My dear friend Cameron started his own company last year. It's an electric bike company called Motiv, and it's doing pretty well. He asked me to write the inaugural post for the brand's blog, so I wrote about a time when electricity made everything better. Naturally, I wrote about Bob Dylan plugging in an electric guitar.
"Goin' Electric"
by Jake Kilroy
When Dylan went electric in '65, hardcore folk fans were...less than thrilled. In fact, I'd say they were pretty pissed at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. To some, the folksinger had turned his back on what made him (aside from immaculate lyrics), an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. With his fifth album, Bringing It Back Home, Dylan poured half of his heart into an amp and let it spill some beautiful classics, such as "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "Maggie's Farm." Sure, the other side of the album gave America "Mr. Tambourine Man," but no matter how beloved that song is, it just wasn't the fiery kick of electricity that burned the many bridges in Dylan's rearview mirror, let's be honest.
Then, just a few months later, Dylan gave the world the album Highway 61 Revisited, and, more specifically, the song "Like A Rolling Stone." Decades later, at Dylan's introduction to the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame, Bruce Springsteen recalled the first time he heard the song (in the car with his mother) and claimed the opening "sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind." He then added, "He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock 'n roll forever and ever."
During the Bob Dylan World Tour 1966, Dylan and his first electric band played at Manchester Free Trade Hall. While Dylan played a fully acoustic set the first half, the electric second half brought out the fury of diehard folk fans, with even one audience member famously bellowing, "Judas!" True to form, Dylan responded with, "I don't believe you. You're a liar!" Then, like any man with a gut reaction calling for fire, he turned to his band and yelled, "Play it f***ing loud!'
And so they did.
Holy hell, did they ever. When that stick hit the snare drum to tackle the audience with "Like A Rolling Stone," it resounded beyond the walls. It came at popular music with a ferocity that belonged more to a growling animal. Sure, that song isn't the blaster it was by comparison to what's overtaken the radio since that snare hit heard round the world. But, back then, it wore out the masses with its wild grab bag of tricks.
Over the next few years, Dylan further proved what going electric could do, releasing spectacular album after spectacular album: Blonde On Blonde, John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and on and on.
When it finally became apparent that not only was Dylan not going back to a solely acoustic living, but that he was creating many of his most finely crafted creations with the help of an electric guitar, the antagonistic noise died down. In 2012, Dylan reflected on the Manchester Free Trade Hall concert, saying, "Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you've been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar?"
That's right, Bob, and, these days, everyone's glad you plugged in when you did.
Bring on the electric.
Showing posts with label Essay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Essay. Show all posts
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Friday, December 21, 2012
On This Day Of End Of Days
I wrote this essay/rant a year and a half ago, and it seems strangely relevant on this day of end of days.
If The World Ends Tomorrow: My Thoughts & Concerns
If The World Ends Tomorrow: My Thoughts & Concerns
Thursday, December 6, 2012
My Path of Nonviolence to The Lost Boys
My very talented friend Lindsey, along with two of her friends, is opening a drive-in theater. It was originally supposed to launch in October with a scary movie double-feature, and, over summer, she asked me to write an essay or two about movies for their site. So, naturally, I wrote about one of the movies they were going to show: the wild, fun ride that is The Lost Boys. Due to some changing insurance policies, the three girls are now launching the drive-in this spring, and it's still going to be rad as hell. But it wouldn't really make sense to show The Lost Boys when the ghosts and ghouls aren't out, so I'll write another essay come the new year. Anyway, here's the essay I did about the bringing up I had which ultimately lead me to vampire cult classic.
My Path of Nonviolence to The Lost Boys
by Jake Kilroy
I first heard about The Lost Boys from my dad.
I was stumbling out of junior high with a heart on my sleeve and a hard-on for film noir at the time, so vampires weren’t even on my radar. But, my father, the man I had a year-long argument with about the violence in Quentin Tarantino films, told me, to my very great surprise, that The Lost Boys was “awesome.”
This is the man who wouldn’t let me see Jurassic Park in the theaters, by the way.
Now, my father wasn’t a square by any means. He surfed, owned a VW bus and went to Sex Pistols’ shows in the ‘70s, and then raised me and my siblings in the ‘80s. He just didn’t like violence in film. Or at least he didn’t like modern or gruesome violence in film. I mean, as a kid of the ‘50s and ‘60s, he was practically raised on war and cowboy movies.
So my father never rented me Tombstone or let me see Scream in the ‘90s like the other dads in the neighborhood. Instead, he rented How Green Is My Valley and The African Queen. It affected me greatly, because then, when I finally started making my own movie-viewing choices as a teenager, contemporary violence was way too intimidating for me.
At my friend David’s sleepover in sixth grade, we had his mother-approved option to watch Species, which had violence and boobs (the joyous sixth-grade equivalent of free alcohol and a surprisingly high tax return for a twenty-something). But because I was raised on annual viewings of The Quiet Man and It’s A Wonderful Life, the very idea of watching an (albeit, wildly hot) alien chick savagely kill like a maniac was too much for me. I told the mother in charge of us young idiots that my mom wouldn’t be all that happy if we watched Species, which was entirely untrue.
So we watched Jury Duty instead.
I know, I know, but whatever the fuck ever. It was 1996 and Pauly Shore was hilarious at the time.
