February 28, 2005

So, Oscars were last night, and I find myself going through the same debate I do every year. One the one hand, it’s not as if the movie that should win always does so (ladies and gentlemen, I give you exhibit A: Gladiator over Traffic and Crouching Tiger), so it shouldn’t matter in the least. On the other hand, they do matter, in a way--I mean, we like to see our favorite movies recognized, especially by their peers. So I don’t know. They do matter, but they don’t. I’m at a loss. But every year, I watch them...sigh.

Last night’s awards...overall, a good show. Chris Rock was quite entertaining, and a solid host throughout--at least, I thought so, although apparently the media gods have rules it not so. Bizarre...I mean, how can making fun of an overblown spectacle like the Oscars be considered "mean"? And how does Sean Penn's lack of a sense of humor make him a "defender"? Weird, weird, weird. (Also, I really can’t overstate how funny the Pepsi Spartacus ad was to me. I’m completely against using old movies to sell things...but when they’re that funny and witty, I have a problem arguing against it.) The show drug a bit in the middle, and there are always things I wonder why we don’t cut (I enjoy the "In Memoriam" section, but the other tributes are dull, dull, dull). And giving the humanitarian award for helping to restore film? I think we’re stretching the definition of “humanitarian” a bit, don’t you?

The actual awards, tho, mostly went as they should have gone (particularly Jamie Foxx’s richly deserved win for Ray, which we watched right before the Oscars; I’m still sad about Paul G not getting the nomination, but Foxx deserved the award for his uncanny portrayal of Charles). Now, the big two (film and director) divided me sharply...on the one hand, I can completely live with Baby and Eastwood--he did a great job directing, and the movie is quite good (although it does have some problems--for one, the redneck family is so lacking depth as to be almost one-dimensional). But I can’t help but feel sad for Marty, who is so long overdue for an Oscar that it’s not even funny anymore. And, honestly, I thought The Aviator was a far better film, overall...not to mention my deep affection for the wonderful and incredibly neglected Sideways. Still, it’s not as though Shakespeare in Love beat Private Ryan again--Baby is a perfectly worthy film...it’s just not the long-awaited Scorsese win (do you realize that Eminem and Prince have both won more Oscars than Martin Scorsese? I think that illustrates some major problem in our modern world...).

Otherwise, back to work today, and it’s just another Monday. Blech. I am tired, and wanting sleep. That’s all I have to say about that.

February 26, 2005

Rather than share my relatively dull day with all of you (a simple note to myself: next time you think it'll be easy to put together computers out of spare times, remember this day), I thought I would share an article my dad sent me today--an epitaph for Hunter S. Thompson.

Yes, yes, yes, I know, I already wrote my piece about Thompson...but it's my site, people. And Thompson's death is an incredible loss...but more to the point, I liked a lot about this one, and thought it was worth sharing with all of you. It's by a guy named Fred Reed, who runs a website/blog-thing called Fred on Everything.

Please don't take this as an endorsement of Fred. He's more than a bit of an asshole, misogynistic, and often offensive. And yet...as much as I find myself disagreeing with him, I still respect his willingness to share his opinion, and his solid writing, and the fact that often, even if they lead him to wrong conclusions, he raises a good number of valid, troubling points. I may not agree with him all the time, but his observation can be pretty sharp sometimes.

Anyways, here's what Fred had to say about Hunter...more than anything else in this, you should really take a second to read the last paragraph, perhaps the best summation of Thompson's end and our current situation.

**********************************************************

Hunter Thompson
All Gone Now

February 26, 2005

When Thompson blew his brains out, a door closed somewhere and you could hear the latch click. The main man had gone. Most of us can easily be replaced. There was only one Hunter Thompson. I’ll heist one tonight to a fine, fine writer, a voice of his time, the embodiment of an age the like of which there never was and which, for good or bad, will never come again.

