Rescue Me is one of those shows that goes away after its yearly batch of 13 episodes, and even the most ardent television fans forget how good it is in the midst of the slew of network shows. Denis Leary’s brutally honest tale of NYC firefighters returned last night, and I hadn't realized just how much I have missed it. There’s nothing more invigorating to me than watching an artist work on the project they were born to make; Denis Leary is that artist and Rescue Me is his masterpiece.
The evening started early with my discovery of a "Comedy Short" on FX's Rescue Me website that reintroduced the amazing chemistry of Rescue Me’s remarkable ensemble. Essentially a fifteen minute slapstick routine, I laughed form start to finish as the crew tried to escape from a bear/bobcat/wolf that finds its way into the firehouse. For a show that deals in tragedy so often, what makes Rescue Me so great is its ability to weave hilarious comedic subplots into otherwise grim material.
The season three premiere featured that volatile mix we’ve grown to love with Tommy’s marriage falling apart after the death of his son (his wife is now sleeping with his brother, can’t wait for that to get ugly), the firehouse trying to stop smoking, and Tommy’s godson getting a hands-on education in sex from his science teacher. Tommy’s exasperation throughout the teacher drama was priceless hilarity, but the interaction between Tommy and his wife was heartbreaking, with Janet essentially blaming Tommy for not doing enough to save their son. While that reaction doesn’t exactly endear me to her, it’s an understandable, and natural reaction. Tommy saves people everyday (see the little girl at the end of the episode), but he couldn’t save his own son; it makes sense that Janet would resent him for that, even if it's unreasonable of her to believe he has power over unfortunate accidents.
Leary and Tolan set up a slew of narrative landmines in this first episode, and I can’t wait to see them start to explode. As we’ve seen from Rescue Me before, there’ll be a fair amount of laughs and tears along the way. It’s good to have you back, boys.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
X-Men: The Last Stand
X-Men 3: The Last Stand is not a travesty, but it is a disappointment. After the rich, textured storytelling of X2, The Last Stand plays like a rushed, shallow, money-hungry installment that doesn’t bode well for the future of the franchise. If you love the X-Men -- the history, the characters, the themes -- X-Men 3 will likely break your heart. If your interest in the X-Men is anything less, you’ll likely be moderately entertained by the spectacle. Like I said, the film is not a travesty, but it is a disappointment.
For X-Men fans, X3 feels a little like an out-of-body experience. We recognize the faces on the screen, yet there’s a feeling of surreal weightlessness, as if what we’re seeing doesn't quite feel real. This displacement can be attributed largely to the much ballyhooed change in director from visionary Bryan Singer to the soulless Brett Ratner. Singer brought a human touch of character and pathos to the first two installments of the franchise. Ratner goes a different route, taking the characters we’ve grown to love and setting them up like G.I. Joes in a prepubescent sandbox war and then turning on the garden hose.
Ratner takes an ethically and morally charged plotline -- a “cure” has been found for mutants -- and uses it as a flimsy framework to hang a handful of overblown (and forgettable) action scenes. The issues of such a cure -- Should mutants want it? How should mutants treat those who choose to take it? Should mutants be given a choice? -- are all glossed over quickly and unsatisfactorily. Who needs moral dilemmas and character development when we can pull the Golden Gate Bridge off its moorings? Those small character scenes that made X2 more than just your typical summer action fare -- Storm and Nightcrawler discussing their feelings towards homo-sapiens, Magneto charming Pyro -- are nowhere to be found in X3. It’s just your typical summer movie -- flashy, shallow, and empty of the human spirit. And after Bryan Singer showed that these films can be so much more than that, it really hurts to see this franchise treated with such casual indifference on the part of Ratner and 20th Century Fox.
I could go on and on about the plotting and abysmal treatment of the X-Men canon -- the fact that Dark Phoenix and Sentinels are basically afterthoughts in the film -- but it all gets too depressing. And people who loved the first two are going to see the third for the same reasons I did; it couldn’t possibly be as bad as people are saying. Well, it is. For a franchise that was such a thrill in X2 to descend into mediocrity is just inexcusable. For an X-Men movie to be so disposable is unfathomable. And yet, here it is, X3: The Last Stand. Part of me hopes it really isn’t “The Last Stand” for the X-Men, but if this is the sort of effort we’re going to get from Fox from here on out (and with $100 million opening weekend, why should they make any greater effort?) I’d rather they just let the franchise die.
For X-Men fans, X3 feels a little like an out-of-body experience. We recognize the faces on the screen, yet there’s a feeling of surreal weightlessness, as if what we’re seeing doesn't quite feel real. This displacement can be attributed largely to the much ballyhooed change in director from visionary Bryan Singer to the soulless Brett Ratner. Singer brought a human touch of character and pathos to the first two installments of the franchise. Ratner goes a different route, taking the characters we’ve grown to love and setting them up like G.I. Joes in a prepubescent sandbox war and then turning on the garden hose.
Ratner takes an ethically and morally charged plotline -- a “cure” has been found for mutants -- and uses it as a flimsy framework to hang a handful of overblown (and forgettable) action scenes. The issues of such a cure -- Should mutants want it? How should mutants treat those who choose to take it? Should mutants be given a choice? -- are all glossed over quickly and unsatisfactorily. Who needs moral dilemmas and character development when we can pull the Golden Gate Bridge off its moorings? Those small character scenes that made X2 more than just your typical summer action fare -- Storm and Nightcrawler discussing their feelings towards homo-sapiens, Magneto charming Pyro -- are nowhere to be found in X3. It’s just your typical summer movie -- flashy, shallow, and empty of the human spirit. And after Bryan Singer showed that these films can be so much more than that, it really hurts to see this franchise treated with such casual indifference on the part of Ratner and 20th Century Fox.
I could go on and on about the plotting and abysmal treatment of the X-Men canon -- the fact that Dark Phoenix and Sentinels are basically afterthoughts in the film -- but it all gets too depressing. And people who loved the first two are going to see the third for the same reasons I did; it couldn’t possibly be as bad as people are saying. Well, it is. For a franchise that was such a thrill in X2 to descend into mediocrity is just inexcusable. For an X-Men movie to be so disposable is unfathomable. And yet, here it is, X3: The Last Stand. Part of me hopes it really isn’t “The Last Stand” for the X-Men, but if this is the sort of effort we’re going to get from Fox from here on out (and with $100 million opening weekend, why should they make any greater effort?) I’d rather they just let the franchise die.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
The Hot 111
1) Which person do you feel most deserves a most righteous bitch-slap? Britney Spears, if only to complete the white trash Xanadu she's built for herself.
2) What would be your Theme Song? "We Used to Be Friends" by The Dandy Warhols
3) What is the weirdest name, bad or good, you have ever been called? It wasn't exactly a name but I once made a friend so mad all she could do was spit and grunt.
4) Pick your celebrity mom. Joan Allen
5) Pick your celebrity dad. Kevin Costner
6) Should white folk who dance be tackled? Tackled? No. Clotheslined? Absolutely.
7) Ever seen anyone besides yourself doing the deed? Seen? No. My upstairs neighbors at my old apartment were less than discreet on the aural side, but that only ever lasted 3 to 5 minutes.
8) What is the sickest thing you have ever put in your mouth? A snail. Apparently the French totally dig em.
9) Do you have any fruits or vegetables with you? No, that's not a banana in my pocket. I'm just happy to see you.
10) What qualifies you for this position? I'm very athletic and willing to try just about anything.
11) Do you talk about Fight Club? .....
12) Ever Googled yourself? Indeed. My name turns up 430 hits. Only about a half-dozen of them are actually me?
13) Ever been caught Googling yourself? What? Preposterous! I don't google myself.
14) Where is Jimmy Hoffa? I hear Arizona is nice this time of year.
15) Do you feel lucky? Until I go to Rhythm City.
16) What movie could be your life story? American Psycho.
17) How do you contribute to the war on terror? I refuse to buy diamonds. Terrorists use the diamond trade to hide their money because they know most women can't live without them.
18) Do you support the NRA? Only when they shoot each other.
19) If Dick Cheney shot you, what would you do? I'm certain there would be cursing involved, followed by return fire.
20) If you had to have an STD, which would you choose? Something that doesn't itch.
21) Was O.J. innocent? If he was guilty of anything, it was putting together a kick-ass defense team.
22) What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the phrase warm front? Swamp ass.
23) Do you Yahoo? Only gay cowboys yahoo. Gay cowboys and that kid who played Darth Vader.
24) What do you put on your hot dog? Ketchup. That's all.
25) Ever been to Canada? I hit a jackpot at a Niagra Falls Casino.
26) Did you bring me back anything? What? I just get back in the country and you're asking me for money?
27) Do you support the minutemen? Anybody who makes me seem like a better lover is ok by me.
28) Who is the ugliest person you know? My station recently did a story about a 70 year old woman who jumped out of a second story window to escape a house fire. God broke the mold when he made her, and unfortunately he didn't put the mold back together right.
29) If your vocabulary consisted of only three words, what would they be? Fire, Bad, and Efflorescence. In a world of three word vocabularies, I would be considered quite the smarty.
30) If George Bush had your phone tapped, what would you want him to hear? Let's just say I'd be taking the phone into the bathroom a lot more often.
31) What does this world need more of? Education.
32) What does this world need less of? Placation.
33) What celebrity needs to fall off the face of the earth? Barry Bonds.
34) Who is the anti-christ? Jerry Falwell.
35) Finish this statement: I like __? Underscores.
36) Do you enjoy Spam? I have never partaken of that particular substance.
37) What am I eating? See food.
38) Are the Laffy Taffy jokes funny? HA HA HA! THE KITTENS WENT TO THE MEOW-SEUM! GET IT? OH DEAR LORD MY RIBS! HA HA HA!
39) Who is your daddy, and what does he do? My daddy is Dave and he rules all existence from the top of Mount Olympus.
40) What is the ideal handshake? The Exploding Pound.
41) Ever put dirty wallpaper on someone else's desktop? No, but somebody put a stinky red eye on my desktop in college.
42) What is on your desktop? My secretary. But it's not what you think. I strangled her when she exposed my money laundering scheme. Whoa. Sorry. Slipped into a Raymond Chandler novel for a second there.
43) Will you explain this to me? Was that too obscure for you? You really should read more.
44) If you moved onto Wisteria Lane, what would your dirty little secret be? That I was really supposed to be a character on Lost.
45) Did you let The One get away? The One and more than my share of The Twos as well.
46) Which game show host is the biggest tool? Alex Trebek. He thinks he's so smart because he has the answers on his cards. Every time he speaks with a foreign accent I want to smash his head into Potpourri for $800.
47) Do you want to explain yourself? What can I say? I have a little bit of a violent streak.
48) A kick in the groin -- Fair game or dirty pool? Anything's fair when the guy is bigger than you.
49) Were you spanked as a child? I earned my share of red bottoms.
50) Were you spanked as an adult? An occasional attakid butt pat from my teammates.
51) How would you explain a "tossed salad" to your grandma? With visual aids.
52) Ever found Viagra in somebody's medicine cabinet? I have in fact.
53) Did you look at them differently the next day? Only because I ended up stealing it.