Anyway, when I was picked up in the morning, I stood next to my mother, saying goodbye to David and his mom. Then, my great fear realized, David’s mom told mine not to worry, she didn’t let us watch Species. My very confused mother replied, “Oh, I told Jake it was up to him.”
And, I swear, to this day, that look from David haunts me. That dude was fucking pissed. I don’t remember if he said anything. I must have blacked out from sweating. But I’ll remember those angry pre-pubescent eyes for the rest of my days.
But that was how I was raised. I was raised to be freaked out. I was raised to be unfamiliar to the brutality and the lust for gore. Murder (human, monster, or hybrid) as a means of cinematic fulfillment was extremely surreal to my very pale and lanky existence as a kid. But I came to understand it in junior high. I didn’t exactly embrace it, but I at least heard it out. I watched movies as a young teenager that I knew would scare the goddamn daylights out of me (and, to be honest, Silence of the Lambs might do that forever).
By the time I started high school, my dad began to hand me the reins to my life and started renting classic violent movies he secretly loved, but didn’t want his kids to see too young: the Alien series, the Terminator series, etc. I realized he had been the way he was with me because I was the oldest child, and he legitimately wasn’t sure if I’d turn out to be a sociopath.
Still, vampire flicks never really became my thing. And it wasn’t the violence. I just didn’t see the fervent appeal of vampires, even as I watched more of my peers turn all goth and spooky. I never got into From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, I’ve still never seen Interview With A Vampire, and the only thing I remember about 1992’s Dracula is that Gary Oldman dressed sick as hell.
I suppose I was always more of an Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein kind of guy. I liked my vampires slow and spacy. Maybe it comforted me to know that I could outrun Nosferatu as an eighth grader. However, a decade later, I got wildly stoned and watched Nosferatu again. This time, the slow and spacy quality of that tall drink of water scared the shit out of me. Sure, it was partially the drugs, but...ok, let’s be honest here. It was almost entirely the drugs.
Anyway, when I finally saw The Lost Boys, I dug it. I dug it a whole lot actually. It was the first modern vampire movie that I really got into. It was just...cool. As a fun all-around grab-bag of cinema, The Lost Boys had old-school suspense by not showing anything early on and it offered up that peculiar Hollywood hoodrat dreamy interpretation of surf culture, all while making jokes as townspeople were being killed off.
The cult classic follows two brothers and their mother, and it takes place in Santa Carla, a fictional sprawling coastal town in California with “murder capital of the world” spraypainted on the back of the city’s welcome sign. Guess what? The town’s got a vampire problem and only a few people know it. Enter several issues with living a normal life for the summer.
And everyone’s rad in the movie, even sweet mama Dianne Wiest. Also, almost every single thing Jason Patric does is smooth and nearly everything Kiefer Sutherland does is pretty goddamn cool. At some point, Alex Winter hands Sutherland a box of take-out, and he just mumbles, “Chinese. Nice choice.” And even that seems cool, since, you know, you have this gigantic hunch that he’s the leader of a pretty sweet local vampire gang. What the fuck does he care about Chinese food? Later, when heavy shit starts going down, he doesn’t drop some harrowingly condescending line like, “Stupid mortal.” No, Sutherland, in all of his leather hipster glory, yells, “You’re dead meat!”
The movie dashes between comedic and eerie pretty frequently. It never fully leaves the realm of simultaneous light and dark. I mean, there’s the scene with the little dudes filling up canteens with holy water and everyone in the church is just staring at them. And then there’s that one shot I remember well, and maybe I always will. It only lasts for a few seconds. As some weird misfit jock surfer bro gang (who appear in too many ‘80s movies, by the way) are hosting their own personal Burning Man on the beach, just raging their arrogant balls off, the vampires loom, watching them from a tree with the night behind them and the fire before them. It’s an intense (and strangely artistic) shot.
But why does it make sense? Because anything goes in The Lost Boys. It has the snarky but childish hero little brother. It has the earnest single mother. It has some hot babe named Star. Plus, it has motorcycles, roller coasters and Corey Feldman doing an entire movie in the tough guy voice. It all works. It’s campy, violent, silly, wild, spooky, cool, weird, suspenseful and just straight up rad.
Last week, I told my dad about the Dead Ringers Drive-In and that he had the chance to see The Lost Boys on the big, big screen, and he seemed uneasy.
“Lost Boys freaked me out,” he told me. “It was so well done.”
“But you dug it, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “It had style.”
I guess that was what all those other vampire movies were missing. Style.
My Path of Nonviolence to The Lost Boys
by Jake Kilroy
I first heard about The Lost Boys from my dad.
I was stumbling out of junior high with a heart on my sleeve and a hard-on for film noir at the time, so vampires weren’t even on my radar. But, my father, the man I had a year-long argument with about the violence in Quentin Tarantino films, told me, to my very great surprise, that The Lost Boys was “awesome.”
This is the man who wouldn’t let me see Jurassic Park in the theaters, by the way.
Now, my father wasn’t a square by any means. He surfed, owned a VW bus and went to Sex Pistols’ shows in the ‘70s, and then raised me and my siblings in the ‘80s. He just didn’t like violence in film. Or at least he didn’t like modern or gruesome violence in film. I mean, as a kid of the ‘50s and ‘60s, he was practically raised on war and cowboy movies.
So my father never rented me Tombstone or let me see Scream in the ‘90s like the other dads in the neighborhood. Instead, he rented How Green Is My Valley and The African Queen. It affected me greatly, because then, when I finally started making my own movie-viewing choices as a teenager, contemporary violence was way too intimidating for me.