The Sixties look drab now—unkempt Manson girls, the lost and unhappy, kids bleak and bleary-brained after waking up with too many strangers in too many sour crash pads. There was that. It was not a time for the weak-minded. But for those whose youth passed in the freak years, there was something gaudy and silly and even profound, something delightfully warped, that nobody else would ever have. Thompson caught it.

I didn’t know him. Others have written better than I can of his work. But I knew the world that gave rise to him.

Starting around 1964, a restlessness came over the land, an itch. Kids trickled and later flooded onto the highways as if called by something. I can’t explain it. Few had done it before. Few do it now. They—we--set forth and created the only country in which Thompson could have made sense.

It wasn’t the war, at first. Nor was it only the usual impatience of youth with authority. Nor was it even that we were young and the world was wide. There was a revulsion against suburban emptiness, against the eight-to-five Ozzie and Harriet gig, a rejection of the Establishment, which meant boring jobs and singing commercials.

We discovered drugs, then regarded as worse than virgin sacrifices to Moloch, and looked through a window we could never name. If the times were out of joint, we were seldom out of joints. Chemistry defined the life. You found a freak in some rotting slum and said, “Hey, man, got some shit?” You toked up. You got the munchies, the skitters, the fears. Parents really didn’t understand. Dope, we said, will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope. It did.

Thompson, a savage writer, a grand middle finger raised against the sky, essayed drugs and found them good. And said so, and we loved him. When he wrote of getting wacked out of his mind on seven illicit pharmaceuticals, and wandering in puzzled paranoia through the lobby of existence, we shrieked with laughter. We knew the same drugs. We too had tried desperately
to look straight in public when the world had turned into a slow-motion movie. When it was over, everybody went into a law firm.

Our socio-political understanding was limited. After all, we were pretty much kids. I remember having a discussion in Riverside, California, of how Republicans reproduced. We didn’t think it could be by sex. I figured it was by budding.

For a while though, it all worked. Apostles of the long-haul thumb, we hitchhiked in altered mental states. I don’t recommend it without guidance. We stood by the western highways as the big rigs roared by, rocking in the wash and the keening of the tires, desert stretching off to clot-red hills
in the distance. At night we might buy bottles of Triple Jack at some isolated gas station and dip into an arroyo, roll a fat one and swill Jack and talk and hallucinate under the stars. An insight of the times was that if you got fifty feet off the beaten track and sat down, you didn’t exist. It still works if you need it.

None of it was reasonable. I’ve never found anything worthwhile that was.

Then there was politics, the war. Thompson was rocket smart and knew you couldn’t work within the system since that meant granting it legitimacy. Peace with Honor, the Light at the End of the Tunnel, all the ashen columnists arguing about timed withdrawal and incremental pressure. He knew it was about profits for McDonnell Douglas and egotistical warts growing like malignant goiters on the neck of the country. He was Johnny Pot Seed, a Windowpane Ghandi, dangerous as Twain.

The times brought their epiphanies. I remember being gezonked on mescaline in a pad in Stafford, Virginia, and realizing that existence was the point of execution in a giant Fortran program. So it’s all done in software, I thought. I was floating in the universe. In the infinite darkness of space
the code stretched above and below in IBM blue letters hundreds of feet high that converged to nothingness: N = N * 5, Go To 43, ITEST = 4**IEXP. For an hour I was awash in understanding. The stereo was playing Bolero, which was written by a Do-loop, so it all fitted.

Thompson savaged it all, lampooned it, creating a world of consciousness-sculpting substances and bad-ass motorcycles and absolute cynicism about the government. Today, after thirty years of journalism, I can’t find the flaw in his reasoning.

The other writer of the age was Tom Wolfe, but he wasn’t in Thompson’s league. Wolfe was a talented outsider looking perceptively at someone else’s trip. Thompson lived the life, liked big-bore handguns and big-bore bikes and had a liver analysis that read like a Merck catalog. His paranoia may be style, but you can’t write what you aren’t almost.