54) Do you judge fat people? When I see them with a cart full of Ben & Jerrys, Tombstones, and Lays in the check-out line, hell yea I do.
55) Which cartoon character did you have the hots for as a child? Lady Jaye (G.I. Joe) got me hooked on brunettes, but it's hard to choose anybody over Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
56) Ever watch porn from your dad's collection? Please. My father's a good Christian man who has no need for such rubbish.
57) Do you believe in faeries? They're actually pretty hard to avoid these days.
58) *SPOILER* How old were you when you found out Santa wasnt real? I was told when I was nine. I knew much earlier.
59) Have you ever died? Not that I recall. But after seeing The Sixth Sense, I'm not taking anything for granted.
60) Ever considered hooking up with an ex? We all have our dark, lonely nights.
61) Ever watched Spice World? It came out on my 18th birthday. HELL YEAH I SAW IT!
62) Are you lying? Sadly no. My girlfriend and I went to see it in the theater. At least I can say I got in free since I worked at the theater.
63) What is the worst movie that you secretly love? Hudson Hawk or Saving Silverman.
64) Are you wearing pants right now? Actually no. I'm typing this in bed.
65) Did you wash your hands? Before I took my contacts out. Little side note: If you have cool mint floss, make sure you take your contacts out before you use it. Otherwise, it burns your eyeballs.
66) What caused your last break up? She was bi-polar and threw dishes.
67) Did you wash your hands? Incessantly.
68) Does Dateline's To Catch a Predator touch too close to home for you? Well, I do have a MySpace page, but that's about as close as it gets.
69) What controversial topic are you most uptight about? There's not a single topic I've encountered that I'm uptight about, and that tends to get me into trouble.
70) When you see an ugly couple, does it make you laugh or does it make you sad? Momentarily sad because I'm lonely (awww), then relieved that I'm still not that lonely.
71) How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop? Nobody has actually licked a lollypop since 1923. And even then it was in a cartoon. We've all turned into a bunch of suckers.
72) If I told you I saw Jesus in my grilled-cheese sandwich, what would you tell me? I'd probably steal it and put it on E-bay. People will buy anything that resembles Jesus these days. And a bunch of shit that doesn't.
73) Have you no shame? Maybe a little, after the fact.
74) Name your favorite prescription drug side effect. Fainting due to rapid blood loss.
75) Do you know what a magic bullet is? Of course. It kills werewolves.
76) If you fart in public to do you try to blame someone else? Can't. Everybody else around me passes out.
77) Are you having the BEST WEEK EVER? As far as weeks go, this one is right in the middle.
78) Should food touch? Who am I to judge?
79) Is it possible that you may have children and not know about it? I'm still waiting for the Maury show to call.
80) Do you have a face only a mother could love? You'd have to ask somebody besides my mom.
81) Do you eat food off the floor? What food? And whose floor?
82) What would you do for a Klondike Bar? Since I've never actually tried a Klondike Bar, I think the better question would be "What can a Klondike Bar do for me?"
83) For what amount of money would you drink a bottle of Ketchup? Twenty bucks plus expenses.
84) If you were competing for Miss America, what would your platform be? To hell with the children.
85) Should Britney Spears have her children taken away? She'll just keep popping 'em out like a gumball machine anyway.
86) Do you have a trendy ring tone? Ring tones are for 13 year old girls.
87) Does your mom still do your laundry? My mom does not do my laundry. Dad does.
88) Which celebrity are you most likely to go to jail for stalking? Professionally -- Joss Whedon. Romantically -- Alexis Bledel.
89) Have you ever used Nair? People do crazy things in college. And for one week my legs were siky smooth.
90) What does red mean to you? Blood. Blood means life. Life means OH MY GOD! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?
91) Deal or No Deal? With you? No deal my friend. No deal.
92) Are you a tight end or a wide receiver? Linebacker.
93) Why can't I quit you? Because I gave you the attention you weren't getting at home, and now you think there's more to us than there actually is. I'm sorry, but it's over.
94) Levitra, is it really about the quality? I said it's over.
95) Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry? Not necessarily, but you've pushed me to this with all your damn questions.
96) Have you ever in your life had a mullet? Right now I'm actually as close to a mullet as I have ever been.
97) Is it your fault your parents are divorced? They're actually still together, and I take full responsibility for that.
98) What can Brown do for you? It can clash with my black outfit.
99) What's in the special sauce? Ground-up Unicorns.
100) Are you a MySpace stalker? I've sent some messages that went without reply. Are you trying to say I'm a stalker now?
101) When you look in a mirror do you laugh or cry? It's more of a whine than an outright cry.
102) Do you use your powers for good or evil? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.
103) Do feminine hygiene commercials make you uncomfortable? Absolutely not. In fact, I think they should put out a compilation DVD.
104) Ever been in a porn shop? I've been in THE porn shop. The Hustler Store on Hollywood Boulevard. Jenna Jameson's breasts are cast in cement in front of the entrance.
105) Would you date a person missing three toes and one tooth? As long as the tooth was a molar and she never took off her socks.
106) Do you have street cred? Fa shizzle.
107) What magazine would you be a centerfold in? Psychology Today.
108) Do you ever get that not so fresh feeling? Every morning.
109) Do you feel stupid now? Stupid is as stupid does. So, yes, of course I feel stupid now.
110) Have you ever taken your ball and gone home? No, but I've kicked the ball onto the neighbor's roof.
111) Good lord. Is there a question you won't answer? Just don't ask me what happened in Vegas.
Ok kids. I'm officially retiring from the survey business. It's cheap and easy, and I have too much good stuff that I should be writing instead. But this was a good survey to go out on.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
The Hum
It’s not outside the realm of possibilities that my brother and I will one day collaborate on a book. We discussed it before he left for Iraq. Part of that discussion may have been our need to find some locus of control in a situation completely out of our hands. Perhaps it was our need to have something concrete to look forward to when his tour ended. Whatever the reason, it gave me something positive to concentrate on while he was away.
So, I started up The Longest Year; I scribble away on my whiteboard nightly; and I gut newspapers and magazines for their most poignant articles. I’ve spent the past many months jotting down every miniscule ripple that Andrew’s absence makes in the placid waters of my family. I want to be certain I have something to contribute when my brother returns home with his volumes of gritty and graphic tales that will doubtless hold oppressive reign over family conversations for many holidays to come.
In the beginning of this odyssey, writing topics fell from the sky. There was no shortage of conflict in the early months of Andrew‘s deployment. Of course, it didn’t help that he left just before the holidays, exacerbating the usual winter strife to epic proportions. I certainly didn’t enjoy the drama in our household, but the head-butting certainly filled up the journal pages. But while it was easy to write about the new experiences and new perspectives one gains at the beginning of such an enterprise, once complacency set in -- and it did set in -- it became much more difficult to find a hook or an angle for the domestic side of this tale.
My daily activities have mostly remained the same; the usual cycle of work, TV, writing, TV, Cubs, destitution, work, TV, etc. My parents remain busy as ever; my father with school board, booster club, and laundry; my mother with quilting and whatever evil machinations keep her at school until the wee hours of the evening. The only real change to the standard grind is my mother’s once-a-day e-mails and the occasional package of bric-a-brac that she demands my father and I contribute to (I supply episodes of Lost and 24 while dad handles the overseas postage).
On the surface things appear much as they always have, but life these days is certainly not the status quo. Everybody who loves my brother knows what I’m talking about. It’s that sense of unease beneath the surface of every day. Andrew doesn’t hold total dominion over my every waking thought, yet his absence and the danger he now faces lingers in my subconscious like a virulent infection. I don’t always think of Andrew, but I always feel him.
How can I articulate this sensation -- this fusion of loss, worry, and anticipation -- and the side-effects that manifest themselves in the most peculiar circumstances? I’ve been pondering this question for a while now, as my insights into the domestic side of deployment become less and less compelling. This feeling, this idea, is the key to my side of the story, of my family’s side of the story, but for the longest time I could not articulate it properly.
Then my I-Pod nearly killed me. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I’ve been weeding through my music library looking for the ideal playlist for my workouts. On this particular day I took a walk to the nearest mailbox to send back some Netflix DVDs, and I took along some music to test. Somewhere near St. Pius Catholic Church Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks” began to play. This tune is significant in two ways. First, the song itself has a distinct militaristic bent; it begins with a drill sergeant barking orders before a thumping cadence chant begins. Second, the song was used in the trailers for Jarhead -- the closest the cinema has come to depicting America’s military involvement in the Middle East (even if the film deals with Desert Storm). As the song began there was a jolt in my stomach, and suddenly my heart was beating out of my chest. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, so I took a knee in the grass and closed my eyes. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced -- a dangerous amalgam of adrenaline, fear, and panic. It felt as if every fiber in my being were vibrating furiously, pulling me apart in a million different directions. I wasn’t completely confident I’d have the wherewithal to pull myself together.
But I did, and by the time I got back home I had landed on a phrase that perfectly encapsulated both the breakdown on my way to the mailbox and the general malaise that has hung on me since Thanksgiving.
I call it The Hum.
Imagine the sound of a ceiling fan swirling overhead as you go to sleep. It‘s not typical for most of us to sleep through noise, but the fan is steady enough and quiet enough that after a few minutes we forget it’s there; we develop a synchronicity that allows us to slip into dreamland without issue. The fan is The Hum -- a constant presence that, for the most part, can be ignored.
But it’s a fragile relationship between you and the fan. Suddenly there’s an arrhythmic click amidst the steady whirr. The beat you’ve gotten used to is quickly, efficiently disrupted. Your heart starts to race as the anxiety of insomnia builds. You start looking at the clock as your window for a good night’s sleep closes. You can’t fix the click, because you can’t place the problem. Turning off the fan is not an option. All you can do is hope that the clicking will stop long enough for you to escape into sleep. So it is with The Hum.
Like with the bothersome click, it’s impossible to anticipate the next issue that will disrupt the agreement between you and The Hum or how the next interruption will manifest itself. Sometimes it’s through tears. Sometimes it’s through misdirected anger. Occasionally, it’s a nervous breakdown on the way to the mailbox. Still, most remarkably, the majority of the time the catalysts for these shake-ups have only tangential relationships to Andrew.
I’ve had issues with anxiety for a while now, but things have only gotten worse in recent months. For me, it’s a lot like waiting to go onstage on opening night of a play. My whole being is buzzing with the usual stage fright, but I know that once I get out there and into the moment the nerves will subside and I’ll be able to breathe again. Well, The Hum is like that, except I never get on stage. I just have to deal with the nerves. I just have to accept the anxiety. It would be nice to be able to point to this thing or that and say “This is why I feel this way.” That would allow me the chance to remove the disruptive stimulus and get back to normal. Unfortunately, I can’t remove my brother’s deployment from my life. Instead, I have to deal with the possibility that a swarm of electrified butterflies could go racing through my heart at any time -- while sitting at a stop sign, or taking a shower, or enjoying my morning Eggo. That’s just the way life is for the immediate future.
Of course, The Hum doesn’t always manifest itself in such an alarming fashion. Sometimes The Hum can be rather cathartic, as in this experience my father shared with me just the other day:
“I was watching Ladder 49 last night,” he told me. “And it’s not even that great of a movie -- but that scene at the end where they know he’s not getting out and he’s saying good-bye to everyone -- I just started bawling. Your mother came into the room and I had tears rolling down my face and she thought I was crazy.”