At my friend David’s sleepover in sixth grade, we had his mother-approved option to watch Species, which had violence and boobs (the joyous sixth-grade equivalent of free alcohol and a surprisingly high tax return for a twenty-something). But because I was raised on annual viewings of The Quiet Man and It’s A Wonderful Life, the very idea of watching an (albeit, wildly hot) alien chick savagely kill like a maniac was too much for me. I told the mother in charge of us young idiots that my mom wouldn’t be all that happy if we watched Species, which was entirely untrue.
So we watched Jury Duty instead.
I know, I know, but whatever the fuck ever. It was 1996 and Pauly Shore was hilarious at the time.
Anyway, when I was picked up in the morning, I stood next to my mother, saying goodbye to David and his mom. Then, my great fear realized, David’s mom told mine not to worry, she didn’t let us watch Species. My very confused mother replied, “Oh, I told Jake it was up to him.”
And, I swear, to this day, that look from David haunts me. That dude was fucking pissed. I don’t remember if he said anything. I must have blacked out from sweating. But I’ll remember those angry pre-pubescent eyes for the rest of my days.
But that was how I was raised. I was raised to be freaked out. I was raised to be unfamiliar to the brutality and the lust for gore. Murder (human, monster, or hybrid) as a means of cinematic fulfillment was extremely surreal to my very pale and lanky existence as a kid. But I came to understand it in junior high. I didn’t exactly embrace it, but I at least heard it out. I watched movies as a young teenager that I knew would scare the goddamn daylights out of me (and, to be honest, Silence of the Lambs might do that forever).
By the time I started high school, my dad began to hand me the reins to my life and started renting classic violent movies he secretly loved, but didn’t want his kids to see too young: the Alien series, the Terminator series, etc. I realized he had been the way he was with me because I was the oldest child, and he legitimately wasn’t sure if I’d turn out to be a sociopath.
Still, vampire flicks never really became my thing. And it wasn’t the violence. I just didn’t see the fervent appeal of vampires, even as I watched more of my peers turn all goth and spooky. I never got into From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, I’ve still never seen Interview With A Vampire, and the only thing I remember about 1992’s Dracula is that Gary Oldman dressed sick as hell.
I suppose I was always more of an Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein kind of guy. I liked my vampires slow and spacy. Maybe it comforted me to know that I could outrun Nosferatu as an eighth grader. However, a decade later, I got wildly stoned and watched Nosferatu again. This time, the slow and spacy quality of that tall drink of water scared the shit out of me. Sure, it was partially the drugs, but...ok, let’s be honest here. It was almost entirely the drugs.
Anyway, when I finally saw The Lost Boys, I dug it. I dug it a whole lot actually. It was the first modern vampire movie that I really got into. It was just...cool. As a fun all-around grab-bag of cinema, The Lost Boys had old-school suspense by not showing anything early on and it offered up that peculiar Hollywood hoodrat dreamy interpretation of surf culture, all while making jokes as townspeople were being killed off.
The cult classic follows two brothers and their mother, and it takes place in Santa Carla, a fictional sprawling coastal town in California with “murder capital of the world” spraypainted on the back of the city’s welcome sign. Guess what? The town’s got a vampire problem and only a few people know it. Enter several issues with living a normal life for the summer.
And everyone’s rad in the movie, even sweet mama Dianne Wiest. Also, almost every single thing Jason Patric does is smooth and nearly everything Kiefer Sutherland does is pretty goddamn cool. At some point, Alex Winter hands Sutherland a box of take-out, and he just mumbles, “Chinese. Nice choice.” And even that seems cool, since, you know, you have this gigantic hunch that he’s the leader of a pretty sweet local vampire gang. What the fuck does he care about Chinese food? Later, when heavy shit starts going down, he doesn’t drop some harrowingly condescending line like, “Stupid mortal.” No, Sutherland, in all of his leather hipster glory, yells, “You’re dead meat!”
The movie dashes between comedic and eerie pretty frequently. It never fully leaves the realm of simultaneous light and dark. I mean, there’s the scene with the little dudes filling up canteens with holy water and everyone in the church is just staring at them. And then there’s that one shot I remember well, and maybe I always will. It only lasts for a few seconds. As some weird misfit jock surfer bro gang (who appear in too many ‘80s movies, by the way) are hosting their own personal Burning Man on the beach, just raging their arrogant balls off, the vampires loom, watching them from a tree with the night behind them and the fire before them. It’s an intense (and strangely artistic) shot.
But why does it make sense? Because anything goes in The Lost Boys. It has the snarky but childish hero little brother. It has the earnest single mother. It has some hot babe named Star. Plus, it has motorcycles, roller coasters and Corey Feldman doing an entire movie in the tough guy voice. It all works. It’s campy, violent, silly, wild, spooky, cool, weird, suspenseful and just straight up rad.
Last week, I told my dad about the Dead Ringers Drive-In and that he had the chance to see The Lost Boys on the big, big screen, and he seemed uneasy.
“Lost Boys freaked me out,” he told me. “It was so well done.”
“But you dug it, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “It had style.”
I guess that was what all those other vampire movies were missing. Style.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Suburban Home
Suburban Home
by jake kilroy.
