Sunday Funday

My dear people, this weekend has been one of serious and intense laziness.  But before I go into the highly interesting details of all that: the food I ate today.

Firstly, half of a homemade chocolate-chip cookie.  Excellent and cakey.  Second, much later in the day and comprising of both my breakfast and lunch, an onion bagel with regular spread cream cheese and half an avocado.  Pretty freaking delicious.  Thirdly, a dinner of Farfalle pasta, grilled chicken, and pesto.  All combined and lathered with healthy amounts of olive oil. Finger licking good. (Which is odd because we didn't eat it with our hands...)

Just trying to live up to my previous post.

So a week has gone by and I've thought of precisely one good topic to blog about, which I'm not actually going to do here.  That idea was Oprah--her life, her legacy, her inexplicable ego and buildup of final shows, and the giant hole she is going to bury all her money in. I'll do that soon, after some extensive Wikipedia research.

For now, I think I am going to ease right back into this.  I got a pretty radical sunburn on Friday and have since then commenced the lazing about.  I am waiting to hear back from a job, and have taken the hopefully pleasant news of no more free time to heart, utilizing the last of my aimless hours watching Lost and strumming my acoustic.  Now, don't get me wrong, this is not entirely different from what I have been doing all week, but somehow, in the sight of a possible new life, it seems all the more sacred and important now.

I will say this about Lost.  Just finished it.  The whole thing.  And man am I a sucker. Loved it, hated it, whatever you feel about the legacy of Lost, you have to admit it was ballsy.  To cover such universal and contemplative topics so openly, with the intention of subliminally inching the masses of America towards true realization of the meaning of existence, is quite something.  Most may have missed these obvious motifs: good versus evil at the core does not work because human beings have free will; we all really need to let go; a fat man stranded on an island can retain his weight if motivated to do so; and we all have a choice.

Now, I realize I'm about a year off from all the hype that this show ended with.  Oh well.

This is all for now, I am a little lost myself.  Slowly heating up the fog that surrounds.

p.s. I have to wear glasses at night to read the computer screen these days.  Old man come and take me away.

How many more times?

Makin' me feel the way you wanna' do.  This is the first of possibly many posts that begin with Led Zeppelin.  Bow down to the glory of, please, everyone.  This is also possibly the first of many posts that begin with Led Zeppelin but don't actually have anything to do with them.  Sorry bros and bras, mangs and melons.  This blog is, instead, about how many more things I can fall in love with that are about writers.

Let me list a few, in no particular order of greatness or incredibility: Californication, Mad Men, Bored to Death, The World According to Garp, Dead Poets Society, Shakespear in Love, Castle....my mind begins to lose steam, wheels slowing.  Funny how an idea can seem to incorporate every little thing you do and see, and then when asked to list it on a blog just a few atoms come up.  My point, and I will elaborate a few of these to make my completely random claims, is that as a writer, I absolutely LOVE media that has to do, specifically, with writing.

The first conscious awareness I had in this realm was Californication.  Here's a show about a lot of things (sex and David Duchoveny mostly...wait are those different? ZING!), but it is, at its core, about writing.  I stick to that honey laden Showtime wonder like a bee eaten by a bear.  The first season is an endless amount of Saturdays wasted for me.  And then, round two, season two, they cut the writing.  It is dramatic and sexy and lewd, but Hank the writer does not do all that much writing and doesn't seem to care that his book was stolen.  I realized as this second season fell into an abyss of suckiness what the writers (ironic no?) had forgotten.  A novel.  A new book.  Not a memoir of a rockstar.  Hank is almost literal fiction, an excellent genre, and they moved on.  

Then take Mad Men, the best (yes Dad, THE best) show on television as of yet.  It's about booze and women and secrets, but Donny D, the main man, is at heart a writer.  He has a book of creative work, he needs pencils and paper or he's screwed (too bad Iphones weren't around in the '60s), and he takes to heart what the world looks and feels like.  They may be working for the man, but the better part of that show is the creative acts of a new generation, and that will always be interesting.

I think the real thing that cemented it for me, even after these brilliances, was Bored to Death.  I am now realizing that all of my expanded examples are T.V. shows.  I clearly have too much time and an excellent internet connection with which to torrent.  Bored to Death is me: it is funny and abstract, it is heartfelt in a random act sort of way, and it is actually about a struggling writer.  Hank Moody has his books made into movies.  Don Draper...well it's quite obvious how amazing and well-respected that guy is.  But in Bored to Death, a young Jewish writer has completed his first novel (soon to be me?? hopeful eyes), works for a literary magazine, and is desperately trying to finish, a.k.a. start, his second great work.  He struggles and ends up being a private investigator via craigslist, a career-path I have yet to choose, but all the elements are there.  After watching that show I seriously thought about how dope it would be to work for a magazine and get paid enough to live and then try to write the great next thing on the side.  Or in the middle.  Or wherever, hopefully in New York, just like Ames and his wild antics.