I don’t cry very often in the context of my own life. I cried when my brother left for Iraq. I cried after finishing my tribute to my grandmother. But usually I go years without a genuine breakdown. That being said, I’m easily manipulated by my favorite movies and TV shows. I leave the room whenever my dad watches Friday Night Lights, because I turn into a blubbering fool when Tim McGraw gives his son his championship ring. The debut of “Laura” on Battlestar Galactica totally messed me up. And Field of Dreams… we’ll just say it’s shameful.
All of those cases I can admit with a certain modicum of self-respect. Unfortunately, because of The Hum, my judgment of what shows are worthy of my tears has gone out the window. Damn near everything on television can choke me up these days. A few weeks back when they brought out a soldier’s daughters on Deal or No Deal I had to stop my workout and go hide in the locker room for five minutes so I could pull myself together. Movies that I know completely suck can squeeze a drop or two out of me thanks to my sensitivity to The Hum. My dad and I sat in the living room during Leo McGarry’s funeral on The West Wing refusing to look at each other‘s glossy cheeks.
Grown men. It’s really quite sad.
It’s hard to imagine living without The Hum. I’ve gotten so use to it. But this week marks the halfway point in Andrew’s tour, and soon enough that anxiety and urgency that has plagued us since November will be relieved. But even though it occasionally appears at inopportune times and in demoralizing ways, The Hum has a way of energizing me to do things I might not have done otherwise. Even as The Hum initially caused me to balloon to my heaviest weight ever, its constant pestering also drove me to my lowest weight and best physical condition in nearly ten years. Even though The Hum occasionally knocks the wind out of me, it pushes me to keep moving and keep the strength of its tone at bay. And even though it will push me to tears once in a while, there’s something refreshing about engaging emotions that too often stay in check.
It’s ridiculous to compare the trials my brother faces with something as abstract and personal as The Hum, however my brother has one advantage over those of us here at home. He can be proactive in silencing his own Hum. Those of us battling it here must accept it and patiently endure. We can’t stop The Hum ourselves. We can only wait for Andrew to come home and stop it for us.
So, I started up The Longest Year; I scribble away on my whiteboard nightly; and I gut newspapers and magazines for their most poignant articles. I’ve spent the past many months jotting down every miniscule ripple that Andrew’s absence makes in the placid waters of my family. I want to be certain I have something to contribute when my brother returns home with his volumes of gritty and graphic tales that will doubtless hold oppressive reign over family conversations for many holidays to come.
In the beginning of this odyssey, writing topics fell from the sky. There was no shortage of conflict in the early months of Andrew‘s deployment. Of course, it didn’t help that he left just before the holidays, exacerbating the usual winter strife to epic proportions. I certainly didn’t enjoy the drama in our household, but the head-butting certainly filled up the journal pages. But while it was easy to write about the new experiences and new perspectives one gains at the beginning of such an enterprise, once complacency set in -- and it did set in -- it became much more difficult to find a hook or an angle for the domestic side of this tale.
My daily activities have mostly remained the same; the usual cycle of work, TV, writing, TV, Cubs, destitution, work, TV, etc. My parents remain busy as ever; my father with school board, booster club, and laundry; my mother with quilting and whatever evil machinations keep her at school until the wee hours of the evening. The only real change to the standard grind is my mother’s once-a-day e-mails and the occasional package of bric-a-brac that she demands my father and I contribute to (I supply episodes of Lost and 24 while dad handles the overseas postage).
On the surface things appear much as they always have, but life these days is certainly not the status quo. Everybody who loves my brother knows what I’m talking about. It’s that sense of unease beneath the surface of every day. Andrew doesn’t hold total dominion over my every waking thought, yet his absence and the danger he now faces lingers in my subconscious like a virulent infection. I don’t always think of Andrew, but I always feel him.
How can I articulate this sensation -- this fusion of loss, worry, and anticipation -- and the side-effects that manifest themselves in the most peculiar circumstances? I’ve been pondering this question for a while now, as my insights into the domestic side of deployment become less and less compelling. This feeling, this idea, is the key to my side of the story, of my family’s side of the story, but for the longest time I could not articulate it properly.
Then my I-Pod nearly killed me. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I’ve been weeding through my music library looking for the ideal playlist for my workouts. On this particular day I took a walk to the nearest mailbox to send back some Netflix DVDs, and I took along some music to test. Somewhere near St. Pius Catholic Church Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks” began to play. This tune is significant in two ways. First, the song itself has a distinct militaristic bent; it begins with a drill sergeant barking orders before a thumping cadence chant begins. Second, the song was used in the trailers for Jarhead -- the closest the cinema has come to depicting America’s military involvement in the Middle East (even if the film deals with Desert Storm). As the song began there was a jolt in my stomach, and suddenly my heart was beating out of my chest. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, so I took a knee in the grass and closed my eyes. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced -- a dangerous amalgam of adrenaline, fear, and panic. It felt as if every fiber in my being were vibrating furiously, pulling me apart in a million different directions. I wasn’t completely confident I’d have the wherewithal to pull myself together.
But I did, and by the time I got back home I had landed on a phrase that perfectly encapsulated both the breakdown on my way to the mailbox and the general malaise that has hung on me since Thanksgiving.
I call it The Hum.
Imagine the sound of a ceiling fan swirling overhead as you go to sleep. It‘s not typical for most of us to sleep through noise, but the fan is steady enough and quiet enough that after a few minutes we forget it’s there; we develop a synchronicity that allows us to slip into dreamland without issue. The fan is The Hum -- a constant presence that, for the most part, can be ignored.
But it’s a fragile relationship between you and the fan. Suddenly there’s an arrhythmic click amidst the steady whirr. The beat you’ve gotten used to is quickly, efficiently disrupted. Your heart starts to race as the anxiety of insomnia builds. You start looking at the clock as your window for a good night’s sleep closes. You can’t fix the click, because you can’t place the problem. Turning off the fan is not an option. All you can do is hope that the clicking will stop long enough for you to escape into sleep. So it is with The Hum.
Like with the bothersome click, it’s impossible to anticipate the next issue that will disrupt the agreement between you and The Hum or how the next interruption will manifest itself. Sometimes it’s through tears. Sometimes it’s through misdirected anger. Occasionally, it’s a nervous breakdown on the way to the mailbox. Still, most remarkably, the majority of the time the catalysts for these shake-ups have only tangential relationships to Andrew.
I’ve had issues with anxiety for a while now, but things have only gotten worse in recent months. For me, it’s a lot like waiting to go onstage on opening night of a play. My whole being is buzzing with the usual stage fright, but I know that once I get out there and into the moment the nerves will subside and I’ll be able to breathe again. Well, The Hum is like that, except I never get on stage. I just have to deal with the nerves. I just have to accept the anxiety. It would be nice to be able to point to this thing or that and say “This is why I feel this way.” That would allow me the chance to remove the disruptive stimulus and get back to normal. Unfortunately, I can’t remove my brother’s deployment from my life. Instead, I have to deal with the possibility that a swarm of electrified butterflies could go racing through my heart at any time -- while sitting at a stop sign, or taking a shower, or enjoying my morning Eggo. That’s just the way life is for the immediate future.
Of course, The Hum doesn’t always manifest itself in such an alarming fashion. Sometimes The Hum can be rather cathartic, as in this experience my father shared with me just the other day:
“I was watching Ladder 49 last night,” he told me. “And it’s not even that great of a movie -- but that scene at the end where they know he’s not getting out and he’s saying good-bye to everyone -- I just started bawling. Your mother came into the room and I had tears rolling down my face and she thought I was crazy.”
I don’t cry very often in the context of my own life. I cried when my brother left for Iraq. I cried after finishing my tribute to my grandmother. But usually I go years without a genuine breakdown. That being said, I’m easily manipulated by my favorite movies and TV shows. I leave the room whenever my dad watches Friday Night Lights, because I turn into a blubbering fool when Tim McGraw gives his son his championship ring. The debut of “Laura” on Battlestar Galactica totally messed me up. And Field of Dreams… we’ll just say it’s shameful.
All of those cases I can admit with a certain modicum of self-respect. Unfortunately, because of The Hum, my judgment of what shows are worthy of my tears has gone out the window. Damn near everything on television can choke me up these days. A few weeks back when they brought out a soldier’s daughters on Deal or No Deal I had to stop my workout and go hide in the locker room for five minutes so I could pull myself together. Movies that I know completely suck can squeeze a drop or two out of me thanks to my sensitivity to The Hum. My dad and I sat in the living room during Leo McGarry’s funeral on The West Wing refusing to look at each other‘s glossy cheeks.
Grown men. It’s really quite sad.
It’s hard to imagine living without The Hum. I’ve gotten so use to it. But this week marks the halfway point in Andrew’s tour, and soon enough that anxiety and urgency that has plagued us since November will be relieved. But even though it occasionally appears at inopportune times and in demoralizing ways, The Hum has a way of energizing me to do things I might not have done otherwise. Even as The Hum initially caused me to balloon to my heaviest weight ever, its constant pestering also drove me to my lowest weight and best physical condition in nearly ten years. Even though The Hum occasionally knocks the wind out of me, it pushes me to keep moving and keep the strength of its tone at bay. And even though it will push me to tears once in a while, there’s something refreshing about engaging emotions that too often stay in check.
It’s ridiculous to compare the trials my brother faces with something as abstract and personal as The Hum, however my brother has one advantage over those of us here at home. He can be proactive in silencing his own Hum. Those of us battling it here must accept it and patiently endure. We can’t stop The Hum ourselves. We can only wait for Andrew to come home and stop it for us.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
TV Finale Speed Round
West Wing ended with quiet grace, though the short-changing of the original cast members is slightly inexcusable. Toby doesn't even appear in the finale? Are you kidding?
Grey's Anatomy showed it has easily the most potent and well-rounded ensemble on television today. Denny's inevitable demise and Izzie's response were heartbreaking. The Burke-Christina dynamic was a little frustrating, but ended on the right note. My immediate reaction to the Meredith-Derek hook-up is "not again." Actually it was more like "This is on a network?" Talk about too hot for TV. While I'm skeptical of going back to the Grey/McDreamy merry-go-round, this show's been smart enough to avoid the pitfalls of standard TV fare, so I'll withhold judgment for now.
Prison Break is done. For a show that built up tension so well, it was amazing how little I cared once the fugitives got over the wall. When Michael's plan is so intricately detailed inside the wall, you'd think he'd have a better plan for once they got over it. The run-for-your-life stuff was out of character for Michael and out of character for the show. I have no interest in the conspiracy side of this show, so there's a high likelihood Prison Break will be the Desperate Housewives of next fall; solid first season followed by a meandering, weaker sophomore effort.
If 24 has a flaw (in my mind) it's that it's finales often falter trying to wrap up so many lose threads and cliff-hangers. While they've been fairly entertaining, they still come off as mildly anti-climactic. Well, not this season. The battle on the submarine was one of the more intense sequences in 24 history (anybody notice they went 20 minutes without a commercial break). We got some cold-blooded retribution for Palmer, Tony, and Michelle. Then we not only got our dream face-off of Jack Bauer and President Logan, but one of the best character-driven scenes in the show's run. Following that up with the nasty argument between Logan and Martha was like icing on the icing of the cake. Even the fact that the show ended on such a grim note played fantastically. I'm gonna have to watch 4 and 5 back-to-back to eventually decide which was the better season, but one thing's for certain -- 24 continues to defy the odds and get better with age.