First off, I got rid of the first several hundred words of this essay because it made too much sense. Let's be clear about that. It was straight up Raiders Of The Lost Ark shit. This....well, this is more like the ending to The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.
Secondly, this all started because I learned of a very radical marriage falling apart last night with some all-time suburban fear circumstances, and, honestly, it rattled me. Or maybe it didn't rattle me. It just bummed me out in a real wicked way.
Naturally, this essay was to cover:
Still, love is extraordinary.
There are minute things I can attribute to maturity. Going from a closet of hoodies to a closet of blazers and nice jackets. Moving from stress to optimism. Learning, hey, I guess it's not that hard to just do awesome things for a significant other because they're the best thing out there in a landscape that might just look like a Salvador Dali nightmare.
A person has to try their hardest to not take good things for granted.
From there, the Candyland road of commitment after the Apples to Apples game of "Hey, what the hell are we, and why won't you meet my friends?" ultimately, or supposedly, leads to marriage. Or at least that's what Bridget Jones was trying to tell everyone. I don't quite remember. I recall the diary and the accent, but, beyond that, I'm pretty sure it was just Hugh Grant and Colin Firth in a charming competition with cheeky smiles and saucy head rolls.
Were they in a scene together in Love, Actually?
They weren't, right?
Nevermind.
The point is, when you settle into suburbia, you better be ready for it. You better be ready for a life without being fawned over at the clubs or, as my dad calls them, the discotheques. You better be ready for family dinners and movie nights. You better be ready for responsibilities. You better be ready for sack lunches without being hungover. You better be ready for dedication and loyalty. You better be goddamn sure about your decisions, because, I agree, it's a long fucking life for someone whose heart isn't it. I mean, come on, didn't anyone read Revolutionary Road or The Corrections? It's a botched lifestyle from the get-go if you're not looking forward to board games and hand-me-downs.
But.
BUT.
If you're ready for the suburban life, is there really anything better? It's like winning day after day if you're down for it. Guess what? I fucking love board games and hand-me-downs. Oh, go to bed night after night with someone who tolerates my love for Fleetwood Mac's classic "Gypsy?" Score. Build tree houses in the backyard with trap doors? Score. Take up hobbies such as chess and yoga? Score. Shop at Bed, Bath and Beyond all the time? Are you kidding me? Major score.
And why would I give up my current hobbies? Why would I marry someone who doesn't support me writing in my free time or maybe making music when I can? I expect my wife to have dope hobbies. What, I'm supposed to love someone whose only hobby is seeing me? That's straight serial killer status.
No, I want my wife to have a whole goddamn smorgasbord of hobbies. It could be pottery and photography. It could be writing and music too. It could be gardening and rock climbing. It could be running a small business out of the home. I don't care, just as long as she has hobbies. Hell, if she wants to hunt for anthropological finds somewhere in the Gobi Desert in her free time, good for her. I'll just make the kids the same shitty sandwich for eight months. No. Big. Deal.
I mean, I know me. In fact, I'm willing to wager that I know me better than anyone. Sometimes, I just want to eat mac 'n cheese and watch My Boys. But, sometimes, I'll want to surprise the hell out of my wife with a fancy dinner somewhere wild, like on top of a helicopter. Maybe I'll tell her to meet me at this restaurant, but it's not a restaurant. It's just some space I've rented out with one table and a live band that only plays Brazilian jazz. Can you imagine? I wouldn't have to come home before midnight for, like, a year. What's up, doing drugs all the time and my wife being cool with it?
I'm just saying, love is rad and suburbia can be rad. I honestly have no idea how I'll do as a husband or a father. And maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just buy a big city loft and date models forever. Who knows?
Actually, how bad would that even be? It'd just be romantic getaways and hot-ass hook-ups.
Ok, I'm realizing that I'm, for the most part, just comparing Nicolas Cage's two different lives in The Family Man. I imagine the real problem here is sustainability. You probably need someone to love you when you're old and delirious, and, trust me, when my mind goes, I'm letting it fly. I'm going to be wilder and crazier than you've ever seen me. I'm going to embrace it. I'm going to get weird.
But where will the hot skanks be then? See, this is why rich dudes need an escape plan, because they always end up in mental wards.
Let's say I give up this current life of carelessness and recklessness (and don't end up outrageously wealthy and addicted to coke/skanks). Let's say I manage to settle down and become a husband and a father when I'm ready, and not somehow tricked into marriage by black magic or into fatherhood by bad decisions. I'll be stoked. In fact, I'll be really stoked. I watch my dad move through his life at home with excitement and glee. He loves being a husband and a father. He can't get enough of it. Sometimes, during dinner, he randomly says, "It's great to have all the young people here." Then he looks at us three doofuses and smiles, and then he smiles at my mom. If I told him he could retire tomorrow and spend the rest of his days barbecuing, writing poetry and just being a husband and father, my dad would lose his fucking mind. He'd throw a party that would make Gatsby look like some dork trying to impress the high school cheerleader.
Which is kind of what that whole book was a metaphor for.
Right?
Anyway! Even the idea of wearing my old college sweater and cleaning out the garage sounds pretty cool. I just hope I have a son who's not a piece of shit, because it would really make things go a lot faster if he wasn't some goth asshole who thinks refusing heavy lifting is some sort of act of rebellion. Listen, you idiot, stop talking about Bauhaus like I've never heard of them. Your mother and I went to school with goth kids, so you're not doing anything new. Like I said, you're being an asshole.
