall in love with some woman that makes me want to be a father.

NO. It won't be like that because you see, it just isn't tragic enough.

The moment that lays me low will be when I meet a fabulously sexy and intelligent woman who doesn't want marriage, definitely does want a child, and has decided on ME for the lucky sperm donor. Naturally, the only possibility of sex with her will reside in my capability of making her pregnant.

I can hear you now. "Jack, that is SO unlikely... "

Yes, Dear Reader, I know. But figure this: You do your thing, get what you want, and then (and only then) fate smacks you with a comeuppance you could have never planned against in a million years. That's how tragedy works.

What's funny is that I might already know this woman. She fits the first two criteria, and a friend tells me her eyes all but flash rapidly in morse code when she sees me in the library.

Whatever. She has many options I'm sure. Still, It would be interesting if she asked me. I've never cried so hard that I started laughing before.

I know a guy named Art, and I know what I like.

2005-01-11T08:29:00.000-08:00

I've been in my apartment for quite a while, and still have almost nothing on the walls. Initially I had meant to wait until my sister Libby sent me some old photos of my parents... but she's still busy and I am still waiting more than a year later. Then I made a brief stab at getting something, only to find that I don't respond to Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" the same way that I used to (also, I found the selection a tad pedestrian).

Finally though, I have spent cash on something for the wall. I bought a print by Geof Darrow. He's an artist best known for the comic books THE BIG GUY AND RUSTY THE BOY ROBOT and HARD BOILED (both written by Frank Miller) and the design of every damn thing in THE MATRIX movies. It's the image off of CHEVAL NOIR #2 which you can see here and it measures 19" x 30".

What I love is all the questions the picture and it's myriad details throw out at the observer: Who is this guy? (Well, in fact I know the answer to that one: His name is Bourbon Thret.) What's he running from or toward? Where's he been? Looking at the hat, where hasn't he been? What adventure is he stuck in the middle of and what is he smiling about?

Now that THE MATRIX movies have come to their ignominous end, Darrow has a new comic book out: SHAOLIN COWBOY. Issue #1 is out now in finer comic shops everywhere and recommended to everyone who thinks they would like a book featuring great art, a strong silent hero in the Sammo Hung mold, his high verbal donkey sidekick, and more than a little of the old ultraviolence. The first is mostly set-up and hilariously so. An interview with Darrow about the book can be found here.

Now to get it framed.

Some preliminary thoughts on the divine.

2004-11-04T02:37:00.000-08:00

I go on a lot in this blog about the things I love: Movies, books, comics, etc. The obvious reason for why I do this is that the material in question is very compelling to me and since you're reading here it might be of interest to you too. The less obvious one (but far more accurate) is that I write about other stuff so I can avoid writing about myself.

Thursday morning, 2:23 ayem. I am alone, which is not in itself strange. I am always alone, and especially when I'm not. That just seems to be the way of things.

What use is this heart of mine? My heart seems forever locked in the doldrums on the edge of the known world. I'm following charts empty of useful coordinates. Nothing but great distances to cross with no safe ports of call to head for.

Uhm. Yeah. Moving on...

Today I went to the library branch close to my house to inquire about transferring there. The Hollywood branch sports a vastly smaller building, smaller collection, less interesting patrons and more crazy ones. However, it's a five minute walk from home (saving me over an hour in commute time), I might be encouraged to pack a lunch regularly instead of eating out, AND I'd be trading the endless amount of bullshit with management for a pittance or just the same bullshit in a new locale.

Whatever. I hope the transfer goes through. I am very bored with the library and can feel the rot setting in.

Recently I picked up Freethinkers: A History Of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby. Pretty self explanatory title really. It chronicles America's illustrious tradition of atheists (like Thomas Paine, the man responsible for giving the Founding Fathers the idea of a Republic by the people, for the people, etc.), deists (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln), and the like.

Jacoby wrote this book in response to the ever increasing movement of fundamentalism emanating from the White House. The separation of church and state really has never been more in jeopardy than it is these days. Such an important issue (Washington's absolute commitment to it is the main reason he was chosen to be the first president), but the very religious of all sides fail to realize that it is meant to protect their rights not limit them.

For my part, I have no religion. This simple fact pleases me no end. More than having a religion ever did, that's for sure. As Thomas Paine said, "My mind is my own church." Or take Alan Moore's quote: "The domain of thought is the one place that gods inarguably exist." That I can perceive a sort of connection between these two geniuses so different from one another stokes my imagination. And my religious impulse, if you will.

Movies.

2004-10-19T23:56:00.000-07:00

The 2004 summer movie season is over. There wasn't much I wanted to see this year. Logic tells me it's been over for quite a while now, but it's Indian Summer in my head, so shut the fuck up.

On the whole, I was pretty bored with it. You're probably saying, "Well, Jack, you're thirty-four. Of course Big Loud Stupid Action Extravaganzas don't interest you. You're getting older, and your tastes are maturing. By the way, enjoy your last year on planet Earth as part of the 18-34 demographic. Soon no one will care about you or what movies you want to see."

Yeah, yeah. But here's the thing: I like Big Loud Stupid Action Extravaganzas. I'm just wanting a more intense, less stupid, vastly more creative versions of same. And when I don't get it, I become a more than a little cross. To a certain extent, it's like the movie going experience is personal, and the lesser movie I have been forced to endure is... a betrayal.

That probably sounds a little bizzare, and I owe an explanation. Fine. Try this on for size: I think it's possible that I experience story on a much deeper level than most people, maybe the way a lot of others listen to music or take drugs. In a way, it's rather like I ingest the narrative; let it inside, and at the same time lose myself in it.

So when I've consumed said story, and it's fucking lame, my entire being rejects it like food poisoning. With something this important and intense, you have to be really good at the culling of material --otherwise you could end up strung out on some bad shit, like Michael Crichton (ick!), Robert Jordan (ulp!), or worst of all: Tim LaHaye (gahhhhh!)

