Month: June 2015

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My Wife and I Laugh A Lot

Postaday for June 5th: Happily Ever After. “And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there?

I’m told that tragedies and comedies are differentiated by whether people die in the end or get married. (Go ahead, make your jokes about marriage being a kind of death. No, really, we’ll wait). Happily ever after would seem to be the latter, then. And so, once a person is married, the chief conflict they faced (not being married) is resolved. I’m married, so I guess I’m living happily every after.

Tragedy and comedy in the sense of something bad versus something funny are two sides of the same coin: irony. If you laugh at it, it’s ironic. And didn’t Carol Burnett say comedy is tragedy plus time? I guess it’s tragic when a person’s efforts to get married are the very thing keeping him from getting married. Tell that story with the right soundtrack, and the rest of us are laughing.

I could get all pseudo-anthropological here, and say that human are animals, animals exist to procreate, but humans are civilized, and the juncture of the procreative urge and civilization is marriage. For once my genes have propagated themselves, my reason for being has been fulfilled. And marriage is the potential for procreation, so the conflict of my existence is mitigated by saying “I do.” Happiness, it would appear, is overcoming conflict.

Hooray for me, and so long, existential angst. You kept me occupied as a teenager, broody and unattractive (see dramatic irony, above) but that kept me out of the dating pool until I was older, more mature, and ready to meet the woman I married. Delicious irony indeed, good for a happy chuckle.

Of course, this is a very convenient point of view, and only a story-book one for the sake of discussion. There are lots of people out there living happy who have no intention of getting married. Lots of people out there who are “happily” married and not living happily ever after. Afterall, when the primordial soup was putting together the first few cells that would, billions of years later, become people, it didn’t give two-cents about story-books.

But telling stories evolved too. A way to justify that conflict, mentioned above, between the need to reproduce and the need to build roads and tall buildings. Marriage, in the end, is just another plot device. Make sense that in all the romance languages, romance means “novel.”

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Damned Twizzler Amnesia

Postaday for June 4th: Smell You Later. Humans have very strong scent memory. Tell us about a smell that transports you.

I can tell you about a smell that should transport me but doesn’t: Twizzlers. I’m not talking any old red licorice, or Red Vines. I’m not talking about the cherry pull-strand style Twizzlers either, or the multicolored ones, or those cherry nibs. I’m not even talking about the quarter pound or the half pound bag. Heck, let’s get real specific: I’m not even talking about a one pound bag of strawberry Twizzlers unless that one pound bag of strawberry Twizzlers is on the discount shelf at Albertson’s for just a buck because they’re trying to move old stock the day before it expires.

Every time my wife goes out of town, I end up with one of those bags. Sometimes she buys them for me and hides them around the house, ’cause she knows I’ll find them. It’s too bad Jinny Hoffa wasn’t buried with a bag of Twizzlers, ’cause I would have found him a long time ago too. But as often as not my wife doesn’t buy me the bag, and I get one myself. It’s freaking surreal. We wake up, I toss her suitcase into the trunk, drive her to the airport, drop her off at departures, give her a hug, watch as she walks into the terminal, and when I turn around to get back into the car, I’m in Albertson’s, standing in front of the BOGO shelf, fat bag of Twizzlers in one hand, the other hand in my back pocket, grabbing up my wallet.

Self check-out line. I’m scanning the bar code, then swiping my credit card while tapping through instructions on the touch screen. I’m in the car and half way home and the bag is open and one Twizzler’s in my mouth and I’m chewing furiously, another Twizzler pinched between my upper lip and my nose, a candy mustache like goofy hipster nightmare porn star perverting my blood sugar and will to live.

You’d think that pungent sugary strawberry smell, that cloying noisomeness would take me back to every other time I’ve sat in front of the computer, playing some god-awful video game while masticating a waxy red mess at about a hundred calories per second. You’d think I’d remember the commiserate queasiness, that sickness that starts a sour patch in my gut and works it way up to squeeze my poor withered heart a few times before resting firmly and greenly in my forehead. How I’m ruined for days, me the next day with my Twizzlers hang-over, crumpled up in my easy chair like I’d been discarded there, a cup of tea cooling next to me and something stupid and dark on the TV.

But no, I never remember. The smell does nothing to me. I wish it would. Even now, concentrating, I can conjure up a whiff of those disgusting sucrose sticks, those corn-syrupy stomach-punchers, those red-number-five bowel-busters. And even though I know what it does to me, ruining my weekend, making me wish I was an alcoholic or a junkie instead…

…I’m thinking about how my wife has to work this weekend and maybe I’ll go get a bag.

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You Could Say I’m a Yo-Yo

Postaday for June 3rd: Blogger With a Cause. If your day to day responsibilities were taken care of and you could throw yourself completely behind a cause, what would it be?

Yep, I’m a blogger without a cause. You can find me half-drunk and nearly passed-out on the side of that yellow brick road leading to the bloggosphere. Pick me up and haul me in. Doncha know police stations are just places to make friends with criminals? Dorothy’s there in her red dress, and the cowardly lion too— later on, we’ll give him courage, and it’ll get him killed.