That's what I'll tell him.
But then he'll tell me I don't understand him. And then I'll have to do my absolute hardest not to tell him he sucks. Ugh. I just want my kids to grow up to be "strong, healthy, confident adults," which is exactly what my father has said to the three of us our entire lives. That's all he wanted from us. He just wanted us to have the strength to endure, to stay mentally, emotionally and physically healthy enough to grasp happiness, and be confident enough to inspire others to do the same. He didn't even tell me to stay away from creative writing because I would die of starvation, which I thought was just swell of him. Or I don't know. Some days, when I can't afford to buy a sandwich at Which Wich, I wonder why my parents didn't tell me to go to law school like I mentioned off-hand one night five years ago.
I suppose it's reassuring to have parents that haven't let the fire go out. They love the hell out of life and each other. They appreciate the little things and get thrilled about the big things. They savor Christmas shopping as much as they hold onto fancy recipes they've read about in Bon Appetit. On my parents' 25th Anniversary, I asked my dad what the secret was to a happy marriage. He answered, "Communication." When I asked him again on his 30th Anniversary, he answered, "A sense of humor."
Communication and a sense of humor aren't everything, but they're the most important things, at least for my parents. It takes a billion more little pieces to assemble a good life, like hard work, dedication, patience and love for that special person as well as life as a whole collective festival that celebrates all your favorite stuff. My parents have that. My dad still makes jokes, and my mom still laughs at them. They're extraordinary people with extraordinary love, and, after learning about that crumbling marriage last night, I was so thankful that I grew up in a household that toasted the very thought of "love" - loving your significant other, loving your family, loving your friends, loving food, loving drink, loving parties, loving travel, loving art, loving books, loving movies, loving laughter, loving hope, loving pride, loving what the world has to offer in its brilliant spinning nature.
I mean...right?
RIGHT?
Ok, fuck this. I'm making mac 'n cheese and watching My Boys. I don't give a shit what my future wife thinks. Love! Ain't it grand?
by jake kilroy.
First off, I got rid of the first several hundred words of this essay because it made too much sense. Let's be clear about that. It was straight up Raiders Of The Lost Ark shit. This....well, this is more like the ending to The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.
Secondly, this all started because I learned of a very radical marriage falling apart last night with some all-time suburban fear circumstances, and, honestly, it rattled me. Or maybe it didn't rattle me. It just bummed me out in a real wicked way.
Naturally, this essay was to cover:
- How epic love is and can be.
- How easy it is to be a good spouse.
- How difficult it is to be a great one.
- How simultaneously problematic and promising suburban life can be.
- How sweet Point Break is.
I don't know how I was going to work that last one in, but I thought it was definitely worth mentioning.
Anyway, I put the serious and thoughtful considerations of love and suburban life somewhere else. From here on out, it's pretty much nonsense.
I've been an advocate of great love my whole life. I blame my parents' happy marriage and being raised on old films. Somewhere in my own personal history, I found love to be grand in some goofy, startling mash-up of teenage girl belief and lazy stoner satisfaction. Even as a man in his late twenties, with a penchant for whiskey and swear words, I find myself thrilled about the existence of love (for anyone), just as long as it's not "love" as this smoldering patriotic bumper sticker gimmick. When I say love, I don't mean celebrating a five-year anniversary at the Olive Garden and quietly discussing the breadsticks (which I think we can all agree have severely decreased in quality over the years, by the way, but I guess that's another story). What I'm referring to is the love that means going to concerts together, seeing the world together, and conquering madness together. I'm talking about the love from Still Life With Woodpecker, the love that wrote letters during the war, the love that brought about Helen of Troy as a tyrant of the heart.
Yes, give me the love that made my friend take a bus across Costa Rica to see a girl, the love that sent F. Scott into the heart attack, the love that continually stops the world from stabbing itself to death.
Ok, I admit, that last one was a bit much.
Yes, give me the love that made my friend take a bus across Costa Rica to see a girl, the love that sent F. Scott into the heart attack, the love that continually stops the world from stabbing itself to death.
Ok, I admit, that last one was a bit much.
Still, love is extraordinary.
But it's also the most fucked up bastardizing craziest most mutilating horrifying thing on the planet.
Except for E.T.
If that motherfucker comes to my planet again, I'm going to throw him off a cliff, and I'm almost certain nobody would be able to talk me out of it.
Also, it's pretty lazy that his name was E.T. I mean, hell, even the alien from Alien got the nickname "Xenomorph."
Despite my faith in love (as well as an appreciation for people just being generally decent to each other in some Sandlot-like innocent capacity), it hasn't made for a history of flawless interaction with women on my end. No, by several accounts, I've pulled some of the most bogus shit with chicks. As a young man set on destroying the world, I once lied about a funeral to get off the phone with a girl. I've got a dirty laundry list of times I've been a less-than-stellar dude, but I've learned from my mistakes, coming to the great realizations that, hey, talking things out is way cooler than fighting or fleeing, and, hey, being patient, understanding, encouraging and generally at ease makes things way better for everyone. I've evolved in my twenties, or at least I like to think so.
These days, I'd say, it's supremely easy to be a good significant other or spouse, but it's difficult to be a great one.
To be a good spouse, to me, includes listening, talking, cleaning, laughing, and being faithful. To be a great spouse, to me, means flowers on random days and foot massages on random nights. Nobody's perfect, but it's pretty gumshoe to be a decent person in the very least.