At that point, it's best to just induce vomiting. But I was talking about movies, not books. I'm sorry.

Okay, back to movies then: You've probably noticed, there's a lot of movies coming out these last few years based on comic books. In the US, comic books mainly mean superheroes. While I enjoy stuff like Spider-Man 2 (which was better than the already good first one in every way) and will probably go to see next year's Batman Begins and The Fantastic Four, part of me is screaming because it wants Something New.

Come on. Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were both really cool, forward looking concepts... forty years ago. Batman? Superman? Your grandfather has memories of afternoons stretched out on the lawn reading their exploits back in... 1939. Go ask.

My point is, it's the 21st Century. The flying car thing didn't work out and that sucks, I still have to work for a living instead of having a robot slave to free up my time, but I'm learning to deal. Still, we are living in the future now. I'd like to see some movies reflect that. Isn't time for New Heroes? Some New Myths?

I know what some of you are thinking you know.

"Get to work."

Some preposterous ramblings.

2004-10-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday I went to the Egyptian Theatre to watch some obscure westerns as part of their Westward Bound: The 1st Annual Westerns Festival. Even though I overslept, the Egyptian is a mere seven minute walk away so I made it on time.

On the bill were two double-features: Two Robert Mitchum movies consisting of Bandido (1956) and The Wonderful Country (1959); followed by two 'B' westerns directed by William Witney, Santa Fe Passage (1955) and Stranger At My Door (1956).

All four films were just okay, but Quentin Tarantino introduced the second pair and I shook hands and exchanged a few minor words with him. Go me.

I also watched The Patriot. This is the summer blockbuster of 2000 starring Mel Gibson that boiled the American Revolution down to a rather boring story of revenge. The six episode Ken Burns style documentary called Liberty!: The American Revolution is coming through Netflix in the next couple days, in order that sanity can be restored.

The American Revolution is becoming a minor obsession for me. Soon I'll be reading biographies of the founding fathers, histories, etc. For insight into the religious beliefs of the founders of our nation, you could do much worse than pick up Thomas Paine: The Collected Writings published by The Library Of America. There's a reason why this country has a separation of church and state, and Paine was huge influence on Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, and later Lincoln.

What else am I reading now? In addition to items mentioned recently; the new Stephenson of course, in addition to selected works of Shakespeare, Bernard Shaw's plays Pygmalion and Man And Superman; and Neil Gaiman's graphic novel in eight parts .1602, which recasts the superheroes of the Silver Age as Elizabethan era characters. It actually works much better than it sounds.

Looking over my blog, what shines most brightly is my utter lack of discipline and almost perfect inability to express what I mean. Bah. All it means is that I need to write more. Has there ever been a time in my life when I didn't need to write MORE? Accurate assessment of this mess indicates that I need to write about TEN TIMES MORE than I do now just to get a tenth of what I write at an acceptable level.

This by the way is why I will never have children. There is not enough room in my life for children AND the ideas I want to have AND the places I want to go AND the drugs I want to take AND the drinks I want to consume AND the women I want to... AND. AND. AND. Mine shall be a life devoted to romance.

The inside of my head is a jungle, a thick tangle of concepts and memories and ambitions. I need to beat through all of that with every stroke of the pen or keyboard to get to something that no one's ever seen, that I can't even guess at the nature of. What is it? Fuck if I know, but it's in there. I know it, and so does everyone else apparently. Even strangers, damn them.

Anglophiling.

2004-09-27T10:53:00.000-07:00

Friends, family, enemies, and lovers are quite aware of my love for British pop culture. Sherlock Holmes was probably the first fictional hero I ever had. The Beatles the first music I can remember falling in love with. (How much of this was due to them having a cartoon I saw every day after toiling in the first grade? I don't know. I just consider myself supremely fortunate that Neil Diamond didn't have a cartoon that I might've seen at that impressionable age.)

My obsession with James Bond (which flowered during the time every other boy in my generation had given himself over to Star Wars) and I suppose Doctor Who --came later. (I really do need to write about the Bond thing. Later.)

In the 1980's American comics experienced a sort of "British Invasion" as writers and artists from across the pond started writing and drawing for us. This exposed me to the writing of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, and Neil Gaiman. Holy Living Fuck were those the days. Well, for comics they were anyway.

All this has been a preamble to some links I'd like to point out:

The BBC is now airing The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Tertiary Phase on Radio 4. You can listen to the current episode for a week here. The original series is easily amongst the most imaginative and hilarious radio I've ever had the pleasure to listen to. Don't know how the current batch will match up, but here's hoping.

The current series of six shows (and another six planned for next year) will adapt the remaining three novels in the "trilogy". Douglas Adams was doing some work on it when he passed away a few years ago. He did manage to actually voice one of the characters. Oh, and all the surviving cast members are back, which is very cool.

Some years ago, an English guy I worked with named Simon introduced me to the work of one Stephen Fry. Fry is an English actor, novelist, and director. He played Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde, Jeeves in the tv show based on P.G. Woodhouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories, and was featured prominently in my favorite tv sitcom ever Blackadder. He's also the reader of the Harry Potter audiobooks in England.

The man is witty, erudite, and hilarious. He also gives tremendously good interviews. In order of appearance: An interview from a couple years ago with Jonathan Ross from BBC Radio 2, a recent one on NPR, last week's conversation from The Onion and some further conversation from the same interview can be found here. Also very interesting is this blog entry where the interviewer writes of what it was like to interview Mr. Fry. Excellent.

I was lead to the two most recent interviews by links found on Neil Gaiman's blog. Something else really clever that began because of that blog is Johnny Theremin.

Made me laugh.

Enjoy this holding pattern for now.

2004-09-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't written of my experience at Burning Man yet. Some of you are champing at the bit and bristling at the bridle over the silence. I've been somewhat busy the past couple weeks. It's taken a while to reacclimate myself to 'civilization' and figure out What's Next. E-mails are owed, blogs go unwritten, and bon mots go undropped in conversation as a result.