Side note: another serious theme for me and this subject is the undoubtable presence of New York, the city of cities in this world of metropolistic future.  I love New York and I want to live there, write in the snowblown winters and dark maroon falls, thunderstorm summers and Central Park.  New York is a siren of old.

Anyway, I decided to talk about all this because I watched Wonder Boys the other night.  Never heard of it, never saw it, did not blip on my radar.  And then suddenly we are plunged into the world of academia and writers and publishing and funny stories that happen with dogs and fake capguns. And I am transfixed for an hour and a half and want to watch it again.

Possibly there is something in the adventures always told in the stories about writers; their lives tend to take random chance, danger, and a lot of substances and come out on the other side with something interesting.  It makes me wonder if I should take more chances, if I should go out in the dark night with a gun and flashlight and just see what comes at me.  Maybe even without the flashlight.  Or get in fistfights or answer weird craigslist ads or talk to strangers.  But even more possibly, I am semi-certain that the strange in life does come through me, that it blows and whispers and spikes the well of my creative water, and that my work does reflect this in a way.  Sometimes I just feel as if I need more.  Travel was good for that.

Oh the stories we all tell ourselves.

p.s. i don't have an idea for this one but I like the tradition of post scripting.  It comes from the latin post scriptum and means "that which comes after writing."  (Thank you wikipedia, thank you NOT Britannica, viva la revolucion technologica).  Isn't what comes after writing just life?  

The End of an Era

So, dear people, I think this will be a short post.  I know everyone loves my essay length thoughts about lots of "topical" things, but I'm feelin' a quickie.

The Era this title speaks of is a simple phrase, a phrase pushed into our skulls by modern advertising and common usage.  "Can you hear me now?" Short enough.  Pretty easy to say, pretty obvious what is going on, pretty clear that Verizon has questionable service all over America (I mean all that guy seems to do is ask if people can hear him...), but no more!  This is, indeed, a post about current technology and T.V.  Sorry for those who enjoy more esoteric topics.

Verizon, our beloved four-g, letter z using, Carson Daily look-alike contest winner of a company started an ad campaign many years ago that defined a new nation.  We need service.  We need to know where people are and what they are saying.  And we need to make sure they can hear us, because in this modern world if your voice does not make it through the mobile phone, onto the little invisible particles that are sent into space, and back again through the atmosphere into a friend's ear, we will perish.  And quickly.  Verizon sits high and mighty with AT&T (my personal provider, whadup unremarkable logo.  Is it a world?) as the two big phone networks in the U.S.

The campaign of "Can you hear me?" is actually pretty likeable, or at least I think it is, and through this Verizon is recognized.  Fairly recently, actually maybe at the Superbowl (see my American Tradition post), a new ad was released.

The camera follows a sleek black tablet-esque object through space.  The bands on its side shimmer in the distant galaxy's sun, it flips and turns and just pulsates with brilliance like no other object has in society before.  Epic music is playing.  People are probably making babies with this thing.  Oh, wait, it's an Iphone.  Damn, should have seen that coming.  The ad does this for a little while, pauses its music, pauses its visual; a silence is audible through America as many people hold their breath, and Verizon spokesmen Paul Marcaerilli (I looked it up) says, "I can hear you now."

What?  Did the invention of a single phone (invented quite some time ago I may add) just change a longstanding slogan for a national company?  I couldn't believe my ears.  The Iphone is great, really it is I have one and can't sleep or move or eat without knowing it has a charge and is listening, but it doesn't change the essence of a company.  I was shocked (as you can tell) that another product, another fiscal competing corporation (everyone watch out for Apple Phone Networks), could decide to do business with a company like Verizon, and in turn get hailed as "the answer."  I think they call the Iphone genius in the commercial after the jaw-dropping recognition of service.

Anyway, this is what I thought was interesting today.  In term's of writing, well I dunno.  It blows me away that a company would answer a logo based entirely on a question because a new model of an old phone came out.  This is the sort of culture change that interests me.  So if you don't have an Iphone can nobody hear you on Verizon?  That is what I'm thinking.  I don't know how this managed to turn into a longer post.  Too much free time on my hands.  I can hear you now, lateskies.

p.s. who saw the competing AT&T ad with the guy forgetting his anniversary?  Isn't stupidity and inattention to your spouse funny??