That's part of the evolution, right? Isn't admitting the problem the first step to recovery?
That's part of the evolution, right? Isn't admitting the problem the first step to recovery?
There are minute things I can attribute to maturity. Going from a closet of hoodies to a closet of blazers and nice jackets. Moving from stress to optimism. Learning, hey, I guess it's not that hard to just do awesome things for a significant other because they're the best thing out there in a landscape that might just look like a Salvador Dali nightmare.
A person has to try their hardest to not take good things for granted.
From there, the Candyland road of commitment after the Apples to Apples game of "Hey, what the hell are we, and why won't you meet my friends?" ultimately, or supposedly, leads to marriage. Or at least that's what Bridget Jones was trying to tell everyone. I don't quite remember. I recall the diary and the accent, but, beyond that, I'm pretty sure it was just Hugh Grant and Colin Firth in a charming competition with cheeky smiles and saucy head rolls.
Were they in a scene together in Love, Actually?
They weren't, right?
Nevermind.
The point is, when you settle into suburbia, you better be ready for it. You better be ready for a life without being fawned over at the clubs or, as my dad calls them, the discotheques. You better be ready for family dinners and movie nights. You better be ready for responsibilities. You better be ready for sack lunches without being hungover. You better be ready for dedication and loyalty. You better be goddamn sure about your decisions, because, I agree, it's a long fucking life for someone whose heart isn't it. I mean, come on, didn't anyone read Revolutionary Road or The Corrections? It's a botched lifestyle from the get-go if you're not looking forward to board games and hand-me-downs.
But.
BUT.
If you're ready for the suburban life, is there really anything better? It's like winning day after day if you're down for it. Guess what? I fucking love board games and hand-me-downs. Oh, go to bed night after night with someone who tolerates my love for Fleetwood Mac's classic "Gypsy?" Score. Build tree houses in the backyard with trap doors? Score. Take up hobbies such as chess and yoga? Score. Shop at Bed, Bath and Beyond all the time? Are you kidding me? Major score.
And why would I give up my current hobbies? Why would I marry someone who doesn't support me writing in my free time or maybe making music when I can? I expect my wife to have dope hobbies. What, I'm supposed to love someone whose only hobby is seeing me? That's straight serial killer status.
No, I want my wife to have a whole goddamn smorgasbord of hobbies. It could be pottery and photography. It could be writing and music too. It could be gardening and rock climbing. It could be running a small business out of the home. I don't care, just as long as she has hobbies. Hell, if she wants to hunt for anthropological finds somewhere in the Gobi Desert in her free time, good for her. I'll just make the kids the same shitty sandwich for eight months. No. Big. Deal.
I mean, I know me. In fact, I'm willing to wager that I know me better than anyone. Sometimes, I just want to eat mac 'n cheese and watch My Boys. But, sometimes, I'll want to surprise the hell out of my wife with a fancy dinner somewhere wild, like on top of a helicopter. Maybe I'll tell her to meet me at this restaurant, but it's not a restaurant. It's just some space I've rented out with one table and a live band that only plays Brazilian jazz. Can you imagine? I wouldn't have to come home before midnight for, like, a year. What's up, doing drugs all the time and my wife being cool with it?
I'm just saying, love is rad and suburbia can be rad. I honestly have no idea how I'll do as a husband or a father. And maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just buy a big city loft and date models forever. Who knows?
Actually, how bad would that even be? It'd just be romantic getaways and hot-ass hook-ups.
Ok, I'm realizing that I'm, for the most part, just comparing Nicolas Cage's two different lives in The Family Man. I imagine the real problem here is sustainability. You probably need someone to love you when you're old and delirious, and, trust me, when my mind goes, I'm letting it fly. I'm going to be wilder and crazier than you've ever seen me. I'm going to embrace it. I'm going to get weird.
But where will the hot skanks be then? See, this is why rich dudes need an escape plan, because they always end up in mental wards.
Let's say I give up this current life of carelessness and recklessness (and don't end up outrageously wealthy and addicted to coke/skanks). Let's say I manage to settle down and become a husband and a father when I'm ready, and not somehow tricked into marriage by black magic or into fatherhood by bad decisions. I'll be stoked. In fact, I'll be really stoked. I watch my dad move through his life at home with excitement and glee. He loves being a husband and a father. He can't get enough of it. Sometimes, during dinner, he randomly says, "It's great to have all the young people here." Then he looks at us three doofuses and smiles, and then he smiles at my mom. If I told him he could retire tomorrow and spend the rest of his days barbecuing, writing poetry and just being a husband and father, my dad would lose his fucking mind. He'd throw a party that would make Gatsby look like some dork trying to impress the high school cheerleader.
Which is kind of what that whole book was a metaphor for.
Right?
Anyway! Even the idea of wearing my old college sweater and cleaning out the garage sounds pretty cool. I just hope I have a son who's not a piece of shit, because it would really make things go a lot faster if he wasn't some goth asshole who thinks refusing heavy lifting is some sort of act of rebellion. Listen, you idiot, stop talking about Bauhaus like I've never heard of them. Your mother and I went to school with goth kids, so you're not doing anything new. Like I said, you're being an asshole.
That's what I'll tell him.