What could be better than House vs. House? Well, that's essentially what we got with House battling his subconscious after being shot by a former patient. Or wait. He wasn't a former patient. We don't really know who he is. This was a terrifically twisted episode that ended on a rather morose note -- with House resolved to death while his team tries to save him.
One of the remarkable things about this season of Scrubs is its ability to mold lovable characters from supporting players who would have been after-thoughts on any other show. Intern and love interest Keith has proved a versatile comic talent. The janitor continues to steal every scene that he's in. And the finale featured a tremendously endearing turn by Elizabeth Banks as J.D.s new love interest. Like Arrested Development before it, the show features too many jokes, too many clever jokes that I would only spoil trying to recap. We'll just say this is the best, sweetest comedy on TV, and the finale showed us all why.
Once again Veronica Mars tied up a season's worth of mystery in both a sensible and dramatically engaging fashion. For the most part, the loose ends were tied up, and Rob Thomas and Co. even reached back to season one for closure (Veronicas rape, Aaron Echolls). As much as I enjoyed this season, I have to say that at the end I felt the show's writers were almost too smart for their own good. I could barely keep up with all the twists and turns in this show's season. That probably would have been fine had I watched the show on DVD, but with all the breaks and preemptions this season VM required so much effort to follow that there's no wonder its ratings were dismal. Hopefully, indications of three separate mysteries for next season will open the show up to a wider audience. Actually, I'm really fond of this idea. I think VMs narrative talents will only be more evident when we can actually follow all the twists and turns. Sidenote: All this love is showered on Kristen Bells performance, but I want to give some credit to Jason Dohring for his remarkably rich characterization of Logan Echolls. So much attention is paid to Dohring because of his looks and the will-they-or-wont-they Logan/Veronica relationship that his skillful performance is often overlooked. The way Dohring is able to dance from sarcastic rich boy to damaged kid to knight in shining armor is so fascinating he is easily one of my favorite characters on television.
Alias ended in a satisfying, if not ground-breaking two-hour finale. We got the moments we wanted. I loved Jack taking down Sloane (after Sloane gained immortality from Rhimbaldi), trapping him inside a cave for eternity. "You couldn't beat me." A great final line for my favorite character on the show. The Vaughn/Sark pairing worked on a different note, with Sark showing his mercenary leanings after one bullet to the leg (Marshall made Sark look like a girl with his ability to withstand torture). Though it lacked the dramatic weight of Jack/Sloane, the scene worked for general amusement. The Syd/Irina showdown was particularly brutal, and Lena Olin wrapped up the most enigmatic Alias character appropriately enough -- reaching for Rhimbaldi rather than her daughter. We now know where her allegiance lies, even as she claimed "I really did love you" to Sydney before kicking her in the face. Ah, Alias. You will be missed. I'll admit I teared up a little watching the Alias family walking towards the ocean at the show's end. Though they jerked me around quite a bit towards the end, and the passion I had for the show in its first two seasons has long since dissipated, I am still sad seeing the show go.
I'm a big fan of Web Gems on Baseball Tonight, and once in a while there's a play that defies the laws of logic and science and there's no other word to describe it but "ridiculous." That's what I thought about the season finale of Lost. Ridiculous. And I don't think there's a higher compliment I could pay it. I don't want to say too much, because my brother, who is currently stationed in Iraq, hasn't seen it and I already spoiled Edgar's death on 24 for him this season. He's coming home for midtour in June and we're going to watch it together then. Still, how could I even begin to describe everything that happened in those two hours last night. The tube to nowhere. The fail-safe. The station in the snow. One thing I can say, Lost has maintained a very real sense of dread since killing those two characters several weeks ago (my brother hasn't seen that episode yet, either). Watching those three characters tied up at the hands of The Others, especially THOSE three characters, was horrifying. I'm actually scared for them. That's a very different feeling compared to the curiosity of the contents in the hatch from last season. I was wavering on Lost in midseason, but after the last five or six episodes I'm back to my unabashed adoration for the show. Ridiculous. That's all I can say. Ridiculous.
The saddest hour of my TV season was watching the unfortunate final episode of my favorite new show, Invasion. While every other show had its ups and downs this season, Invasion started slow but maintained a consistent acceleration through out the season so that by the time the finale came it was flying faster than any other show on television. Unfortunately it was too late to pick up the viewers it lost early on. I have two things to say about this show. 1) I'll be pushing everybody I know to watch the DVD. 2) There was not a single character on television this year more fascinating than Sheriff Tom Underlay. The look on his face as Russell grilled him, "What did you do?" was stunning considering how Underlay essentially started the season as The Villian. Losing this show hurts more than either Alias or West Wing. I'm very sorry to see it go.
All you can really say about The OC is they killed Marissa. I honestly don't remember a single thing about the episode other than that. Oh, except Mini-Cooper saying she's going to rule Harbor. Still the staging or Marissa's death was well-done, what with the flashbacks to the series' tremendous first season. Plus the use of minimal dialogue kept it from going head-first into groaner melodrama. Like Prison Break, everything in this episode depends on how next season is handled. They're both on the borderline between evolution and jumping the shark. Stay tuned.
Smallville is a master of season finales. From the Godfather-esque closing of Season 3 with Chloe's apparent death, Lex's apparent death, and Clark's disappearance, to Season 4's meteor shower and debut of the Fortress of Solitude, this show always closed with a bang. This year was no different, yet I couldn't help but feel that the writers had dug themselves too big a hole this year. Metropolis is breaking down. Zod has arrived. Clark is stuck in the Phantom Zone. Martha and Lois are God knows where. That's a lot of balls in the air. I liked that things got a shade darker for the Boy of Steel this season, but next year will clearly be an important year in Smallville's mythology. I hope they can pull it off. They certainly set the bar high with this finale.
Grey's Anatomy showed it has easily the most potent and well-rounded ensemble on television today. Denny's inevitable demise and Izzie's response were heartbreaking. The Burke-Christina dynamic was a little frustrating, but ended on the right note. My immediate reaction to the Meredith-Derek hook-up is "not again." Actually it was more like "This is on a network?" Talk about too hot for TV. While I'm skeptical of going back to the Grey/McDreamy merry-go-round, this show's been smart enough to avoid the pitfalls of standard TV fare, so I'll withhold judgment for now.
Prison Break is done. For a show that built up tension so well, it was amazing how little I cared once the fugitives got over the wall. When Michael's plan is so intricately detailed inside the wall, you'd think he'd have a better plan for once they got over it. The run-for-your-life stuff was out of character for Michael and out of character for the show. I have no interest in the conspiracy side of this show, so there's a high likelihood Prison Break will be the Desperate Housewives of next fall; solid first season followed by a meandering, weaker sophomore effort.
If 24 has a flaw (in my mind) it's that it's finales often falter trying to wrap up so many lose threads and cliff-hangers. While they've been fairly entertaining, they still come off as mildly anti-climactic. Well, not this season. The battle on the submarine was one of the more intense sequences in 24 history (anybody notice they went 20 minutes without a commercial break). We got some cold-blooded retribution for Palmer, Tony, and Michelle. Then we not only got our dream face-off of Jack Bauer and President Logan, but one of the best character-driven scenes in the show's run. Following that up with the nasty argument between Logan and Martha was like icing on the icing of the cake. Even the fact that the show ended on such a grim note played fantastically. I'm gonna have to watch 4 and 5 back-to-back to eventually decide which was the better season, but one thing's for certain -- 24 continues to defy the odds and get better with age.
What could be better than House vs. House? Well, that's essentially what we got with House battling his subconscious after being shot by a former patient. Or wait. He wasn't a former patient. We don't really know who he is. This was a terrifically twisted episode that ended on a rather morose note -- with House resolved to death while his team tries to save him.
One of the remarkable things about this season of Scrubs is its ability to mold lovable characters from supporting players who would have been after-thoughts on any other show. Intern and love interest Keith has proved a versatile comic talent. The janitor continues to steal every scene that he's in. And the finale featured a tremendously endearing turn by Elizabeth Banks as J.D.s new love interest. Like Arrested Development before it, the show features too many jokes, too many clever jokes that I would only spoil trying to recap. We'll just say this is the best, sweetest comedy on TV, and the finale showed us all why.
Once again Veronica Mars tied up a season's worth of mystery in both a sensible and dramatically engaging fashion. For the most part, the loose ends were tied up, and Rob Thomas and Co. even reached back to season one for closure (Veronicas rape, Aaron Echolls). As much as I enjoyed this season, I have to say that at the end I felt the show's writers were almost too smart for their own good. I could barely keep up with all the twists and turns in this show's season. That probably would have been fine had I watched the show on DVD, but with all the breaks and preemptions this season VM required so much effort to follow that there's no wonder its ratings were dismal. Hopefully, indications of three separate mysteries for next season will open the show up to a wider audience. Actually, I'm really fond of this idea. I think VMs narrative talents will only be more evident when we can actually follow all the twists and turns. Sidenote: All this love is showered on Kristen Bells performance, but I want to give some credit to Jason Dohring for his remarkably rich characterization of Logan Echolls. So much attention is paid to Dohring because of his looks and the will-they-or-wont-they Logan/Veronica relationship that his skillful performance is often overlooked. The way Dohring is able to dance from sarcastic rich boy to damaged kid to knight in shining armor is so fascinating he is easily one of my favorite characters on television.
Alias ended in a satisfying, if not ground-breaking two-hour finale. We got the moments we wanted. I loved Jack taking down Sloane (after Sloane gained immortality from Rhimbaldi), trapping him inside a cave for eternity. "You couldn't beat me." A great final line for my favorite character on the show. The Vaughn/Sark pairing worked on a different note, with Sark showing his mercenary leanings after one bullet to the leg (Marshall made Sark look like a girl with his ability to withstand torture). Though it lacked the dramatic weight of Jack/Sloane, the scene worked for general amusement. The Syd/Irina showdown was particularly brutal, and Lena Olin wrapped up the most enigmatic Alias character appropriately enough -- reaching for Rhimbaldi rather than her daughter. We now know where her allegiance lies, even as she claimed "I really did love you" to Sydney before kicking her in the face. Ah, Alias. You will be missed. I'll admit I teared up a little watching the Alias family walking towards the ocean at the show's end. Though they jerked me around quite a bit towards the end, and the passion I had for the show in its first two seasons has long since dissipated, I am still sad seeing the show go.
I'm a big fan of Web Gems on Baseball Tonight, and once in a while there's a play that defies the laws of logic and science and there's no other word to describe it but "ridiculous." That's what I thought about the season finale of Lost. Ridiculous. And I don't think there's a higher compliment I could pay it. I don't want to say too much, because my brother, who is currently stationed in Iraq, hasn't seen it and I already spoiled Edgar's death on 24 for him this season. He's coming home for midtour in June and we're going to watch it together then. Still, how could I even begin to describe everything that happened in those two hours last night. The tube to nowhere. The fail-safe. The station in the snow. One thing I can say, Lost has maintained a very real sense of dread since killing those two characters several weeks ago (my brother hasn't seen that episode yet, either). Watching those three characters tied up at the hands of The Others, especially THOSE three characters, was horrifying. I'm actually scared for them. That's a very different feeling compared to the curiosity of the contents in the hatch from last season. I was wavering on Lost in midseason, but after the last five or six episodes I'm back to my unabashed adoration for the show. Ridiculous. That's all I can say. Ridiculous.