I remember standing alone in early afternoon beside some two-lane desert road in New Mexico, or somewhere else, that undulated off through rolling hills and had absolutely no traffic. I don’t know that I was on anything. Of course, I don’t know that I wasn’t. A murky sun hung in an aluminum sky like a fried egg waiting to fall and mesquite bushes pocked the dry sand with blue mortar bursts. The silence was infinite. I lay in the middle of the road for a while just because I could. Then I followed a line of ants into the desert to see where they were going.

A grey Buick Riviera, a wheeled barge lost in the desert, slid to a stop. The trunk creaked open like a jaw. A squatty little mushroomy woman behind the wheel motioned me to get it. As we drove the cruise alarm buzzed, and she told me it was a Communist radar. They were watching her from the hills.

It was a Thompson moment.

Then it was over. Everybody went into I-banking or something equally odious. We gave up drugs as boring.

You can see why he ate his gun. Everything he hated has returned. Nixon is back in the White House, Rumsnamara risen from the dead, bombs falling on other peoples’ suburbs. The Pentagon is lying again and democracy stalks yet another helpless country. This time the young are already dead and there will be no joyous anarchy. The press, housebroken, pees where it is told. But he gave it a hell of a try.

February 25, 2005

Sitting here in study hall with the kids, and they’re doing well. (I often write this at work, then upload it at home, in case you're wondering.) They’ve been a little hyper today, but I figure a lot of that has to do with the upcoming weekend. This has seemed like a long week all in all, and I think everyone is feeling it by this point. Only 2.5 hours to go...sigh...

Anyways, not much planned for the weekend. Unfortunately, I’ll be back at work tomorrow...no kids, tho, so it hardly seems like work, but there’s still that hour drive here and another one going home. Blech...still, easy work--coming in to see how many working computers I can make out of a pile of parts. Hopefully won’t take long...

Not sure if BH is coming up this weekend, but it’d be cool if he was (he’s been talking about it, anyways). It’s been two months since he’s been up here, and given that he was up every single weekend in December, I would imagine he’s going through withdrawal at this point...besides, it would give me an excuse to make it out to the movies. (A late addition: he is not, due to his status of "lazy bastard". Fair enough, as his arrival would necessitate my cleaning my house, and I, too, am a "lazy bastard".)

On a related note, I realized last night that I have not watched a single movie this week. Sad for me...oddly, I just haven’t found myself in the mood all that much to sit and watch something. Weird, especially for me...tonight, tho, with not having to get up in the morning at any given time, we’ll probably sit and finally watch Ray (cramming it in at the last moment before the Oscars). So that’s something.

Incidentally, finally got to watch Robot Chicken last night on Adult Swim (Cartoon Network). I was interested because it’s the same guys behind Twisted Toyfare Theater, a great little segment in an otherwise bland magazine. The show lived up to my hopes; it’s basically a series of shorts, set up with the framework of flipping channels. Madness reigns. Hilarious, sick stuff, and well worth a watch.

February 24, 2005

Honestly, not much to post today. There would probably be a lot more if I didn't have a fairly painful headache going on, but since I do, just a few highlights:

• Carnivale was very good, and well worth the wait.
  
  
• Kids were really annoying today at work--very talkative.
  
  
• For those of you who care, I am not attending the birthday party I was invited to tonight. What party, you ask? The 6th birthday party of the little girl of my ex-fiancees, for whose birth I was present, and whom I helped to raise for two years. Although I do possess a certain morbid curiosity about how the pair of them are doing (more the child than the adult), and although I am more or less willing to let the past be the past and bury the hatchet with my ex, in the end, I agreed with BH, who said "You know, there's just no good to come of going". I may be curious, but it wouldn't serve a lot of purpose. So DVR watching it will be for the night (or maybe a DVD--I'm trying, BH, I really am...)
  
  
• That's all for now. I needs me some aspirin.

February 23, 2005

Good day today. The kids put on their performances of the modernized Romeo and Juliet, and they went far better than I ever expected or hoped.

