A Real Problem

Report: Most College Males Admit To Regularly Getting Stoked

A Post On The Last Decade That Changes Tone Abruptly Round About Halfway In

Both my jackass friends have seen fit to reflect on their experience with live, love, and Jeff Beck during the last decade. Being something of a jackass myself, I decided to follow suit.

I started the decade living in the same city I live in now—Los Angeles. Technically I lived, then, in a small suburb on the Northeastern edge of Los Angeles called Sierra Madre. I was there because I’d won admission into a TV Writing “Workshop” run by Warner Brothers. It was, in fact, a glorified audition, one which awarded paid writing spots to top performers at the end of the ten-week class.

I loved living in Sierra Madre; I loved the town; I loved my life. I woke up every day and went to the same coffee shop, where I ate the same breakfast (two lemon poppyseed muffins, eight cups coffee) read the same paper, and came back at the same time every day to write (10:30). Afternoons I read the same book (In Search of Lost Time), played pick-up at the same court, and spent the late afternoon watching the same TV show (NYPD Blue). I was lonely, but happy.

About halfway into the class I found out that I had been accepted into MFA programs in both fiction writing and poetry. (I had applied the previous fall). I had several choices. I could move back to St. Louis where I had been living, attend the fiction program at Wash U and try to patch things up with my then-girlfriend; I could stay in LA, where I was doing well in the TV writing workshop and try to make a lot of money writing crap that no one would want to watch; or I could go to Iowa and attend the poetry program at the Writers’ Workshop.

So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow…. I went to Iowa. I don’t know why. It was probably a mistake. I went from a sunny and friendly place, writing something I didn’t care about but could do well—to a dark and unfriendly place (the Workshop, not Iowa) writing something I cared too much about but didn’t seem to do very well. I made one very close friend, read a lot of contemporary poetry, and thought about art. This is not a good place for those (unquestionably profound) reflections, but suffice it to say that I ultimately decided that writing poetry seemed to me to be a dead-end. I have likened it before to learning how to inscribe parts of the Bible onto grains of rice; undoubtedly it’s difficult—but what does it achieve? What does it matter?

I was in Iowa on 9/11. I remember sitting in a bar that night and listening to one of the fiction writers declare with grave certainty that the US would soon reinstate the draft (“they would have to.”) Iowa in toto—extremist, frightened, and wrong. None of us could understand it, and it was all so far away. (Random note: the news source that best captured 9/11 for me turned out to be The Onion. I still remember the article about a Midwestern housewife who, having given blood and baked a cake, worried that she had no other way to help her country.)

This is stating to get long. Let’s speed it on its way. 2002: Left Iowa, went to Boston. Taught my most fulfilling class ever (poetry writing for adults). Hung out with the Harvard Classics Department. Great guys—terrible poker players. Sort of learned Latin. Wrote a lot of mediocre poetry. Turned thirty, had a party (thanks, J!), watched Mirror, Rublev, Passion of Joan of Arc. Left New England never to return (we hope).

Back in Texas, guns-a blazing, tutoring business going good. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita. Played at poker. Reconnected with some friends of yore. Tried to learn to cook. Half-wrote a half-screenplay. Built a web site. Watched the movies I was told to watch. Quoted Master Shake, perhaps too much. Read many things I don't recall. Happy, but in need of song, I set my sail upon the seas of online love. Shipwrecked all at once.

Learned a girl I’d met some years ago was suddenly free. Concocting surreal fantasies of blimp and ficus tree, emailed. Amazed to get reply as funny and bizarre as one I’d sent. Felt stirring, faint yet powerful, deep in the cockles, a there where stirring had not previously been felt. Bought a shirt and had a date. Learned she didn’t eat cheese. Convinced her that a polished rock was actually an after-dinner treat. Had second date. Had tenth. Cockles now a place of swift and steady storm.

Met her family. Got an easel. Watched Tarkovsky once a month at least. Painted now but not in oils. Bought a book on how to buy a diamond ring. Bought a diamond ring. Bought a life-sized teddy bear. Felt the future suddenly change.

Found a chapel, found a planner, found a cake. Well, she found the cake, but I expressed support, checking in from time to time on plans I didn’t fully understand. Many colored folders on her desk. Listened to Sly and the Family Stone. Felt I might not be as funky as I was back then. Wore an eye patch (not for fun). Made sure wedding invitation featured talking box of Fries.

At the chapel, playing rummy in the back, received a rabbit-headed cane. At the service the minister wished not happiness for us, but joy. I understood. The wedding: everybody came, everybody danced. Many vodka shots to those who needed them. (And who did not?)

Went to Austin, went to Cuzco, ate a guinea pig, came home. All the nights when I thought Sal Paradise was right. Moved to Brentwood, bought a sofa, watched The Wire. Did not want a dog. Went to Vegas, hated Vegas, went again. Won and lost enough to almost live upon. Continued not to want a dog. Acquired a dog. Learned how marriage worked. Learned to care for something small and strange. Gave it names to pass the time. Sang to it at night. Began to find a need to go to total strangers and explain the ways my dog was best. Realized I’d lost my hold.

