CHOOSE LIFE: The Moment T2 Trainspotting Had Me
Trainspotting is one of those books and films that just nailed me when the collection of stories was released back in 1993. Danny Boyle's filmed amalgam of the book was likewise revolutionary for me in the same way Fight Club was later.
Humans Normalize Everything: It's Called Adapting to the Pain
What is the consequence of this ever growing list of what constitutes pain and is there a value to learning to endure it?
Dave Chappelle: The World HAS Gone a Little Mad
As it has become standard with these things, I heard a metric ton of negative response to the two Netflix comedy specials featuring Chappelle's return to the stand up stage before I sat down and watched them.
Over at GQ.com, Damon Young posits Chappelle's humor is grounded in a time that has passed and others simply dismiss the specials as Dave “punching down” by joking about gays, transgender folks and rape.
”His focus on the horror of political correctness, instead, felt like something you’d expect to come from a megarich 43-year-old man from the outskirts of Ohio. Who, instead of evolving with the world, has remained stagnant and believes the world has gone mad while pining for time when things were simpler. Which is who he is.”
Starting Over... And Over Again
“So. You were a teacher in the public schools for eight years. Then you were the Executive Director of a non-profit theater?”
“Yeah.”
“And most recently you spent - what - 18 months working retail in a tobacconist?”
Ouch. As he listed my resume, it did look like a downward spiral. He didn’t care that the tobacco retail gig and the facilities manager job for a Lincoln Park massage school were part of a compromise between my wife and I at the time. I mean, I could explain that she and I decided each to take a year to just be artists while the other worked whatever job he or she could find and then we’d switch. But this was public radio. My vast experience with cleaning the glass on the humidors and restocking cigars was probably not going to play big on my hiring prospects.
Happy Hour at the Baja Beach Club
They were my glasses from college. For some reason - call it flamboyance or idiocy - I got them in frames of red gel, like Sally Jesse Raphael - and the prescription was possibly three years out of date. Underneath the right frame, the side of my face was swollen like an egg was lodged just a centimeter or so below the skin. My eye was bruised to a bizarre rainbow of black, blue, purple, red and yellow, like a piece of rotten meat attached to my skull. My lower lip was split enough that it hurt to smile. I had this perpetual headache on the left side of my brain. People avoided me on the street. I was a mess. But the glasses? They were the insult to my injurious face.
The Competing Narratives: Empathy vs. Fear
Giving credit where credit is due: I'm watching Legion lately. If you're into trip, smart science fiction mutant stories, I recommend it highly. In Chapter 4, a character starts things off by explaining the following concept and I found it so truthful and preternatural that I wanted to think on it a bit.
As we are slowly indoctrinated in society, we are told two stories.
The first is that of the scrappy hero thrust into a quest of some sort. The hero is beset by a challenge and is good at heart. The hero goes through tests honesty, bravery and tenacity. The hero overcomes the obstacles and learns something.
The second is that the world is dangerous and if you go out into the water, you will surely die. If you fail to wear a helmet, you will surely die. If you have unprotected sex, do drugs, or take a camping trip in the woods with a smart virgin, a slut and some comic relief, everyone but the virgin will most certainly die.
I Defeated Trump, Racism and the Patriarchy
I had to rethink the strategies employed and, after a few minutes of reading some posts on Facebook and a couple of articles on Medium, I realized how to defeat Trump, Racism, and the Patriarchy with the boldest of actions.
I decided to be outraged and vocal on social media.
A Love Story
Jake and Caroline had been dating two-and-a-half years. They were introduced by Caroline’s best friend, Ronnie, who had met Jake on Tinder. After four weeks of drunken hookups that left her unsatisfied and him horribly embarrassed, Ronnie thought Jake would be perfect for Caroline, who was still recovering from a devastating break up.
Ronnie knew her best friend well and was sure that the thing Caroline needed to get her over the heartbreak hump was a quick roll in the hay with a handsome, mostly charming and funny guy like Jake. She was confident that because he was so bad in the sack, there was no way Caroline would fall for him and wind up in yet another relationship, which was her mo. Ronnie knew that the best thing she could do for her friend was help her break the cycle of disappointment.
Jake and Caroline’s first date was at The Whistler. They talked about Ronnie, how much they loved The Walking Dead and debated the better ride-share service, Uber or Lyft. She was Uber, he was Lyft. They got wasted on Sazeracs and had sex at her apartment. It was incredible for both of them. Caroline stopped taking sex advice from Ronnie.
Iron Fist: The Most Millennial Superhero So Far
I started by enjoying Netflix’ fourth entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) second-tier superhero franchise. I entered in with the knowledge that an awful lot of people had either beaten it to death critically or merely used the casting of a white actor to play a white comic book character to paint the show as cultural misappropriation.
By episode #4, the enjoyment began to wain. The writing is just bad. Not Transformers bad. Not Titanic bad. But clunky and almost as if the writers were using one of those writing apps that blocks out the sentences written prior to retain focus. So many moments where the characters said and did things incongruous to the moment before that it almost becomes a David Lynch experiment in superhero television.
I liked Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) until she lost her mind in love with Danny Rand. Her snarky badass attitude suddenly seemed to evaporate as soon as there was sex involved. I continually like Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple but her role in this chunk of MCU is confused—is she the perpetual nurse or a badass in training or merely the only adult in the room? The Meachums (Harold (David Wenham), Ward (Tom Pelphrey) and Joy (Jessica Stroup) are all complex and interesting, especially Ward, and yet go completely brain dead when the obvious is smacking them right in the face.
On Flash
Flash Fiction has its own day. And everybody knows, if a thing has its very own celebratory day, then it might be worth paying attention to, if only for a brief (or extremely brief) time.
The First Step to Reinvention
"...the key to discovery is the follow-up. The application of the lesson. The reinvention.
7 Billion Books; 7 Billion Covers
As I sit here in the heart of one of the biggest cities in the world and contemplate the very idea of that number of human beings - of all stripes, colors, races, creeds - it's a bit staggering. The concept of seven billion people is kind of abstract and potentially awful/amazing.
A Stick Inside a Swill Bucket
I think we need to come up with some new words.
Homogenized Money Laundering and the Liberal Institutions
Too Big To Fail has its consequences.
Contenders for the 2020 Presidential Election
In today’s political climate, the line between governance and campaigning is a mythical beast. Like the Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch or a German’s sense of humor. Thus, there’s no reason to think that we shouldn’t be discussing possible contenders for the 2020 Presidential Election.
Improvising Around the Flaked Notes
I Believe...
The IRS Stole My Wife's Identity
"I’m not even a person. I’m a spouse."
Desperately Seeking Audience at the Expense of Everything Else
Plainly put, we want money and security for doing what we do just like other people (like teachers or waiters or airline pilots...or maybe we want more than that?).
Learning Curves and Game Changers Define the Path You Take
As life unfolds over what starts out as years and becomes decades and quarter centuries, there are decisions made that tend to challenge who you are at the time and stretch your boundaries beyond what you were capable of or even thought possible.
...that intense and deep aren’t the same thing even if you’ve convinced yourself they are. Intense is momentary and fleeting; deep is the result of time and energy.