The saddest hour of my TV season was watching the unfortunate final episode of my favorite new show, Invasion. While every other show had its ups and downs this season, Invasion started slow but maintained a consistent acceleration through out the season so that by the time the finale came it was flying faster than any other show on television. Unfortunately it was too late to pick up the viewers it lost early on. I have two things to say about this show. 1) I'll be pushing everybody I know to watch the DVD. 2) There was not a single character on television this year more fascinating than Sheriff Tom Underlay. The look on his face as Russell grilled him, "What did you do?" was stunning considering how Underlay essentially started the season as The Villian. Losing this show hurts more than either Alias or West Wing. I'm very sorry to see it go.
All you can really say about The OC is they killed Marissa. I honestly don't remember a single thing about the episode other than that. Oh, except Mini-Cooper saying she's going to rule Harbor. Still the staging or Marissa's death was well-done, what with the flashbacks to the series' tremendous first season. Plus the use of minimal dialogue kept it from going head-first into groaner melodrama. Like Prison Break, everything in this episode depends on how next season is handled. They're both on the borderline between evolution and jumping the shark. Stay tuned.
Smallville is a master of season finales. From the Godfather-esque closing of Season 3 with Chloe's apparent death, Lex's apparent death, and Clark's disappearance, to Season 4's meteor shower and debut of the Fortress of Solitude, this show always closed with a bang. This year was no different, yet I couldn't help but feel that the writers had dug themselves too big a hole this year. Metropolis is breaking down. Zod has arrived. Clark is stuck in the Phantom Zone. Martha and Lois are God knows where. That's a lot of balls in the air. I liked that things got a shade darker for the Boy of Steel this season, but next year will clearly be an important year in Smallville's mythology. I hope they can pull it off. They certainly set the bar high with this finale.
More Delays Mean More Surveys
Hey kids, the two new blogs I'm working on have gotten kind of epic, so I'm making do with a new survey that I could finish in a half-hour. This one's fun. Just check out the first question....
1) Do you have a penis?
Wow. You waste no time Mr. Survey Man. Yes. I do. It's the balls that I sometimes question.
2) Do you pray?
I do not. I can't think of a less pro-active activity in all of human history. Hmm. Maybe American Idol
3) Are you in love?
I am in love with love, which is probably why I am not in love. Dig?
4) Ever wish on stars?
That sounds like a very hot place to be doing much of anything.
5) Do you believe in karma?
That would imply that I believe in some inherent sense of justice in the universe. HA! Silly rabbit.
6) What's your zodiac sign?
Aquarius. I actually read a horoscope yesterday that said I was very fertile and had the spirit of a pregnant woman. I wish I had kept a copy of that. I'll see if I can dig it up for you fine people.
7) Have you ever almost died?
Indeed. Twice in a six month span. But you know what they say, when you get thisclose to dying you live every day fearing you're going to finally close the gap.
8) Ever broken any bones?
Both bones in my right leg, hence my natural pimp walk.
9) Do you cry during sad movies?
I'll address this in my upcoming blog "The Hum" (That's what they call a teaser in the biz).
10) Do you like to dance?
Absolutely not.
11) Ever laid under the stars?
A bunch of floormates went out to a field to check out the Leonid Meteor Shower my freshman year and were crept up on by deer. Did you hear that deer are now attacking people at SIUC? After all the times my ex tried to feed them....
12) Ever sat on a rooftop?
I had to retrieve many a wiffle ball from my roof back in the day.
13) Is there such a thing as a soul mate?
No. Just people tough enough to stick it out forever.
14) Could you live without the television?
Not happily.
15) Could you live without music?
Workouts would be a bitch. I'd sooner make it without music than television, though. But what about television without music? Egad! Blast you Survey Man and your philosophical conundrums!!!
16) Do you have any self inflicted scars?
Only emotional ones (awwwww!)
17) What do you dislike the most about life?
Irrationality.
18) Have you ever been to jail?
Once in high school on a field trip.
19) Ever had a job for less than a day?
No. I usually stick it out.
20) Ever been fired on your first day?
No. Although there are some jobs I wish I had been.
21) Ever been fired because of your attitude?
Remarkably no, even though I make no secret of my displeasure. I still don't understand why I wasn't fired from the boat.
22) Do you get jealous of other people?
Who doesn't? I still wish I had my neighbor's Knight Rider Big Wheel.
23) Would you rather love someone or be loved?
I've had enough infatuations to realize that unrequited love is basically emotional self-flagellation. Be loved -- without a doubt.
24) What's under your bed right now?
Inserts for the dining room table.
25) Ever done anything illegal?
Nothing that can be proved in a court of law.
26) Have you ever been dumped?
Emily Olson in the 2nd Grade and Stephanie Kettering in the 10th. Stephanie Kettering hurt. That girl was HOT!
27) Ever dumped somebody?
Yea. I was a bastard in my younger days.
28) How cool are you?
As cool as the other side of the pillow.
29) Do you support abortion?
I support a woman's right to choose, but I also believe we should do everything in our power to limit the number of abortions performed. (Jeez what a buzzkill).
31) Did you graduate high school?
Yes, though it wrecked me emotionally.
32) Do you wear the same clothes two days in a row?
Only underpants. Wait... what?
33) Have you ever driven someone crazy?
How does one type a smirk?
34) Ever bullied someone?
Not intentionally, but apparently I have the kind of personality that can come off as bullying some times.
35) Ever done the Macarena?
Never. Not even at a wedding.
36) Do you act your age?
Give or take 10 years.
37) Is it okay to disrespect your parents?
If your parents are evil, absolutely. Mine aren't though.
38) Do you flush the toilet when you're done?
Yes, but sometimes those water-saving toilets don't quite take.
39) How long do you stay in the shower?
Five minutes max. In and out.
40) What kind of soap do you use?
Whatever is handy.
41) Are mullets cool?
I learned at a recent Steamwheeler game that I am, in fact, allergic to mullets.
42) Spiderman, Batman, or Superman?
Batman. Not even a contest.
43) Do you like your middle name?
Well enough.
44) Has anyone ever cheated on you?
I won't say cheated. I'll say I've dated somebody who wasn't fully committed to me. Yay for semantics!
46) What's your favorite animal?
Alligators. I miss them.
47) Favorite flower?
Venus Fly Trap.
48) Have you ever shaved your head?
For a year and a half or so. It was the most economically responsible hairstyle.
49) Do you think marijuana should be legal for medicinal use?
I think it should be legal for recreational use.
50) Do you think it is okay to drink and drive?
Now that's just stupid.
51) If you won $1 million dollars, what would you buy first?
A house for my mom in Cordova.
52) Do you fear terrorism?
Only the people who hijacked our country based on the public's irrational fear of terrorism.
54) What's your favorite candle scent?
Burnt Wax.
55) Do you use profanity?
As a fan of the English language there is no word I refuse to utter.
56) Who's the last person you talked to on IM?
Legs a.k.a. Nikki.
57) What's something you're ashamed of?
I once got hick and spick mixed up in front of my Mexican friend. It was in junior high, but it still grates on me.
58) What woke you up last night?
Nightmares. I seem to be having them a lot lately.
59) What did you dream about last night?
I dreamed I was back working at the Cinemas in high school. And I actually got some PG-13 action with a former co-worker. Then I woke up, and by the time I got back to dreamland I had returned to nightmare territory.
60) Ever been to the zoo?
The last time I went was with my ex-girlfriend. CRAP! I'm missing zoo animal day on PSL today.
61) How many beers did you have today?
Zero. I have had one beer in my life. It tasted like piss. So I quit.
62) What's the last movie watched?
Brokeback Mountain. Can you say "overrated?" It's The Passion of the Christ for the rainbow set.
63) Are you usually late or on time?
Usually way early. I have a thing about punctuality.
64) What's a cartoon you watch often?
Aqua Teen Hunger Force
65) Do you have any imaginary friends?
Even worse. I have an imaginary stalker.
66) Are you waiting on something right now?
Waiting for dad to come home for lunch.
67) Who's pretty?
The girls in my MySpace Top 8. EVERY GIRL on my brother's friend list. Hmm. What happened to that jealousy question?
68) Who's ugly?
I dont feel like being mean at the moment.
69) Are you worried about something?
My brother. Always my brother.
70) Ever swam in the ocean?
Yes. Boy, what a weak finish. Ever heard of "Save the best for last" survey man?
1) Do you have a penis?
Wow. You waste no time Mr. Survey Man. Yes. I do. It's the balls that I sometimes question.
2) Do you pray?
I do not. I can't think of a less pro-active activity in all of human history. Hmm. Maybe American Idol
3) Are you in love?
I am in love with love, which is probably why I am not in love. Dig?
4) Ever wish on stars?
That sounds like a very hot place to be doing much of anything.
5) Do you believe in karma?
That would imply that I believe in some inherent sense of justice in the universe. HA! Silly rabbit.
6) What's your zodiac sign?
Aquarius. I actually read a horoscope yesterday that said I was very fertile and had the spirit of a pregnant woman. I wish I had kept a copy of that. I'll see if I can dig it up for you fine people.
7) Have you ever almost died?
Indeed. Twice in a six month span. But you know what they say, when you get thisclose to dying you live every day fearing you're going to finally close the gap.
8) Ever broken any bones?
Both bones in my right leg, hence my natural pimp walk.
9) Do you cry during sad movies?
I'll address this in my upcoming blog "The Hum" (That's what they call a teaser in the biz).
10) Do you like to dance?
Absolutely not.
11) Ever laid under the stars?
A bunch of floormates went out to a field to check out the Leonid Meteor Shower my freshman year and were crept up on by deer. Did you hear that deer are now attacking people at SIUC? After all the times my ex tried to feed them....
12) Ever sat on a rooftop?
I had to retrieve many a wiffle ball from my roof back in the day.
13) Is there such a thing as a soul mate?
No. Just people tough enough to stick it out forever.
14) Could you live without the television?
Not happily.
15) Could you live without music?
Workouts would be a bitch. I'd sooner make it without music than television, though. But what about television without music? Egad! Blast you Survey Man and your philosophical conundrums!!!
16) Do you have any self inflicted scars?
Only emotional ones (awwwww!)
17) What do you dislike the most about life?
Irrationality.
18) Have you ever been to jail?
Once in high school on a field trip.
19) Ever had a job for less than a day?
No. I usually stick it out.
20) Ever been fired on your first day?
No. Although there are some jobs I wish I had been.
21) Ever been fired because of your attitude?
Remarkably no, even though I make no secret of my displeasure. I still don't understand why I wasn't fired from the boat.
22) Do you get jealous of other people?
Who doesn't? I still wish I had my neighbor's Knight Rider Big Wheel.
23) Would you rather love someone or be loved?