An American Tradition

So, the superbowl.  I figure this happens once a year and happens to happen while I am writing this blog thang, so maybe I'll take a crack at it.  How this relates to writing and my life, I am not quite sure.  The only solid analysis I have is that instead of writing for like five straight hours yesterday I watched America's past-time.  So I guess it isn't helping.

I have a couple critiques.  I'll be honest, I don't watch football regularly or with enthusiasm, so this is sort of a once off exposition for me.  First, Christina Aguilara.  She messed up the words to our nations most historical song.  From a writer's perspective, this is like dropping one of the acts in Hamlet.  She seriously screwed the pooch.  Didn't she know that in Japanese The National Anthem of the U.S. of A. is an extended haiku?!  Leaving out those key words disrupted the flow of the river that is beauty, and therefore the game, and therefore the world.  We cannot just choose willy-nilly what words go into the song of a people.  We have meetings to decide those sort of things.  So Christina, take your grammys and figure out a 6-4-6 pattern that works in your ridiculous version the greatest song to ever be written.  

Now I take a step back and realize that I was not aware she missed those words as I watched her sing them.  Did you know that sometimes reading even great works of literature I skim?  Not often, but occasionally.  So maybe it's alright.

Second critique.  The Black Eyed Peas suck.  They look old and uncoordinated; their knees must have bullet hole wounds and Fergie is clearly a heavy smoker.  I don't think I have ever seen a half-time show at a Superbowl that lived up to what everyone keeps hyping the half-time show to be.  They all pronounce it (the announcers) with such clarity of voice and clear enthusiasm that every year I am fooled into believing it will rock. my. socks. off.  Nope.  Good thing I was wearing flip-flops Will.i.am, you owe me one.  I refuse to like any "band" that is presented as a "band" on national television where none of the members are playing an instrument of any kind.  They brought in Slash to play guitar and Usher to dance, so what exactly did the Black Eyed Peas bring to the stage?  Robots.  A space-tastic vision of the future that I actually quite enjoyed.  Those square-headed neon-suited dancers really brought it.  I could see their nostrils flaring in HD.  It makes me think about recorded versions of Aztecian blood-letting rituals in which crowds cheer an out of this world scene to tribal music.  I haven't quite figured out who gets sacrificed (maybe stage-presence), but it sure was a show.

Third critique.  I guess in the state of Texas when you show W. on the big screen the crowd is going to cheer.  But, like, really? The man pushed our country into massive amounts of debt and led us to a false war.  Need we cheer him because he is at a football game?

I realize football was only mentioned, just a moment ago, and in relation to the Bush.  Sorry about that.  The game was actually really good.  Rothelesberger is probably the biggest dude ever and Rodgers reminds of Anthony Green from Circa Survive.  I don't know why.  I guess there is not that much for me to actually say on the football part of the football game.  The pigskin carries its legacy into the year 2011, and I wonder if we will ever be such a desolate country that we cannot hold a grand event like this one.

The original idea I had for a blog post about the superbowl was about the commercials.  They are toted as the best of the year, and what that means to my ears is that big-league corporations are finally sitting down with some decent writers and telling a story that might matter, or a joke that is actually funny.  The funny lived up but the stories did not.  Senseless violence was used to great humor by Pepsi (I think) as many people got whacked by a can.  Not exactly a new idea, but classics aren't bad.  Go read Huck Finn one more time.  The best story I saw was for a car that flew through epic adventures.  It called on all well-known Western ideas of history and innovation, and ended (believe it or not) at an Aztecian blood-letting ritual.  Or something.  The commercial was cool, I'll give it that.

But it begs the question, why aren't ads in our world taken more seriously?  Maybe I have a skewed concept of how good it could be, entirely based on Mad Men, but I want more.  The next person to figure out a realistically effective way of advertising is going to make some serious cash.

I think the superbowl is a good past-time.  It distinguishes our country from the rest of the world, which could be a negative but in an increasingly evened out hierarchy I think pronounced independence should be regarded as positive, unless it is based on most bombs or largest military presence or....ok so the U.S. has some issues.  My point in all of this, I think, is that I appreciate that people watch a sporting event year after year, regardless of the status of our country.  I don't see Democrats supporting the Packers while Republicans back the Steelers.  Competition is rife but not in such a segregated way, and that is promising to see.  Yay!

p.s. this was a weird post.