Huge blog entry to follow soonish. Oh and by the way: Today is September 21st, 2004. Neal Stephenson's The System Of The World, third volume in the epic work of sheer authorial genius known as The Baroque Cycle.

Rick Kleffel of The Agony Column (one of my favorite sites devoted to books) says Stephenson's achievement is on the order of Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings or William Gibson's Neuromancer. You can read what he has to say here.

Get thee to a bookstore!

We pause to discuss What I Am Reading And Watching.

2004-08-20T02:38:00.000-07:00

Any minute now I am going to be done with Neal Stephenson's The Confusion and baying at the moon in anticipation for Volume Three of The Baroque Cycle: The System Of The World. It's taken me quite a while to finish, but I've been distracted these past couple months. Having said that, let me say that I can't wait to re-read the whole close-to-3000 page trilogy. Methinks I will love it even more the second time.

When that one's cast aside, I'll be picking up Letters To His Son by the Earl of Chesterfield. Subtitled 'On the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman', this is a collection of the correspondence the Earl wrote to his illegitimate son (starting in 1737) as a way of supplementing the bastard's education.

Samuel Johnson despised the book saying it, "taught the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing master." Now I'm reading it in the 21st century, which goes to show that there really is no such thing as bad publicity.

Also on deck is Give Our Regards To The Atomsmashers!, an anthology of essays about comics by such literary worthies as Jonathan Lethem, Glen David Gold, Greil Marcus, Luc Sante, and Aimee Bender. It's edited by Sean Howe. Just think, if I had spent the last fifteen years busting my ass proper at this writing thing I might have had an essay in this book. (That's what I tell myself anyway.)

And... I'll be re-reading Ross Thomas's Chinaman's Chance. This is for a thing I'm working on with friend soon to be collaborator Mark Miano. I don't think I've ever mentioned Thomas here before. High time for it I suppose. Ross Thomas is one of the hidden treasures of late-20th century crime/espionage fiction. How a man who wrote so well and made it look so fucking easy remain so totally unknown staggers imagining.

You can read an article about the late, great Mr. Thomas courtesy of the LA Weekly. St. Martin's Press is currently reissueing his complete backstock of twenty-five titles. Try The Fools In Town Are On Our Side or his first, The Cold War Swap (which he wrote in six weeks and won an Edgar Award for Best First Novel). You owe it to yourself.

In the watching department I joined Netflix a couple months ago and my life has been made immeasureably better. I've been watching the first seasons of Monk, The Gilmore Girls (the turn-on present in gorgeous brunettes spouting witty dialogue should not be underestimated), and the occasional movie.

I feel the need to point out that I bought a dvd of The Winslow Boy. Based on Terence Rattigan's play and directed by David Mamet, it is one of the most profoundly satisfying movies I've seen in the last decade. At the end of it nothing would have made me happier than to watch ten more hours of the same characters. Give it a look.

I am leaving for Burning Man this weekend and will be back with many tales to tell in just over a week. At some point I have to remember to write about silent films, why the 1960's James Bond/secret agent craze died out but lives on in me, and ruminations on the opposite sex.

At Night In The Summertime

2004-08-19T01:31:00.000-07:00

Christ. It's one-thirty in the morning, Thursday. I'm awake, thinking, and now writing. My nerves have been lightly sanded by heroic sized mugs of Columbian coffee. This is going to be an interminable kind of rambling entry, so consider yourself warned.

You know, what I really want to do right now? Talk. Unfortunately, no one I know is up. Nobody in any time zone. Can you believe that?

I thought as an adult I would have friends sprinkled all over the globe. We would spend our days living our incredible lives and take calls from one another at any hour. Who knows when adventure's going to call? No one does, motherfucker, so pick up the phone --it might be her.

The reality is that now I'm thirty-four; most of my friends are settled down, or in the process of same. They're getting married, buying houses, having babies. You know, the Big Real Life things that most people work toward.

Yeah, um... I'm not doing any of those things at present. I don't want a house (and couldn't afford one out here anyway), and children hold about as much appeal for me as getting leprosy. Marriage is an institution I can see being commited to in the future, but the arms on that particular jacket are still looking a wee bit long if you know what I mean.

It sounds like I am avoiding responsibility, and I am. Not the way you're thinking of, though. I'll continue this line of thought later...

More Moore.

2004-07-22T01:36:00.000-07:00

There's a fantastic new interview with Alan Moore at Salon.com. You may be required to watch an ad before reading it. Do it. Moore is a visionary genius (meant in the old fashioned sense --before the term was devalued), and anything he has to say about the world is worth reading.

Movies.

2004-07-22T00:25:00.000-07:00

Man Oh Man. The last time I wrote in this thing was back in Year Dot. Anyhow, let's get to it:

Saw Spider-Man 2 the day it came out. Excellent movie, much better than the first. My only complaint is that Peter Parker's whining gets on my nerves now in a way it never did when I was adolescent and very much in the same boat. But the constant guilt and soap opera are what makes it Spider-Man and so can't really be done without.

As in the first movie, J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson steals every scene he's in. Personally, I would rather watch a movie of just his character. As that isn't going to happen, I'll just watch His Girl Friday again. As a sidenote: If I were Peter Parker, I'd grind my heel into Mary Jane Watson's face to get to Betty Brant (Jameson's secretary, played by Elizabeth Banks).

I also saw Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 on opening weekend. Easily the best movie of the year for me. And before anyone wants to tell me that it's full of lies, let me just point out that if it were, Mr. Moore could get his ass sued. He's not though, is he? Instead, his opponents have tried every other weasel tactic to keep the film from being shown.

You know, the strain of anti-intellectualism in this country really frightens me. The Founding Fathers must be turning in their graves.

Do NOT go to see Van Helsing. Got it?

2004-05-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

"Mediocre waste of celluloid" doesn't even begin to cover how horrible VAN HELSING is in every particular. The plot, the dialogue, the pacing; everything was perfunctory at best. I'm not what you would call a huge fan of THE MUMMY or THE MUMMY RETURNS but VH makes both of those look like masterpieces of adventure cinema in comparison.