But then he'll tell me I don't understand him. And then I'll have to do my absolute hardest not to tell him he sucks. Ugh. I just want my kids to grow up to be "strong, healthy, confident adults," which is exactly what my father has said to the three of us our entire lives. That's all he wanted from us. He just wanted us to have the strength to endure, to stay mentally, emotionally and physically healthy enough to grasp happiness, and be confident enough to inspire others to do the same. He didn't even tell me to stay away from creative writing because I would die of starvation, which I thought was just swell of him. Or I don't know. Some days, when I can't afford to buy a sandwich at Which Wich, I wonder why my parents didn't tell me to go to law school like I mentioned off-hand one night five years ago.
I suppose it's reassuring to have parents that haven't let the fire go out. They love the hell out of life and each other. They appreciate the little things and get thrilled about the big things. They savor Christmas shopping as much as they hold onto fancy recipes they've read about in Bon Appetit. On my parents' 25th Anniversary, I asked my dad what the secret was to a happy marriage. He answered, "Communication." When I asked him again on his 30th Anniversary, he answered, "A sense of humor."
Communication and a sense of humor aren't everything, but they're the most important things, at least for my parents. It takes a billion more little pieces to assemble a good life, like hard work, dedication, patience and love for that special person as well as life as a whole collective festival that celebrates all your favorite stuff. My parents have that. My dad still makes jokes, and my mom still laughs at them. They're extraordinary people with extraordinary love, and, after learning about that crumbling marriage last night, I was so thankful that I grew up in a household that toasted the very thought of "love" - loving your significant other, loving your family, loving your friends, loving food, loving drink, loving parties, loving travel, loving art, loving books, loving movies, loving laughter, loving hope, loving pride, loving what the world has to offer in its brilliant spinning nature.
I mean...right?
RIGHT?
Ok, fuck this. I'm making mac 'n cheese and watching My Boys. I don't give a shit what my future wife thinks. Love! Ain't it grand?
Thursday, May 10, 2012
On Birthdays, Aging, Life & Happiness: Some Thoughts & Musings
"We're getting old. We know who they are now." - Shane, a coworker reflecting on celebrity deaths
"My biggest fear is that we'll just stop being rad all the time." - Jeff, considering the future of us as adults
"We're getting to that age where threesomes are more weird than cool." - James, explaining how he gauges aging
I observed these three quotes this week, and they made me consider aging. And I suppose my birthday did too. I turned 27 today, and I find that birthdays make me all...reflectiony.
This happens every year, just as I think it should. Birthdays, to me, are a time where you evaluate how things are going. Sure, people do this on New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, but birthdays are this weird day where you're praised for not dying or killing yourself (Hey, you still exist! Woo!), so it's a pretty generous day.
I mean, at its core, birthdays are a day when everyone takes time to acknowledge that they really like having you around. Just as Valentine's Day is for showing your love, birthdays are for showing your appreciation and, well, all the other good vibe emotions too. You didn't do anything special to warrant all the good attention. You just lived your life according to you and everyone thinks you're doing a swell, bang-up job.
So, I try to take this day and do a life evaluation of sorts, just because who knows when I'll be subtly and indirectly told that I'm doing a swell, bang-up job?
And what's my verdict?
I'm happy.
I'm wildly fucking happy.
And it's been a long time since I wasn't.
Sure, there's always more you can ask for (more riches, more babes, more sweater vests, a solid gold jacuzzi, etc), but I'm extraordinarily happy. In the last year, I moved into a wonderful house with wonderful people and scored somewhat of a dream job (also with wonderful people).
And, in the last year, I finished writing, editing and rewriting my 600-page novel, wrote a kids book and am currently 90% done with a feature-length screenplay. I continued writing poems and started sending them out again. I also submitted an essay/poetry/story/rant collection to about 75 literary agents. I went to Mexico, Big Sur and Joshua Tree a few times. I also saw the magnificent giant that is New York City for the first time and had one of the greatest experiences of my life off the Oregon Coast at some seaside mansion.
What I'm saying is, hey, I'm doing alright.
And I feel like this every year.
Since summer of 2009, I feel as though I've really got a solid grasp on adult happiness. So, naturally, this whole long whatever to come below will be self-indulgent and better suited for a diary. I mean, how much do I really have to muse on if I know I'm happy? Well, it's my birthday and I'm gonna muse some shit anyway. I can tell you now that it's going to be partial-educated-thoughtful-man and semi-dopey-gleeful-idiot.
I know how I sound. I once told a friend, "I sound like a cross between a grad student and Fry from Futurama." I know I don't blend it all that well sometimes. Catch me during the day and I could act like this is my first time ever trying to handle anything, but find me at night and I'd like to discuss the merits of humanity. I run a strange course.
The point is to be self-aware. A few things I do that are weird:
10 Good Trips I've Taken:
Before I moved to Seattle, I was living in what felt like the ashy cinders of an era. My house was growing stale, my relationship was growing stale, my career was growing stale. I was unemployed, about to move back in with my parents and in the process of breaking up. I was also in terrible fucking shape. I was just eating Del Taco, candy and vermicelli bowls. I wasn't doing a goddamn thing to better myself, and it was pretty obvious. I had a gut, a beard and a sense of oblivion.
Thumbs up, me.
So, in Seattle, I reclaimed some weird second youth and spent the most enchanting summer since I was 15 done up as a 24-year-old in desperate need of a life makeover. I had nothing to do and nowhere to be for months. And neither did Chris, though he was establishing a life there and trying to find work. During the day, we'd go swimming or wandering around our new city. At night, we'd either go to a party or stay in to work on our screenplay, drunk on bloody marys and red wine.