Got a realtor. Got a mortgage. Got a job (sort of). Joined a gym. Found I’d put on weight. Found I’d lost some hair. Found my writing hadn’t gotten me to any place of note. Felt despair encroach. Resisted it, as best I could.

Saw the 10s begin back here, in Valley Glen, in house with wife and dog. Like other friends, I also spent 2000 in Houston, at the same party as my friends. All that’s over now. No more colored alcohol; no more smoke machine (or was that from a different year?) Now it’s time for kids, for work, for middle age. Wisdom just another word for sorrow, in the end. But joy comes also, pushing up through time’s thick sediment, a plume of smoke illumined by the light of those surrounding it, transporting us outside of time as often as we need, almost.

Elative Absolute

This article in The Economist tries to determine which of the world's spoken languages is the most difficult to learn. Here's a sample:

For sound complexity, one language stands out. !Xóõ, spoken by just a few thousand, mostly in Botswana, has a blistering array of unusual sounds. Its vowels include plain, pharyngealised, strident and breathy, and they carry four tones. It has five basic clicks and 17 accompanying ones. The leading expert on the !Xóõ, Tony Traill, developed a lump on his larynx from learning to make their sounds. Further research showed that adult !Xóõ-speakers had the same lump (children had not developed it yet).

Beyond sound comes the problem of grammar. On this score, some European languages are far harder than are, say, Latin or Greek. Latin’s six cases cower in comparison with Estonian’s 14, which include inessive, elative, adessive, abessive, and the system is riddled with irregularities and exceptions....

Until 2010

Tomorrow is the return of Fly The Dog Across the Country Day. Today we had the vet inspection (What a racket! 60$ for a certificate to fly, obtained by having a vet do nothing more than weigh our dog and look in his ears. Give me a break).

I don't expect to be doing much posting between now and the New Year, so Merry Christmas to all from our family to yours. I leave you with a few more shots of Bink in holiday gear. Happy Holidays!

As Promised

Christmas in ANCIANT-land. Note the glorious wood panelling in the room around the tree. I described our living room area to my wife as "An Arkansas Hunting Lodge Christmas." She didn't like that. Still I can't help feeling, when I look at our tree, that Kenny Rogers should be coming out from the next room any minute to do a Christmas duet with Dolly Parton. That's not a bad thing, by the way. It's just unexpected.

Bink's hat doesn't show as well as it could in these photos. We've got some antlers rustling around somewhere; hopefully those will be a bit more majestic.

What Is Up

It has been, I know, a long time since I put up a new post. I'm sorry. I've been doing nothing for the last month but writing, sleeping, and playing poker. Well, that, and the occasional dose of Reality TV. (Season Finale of Top Chef this Wednesday!) I'm resolved to take a break from my own work in January and return to work on a movie list that I started several months ago. I'm also considering posting an excerpt from a script in progress, with the idea that you all might give me some constructive criticism. (By which I mean, like any writer who says they want constructive criticism, I'm hoping you'll say it's great over and over and over again, and nothing else.)

Before the holidays, I do plan to have some more photos; we've got a tree up now, as well as some exciting Christmas-themed outfits that the Bink, his own desires notwithstanding, will no doubt soon be modeling. I'd also like to put up a post about the third season of Mad Men, which we've almost finished. But I cannot promise anything. I've been winning significant money playing poker online, I'm doing good work on a TV Pilot, and I'm making real progress on my lifelong goal of becoming the first-ever Heisman trophy winner to play the lead in a Broadway revival of West Side Story. I've got a lot going on, in other words, but I'll be back soon. Until then, may all your chestnuts dance and crackle, and your sugar plums be tasty, and your wombats fill the night with joyous ulultation.

Best Moments in the Wire

One of the contributors at Pajiba has seen fit to compile clips of what they believe to be the 100 greatest lines of dialogue from HBO's epochal series, The Wire. A few of my favorite lines are missing, but it's still well worth your time.

What The Fasionable Dog Will Be Wearing This Fall

For my wife, dressing up our dog in fun seasonally-themed outfits is a standing temptation. The pumpkin-hat seen here is a little big, but I think Bink makes it work. When you have this much style, it needs to be shared.

Christmas, by the way, is going to be something.

Afternoons

Summer is fading:
The leaves fall in ones and twos
From trees bordering
The new recreation ground.
In the hollows of afternoons
Young mothers assemble
At swing and sandpit
Setting free their children.

Behind them, at intervals,
Stand husbands in skilled trades,
An estateful of washing,
And the albums, lettered
Our Wedding, lying
Near the television:
Before them, the wind
Is ruining their courting-places

That are still courting-places
(But the lovers are all in school),
And their children, so intent on
Finding more unripe acorns,
Expect to be taken home.
Their beauty has thickened.
Something is pushing them
To the side of their own lives.

-Philip Larkin

A Renewal

Having used every subterfuge
To shake you, lies, fatigue, or even that of passion,
Now I see no way but a clean break.
I add that I am willing to bear the guilt.

You nod assent. Autumn turns windy, huge,
A clear vase of leaves vibrating on and on.
We sit, watching. When I next speak
Love buries itself in me, up to the hilt.


-James Merrill

East Coker

Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

-T.S. Eliot