A complete suck of two plus hours. Don't bother seeing it. Stay away at all costs. Whether you like Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, David Wenham, etc. forget it. They are all much better in other films.

In the end credits to VAN HELSING, with Stephen Sommers' credit it reads "Dedicated to my father." It makes one curious as to the family drama hinted at there. What could the old man have done so horrible to warrant this?

Stephenson in the hot, hot sun.

2004-04-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

Very quickly:

Last weekend I went to LA Festival of Books. After going on to my friend the good doctor Aparna about how "I don't sunburn" I got sunburned all over my bald head. Serves me right I suppose.

Neal Stephenson was there on Sunday. He began with a Q & A session where people went out of their way to ask him the same questions he seems to get at every opportunity. Ugh. Also, the title of his book is pronounced CryptoNOmicon not CryptoNAHmicon. Even after he said the title twice and corrected someone, two questions later you have some jerk saying the word like he'd just flew in from the continent and missed the previous five minutes.

Stephenson's new novel The Confusion is out now. It's Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle and I'm reading it now. Salon has a great interview full of not the usual questions that you can find here.

Kill Bill, Vol. 2

2004-04-16T04:29:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a 12.20 a.m. screening of Quentin Tarantino's new film. Very entertaining. Kill Bill Vols. 1 and 2 are one long movie so I don't think it possible to say which is better. The second half is the one with the resolution and the emotional payoff so naturally it's going to be more satisfying. Less violent overall, but with one really scary (for me) scene.

Oh, and David Carradine is great in the film. It's nice to see him again. However, Gordon Liu as Pai Mei steals the film. He doesn't have to say anything either, just stroke his long white beard.

One of the things I enjoy about Tarantino's movies is how he carries out his huge interest in 1970's pop culture. He focuses on the elements he liked (soul music, blaxploitation films, spaghetti westerns, Shaw Brothers kung fu films, Saturday morning cartoons, comic books, muscle cars) and steadfastly ignores all the things he doesn't. (Which is the way to go.)

Watching his movies, it's like the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and Boston never happened. Roger Moore as James Bond? They stopped making them in 1969 with On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Those endless tv variety shows? Someone else watched'em.

For all I know, Tarantino likes all of these things. But for now, I can pretend he thinks they're shit too. At least they aren't worth acknowledging. It's refreshing.

If the Kill Bill epic has done anything for me, it has made me really want to collect the rest of Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy's run on Master of Kung Fu. It was just amazing.

Pleasant

2004-04-16T03:54:00.000-07:00

A pretty young woman approached me at the library circulation desk yesterday. We'll call her Renee because I just watched Bridget Jones's Diary last night, and also because Renee happens to be her name.

She told me she needed to find out if her library card was still valid. She hadn't used it for quite a while as she'd been away at school. As I brought her account up on the computer she asked me a question:

"Is your name Jack?"

"Ummm.....Yes," I said. How did she know my name? I took another look at her to see if we had met.

"We had a conversation two years ago. We were talking about Neil Gaiman and you recommended some books to me."

No fucking way. No. Fucking. Way.

"Reeaally. And you read'em all I suppose?"

"Yes. All of them were great. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash was on there, and Michael Marshall Smith. Really fabulous stuff. I've just finished something really light, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. Can you recommend something else?"

Gentle Reader, in the boxing match I was envisioning at that moment all the smart money was on The Feather. No way would I even last ten rounds.

"Why, yes, Renee. Yes, I can."

The funny thing is, is that this sort of thing happens pretty often for me. This is the longest turnaround on hearing back though. Anyway, excuse me while I feel just tiniest bit smug about how great my taste is. In this aspect, I really am quite astonishing. I know it's true because in my experience, I am the only person this kind of thing happens too.

So, you know, lesser beings fuck off and all that.

Spam spam spam spam.

2004-04-13T00:08:00.000-07:00

motley joe bedstraw papacy intelligentsia majestic embassy cutover wishy incommutable squander ordeal edmondson cheesecloth poach zen aviv dyad cryogenic

That was the subject line in a junk e-mail I received today. I have no idea what it means but I would like to state for the record: I would certainly be interested in any pornography this individual would care to make available for public consumption.

What I've been reading and what I am about to read.

2004-04-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

Remember way back when I was frothing at the mouth with excitement over Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver? It was 916 pages long and demanded much from the reader in terms of attention and time (and occasionally patience).

For all that, I loved it. Volume Two of Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is The Confusion hits stores tomorrow.

I'm back.

2004-04-11T01:57:00.000-07:00

There are many reasons for why I have not written in this thing for the past five months: Holiday season depression, technical difficulties, romantic setbacks (in both the Classical and Modern sense). In late January, my previous computer gave up the ghost in the machine. Laziness fits in there as well.

But I'm back now. Let's get to it then, shall we?

2003-11-18T10:06:00.000-08:00

I went to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World Sunday night. For anyone who is wondering, the movie is fantastic and well worth seeing. For myself, I will certainly be paying to see it more than once.

The movie is based on parts of two novels from a twenty book series written by Patrick O'Brian. The books are set during the Napoleonic War and follow the fortunes and failures of two men: Captain Jack Aubrey of His Majesty's Royal Navy and his ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin.

Jack, nicknamed "Lucky Jack" by his men, is a master of his chosen profession. He's a tactical genius at sea, and knows how to make one of the 'big ships' (the most complicated technology of the time) do anything he wants it to. On land is a different story; with firm ground beneath his feet and society all round him, Jack inevitably becomes well, a bit of a dork. He also plays a fair violin.

Ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin is cut from a different cloth: He's Irish and Catalan, a naturalist fluent in many languages and sciences, and a spy for His Majesty's Government. In his own way, Stephen is as deadly as Jack, capable of brilliant manipulations and schemes worthy of a Macchiavelli. He's also a dab hand at the cello.