First off, my third period. Sadly, the idea of a dance-off instead of a fight scene kind of fell apart for a variety of reasons--among them, the absence of a key player, stage fright among the students, too much pride, etc. But the key ideas remained--a club scene, a brawl started, the cops breaking it up (with yours truly being asked to come in and yell “Five-oh in the hizzouse!” That got some reaction.), and perhaps the most entertaining part, Jariva (one of the most senior students) completely hamming it up as the Prince, complete with pose-striking, tough talk, threatening actions...generally just a hilarious performance. The scene wrapped up with Eric playing Romeo’s father as an angry alcoholic and Sara playing the lovestruck Romeo. Very entertaining, and solidly enjoyed by myself and our small audience.

Fourth period, having seen third period’s play, decided to ratchet things up a bit. The club was replaced with a bar; rather than a rough bump, the brawl started with a bottle smashed over the head (plastic, folks--I mean, come on), and the Prince(ss) showed that she meant business by shooting one of the fight-starters, whose friends quickly drug him off into the woods. In this version, as well, Romeo was more bummed because Juliet decided to burn all his old jerseys and slash his car’s nice new tires.

Overall, a successful experiment--far more so than I expected. The kids really enjoyed it, and I think they learned a lot out of it. Very happy day. (Although I was incredibly anxious because I had two parents in my classes today...however, they seemed to greatly enjoy the performances and rehearsals, so that’s a load off.)

Anyways, a good day, and I’m almost about to leave work, and I still have a nice night to look forward to—tonight, I get the only thing better than a steak dinner: a free steak dinner (courtesy of Maria’s grandparents, who are treating the family for Maria’s brother’s birthday dinner). And I might even finally get to watch Carnivale tonight! (It’s been bugging me--right after it aired, I got an e-mail from a friend with the subject “HOLY CRAP ON A CRACKER!!! (aka Carnivale episode 7”...and let me tell you, that has been driving me nuts while I try to figure out what all could be happening. Maybe I can find out tonight...)

February 22, 2005

Just in case you missed the note from yesterday, there is now a link to the picture galleries at the top of every page, as well as from the main menu.

Anyways, on with the day...a pretty solid day today, all in all. It was the birthday of one of my adopted kids (each staff member has five "adopted" kids for whom they buy birthday presents, breakfast on some days, etc--just a way of giving the kids something they may not get otherwise). Gave her some peppermints and bought her some breakfast from Burger King. She was thrilled, and it was nice to be appreciated.

Otherwise...my English classes are currently in the process of creating their own modern version of the opening scene from Romeo and Juliet. My third period has changed the street battle into a dance-off (a la You Got Served), and my fourth has transposed the action into a dance club, complete with bartender, drinks being thrown, and so forth. Both look to be pretty outstandingly entertaining. The performances should be tomorrow; will be glad to post about how they turn out.

After work, long staff meeting, followed by conference with my boss to see how I'm doing. (Mostly good, I'm happy to report.) And now, a nice relaxing evening at home...all in all, not a bad day at all.

Oh, forgot to mention this highlight from yesterday: the kids, obviously, were not happy about coming to school on President's Day. One of them tried this argument:

"Ms. Cori, why should we have to come to school on President's Day? I mean, we should be at home...um...honoring...the day that we...um...chose the President!"

We laughed, and told them that since they weren't even close, no dice. Amusing to me, tho.

Otherwise, life is good. Slightly worried about Sebastian (the older cat)...the last two nights she has woken me up howling in panic/despair/fear/something...and she's not even in the room. It's not an "in heat" howl...more of a scared and lonely thing. Worrying. I know she's old, but I don't like to be reminded, and I worry about her. May have to give in and take her to the vet soon.

February 21, 2005

***First, a brief housekeeping note--there is now a link provided at the top of the page to the picture galleries. Gone is the "Me" page link...and it should be out of the main menu by the end of the day. Now, back to your rambling for the day...

Big bummer of the day: Hunter S. Thompson, the “gonzo journalist” who wrote articles for both Rolling Stone and ESPN, as well as book-length features like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, died at his house yesterday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

While it makes me sad--just on a human level--to imagine being at the point where killing yourself is the only option, I’m saddened more on a literary and societal level than I am on a personal--after all, it’s not as if I knew the man, right?