I've had enough infatuations to realize that unrequited love is basically emotional self-flagellation. Be loved -- without a doubt.
24) What's under your bed right now?
Inserts for the dining room table.
25) Ever done anything illegal?
Nothing that can be proved in a court of law.
26) Have you ever been dumped?
Emily Olson in the 2nd Grade and Stephanie Kettering in the 10th. Stephanie Kettering hurt. That girl was HOT!
27) Ever dumped somebody?
Yea. I was a bastard in my younger days.
28) How cool are you?
As cool as the other side of the pillow.
29) Do you support abortion?
I support a woman's right to choose, but I also believe we should do everything in our power to limit the number of abortions performed. (Jeez what a buzzkill).
31) Did you graduate high school?
Yes, though it wrecked me emotionally.
32) Do you wear the same clothes two days in a row?
Only underpants. Wait... what?
33) Have you ever driven someone crazy?
How does one type a smirk?
34) Ever bullied someone?
Not intentionally, but apparently I have the kind of personality that can come off as bullying some times.
35) Ever done the Macarena?
Never. Not even at a wedding.
36) Do you act your age?
Give or take 10 years.
37) Is it okay to disrespect your parents?
If your parents are evil, absolutely. Mine aren't though.
38) Do you flush the toilet when you're done?
Yes, but sometimes those water-saving toilets don't quite take.
39) How long do you stay in the shower?
Five minutes max. In and out.
40) What kind of soap do you use?
Whatever is handy.
41) Are mullets cool?
I learned at a recent Steamwheeler game that I am, in fact, allergic to mullets.
42) Spiderman, Batman, or Superman?
Batman. Not even a contest.
43) Do you like your middle name?
Well enough.
44) Has anyone ever cheated on you?
I won't say cheated. I'll say I've dated somebody who wasn't fully committed to me. Yay for semantics!
46) What's your favorite animal?
Alligators. I miss them.
47) Favorite flower?
Venus Fly Trap.
48) Have you ever shaved your head?
For a year and a half or so. It was the most economically responsible hairstyle.
49) Do you think marijuana should be legal for medicinal use?
I think it should be legal for recreational use.
50) Do you think it is okay to drink and drive?
Now that's just stupid.
51) If you won $1 million dollars, what would you buy first?
A house for my mom in Cordova.
52) Do you fear terrorism?
Only the people who hijacked our country based on the public's irrational fear of terrorism.
54) What's your favorite candle scent?
Burnt Wax.
55) Do you use profanity?
As a fan of the English language there is no word I refuse to utter.
56) Who's the last person you talked to on IM?
Legs a.k.a. Nikki.
57) What's something you're ashamed of?
I once got hick and spick mixed up in front of my Mexican friend. It was in junior high, but it still grates on me.
58) What woke you up last night?
Nightmares. I seem to be having them a lot lately.
59) What did you dream about last night?
I dreamed I was back working at the Cinemas in high school. And I actually got some PG-13 action with a former co-worker. Then I woke up, and by the time I got back to dreamland I had returned to nightmare territory.
60) Ever been to the zoo?
The last time I went was with my ex-girlfriend. CRAP! I'm missing zoo animal day on PSL today.
61) How many beers did you have today?
Zero. I have had one beer in my life. It tasted like piss. So I quit.
62) What's the last movie watched?
Brokeback Mountain. Can you say "overrated?" It's The Passion of the Christ for the rainbow set.
63) Are you usually late or on time?
Usually way early. I have a thing about punctuality.
64) What's a cartoon you watch often?
Aqua Teen Hunger Force
65) Do you have any imaginary friends?
Even worse. I have an imaginary stalker.
66) Are you waiting on something right now?
Waiting for dad to come home for lunch.
67) Who's pretty?
The girls in my MySpace Top 8. EVERY GIRL on my brother's friend list. Hmm. What happened to that jealousy question?
68) Who's ugly?
I dont feel like being mean at the moment.
69) Are you worried about something?
My brother. Always my brother.
70) Ever swam in the ocean?
Yes. Boy, what a weak finish. Ever heard of "Save the best for last" survey man?
Saturday, May 20, 2006
If You're Going to Be a Bitch, You Better F**kin' Win
Three or four years ago, as my casual interest in the Chicago Cubs was solidifying into today’s rabid obsession, a fight completely reenergized their season. In a game against the Cinncinati Reds reliever Kyle Farnsworth went high and tight on pitcher Paul Wilson. Wilson took exception to the pitch and charged the mound. Farnsworth, without the slightest hesitation, became a Chicago Cub legend when he speared Wilson to the ground before the poor guy knew what hit him. Benches cleared, punches were thrown, etc., etc.
It’s the last altercation I recall up until today’s incident between Michael Barrett and White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski, but whereas Farnsworth’s ferocious tackle of Wilson ignited an average team into a driven one, Barrett’s blunt right cross only compounded a disappointing and frustrating season for Cubs fans.
I’m as ardent a Blue Blood as there is, but I can’t even begin to justify Barrett’s actions. Sure he took quite a hit from Pierzynski on that sac-fly play at the plate, but it was a clean hit. There was a fair amount of conjecture regarding why Barrett swung on A.J. Maybe AJ slapping the plate set Barrett off. Maybe it was AJ bumping into him after the play. Maybe words were exchanged. Whatever. When you’re the best hitter on the worst hitting team in the Majors, you have to have a better sense of your team’s situation before starting a barroom brawl in the heart of the lion’s den.
Now, I’m sure there are some simple-minded Cubs fans out there who cheered Barrett’s moxie. I found it embarrassing. It’s likely I’m a fool, but I have yet to give up on this season. I still want the Cubs to win. Those Cubs fans who cheer one punch as a victory have so diminished their expectations for their team that I can’t even look them in the eye. I don’t want the high point of my baseball season to be something that has absolutely nothing to do with baseball.
I’ve never been zealous about rivalries, mostly because such zealotry would spoil my ability to watch really great baseball. I guess I could hate the Cardinals, but I no rational baseball fan could ever utter the words “Pujols sucks.” I could hate the White Sox, I suppose, but they’re one of the most exciting teams to watch in Major Leagues. And the fact that today’s incident happened in the heat of the Cubs first series with the White Sox makes it so much more shameful in my eyes.
The White Sox are the best team in baseball, and the Cubs have been playing like a glorified farm team. If the White Sox are an exquisite Rembrant or Van Gogh, the Chicago Cubs are a notebook doodle. Watching these two teams, it’s like they’re playing a different game. Though it would have seemed three years ago that the Cubs would have the pitching staff of legend, Wood and Prior can’t stay healthy and Zambrano needs therapy. Meanwhile the White Sox have assembled a startlingly efficient starting pitching staff to compliment its aggressive offensive style. The Cubs are last in nearly every offensive category that matters. They’ve got a Triple-A pitching staff. Fielding? Nevermind. I think I’ll just stop. As a fan of baseball -- good baseball -- the Cubs are nauseating. When Michael Barrett took his shot at Pierzynski, he was essentially telling the Sox “We can’t beat you at baseball, so we’re going to get our shots in where we can.”
Fuck that. If you’re gonna be a bitch, you better fuckin’ win. The Cubs could not have looked more ridiculous as a ball club today. Leading up to the Pierzynski play, Cubs starter Rich Hill walked the bases loaded. Then Michael Barrett looks like a punk slugging AJ on a clean play (the punch, by the way, did nothing but fire up the Sox as Pierzynski went into the dugout beating his chest and shrugging off the hit). Then, two batters later Tadahito Iguchi took Hill into left center for a grand slam. Barrett’s punch made the Cubs look small; the Sox dominance of the game made them look smaller. The Sox won the day from every possible angle. They took the game 7-0, and the South Siders looked like the bigger (and better) team by letting their play, rather than their punches, speak for them.
I remember learning about the enmity between Sox fans and Cubs fans when I gave my cousin Brian (a Sox fan) Cubs Monopoly for Christmas 2003 (the year the Cubs made the playoffs and the White Sox collapsed late in the season). He didn’t speak to me for three months. At the time, I had no understanding of the intense dislike the teams, and the fans, had for each other. Always looking for the higher ground, I attributed the Sox’ animosity to petty jealousy. How quickly the tables have turned.
While the Cubs flounder with their unearned (and largely undeserved) national popularity, the Sox are actually earning a following (of which I now include myself) by doing the job, by playing fantastic baseball. There has been a sense of entitlement on the North Side ever since our oh-so-close playoff appearance in 2003. While the Cubs coasted on the goodwill afforded them by that miraculous year, the South Siders were busting their asses, working towards a championship.
A what? That’s right. A championship. And they earned it. Up until their absolute dominance in the post-season, despite having the best record in baseball, it seemed that nobody actually thought they would win the whole thing. But they didn’t bitch and moan and cry that they weren’t getting the attention they deserved. They went out and earned the love by playing great baseball, some of the best post-season baseball in the history of the game.
Meanwhile, our Cubs sat in their homes through October, their hands out, wondering why it wasn’t them. Weren’t the Cubs the loveable ones in Chi-town? Weren’t they the team everybody wanted in the post-season? Perhaps, but the Sox went out and earned our adoration, our respect. The Cubs, on the other hand, take our love for granted.
I was frustrated with the Cubs long before this afternoon, but after today I can barely stand to look at them. Today’s melee was sad and pathetic. It was a desperate act of frustration that illustrated the unfortunate mindset the Cubs are in this season. Instead of buckling down and focusing on the game, they’re lashing out like teenagers, and for this Cubs fan, it’s embarrassing.
I’m going Cub free for the next week. I’m not watching a game. I’m not visiting a website. I just don’t want to bother with them right now. I want to watch some real baseball for a change. So I’m gonna scour ESPN and see if I can’t find a good game or two away from those lovable losers (who get less lovable by the day).
Of course, I’ll come back. I still love the franchise. I love the field. I love the city. I love the tradition. But I need a break. I need to see other teams, teams that have their shit together. Maybe when I come back, The Cubs will be ready to play some real baseball. If not, I know there’s a team just across the way that already is.
It’s the last altercation I recall up until today’s incident between Michael Barrett and White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski, but whereas Farnsworth’s ferocious tackle of Wilson ignited an average team into a driven one, Barrett’s blunt right cross only compounded a disappointing and frustrating season for Cubs fans.
I’m as ardent a Blue Blood as there is, but I can’t even begin to justify Barrett’s actions. Sure he took quite a hit from Pierzynski on that sac-fly play at the plate, but it was a clean hit. There was a fair amount of conjecture regarding why Barrett swung on A.J. Maybe AJ slapping the plate set Barrett off. Maybe it was AJ bumping into him after the play. Maybe words were exchanged. Whatever. When you’re the best hitter on the worst hitting team in the Majors, you have to have a better sense of your team’s situation before starting a barroom brawl in the heart of the lion’s den.
Now, I’m sure there are some simple-minded Cubs fans out there who cheered Barrett’s moxie. I found it embarrassing. It’s likely I’m a fool, but I have yet to give up on this season. I still want the Cubs to win. Those Cubs fans who cheer one punch as a victory have so diminished their expectations for their team that I can’t even look them in the eye. I don’t want the high point of my baseball season to be something that has absolutely nothing to do with baseball.