The two, while being opposites, are also the very best of friends.

The movie does something difficult and manages to capture the feel of O'Brian's world and the people who populate it well. It is the first movie I think I've ever seen that seems aimed at the "highest common denominator."

O'Brian did not merely write sea stories by the way. He books seemed to want to describe the whole of society at the time. Mary Renault called them "the finest historical novels ever written." (Something she herself is accused of having done.) Walter Cronkite called the books "crack cocaine for intellectuals."

David Mamet wrote a great essay about O'Brian for the New York Times.

The books, and the movie are well worth your time.

"Foolish mortals. Even my shallowness has hidden depths."

2003-11-17T05:12:00.000-08:00

When it comes to popular culture, I like to consider myself a bit of a connoisseur. Sifting through the myriad novels, comics, movies, tv shows, music, magazines, etc. in search of the best on offer has been a lifelong obsession with me.

It could be argued that there's not much point in the exercise but I believe in being true to one's enthusiasms. Besides that, doesn't who and what we love serve to define us in some way as human beings? No? Bah. Your lackluster taste in literature and film belies your station and has marked you as surely as favors from the Donner Party.

"Opinions are like assholes. We all have 'em." Yes, so I've been told. Yet my ass has been greatly admired in its time. My opinions as well. May we stake the same claim for yours?

I thought not.

But relax, child. Breathe easy. Do not fear my arrogance too much. I am here and all will be made well. When we are finished, we may not be simpatico on all things (that can be so boring), but let us at least agree on this:

1. Everything means something, whether we are aware of it or not.

2. Your right to hold an opinion is only so strong as it is an informed opinion. The market on uninformed opinions fell out long ago and has never recovered value.

3. The woman of my dreams, if she is to be of any quality, must have a love for the music of Leonard Cohen and something approaching a mild detest for one of the following: a) The Grateful Dead b) The Eagles c) Forrest Gump d) COPS and e) So-called "reality shows." This is a dealbreaker.

2003-11-17T04:33:00.000-08:00

"People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I'm the Doctor, and I want the finest wines available to humanity! I want them here, and I want them now!"

2003-11-15T10:08:00.000-08:00

He does you know. You can view the first episode of the new animated Doctor Who story "Scream of the Shalka" here. It's fun, and Richard E. Grant does very well. Note: Sophie Okoneda, the actress playing the Doctor's new companion is a bit of all right. (There are interviews with she and Grant elsewhere on the site.)

I look forward to next week's episode with anticipation.

2003-11-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

Bear with me as I think out loud.

Various people over the years have told me that they do not read novels. "Oh, I don't read fiction," they said, "I don't have time to read that stuff. It's not REAL." You may have heard something like this as well at one time or another. Hell, you may be one of the people that says that kind of thing.

For some reason though, these same individuals never have any problem with looking at paintings. You never hear from a one of them, "Oh, I don't look at paintings. I'm a photograph man entire. Photographs are REAL. That painting there by --who is it?-- Magritte, I'll look at that when he's painted a proper face for that man. A green apple for a head? Absurd."

No one says things like that because it is so obviously a silly point of view. But then I would argue, so is the first. Incidentally, the only person who has ever said that they have no time for fiction that I believe is Sherlock Holmes. He's fictional though (and more real than I am in another sense) so who can say?

I shall continue this line of thought another time.

I want to wake up on the planet that never sleeps.

2003-11-04T21:29:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is November 5th. The Matrix Revolutions opens at precisely the same time all over the world. Here on the West Coast, that means 6 a.m. For me that means waking up at five so I can make it to Mann's (formerly Grauman's) Chinese Theatre.

Naturally, I am going. I love the fact that I get to go to a movie at SIX IN THE MORNING and then grab breakfast and go to work. The 21st century is turning out pretty cool.

What would totally make it though, is if I could go back to bed at noon. I have only myself to blame for this.

"I am of the Devil's party."

2003-10-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

I have a number of t-shirts which I like to wear to work. Each one has a slogan or somesuch message being delivered to the denizens of my always-fair-in-the-movies-but-rather-strikingly-less-so-in-the-reality city. Here is one of them.

Another shirt I wear has a picture of Hellboy. Created by Mike Mignola, Hellboy is a demon from Hell sent during WWII to destroy the earth. However, things go awry; he's raised by a kindly scientist instead and is now the world's greatest paranormal investigator.

C'mon: How can you not love that? Hellboy is the star of comics, a couple novels, the calendar in my kitchen, and next summer: a movie.

Anyway, I wore the Hellboy shirt to work a few weeks ago. A woman I was checking out videos to noticed it and said, "Hellboy? What's that?" Not one to miss a chance to promote my favorite storytelling medium, I replied.

"Hellboy is a comic book character. He's the world's greatest paranormal investigator, who just so happens to be a demon from hell."

"Oh, I don't think I like that."

I smiled, and my tone was pure helpfulness.

"Ah, there's nothing to worry about, m'am. He may be from Hell, but he was raised by a good family; so that's all right."

"I don't think you should wear that. You know I'm a Christian and warm tapioca pudding for brains. You can tell from the nonsenical natterings pouring from my mouth that I haven't had an original thought since Carter was in office."

Okay, you got me. The woman did not say any of the above after the word 'Christian.' She might as well have though.

Yesterday I wore a different t-shirt to work. This one is black with a lot of laughing skeletons on it. It's a Mexican 'Day of the Dead' shirt. Fine, right?

Wrong. The same woman shows up. She reminds me of our previous exchange, and hands me a flyer that she made herself.

It was a photocopy, and the original was written in pen. Presumably she wrote it, but it might have been hashed out by some other imbecile. The flyer (which I do not have beside me) proclaimed that we should: Boycott Halloween! Boycott the Devil's Day! and then a whole lot of crap about how Satanists sacrifice animals to the Devil and try to get our children and we need to put the Devil out of business (as if he has a storefront operation), etc. and so on.