Me, I’m the new guy, the one you’ve known all along. Call me scarecrow. Shun me for stepping all over the mascot. How was I supposed to know that big blue-and-white W was sacred? So let’s go on up to the observatory, where the wicked witch lives, or should I say lived, since that house fell down on her. The sun’s going to go supernova someday, you know. We’ll all be dead long before then. Oz the great and terrible, expanding past all the inner planets. Maybe Jupiter will light up and Clark can write a book about it.

Wanna dance? Fine, we’ll dance. Not you, Dorothy, you had your chance. I’m talking to your old man. Gimme a knife, I don’t aim to knock your teeth in with my bloggy wit while you’re distracted by my blood on your knife. Look at how my words cut and slice! And there, your blade is gone, you dumb punk. You rusted up tin-man. What’s a metal head need chicken for anyway? I’ll show you who’s chicken. Steal us a few cars, we’ll see who lasts longest driving through the poppies.

Rev ‘em up, rev ‘em up! You want me to throw myself behind a cause? How about I throw myself out of this Porsche 550 Spyder while your tin-man parts get stuck inside your own ride. You’re dead, tin-man, and we were barely friends. How am I supposed to get a brain when your heart’s all splattered at the bottom of a cliff? At least Dorothy’s still here. The cowardly’s going up to the abandoned house; I’m going to the cops.

Because there’s justice, there’s fighting for what’s right, there’s standing up to the tornado— but first you got to fix yourself. Here’s my cause: me. I need fixing. Both me and the whole planet, burned up when Oz goes boom— I can only fix one, might as well be the one who wastes his talents not writing all day. (How many words I got so far, now? 400? It’s stll nothin’.) But the cops, they won’t listen. I tried. I’ll take Dorothy to the abandoned house instead. Maybe Cowardly will be there.

He is. Let the wicked witch’s flying monkeys harass my parents, what do I care. Coupla munchkins, hobbits on the run, Sauren and George RR fill bookshelves, sure, but library stacks don’t stop bullets like they used to. Me and Dorothy and Cowardly, we’ll pretend this abandoned house is the Emerald City. That’s easy, see. Didja know cats sleep 20 hours a day? Cowardly dozes like a good kitty. Me and Dorothy go exploring. I don’t know what that’s a metaphor for.

Oh but here comes Cheetah the Moose. Did you know there’s a whole Wikipedia page on flying monkeys? Cowardly, brave now, shoots one of them. Everything’s all messed up. Stop shooting at me, Lion! Everything’s animals. We’re all running back to where we learned about Oz exploding. Here’s the cause I’d blog for: annihilating angst. A worthless cause, so I’m without. But for now I can trade my own red jacket for Lion’s ammo. Dumb cat.

We go outside. Oh, NOW the cops pay attention. “I got the bullets! Look!” Cowardly’s dead. He stood his ground. I’m not going to take up that cause though. Dorothy clicks her heels together. Nothing happens. Because that was a terrible way to end a story.

You think it’s a coincidence that James Dean and Albert Camus both died in car crashes?

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Keeps the Roads in Good Repair. And Listen.

Postaday for June 2nd: Dear Leader. If your government (local or national) accomplishes one thing this year, what would you like that to be?

One thing? They better get a heck of a lot more done than one thing. I got roads I need to drive on, water I need coming out of the taps. Heck, just keeping the lights on would be great. For my money (i.e. taxes) that’s what government is for. Chase down the criminals, keep the schools open, pick up the trash, approve zoning so we can build a new basketball arena downtown.

I know there are a lot of social issues, and those need to be addressed to. But that’s will-of-the-people stuff, and it’s up to us, the people, to take care of it. Do we want a better living wage? We need to get out there and do something about. We can’t sit around waiting for the government to do the right thing. And don’t get me wrong— I’m not preaching “less government” here. I’m not trying to say we need to get rid of regulations and hooray for laissez faire. I’m saying that government’s job is to do what we tell them to do, and they’re not mind readers.

I demand social justice, of course. My own politics lean left, sometimes way left, but I’m not here to tell people who disagree with me to shut up. Indeed, I want everybody out there yammering away until the boys and girls on the hill hear us.

But enough about my philosophical approach to politics. You want me to talk about an issue, don’t you? You want me to bring up gay marriage, or legalizing marijuana, or $15/hour, or banning assault rifles, or progressive taxes, or a woman’s right to choose, or stand your ground, or deflate gate, or Hastert, the Duggers, or Baltimore, or global climate change, or immigration reform, or that idiot in Wisconsin, or that idiot in Kansas, or Snowden and the NSA, or maybe you would even find it amusing if I were to opine on the TPP, which has me so confused I assume jokes about toiler paper perfume are in order.

But to what end? So you know whether to respect or hate me? Please. I’m am an artist. I’m an intellectual. I am tax payer and a citizen. I am NOT a talking head, a pundit, any kind of leader, or, unless I let myself get lazy, a hypocrite.