I’ve never been zealous about rivalries, mostly because such zealotry would spoil my ability to watch really great baseball. I guess I could hate the Cardinals, but I no rational baseball fan could ever utter the words “Pujols sucks.” I could hate the White Sox, I suppose, but they’re one of the most exciting teams to watch in Major Leagues. And the fact that today’s incident happened in the heat of the Cubs first series with the White Sox makes it so much more shameful in my eyes.
The White Sox are the best team in baseball, and the Cubs have been playing like a glorified farm team. If the White Sox are an exquisite Rembrant or Van Gogh, the Chicago Cubs are a notebook doodle. Watching these two teams, it’s like they’re playing a different game. Though it would have seemed three years ago that the Cubs would have the pitching staff of legend, Wood and Prior can’t stay healthy and Zambrano needs therapy. Meanwhile the White Sox have assembled a startlingly efficient starting pitching staff to compliment its aggressive offensive style. The Cubs are last in nearly every offensive category that matters. They’ve got a Triple-A pitching staff. Fielding? Nevermind. I think I’ll just stop. As a fan of baseball -- good baseball -- the Cubs are nauseating. When Michael Barrett took his shot at Pierzynski, he was essentially telling the Sox “We can’t beat you at baseball, so we’re going to get our shots in where we can.”
Fuck that. If you’re gonna be a bitch, you better fuckin’ win. The Cubs could not have looked more ridiculous as a ball club today. Leading up to the Pierzynski play, Cubs starter Rich Hill walked the bases loaded. Then Michael Barrett looks like a punk slugging AJ on a clean play (the punch, by the way, did nothing but fire up the Sox as Pierzynski went into the dugout beating his chest and shrugging off the hit). Then, two batters later Tadahito Iguchi took Hill into left center for a grand slam. Barrett’s punch made the Cubs look small; the Sox dominance of the game made them look smaller. The Sox won the day from every possible angle. They took the game 7-0, and the South Siders looked like the bigger (and better) team by letting their play, rather than their punches, speak for them.
I remember learning about the enmity between Sox fans and Cubs fans when I gave my cousin Brian (a Sox fan) Cubs Monopoly for Christmas 2003 (the year the Cubs made the playoffs and the White Sox collapsed late in the season). He didn’t speak to me for three months. At the time, I had no understanding of the intense dislike the teams, and the fans, had for each other. Always looking for the higher ground, I attributed the Sox’ animosity to petty jealousy. How quickly the tables have turned.
While the Cubs flounder with their unearned (and largely undeserved) national popularity, the Sox are actually earning a following (of which I now include myself) by doing the job, by playing fantastic baseball. There has been a sense of entitlement on the North Side ever since our oh-so-close playoff appearance in 2003. While the Cubs coasted on the goodwill afforded them by that miraculous year, the South Siders were busting their asses, working towards a championship.
A what? That’s right. A championship. And they earned it. Up until their absolute dominance in the post-season, despite having the best record in baseball, it seemed that nobody actually thought they would win the whole thing. But they didn’t bitch and moan and cry that they weren’t getting the attention they deserved. They went out and earned the love by playing great baseball, some of the best post-season baseball in the history of the game.
Meanwhile, our Cubs sat in their homes through October, their hands out, wondering why it wasn’t them. Weren’t the Cubs the loveable ones in Chi-town? Weren’t they the team everybody wanted in the post-season? Perhaps, but the Sox went out and earned our adoration, our respect. The Cubs, on the other hand, take our love for granted.
I was frustrated with the Cubs long before this afternoon, but after today I can barely stand to look at them. Today’s melee was sad and pathetic. It was a desperate act of frustration that illustrated the unfortunate mindset the Cubs are in this season. Instead of buckling down and focusing on the game, they’re lashing out like teenagers, and for this Cubs fan, it’s embarrassing.
I’m going Cub free for the next week. I’m not watching a game. I’m not visiting a website. I just don’t want to bother with them right now. I want to watch some real baseball for a change. So I’m gonna scour ESPN and see if I can’t find a good game or two away from those lovable losers (who get less lovable by the day).
Of course, I’ll come back. I still love the franchise. I love the field. I love the city. I love the tradition. But I need a break. I need to see other teams, teams that have their shit together. Maybe when I come back, The Cubs will be ready to play some real baseball. If not, I know there’s a team just across the way that already is.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Today's Reason I'm Doing the Snoopy Dance
Finally. Finally, I'm mobile again. Yesterday, I got my laptop back from the magical land of Best Buy a full 10 days sooner than expected. I had just started to feel the effects of my sedentary computing on my creativity, and thankfully that sad time is behind me. I haven't really been able to enjoy it until this morning. I went to bed at 4 AM last night because I had to completely reboot my hard drive and then reinstall all of my programs. But today, I'm able to sit in front of the television, write this new message to my fans with Season 2 of The Shield playing in my sight line.
So, hopefully, with my laptop back in hand, I'll be able to churn out some of the blogs I've been planning since my laptop went on vacation including "How Do You Like Your Jesus?", "The Hum", and a disclaimer on a newly discovered hazzard on the roadways.
Stay Tuned.
So, hopefully, with my laptop back in hand, I'll be able to churn out some of the blogs I've been planning since my laptop went on vacation including "How Do You Like Your Jesus?", "The Hum", and a disclaimer on a newly discovered hazzard on the roadways.
Stay Tuned.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
The Tao of Hauling Ass
I’m not old, but I’m behind. That’s my analysis of my life at the present time. Having seen many of my closest peers settling into something resembling adulthood, away from that self-centered universe I currently inhabit, I can’t help but feel like I’m dragging ass towards the rest of my life. My friend Steve and his doting wife are expecting their second child this summer. My cousin Brian married about six months ago. My cousin Robert, who is a year my junior, is married with a kid. Even my good friend Jasmyne, who's the closest to me in terms of a bohemian lifestyle, is currently living in sin with a guy she adores.
Then there’s me, four years out of college and just now settling into what may be considered a “career path.” I’m single and largely unavailable (don’t want to compound my own hang-ups with somebody else’s), and thankfully I don’t play Dungeons and Dragons or I’d be that guy who’s still living in his mother’s basement, etc, etc.
It’s odd that the weight of passing time is hitting me now, just when things are finally starting to go my way. I’ve gotten my foot in the door of the medium I’ve been trying to crack since college. I’m thirty pounds lighter since the beginning of the year. I’m in the best shape I've been in since hitting my 20’s. And in general, I’ve had a reasonably good disposition (for me anyway). Still, even as I’ve reached a point of contentment I couldn’t have foreseen even a year ago, I'm frustrated that I didn’t reach this point one year, two years, even four years ago.
Still, part of me still feels young and virile for one reason and one reason only: I can still sprint. There’s a scene in the new Mission Impossible where Tom Cruise hauls ass through Hong Kong. It’s a long take that goes ten seconds longer that it should have, but Tom Cruise is booking down the streets like a track star. Acts like that have become my gold standard for youth. It’s something nobody seems to do when they get older. Ask yourself when was the last time you ran as fast as you possibly could. Up until a few weeks ago, it had been years for me. There’s just no need to sprint as we get older. Some of us jog. A lot of us walk. But virtually nobody feels the need to sprint.
I do, though. There are songs that make me want to race through the hallways of KWQC during my workout. Movie trailers make me want to go action-star and leap over chairs (or, if they’re for romantic comedies, to race after a girl through the airport). It’s about vitality. It’s about intensity. It’s about urgency. It’s a little ridiculous, but I have a need – a need for speed.
As long as I have the virility to run the way Ethan Hunt races through the streets of Hong Kong, as long as I feel well enough to bolt through a crowd screaming “Get down! Get down!” (the ability, not the justification) all this prattling on about wasted years will just be the occasional pangs of vanity that we’ve all been subject to at one time or another. It’ll just be me talking about getting older. Not feeling like I'm getting older.
So, if you ever see me randomly take flight down a hallway or across a street or through your backyard, don’t be afraid. Sometimes I just need to remind myself of my own energy, my own vitality. In the sage words of Forrest Gump, sometimes I just feel like running.
Then there’s me, four years out of college and just now settling into what may be considered a “career path.” I’m single and largely unavailable (don’t want to compound my own hang-ups with somebody else’s), and thankfully I don’t play Dungeons and Dragons or I’d be that guy who’s still living in his mother’s basement, etc, etc.
It’s odd that the weight of passing time is hitting me now, just when things are finally starting to go my way. I’ve gotten my foot in the door of the medium I’ve been trying to crack since college. I’m thirty pounds lighter since the beginning of the year. I’m in the best shape I've been in since hitting my 20’s. And in general, I’ve had a reasonably good disposition (for me anyway). Still, even as I’ve reached a point of contentment I couldn’t have foreseen even a year ago, I'm frustrated that I didn’t reach this point one year, two years, even four years ago.
Still, part of me still feels young and virile for one reason and one reason only: I can still sprint. There’s a scene in the new Mission Impossible where Tom Cruise hauls ass through Hong Kong. It’s a long take that goes ten seconds longer that it should have, but Tom Cruise is booking down the streets like a track star. Acts like that have become my gold standard for youth. It’s something nobody seems to do when they get older. Ask yourself when was the last time you ran as fast as you possibly could. Up until a few weeks ago, it had been years for me. There’s just no need to sprint as we get older. Some of us jog. A lot of us walk. But virtually nobody feels the need to sprint.
I do, though. There are songs that make me want to race through the hallways of KWQC during my workout. Movie trailers make me want to go action-star and leap over chairs (or, if they’re for romantic comedies, to race after a girl through the airport). It’s about vitality. It’s about intensity. It’s about urgency. It’s a little ridiculous, but I have a need – a need for speed.
As long as I have the virility to run the way Ethan Hunt races through the streets of Hong Kong, as long as I feel well enough to bolt through a crowd screaming “Get down! Get down!” (the ability, not the justification) all this prattling on about wasted years will just be the occasional pangs of vanity that we’ve all been subject to at one time or another. It’ll just be me talking about getting older. Not feeling like I'm getting older.
So, if you ever see me randomly take flight down a hallway or across a street or through your backyard, don’t be afraid. Sometimes I just need to remind myself of my own energy, my own vitality. In the sage words of Forrest Gump, sometimes I just feel like running.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Sort of a Cool Moment For Me
Ever since I became a TV fanatic, I've been going to TVGuide.com for news and reviews and the like. During my time there I became a fan of a certain columnist there by the name of Michael Ausiello. It's kind of interesting the stuff you can become a fan of. Like my recent admiration for Roger Ebert, I'm now finding special enjoyment in how people write about things more than what they're writing about. Anyway, Ausiello is the "inside guy" at TV Guide. He's the one who gets the dirt on what's coming up on shows like Lost and 24, and then teases some of what he's learned in his weekly column Ask Ausiello. But like I said, it's how he writes about it. You can check out his column to see what I'm talking about, but mainly I'm drawn to the site because Ausiello is 100% wiseass (sound like anyone you know?). He's a lot of fun to read.