She was going on about all this verbally as well while backing out the door. The other people in line were laughing at her.

It occurred to me that in my entire life I have never been proselytized to by a Satanist. No one has ever approached me and extended an offer to attend services in worship of Their Satanic Majesty. Ever been invited to an orgy by a Satanist or a Midsummer's Midnight Picnic of Evil (B.Y.O.V.)?

No, you probably haven't and neither have I. Which is too bad, as the picnics sound particularly memorable.

I am so sick of Born Again Christian doorknobs accosting me to tell of their Big Jewish Superhero. What, do they think I've never heard it before? That I'll mistake the bovine gleam in their eyes for the spark of intelligence and a novel way of looking at the world? The point of view they present on a regular basis is like a McDonald's Super-Sized Anathema Shake, and I'm not having any.

By the way, has anyone seen the t-shirts, stickers, etc. with 'Real Men Love Jesus' on them? Am I the only one who immediately pictures a big Mexican with oiled muscles and a leer getting all the man love he can handle? Maybe.

I hate L.A.

2003-10-29T09:21:00.000-08:00

Maybe you haven't heard, but there's a transit strike going on in Los Angeles. This of course means that I have even less of a social life than usual, and getting to work on time is a problem on the best of days.

It's difficult to love a city that is routinely run with such blatant incompetence. It makes me think that I'd love to move back to Chicago, or to Seattle, or someplace else with a fine line in public transportation.

Right now, Seattle is winning for two reasons:

One, I've never lived there.

Two, I have friends who live there and are fun to drink with.

Three, the girls seem to like weird guys there and that suits me down to the ground.

I can't move anywhere at present though. I haven't gotten what I came for. Yet.

Writing

2003-10-20T04:35:00.000-07:00

On October 22nd I will be reading an original piece to a group of people at the Schindler House in Los Angeles. It's for some shindig in honor of the Disney Concert Hall, which is opening downtown.

I've been told that I will have about ten minutes to read. That comes out to about 1000 words. The problem is, I haven't written it yet.

I want to write something witty and exciting and exotic. Something dynamic that grabs attention and won't let go. My brain feels like a blunt object. Sigh.

However, I know I will get it done in time.

2003-10-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

My Doctor Who obsession continues unabated. Tom Baker, while being the fourth actor to play the Doctor, became the most famous in the role. Here is a string of outtakes he did for a commerical voiceover.

Hilarious.

The Return of the King

2003-09-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

The trailer of the final Lord of the Rings film can be found here.

Wow.

Choices.

2003-09-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

First of all, I have a new cellphone.

Second, in Pulp Fiction Mia Wallace (played by Uma Thurman) gives Vincent Vega (played by John Travolta) a personality test of sorts. You remember she gives him choices between two pop culture opposites (of a sort) to determine what kind of guy he is. Ginger... or Mary Anne? Elvis... or The Beatles? The Brady Bunch... or the Partridge Family?

In that vein, one could ask, "Star Trek... or Doctor Who?"

For the one (two?) people reading this unaware of what it is, Doctor Who is the longest running British science fiction tv show. It began over there in the 1960's the way Star Trek started in the States. Both series are inescapable pop cultural touchstones in their respective countries. Both have very devoted fanbases. The similarities end there though.

Doctor Who follows the adventures of an 800 year old renegade Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He journeys through time and space (with companions that he picks up) in a stolen machine called a T.A.R.D.I.S. (short for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space).

Initially the TARDIS was supposed to be able to change its appearance in order to better fit in with the surroundings. However, something went wrong with that part of it-- so it always looks like a blue London police call box.

At its best, Doctor Who was short on budget but long on charm, creativity, weirdness, idiosyncracy, cleverness, freedom, and the lure of adventure. No explanation of Trek is necessary I hope.

So which is it for you? Star Trek or Doctor Who? Don't tell me you don't like science fiction because we live in a science fiction world and I won't believe you.

All this is preface to the news that Doctor Who is returning!

I lost my cellphone.

2003-09-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

That's the gist of it. Anyone trying to contact me for the next couple days by phone is doomed to failure. Left it on the train due to overenthusiastic reading of Pale Horse Coming by Stephen Hunter.

Hopefully all will turn out all right. More later.

Television's Golden Age

2003-09-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

So, I picked up Quicksilver yesterday. I'm too caught up in a few other books to start it yet though. Sigh.

On the way home from the bookstore, I stopped by Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee. Eddie's is one of the greatest video stores in the entire country. They've been around for over thirty years and have somewhere around 60,000 tapes.

I love their collection of old television programs. I've made it a habit to go and rent several tapes of certain series at one time. To give myself a taste of what it was all about. In particular, I love the mystery, adventure, and western shows of the 1960's: The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Burke's Law, and the westerns of the period: The Wild, Wild West; Have Gun --Will Travel, Maverick; and one that is completely new to me: Yancy Derringer.

Yancy Derringer follows the adventures of an ex-Conferderate soldier turned river boat gambler and secret agent for John Colton, administrator of New Orleans. Here's a bit of dialogue from the pilot. Colton has just asked Derringer to work for him in secret (meaning if he's caught, Colton can't lift a hand to help him):

Derringer: You on one side of the law, me on the other?

Colton: Yes.

Derringer: The same law?

Colton: That's right.

Derringer: What you want is a rakehell, a rogue, a scoundrel, a gentleman, a smuggler, a gambler, and a fool.

Colton: Well, Mr. Derringer?

Derringer: Well, Mr. Colton... guess I'm your huckleberry.

They just don't make 'em like that anymore. Damn it.

Marriage, and all that.

2003-09-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

In the past few weeks, two of my friends have gotten married. Mark, who's been a friend for the past three years and Rob, who has tolerated and enjoyed my friendship for going on thirty years. Yipes.

(Here I should point out that the two did not marry each other but rather the ladyloves of their choosing. Second marriages for both as well.)

Mark's wedding was understated and classy. Held at the courthouse in Santa Barbara, which used to be a mission and so looked like a church anyhow. There was alcohol.