Now, you can argue that Thompson has gone downhill over the years, that he’s not the writer he once was...and you might be right (although, personally, I still enjoyed his writing, even as I admitted it was not what it was in the era of Las Vegas or Campaign Trail). Nonetheless, the fact remains that, in his prime, he was a genius, capable of some of the funniest, bitterest, most cynically hilarious writing I have ever read. I have not read his writing on the Bush administration, but now that I’ve learned he’s done some, I’ll eagerly check it out, as his bitter viewpoint lent itself to being more than just a writer--he was also a conscience, pricking at our wrongdoings and never allowing us to fall short of our dreams, and gleefully blasting those (like Nixon) who he felt were not worthy of their position, who had abused our trust. He was a unique individual, and I think that our society has gotten to the point where we will never see his like again (not just for the drugs and language, but also the lack of objectivity)...and I think that is more the loss for us, both from a literary perspective as well as journalistic.

Sigh.

I didn’t really mean to turn this into a rant, but where have all the Thompsons gone? What I loved about Thompson was the way he constantly filled his writing with a deep and filling sense of moral outrage (this was particularly evident in Campaign Trail). Don’t get me wrong--I’m all for objectivity in journalism...but I miss the days of Cronkite and Murrow, men who could report the news but remained human--after all, wasn’t it LBJ who knew that they could never win over the American public when they lost Cronkite? I feel as though, in this era of politicizing everything, the press has lost the ability to be human about the things they see, and to feel outrage at what, in another era, would be ground for public mutiny (lying to the American public, anybody?). Rather, they toe the party line, straining mightily to conform to the label of “objectivity,” and swallow what they are told without ever questioning it.

I guess that’s part of Jon Stewart’s appeal to me. Yes, he has a great sense of humor...but what makes Stewart really “click” for me is his ability to find the absurd, the ridiculous, the immoral, and point it out with a sense of outrage. So many of the news organizations just roll over at this point and ignore these things, but Stewart still has a conscience, and cannot let these issues go on without comment. He provides what the media used to do--not only did it report the news, but it took up causes, not just watching injustice but actively trying to stop it. And while Stewart may not have the power of a Cronkite or a Murrow, I feel like, in some small way, he carries on their spirit by using his position to criticize those who deserve it, blasting away at the failures of our government and society.

You know, in that sense, Stewart just may be Thompson’s heir--not as gonzo, but just as willing to cynically laugh his way through the madness of the modern day news, gleefully snickering all the way to the apocalypse.

Anyways.

Rest in peace, you crazy bastard. It’s our loss.

February 20, 2005

Not a huge update today, I'm afraid. I've spent most of the afternoon putting together and uploading the picture galleries, tho--they're finally up! Check out the big listing here of everything you can see. So far, only honeymoon pictures and Christmas, but I definitely plan on breaking out the camera more often from here on out.

The concert last night was good--the band drew a big crowd, and everyone was really into it. Only bad thing was it made it hard to socialize with anyone, but that's okay--I'd rather the band do well, you know?

Incidentally, I'm still reading Faithful...and although Ilove the parts written by Stephen King, who has a sense of humor and humanism that gives the book appeal beyond a baseball recap, Stewart O'Nan is a humorless, dry man--he basically treats the book as a reporting job. To all three of you who will get this reference, Stewart O'Nan obsession over the sport robs it of all joy and fun--much like my own friend Trey Tucker...

BTW, it IS the twentieth--BOO YAH, BITCHES! I made it...and I'm as impressed and surprised as anyone. I do plan on keeping it up, in case you cared.

But check out the picture galleries, folks! Enjoy 'em.

February 19, 2005

A good day, all in all. Got up this morning to go help Sue with Adobe Illustrator, and had a good time. (Hey, I got her to go from "I HATE THIS PROGRAM!" to "This is actually really cool!", and that's always nice; a month ago, I pulled off that trick with Flash!) So that's where most of the day's been spent.