So, recently TV Guide began hosting blogs, and I decided I'd create one... being the TV junkie that I am. And I was stuck on a name. Finally I came up with this... Ausiellics Anonymous. Now the entire first post is dedicated to why I chose this name, so I'm not going to repeat that here. However, I got quite a nice surprise when I found out that my favorite TV Guide columnist had, if not read, at least heard of and seen my new blog. He posted a brief blurb about it on his own personal website this morning. While this probably isn't all that big a deal to you lot, I have to say this is probably the biggest geek-out moment I've had since I met John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox) during my internship at NBC.
So, recently TV Guide began hosting blogs, and I decided I'd create one... being the TV junkie that I am. And I was stuck on a name. Finally I came up with this... Ausiellics Anonymous. Now the entire first post is dedicated to why I chose this name, so I'm not going to repeat that here. However, I got quite a nice surprise when I found out that my favorite TV Guide columnist had, if not read, at least heard of and seen my new blog. He posted a brief blurb about it on his own personal website this morning. While this probably isn't all that big a deal to you lot, I have to say this is probably the biggest geek-out moment I've had since I met John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox) during my internship at NBC.
Mission: Impossible 3
For those with more than a casual interest in film and television, two questions matter most about Mission Impossible 3. The first question is "Can Tom Cruise shed enough of his increasingly bizarre public persona to deliver the grand escapist entertainment we've come to expect from this franchise." The other question, the more important question for me, is "Can J.J. Abrams, the mastermind behind Alias and Lost leave as strong an imprint on the big screen as he has on the small screen?"
The answer to the first question is well enough. The film moves so fast, starting en media res with one of the better opening teasers I've seen on film (Abrams used it repeatedly on Alias) that establishes much higher stakes for Cruise's Ethan Hunt than he's had before. He's fallen in love with a sweet girl named Julia (Michelle Monaghan), an adorable nurse with brown hair and big doe eyes (remind you of anyone) who thinks Ethan studies traffic patterns for a living. As long as either Ethan or Julia are in peril, Cruise is terrific. One thing you can't criticize Cruise for is laziness; he jumps and falls and shoots his way through the action scenes with a physical gusto lightened of the vanity that many action stars bring with them. "If I'm cut make sure its a sexy cut. If I fall make sure its a sexy fall." None of that for Cruise. He gets tossed around by jets, parachutes, and even Philip Seymour Hoffman, with more concern for realism than posturing.
Ethan Hunt only starts to dissolve into gossip-magnet Tom Cruise during Hunt's engagement party, when he has to mingle with his fiancee's friends. We start to see glimmers of that slightly psychotic grin and maniacal laughter, but in all honesty this scene is brief enough that it's actually kind of amusing, especially with Mini-Kat Monaghan as Cruise's love interest. But we don't linger in the domesticated world long enough for the illusion to crumble completely. A phone call from IMF spoils the party and we're off to the races.
Apparently Hunt is no longer a field agent, but serves IMF by training new agents. As Ethan celebrates his engagement to Julia, he gets a call telling him that his first trainee Lindsey Ferris (Keri Russell) went off the grid. Suddenly, Hunt is back in action and knee deep in a conspiracy involving nasty gun runner, Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and something called The Rabbit's Foot.
So, with the story set up, we must now confront question number two: How does Abrams do?
The answer is poor.
Awful.
Mediocre at best.
Oh, who am I kidding? J.J. Abrams has made a slick, confident feature debut that will likely steal another of my favorite writers away from serial television. First Joss. Now J.J. Well, at least Aaron Sorkin is coming back; TV has managed to keep its hooks in him.
But back to Abrams and Mission Impossible. It's everything you could want from a summer blockbuster. Its not quite on the level of last years Batman Begins, but I enjoyed it a great deal more than any other offering from last year's peak season. I can only hope the rest of the summer continues in this vein.
Abrams and Co. keep the film moving through its labyrinthine (but decipherable) plot at a fantastic clip. Not including the great pacing, two things really stuck out for me about Abrams handling of the film.
First, the tired quick-cut, mish-mash, ultra close-up style that action hacks like Michael Bay have dumped on movie-goers since the 90s is largely absent here. There's not a single sequence where we have to stop and ask wtf is going on. Not only does Abrams keep his cuts reasonable, but he also makes liberal use of wideshots and medium-shots -- two compositions all but lost on today's action filmmakers. The scene on the bridge (the one from all the ads) is one of my favorite action scenes in a long while and it's all because Abrams pulls back and lets us see everything. It was probably expensive to work that way, but I much prefer it to the visual mush we usually get.
I was also relieved to see the action scenes pulled off with a bare minimum of coyness. Too often action films like to wink at us in the gravest of situations; Bad Boys II comes to mind. The entire world is crumbling, but there's always time for a snappy one-liner. M:I:3 doesn't go for that. It keeps things serious, keeps things real, and it adds a certain layer of suspense and danger that we lose when characters don't take their predicaments seriously.
And nobody takes things more seriously than the franchise's best villain so far, Owen Davian. Holy s--t was he fun to watch. Hoffman plays the role with such a grave nastiness you might think he's in the wrong movie. Everybody has seen his threats to Hunt at the beginning of the films trailer:
"You got a wife? Girlfriend? I'm gonna hurt her. I'm gonna make her bleed. And then I'm going to kill you in front of her."
Well, what you wont get from the trailers is that Davian is actually in IMF custody when this conversation takes place. This is supposed to be Hunt interrogating Davian. But Davian works such a swift and savvy mindf--k on our hero that Hunt absolutely loses control. This was a perfect chance for some moustache-twirling, but instead Hoffman gives this sadistic soliloquy with a mix of irritation and ennui that would be laughable if it wasn't so disturbing. He plays it like he's pissed that he's held up in traffic, even as he's talking about torturing Hunt's lover. Hoffman's choices here are totally unconventional for a summer movie villain, and the movie is all the better for it.
All in all, M:I:3 is exactly what you'd expect from summer entertainment -- thrilling action, breakneck pace -- but both Abrams and Hoffman spiced up what could have been a standard meal of fast cars and big explosions with enough style and wit to send me home a little more satisfied than I might have expected. Great start to the summer.
Final Grade for Mission: Impossible 3 -- B +
The answer to the first question is well enough. The film moves so fast, starting en media res with one of the better opening teasers I've seen on film (Abrams used it repeatedly on Alias) that establishes much higher stakes for Cruise's Ethan Hunt than he's had before. He's fallen in love with a sweet girl named Julia (Michelle Monaghan), an adorable nurse with brown hair and big doe eyes (remind you of anyone) who thinks Ethan studies traffic patterns for a living. As long as either Ethan or Julia are in peril, Cruise is terrific. One thing you can't criticize Cruise for is laziness; he jumps and falls and shoots his way through the action scenes with a physical gusto lightened of the vanity that many action stars bring with them. "If I'm cut make sure its a sexy cut. If I fall make sure its a sexy fall." None of that for Cruise. He gets tossed around by jets, parachutes, and even Philip Seymour Hoffman, with more concern for realism than posturing.
Ethan Hunt only starts to dissolve into gossip-magnet Tom Cruise during Hunt's engagement party, when he has to mingle with his fiancee's friends. We start to see glimmers of that slightly psychotic grin and maniacal laughter, but in all honesty this scene is brief enough that it's actually kind of amusing, especially with Mini-Kat Monaghan as Cruise's love interest. But we don't linger in the domesticated world long enough for the illusion to crumble completely. A phone call from IMF spoils the party and we're off to the races.
Apparently Hunt is no longer a field agent, but serves IMF by training new agents. As Ethan celebrates his engagement to Julia, he gets a call telling him that his first trainee Lindsey Ferris (Keri Russell) went off the grid. Suddenly, Hunt is back in action and knee deep in a conspiracy involving nasty gun runner, Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and something called The Rabbit's Foot.
So, with the story set up, we must now confront question number two: How does Abrams do?
The answer is poor.
Awful.
Mediocre at best.
Oh, who am I kidding? J.J. Abrams has made a slick, confident feature debut that will likely steal another of my favorite writers away from serial television. First Joss. Now J.J. Well, at least Aaron Sorkin is coming back; TV has managed to keep its hooks in him.
But back to Abrams and Mission Impossible. It's everything you could want from a summer blockbuster. Its not quite on the level of last years Batman Begins, but I enjoyed it a great deal more than any other offering from last year's peak season. I can only hope the rest of the summer continues in this vein.
Abrams and Co. keep the film moving through its labyrinthine (but decipherable) plot at a fantastic clip. Not including the great pacing, two things really stuck out for me about Abrams handling of the film.
First, the tired quick-cut, mish-mash, ultra close-up style that action hacks like Michael Bay have dumped on movie-goers since the 90s is largely absent here. There's not a single sequence where we have to stop and ask wtf is going on. Not only does Abrams keep his cuts reasonable, but he also makes liberal use of wideshots and medium-shots -- two compositions all but lost on today's action filmmakers. The scene on the bridge (the one from all the ads) is one of my favorite action scenes in a long while and it's all because Abrams pulls back and lets us see everything. It was probably expensive to work that way, but I much prefer it to the visual mush we usually get.
I was also relieved to see the action scenes pulled off with a bare minimum of coyness. Too often action films like to wink at us in the gravest of situations; Bad Boys II comes to mind. The entire world is crumbling, but there's always time for a snappy one-liner. M:I:3 doesn't go for that. It keeps things serious, keeps things real, and it adds a certain layer of suspense and danger that we lose when characters don't take their predicaments seriously.
And nobody takes things more seriously than the franchise's best villain so far, Owen Davian. Holy s--t was he fun to watch. Hoffman plays the role with such a grave nastiness you might think he's in the wrong movie. Everybody has seen his threats to Hunt at the beginning of the films trailer:
"You got a wife? Girlfriend? I'm gonna hurt her. I'm gonna make her bleed. And then I'm going to kill you in front of her."
Well, what you wont get from the trailers is that Davian is actually in IMF custody when this conversation takes place. This is supposed to be Hunt interrogating Davian. But Davian works such a swift and savvy mindf--k on our hero that Hunt absolutely loses control. This was a perfect chance for some moustache-twirling, but instead Hoffman gives this sadistic soliloquy with a mix of irritation and ennui that would be laughable if it wasn't so disturbing. He plays it like he's pissed that he's held up in traffic, even as he's talking about torturing Hunt's lover. Hoffman's choices here are totally unconventional for a summer movie villain, and the movie is all the better for it.
All in all, M:I:3 is exactly what you'd expect from summer entertainment -- thrilling action, breakneck pace -- but both Abrams and Hoffman spiced up what could have been a standard meal of fast cars and big explosions with enough style and wit to send me home a little more satisfied than I might have expected. Great start to the summer.
Final Grade for Mission: Impossible 3 -- B +
Saturday, May 06, 2006
How Does One Translate Apoplectic Rage to the Page
Yesterday my laptop screen just went black. After trying the all-American Reboot Remedy, nothing happened. So I was forced to take my computer in to Best Buy for the ole check up. And as it has been every other time I've taken my laptop in to get serviced (five times now), they can't actually FIX anything in the store. They have to send it away. So, I'll be landlocked with my online exploits until May 30th. I have a fair amount of potential blog topics (good ones, at that), but I find it hard to write on this desktop. So, I don't know how often I'll be subjecting you to my special brand of commentary over the next month. I hope I can get something out, but me without my laptop is a little like Mozart without his Piano.
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