Rob's wedding was much more formal. I was part of the wedding party and so got to wear a tuxedo. It marred by the fact that it was dry and the name Jesus was tossed around more than Frisbees at Venice Beach.

Listen: No one, and I mean No One should be expected (allowed?) to marry or bury a loved one without the presence of alcoholic beverages. Drinking is a fucking requirement, folks. Much proselytising about how okay the Lord is with your matrimonial union doesn't cut it. Ever.

Your Lord Jesus did not spend his time turning water into wine so you could just blow it off. It is your duty as Christians to go forth and turn wine into water.

The most anticipated book of the year

2003-09-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have been extraordinarily lax about posting here lately. Totally amateurish on my part. That ends here.

2003 has just been an incredible year in terms of pop culture. By far though the thing I've been looking forward to the most is Neal Stephenson's new novel: Quicksilver. It's the follow-up to Cryptonomicon, and like that one deals with codes, power, money, freedom, and intellectual thrills. Simply put: Stephenson writes geek fiction.

Less than to go now, and I can't wait. I even took a vacation day so I could stay home and read his latest opus? Can you believe that?

(Reminder: Must get girlfriend immediately. If this were Bangkok, I could get one on the way home from work. Kidding.)

2003-08-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

Brian Eno has written a piece concerning Lessons in How to Lie About Iraq. Naturally, it originally saw light of day in a British newspaper. Pay particular attention to the bit where he recounts talking to a Russian musician about dealing with propaganda. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said he would choose a free press over a free government. We should be so lucky.

Which reminds me, I need to pick up a deck of Eno's Oblique Strategies cards. Alan Moore has a set don't you know.

Friendship

2003-08-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

"What is friendship? It’s telephoning a friend at night to say, ‘Be a pal, get your gun and come over quickly’ – and hearing the reply, ‘O.K., be right there.’ " -- Jean-Pierre Melville

The French have an aspect of romantic fatalism to their culture that I find completely irresistible. You can see it in things as Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It's unmistakable in Casablanca (which while not being French was hugely influenced by Julien Duvivier's 1936 film Pepe Le Moko. Bogart was a film icon in Paris years before he became one in the US.

Along these lines, the Criterion Collection is going to release Le Circle Rouge. It will make a nice companion to Bob Le Flambeur. The French understand something about film noir. They coined the term.

My mother died back in June. The day of her funeral (miserable in so many ways), I checked my e-mail and found this. It was an e-mail from Jeremy. He claims to have seen it in a dream. It cheered me immensely. I don't even have dreams about myself where I come off that cool, but I've started.

He's probably the kind of friend Melville was going on about.

Resume of the assshole in charge.

2003-08-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

I found this somewhere. It speaks for itself really. Rather too eloquently, I might add.

Sigh.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Past work experience:

I ran for congress and lost.
I produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.

Accomplishments:

With my father's help and nearly the same name, I was elected Governor of Texas.
I changed pollution laws for oil and power companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the nation.
I replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America.
I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government in billions in borrowed money.
I set a record for most executions by any governor in American history.
I became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of Republican appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments as President:

Attacked and took over two countries.
Spent the country's surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
Shattered the record for biggest annual deficit in history.
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
Set an all-time record for the biggest stock market drop in its history.

I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.

I am the first president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record and in my year in office set the all-time record for most vacation days taken by any president.

After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips of any other president in U.S. history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs. I cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.
I set the all-time record for the most mortgage foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I set the record for the lowest number of press conferences than any president since the invention of television.

I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.

I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have done.

I cut healthcare benefits for war veterans and set the all-time record for the most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/

I dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.

My presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.

Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history.

(The 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her).

I am the first president in U.S. history to have all 50 states bankrupted at the same time.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
I created the largest government bureaucracy in the history of the United States and set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history, while at the same time proposing tax cuts.
I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.

I hold the record for most corporate campaign donations.

My biggest lifetime campaign contributor, one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).

I am the first president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.

I am the first U.S. president to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.

I set all-time records for the number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.

I failed to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'.

I failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.

Records and References:

I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).

I was AWOL from National Guard.

Records from my tenure as governor of Texas are in my father's library, unavailable for public view.

All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed and unavailable for public view.

All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed and unavailable for public view.

Any records or minutes my VP or I attended regarding public energy policy are sealed and unavailable for public review.

For personal references please speak to my daddy or Uncle James Baker.

They can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.

2003-08-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

I bought the new issue of Playboy yesterday. It's the "Women of Starbucks" issue, and if nude baristas are your thing you could do worse than pick it up. Actually, don't buy it. It's nothing but depressing.

2003-08-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

The previous bit was nabbed from a book called The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore by George Khoury and friends, published by TwoMorrows Publishing and available for the reasonable price of $24.95. I recommend it to one and all, as an excellent resource of insight, interviews, and tribute to one of the finest writers alive.

I am not even joking a little bit when I say that.

ALAN MOORE'S FIVE TIPS FOR WOULD-BE COMICS WRITERS

2003-08-14T02:02:00.000-07:00

1. Don't.
2. No, really don't.
3. DEFINITELY don't---I mean it.
4. Whatever you might be imagining about a life of writing, it's not like that.
5. OK, if you're going to anyway, if you're going to be a writer of any quality, you will have to commit yourself to writing---which is something that, when you're young and idealistic, sounds incredibly easy to do, but you should commit almost as if you were some ancient Greek or Egyptian committing yourself to a god.

If you do right by the god, then the god may, at some point in the future, reward you. But if you slack off and don't do right by your talent or your god, then you are heading for a world of immense and unimaginable pain. If you have a gift that you choose to pursue, then you have to pursue it seriously. Don't be half-assed about it, but realize what that commitment means.