Our government is corrupt, because all governments are corrupt, because that’s the nature of willful leadership. No one who wants power deserves it. Call me a cynic. Call me complacent. But I go with the will of the people. If, free of the corrupting influences of big business, the will of the people chooses to outlaw cargo shorts, I’ll start wearing chinos, okay?

But its up to us to tell them what are will IS. Its up to us to shout as loud as possible over the deafening roar of that corruption.

And, frankly, spending all our time shouting at the people who disagree with us gets nothing done.

Keeps the roads in good repair. And listen to us when we’re talking to you.

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Trying to Play Games

Posted over at Bukkhead’s Boring Gaming Blog on Anook

Yesterday was the last day to get F1 for the Xbox 360 for free using Games with Gold, so I did, and I played it. More or less through the tutorial, which earned me two achievements: Going for Gold and Training Day. I didn’t finish the tutorial completely, however, as I was not able to finish one of the races fast enough. F1 is too technical for me, too real-life. I appreciate that driving formula one cars is very difficult, and that others racing games are just accelerator mashers. Well, I’m an accelerator masher. I’m the kind of guy who wants to be able to hit a corner at top speed, bounce off a wall, then take a jump and crash through a billboard (yep, I’m talking about you, Burn Out Paradise.

Today was the first day you could download Just Cause 2 for free (Games with Gold again) so I did. Now, this is a game I rented for the PS3 from Blockbuster (shows you how old the game is!) and played a good chunk of, and then downloaded again for PC via Steam, and played about the same chunk of. With those play-throughs, the completionist in me was too hung up on liberating all the little towns around the island before getting to the main mission. Well, to heck with that this time around. Then again, I say “this time around” as if I’m going to play again. We’ll see. So far I’ve gotten achievements for First Taste of Chaos, Welcome to Panau, and Casino Blast.

I just don’t have any gaming urges anymore. I went more or less all of May without playing Hearthstone. I dibbled a bit in WoW, dabbled once or twice in Starcraft. Maybe June will be better. Heroes of the Storm goes live tomorrow, so maybe a larger player based (and therefore, less-awesome players) means I’ll finally get into a real multiplayer match. Or maybe not. I might end up just writing all day, silly blog posts about what my favorite kind of sandwich is.

Sigh.

There are plenty of dudes older than me who manage to game. And I work from home, darn it! I should be the hardest of the hard-core! Tomorrow I’ll grab the first offering for June for XBoxOne, a game called Massive Chalice. It’s turn-based, and set in a fantasy realm, so maybe it will compel.

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Don’t Tell, Don’t Ask

Postaday for June 1st: Truth or Dare. Is it possible to be too honest, or is honesty always the best policy?

I have no patience for people who are proud of the fact that they “tell it like it is.” You know, letting her know that the dress does make her butt look huge. Or, being honest, telling his buddy that his band sucks. But that’s not really “honesty,” is it? It’s opinion, and why does it need to be said at all? And if one really does want to hide behind “I’m just being honest!” then why doesn’t one truly be honest and “tell” everything: “Hey Larry, your band sucks, and I was raised with no formal musical training, the bands I respect are hated by the vast majority of decent people, and my opinions on most things are born from withering self-hatred and a seriously abysmal IQ.”

If you wife asks you, “does this dress make my butt look big?” she’s not asking for you to be honest about the size of her back side. She wants to know if she’s going to catch sight of herself, during a vulnerable moment, reflected in a window or nearby mirror. She wants to know if she can carry herself with confidence in an environment built to tear her down just for trying to look nice. You want “just to be honest”? Then answer the real question. Tell her you can’t really decide unless you see her without the dress on first, and you’ll have to take your own pants off in the meantime, just to be fair.

Opinion aside, in my opinion, truth is relative, if only in terms of language and context. There’s philosophical truth (’beauty,’ according to Keats) and maybe even universal truth (Newtonian, Einsteinian, or otherwise) but for everything else, it’s all relative. What’s that mean? It means sometimes it’s ‘dishonest’ to ask a question in the first place, and so any answer is appropriate, whether it’s the truth or not.

Someone asks you if did drugs when you were a kid. Who’s asking? Why is it his business to ask? Is he asking for rhetorical purposes, to make a point about your lack of judgment and class? Screw that guy. Say, “No.” Don’t even bother saying, “none of your beeswax, Bert.” People will take your “honesty” and re-contextualize it to make you look dishonest.

“Hey, I asked Dale if he did drugs as a kid. He told me he did! Can you believe we’ve got a junkie working here!” And now, because you smoked one joint at a party when you were 19, you’re the company drug fiend.

No thanks. Everyone has a right to privacy, and I do not cotton to the idea that “you wouldn’t complain if you had nothing to hide.” That’s BS. Because everyone has something to hide, so why should someone else get to create the context where my secrets are on display but his aren’t?

“I don’t have anything to hide.” Bert says. It has been my experience, every single time, that the person who says that has the most to hide— and is incredibly adept at changing contexts.