Came home, did some reading, and found a small nugget of joy. I'm currently reading Faithful, Stephen King's (and some other guy) account of the Red Sox season, and while I am enjoying the book (although I like King a whole heck of a lot more than the other guy), I found my favorite thing in it so far: King's reference to a half-finished novel sitting on his desk, one that's NOT the Dark Tower books. Could it be that the long drought I feared from King may not be coming to pass? Oh, that would be sweet...

Anyways, the evening has been nice, with Ria and I actually getting to watch a movie together (Something's Gotta Give--much better than I expected it to be), and we're about to head out and see my friend Jamie's band Blues Jones play out at the Factory in Franklin--and it's my old roommate Lee's birthday! All in all, a busy fun day.

Oh, BTW...if you were as horrified as I was about the Bugs Bunny makeover, check out the video available here. They interview the guy in charge of the cartoons--not very interesting--but midway through the video, they have the credits sequence to the new cartoon. Wile E. with regeneration powers...Bugs with laser vision...and, my favorite: Daffy, with built in sonar.

Good God. I'm very depressed about the whole thing. This, people, is why Daddy drinks at night.

February 18, 2005

Ooh...the big two month anniversary. Good times. And what do we have planned, you ask?

NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Well, that’s not quite true. We are going to a concert tonight...of course, it’s one in which Maria is playing--part of her Belmont band/orchestra thing. And I’m going, of course, to be supportive. So we are doing something...just nothing exciting, I’m afraid.

As for the rest of the weekend...tomorrow I’m teaching an Illustrator lesson to a former student of mine (Sue Manginelli, whose website I gave her the skills to create!)...after that, not much planned. We do have Ray on loan from BH, so we’re hoping to watch that this weekend and get the last Best Picture nominee out of the way...beyond that, a wild weekend of eating home-cooked dinners and watching shows taped onto the DVR. Ahh, the wild married life...

BTW, nothing of note today at work. Just an average Friday, with a few kids making goal trip (a lot less than usual, with all the sickness hitting us these days), and a long, dull study hall period (but I am ready for the next week, which is something nice in of itself). But, all in all, another week down, and only three left in the term...who knows what’s left to happen?

Incidentally, sometime soon I think I’m going to have to share a picture of the most terrifying thing ever brought into my home. This thing is creepy as anything, and no words can describe it...so look forward to that...

A postscript:

I wrote all of the above at work, before I left. Since then, I have spent an hour fighting with a copier and gotten a speeding ticket. The day had better improve from here.

A second postscript:

It's nice to know that someone is catering to the massively, massively lazy. Too involved to leave your computer when playing an online RPG? Well, worry no more: try this!

I swear, the last postscript:

Oh, come the frick on. What in the hell is this all about? I mean, good God, people. Quit raping my childhood.

February 17, 2005

Much better day at work today. My classes were far better behaved than yesterday, and my boss even came to me today and made a comment about how a) my class was hugely improved over yesterday, and b) that she felt bad about getting mad, that she was just frustrated with about nine million things, and I caught some of it. See? I was right!

Big highlight of the day: we're discussing Romeo and Juliet in my literature class. We finished the play yesterday, and are talking about the final scene, and how Paris (the man Juliet's family wants her to marry) is breaking into her tomb to say goodbye.

Needless to say, with this group of kids, we start thinking of other, more nefarious reasons to break in. Which logically leads to this question from Jariva:

"Mr. Josh, is it possible to have sex with a dead body?"

Now, while this question is entertaining, it's hardly out of the ordinary. What made this so entertaining was Eric's incredibly quick "Well, yeah, of course!" response...and our subsequent mocking as to Eric's apparent familiarity with such customs made the day quite entertaining indeed.

The other big highlight was getting to see the guys attempt to stop their pants from sagging, but there's no explaining that, other than saying that nothing is quite as funny as watching a bunch of teenage guys try to look tough and cool while ugly white suspenders hold their too-short pants up around their waists. Quite entertaining...

Tomorrow: the two-month anniversary!