Committing yourself to writing will mean, to a certain extent, your writing will become the most important part of your life---and that's a big thing to say. It can have a distancing effect upon other relationships. It can be sometimes quite a solitary life. If you're committed to your writing, you're going to spend most of your life indoors in a silent, empty room, concentrating on a pen and a piece of paper or their equivalent. Be prepared to take it seriously and be prepared to follow where it takes you, even if that takes you to some very strange places.

This is by no means the most glamorous profession.

Don't say that I didn't warn you.

Been there and back.

2003-08-11T23:59:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in a while. The end of that date left me somewhat depressed. I should have written anyway, but didn't feel like working up the energy to even breathe if you can imagine it.

Anyway, I want to talk about some other stuff. Like books! And comics! And... Other things!

I set aside Declare by Tim Powers to read some other worthies:

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane- I've read everything by this guy, and he is really turning out some incredible stuff. He's written seven novels so far, and every one of them is an addictive thriller written by someone with a poet's sense of the language. This is probably my least favorite of his books, but I have nothing but admiration for the guts he had to write it.

The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires by Brian Stableford- Stableford has long been a writer I wished to try. He writes in a lot of different genres, but one of the things he's really known for is his scientific romances (this is a term used to describe the works of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and other early writers of science fiction).

After that, I figure on reading the entirety of Raymond Chandler's work. Start with the short stories, then burn through all seven novels. I am addicted to story, and need as much as I get of it right now.

Speaking of which, which I wasn't, here's an interview with one of my heroes, Grant Morrison. Pay particular attention to the portion where he talks of his upcoming comic Vimanarama. I'm really looking forward to this. Morrison had an indelible effect on the way I think when I was in my teens. Unlike many other writers, he continues to impress to this day. Fucking pop genius.

Epiphany: In which the discovery is made that I am in all fact, a complete dolt.

2003-08-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

She took me out for dinner in honor of my birthday, belatedly, Thursday evening. We drove around for about an hour, as she was trying to be spontaneous and pick a place that she could barely remember. Thing is, she picked me up at nine, and by ten the restaurants she had in mind were starting to close.

After wandering around like this for a bit we finally ended up in Tangiers-- a restaurant in Los Feliz. Dinner was great, and then she gave me a present of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. For such a small book, it has a lot of meat to chew on. It is one of the most wonderful thoughtful gifts anyone has ever given to me.

I might be falling in love with this girl.

Anyway, I should point out that the "date" as it were ended badly. I realize that sometimes I reveal my emotions with about as much charm as an Old Testament god. It's about that appealing too. Ugh. I'm certain she thinks I'm an idiot.

The Friend Zone

2003-08-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

Bah. I have been banished (again) to The Friend Zone. You know that place: it's where Burgess Meredith wound up in a library after a nuclear war with all the books he could possibly want to read at his fingers-- only to break his glasses. Where William Shatner leaves a mental institution only to find himself on a plane that has a demonic thing attacking the wing. Where--

Oh wait, that's The Twilight Zone. Well it feels the same from where I'm standing. If I could just find the Rod Serling jerk in control of the place, I'd bust him one in the nose.

A snippet of conversation.

2003-07-31T07:25:00.000-07:00

Here is an excahange between my boss and I yesterday:

Jack: So, if I joined a religion that required me to spend my holy days totally debauched in worship of Nyarlahotep, could I be excluded from working Sundays?

Bosslady: No, you can't use that reason. Better people than you have tried.

Jack: (pause) There are no better people than me.

Girl Interrupted Me

2003-07-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

For the past few days, the statement "everything is going according to plan" has been running through my head. Not, let me point out, in a God sees all, knows all, etc. manner. No. Rather it plays in the smiling with a drink in his hand, astonishingly clever, loaded with charm, laconic 1960s film hero way (how's that for some keen personal insight into your scribe's brain?).

Whenever things would get messed up, go counter to my wishes, or generally go pear shaped as they inevitably do: S'alright. All is well. EIGATP. I like to think Norman Vincent Peale would be pleased, and slightly scandalised.

Last night, I had a date with a girl. We ate at Tommy's, watched Wings Of Desire, and talked. I leaned over to kiss her and...

...Girl said no. Can you believe that? Girl Said No. Urrrgh. We debated and discussed the matter. I brought out Occam's Razor and some Cream of the Jest. Girl would not be swayed. She still say no.

Still, no reason to be discouraged. Everything Is Going According To Plan. I'm seeing her again on Thursday night, where she has another chance to say, "No." On the bright side though, it is also a golden opportunity for her to say, "Yes."

Books of the moment.

2003-07-25T07:36:00.000-07:00

Just finished:

The King's Coat by Dewey Lambdin

The Big Blow by Joe R. Lansdale

Hardcase by Dan Simmons

I've started Declare by Tim Powers. The author describes it as "tradecraft meets Lovecraft."

? ? ?

2003-07-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

Randall, a friend of mine, is in the hospital this week. His heart is beating out of rhythm apparently. Not certain what's going to happen, but he may end up on some kind of heart medication or wearing a pacemaker. He just turned thirty. Christ.

Darn it.

2003-07-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

It turns out the sign Is Just There. I think it's a prop or somesuch thing. Pity, as I'd really like to eat at a place with that name. L.A. has many interesting restaurants, only a short drive away from me. Someday, when I have a car and driver I'll frequent them all.

This club sounds delicious.

2003-07-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

Just noticed that the building at the top of my street has a sign within that proclaims it: Sound Effects Research Institute & Bistro. I don't know what to make of this yet.

Bah.

2003-07-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

Hello, my name is Jack. I'm 33 years old and live in Hollywood, CA. I do not work in the movie business. Yet.

I've started this blog in order to give myself someplace to think out loud as it were. Maybe that should be think in print. Over the next year or so I'll be posting every day about the things that fascinate, obsess, and sometimes annoy me. Sometimes all at once.

It will fairly thrum with interest I promise.

More later.

Is this a gauntlet I see before me?

2003-07-15T00:08:00.000-07:00

My friend Michael has given me a challenge. Scroll down to his post for July 7, 2003 "Why I'm doing this."