I lost the beard, the gut and the terrible habits. I came home more about salads, sandwiches and a healthier outlook. In Seattle, I was removed from all that was familiar to me for the summer. And it wasn't even a whole summer. It was just less than two months of serious reinvention and one I haven't gone back on. I was a spiteful mess before Seattle, and, since then, I've been kind of the same shrugging stoked dude for the most part.
Naturally, I've had some eras throughout the/my ages:
Still, junior high held some radically great memories. I use the phrase "low point" very, very loosely, I suppose. I've been exceptionally blessed in my life, and this lucky realization came to me during an eighth grade slump. Something happened and I was in trouble with my parents. I think it was for grades, but I was probably already anxious because of some frantic crush or sexual feeling I couldn't explain.
My sister, my brother and I were both raised my parents that advocated joy and tolerance. In fact, my father's famous quote was that, one day, the three of us would be "strong, healthy, confident adults." He said those four words in that order all the time. I guess that's what I've always been shooting for, even as a kid.
I think the first time I caught myself rolling my head in the quiet moments of adult life was when I was 17. I finally had a license, so the world was now available to me. And I decide to spend a summer afternoon at the Orange Circle, eating Felix's rice and beans while drinking a hot chocolate. I was smoking a cigarette and doing a crossword puzzle. I had nothing on the agenda and no interest in doing anything else. The world came to me and unfolded itself.
What was the big secret?
Just do what makes you happy.
Now, that's an overreaching simplification of what it means to be happy. You need to make a living and go to events you don't want to. Do what makes you happy, but acknowledge that it won't be all the time.
But people don't know what to do with their free time, and they don't seem to appreciate it for what it is. They appreciate it for what it isn't.
"It's my day off, so the big plus is that I don't have to work," they may think.
No.
It should be, "It's my day off, so the big plus is that I get to go buy used books and go swimming."
I had a long talk with Jason and Grant the other night. We discussed the act of creating and how much we value it, only to be baffled by those who don't. Some people just want to go home from a mediocre job and watch television. They have no interest in writing, painting or jamming.
At any age, even without creation hobbies, I feel like a person should have at least one activity that they can depend on for themselves. It shouldn't include anyone. For me, it's writing. But, take that way, I could still come up with things I like doing and bring about an absurd amount of happiness. When I was 17, it was smoking a cigarette and doing a crossword puzzle. When I was 20, it was going on a bike ride. Now, it's reading a book on my back porch. Sometimes, it's enough to just eat crispy rolls in bed with the window open.
It really doesn't take much to make me happy these days. I'm usually in a pretty good mood. And, if I'm not, just a song can turn me around for the better. Its not an act either. Even by myself, I remain generally stoked. Though my mother would ask it as, "So that stokes you?"
But, despite my jolly nature, I've notice a gargantuan shift in how deep my happiness goes. When I was, say, 20, all it took was a bike ride to put me at maximum happiness. But, back then, my scale was only 1-10. My scale now is 1-100. It's harder to reach the maximum happiness, but I can honestly say that the happiness runs deeper. Maybe a bike ride only puts me at a 70 now. Well, it's not the highest possible, but it's certainly a lot more than 10. When I'm happy now, I feel it in my bones. When I was 20, happiness was only skin-deep.
My happiness in the future is up for grabs, and I couldn't even begin to guess what it is. However, I will say that this past year was the first time that I could actually see myself married with kids in the near future. Also, when I say "near future," I just mean that I don't think I have to go through some insane transformation anymore. When I consider marriage and kids now, I no longer think, "Holy fuck, I need to get my shit together before that ever happens." I think I could make a good husband and father as this dude I am now.
I understand adulthood now. I get it. I value saving money and feel accomplished paying bills. It legitimately excites me to have good credit. I understand the difference between Del Taco and Mr. Stox, just as I understand why sometimes blue jeans aren't appropriate attire. I know what shitty beer and good beer both are, and I know when to drink them. You don't have to stop eating fast food, wearing blue jeans and drinking cheap beer. I just think you should know the difference.
And, no, adulthood is not a defeat. I don't know who's filling my friends' heads with bullshit, but a family doesn't kill the big stuff. Yes, over the years, we can most likely expect to stop falling asleep drunk in the same room together. Yes, at some point, we won't find much interest in sleeping past ten a.m. Yes, we'll have more obligations and obstacles. But that doesn't mean weekend getaways and afternoon barbecues have to stop forever. Don't we all want our kids to be raised together? Don't we all want our spouses to be friends with each other? Don't we all plan on having the coolest social network back-to-school night's ever seen?
Everything will get more difficult soon, but everything will also get much more rewarding. We'll start serving real purpose. Granted, I say this as someone who's not in a serious committed relationship and admit that the second word of the phrase "pregnancy scare" strikes up more feelings in me than the first. But family life seems good: Sunday brunches, school projects, dinner parties, etc. It all seems warm and enchanting.
However, I'm also the same guy who puked on his bedroom floor this year and has wandered his house naked in a drunken stupor on two occasions in the last six months. Yes, that's right: this year and two occasions.
I'd say that's about it. Life is good, and it isn't always that way. Right now, it is though. I have no big fears for the future and no huge regrets of the past. I like where I've been, I like where I am and I like where I'm going. And, as a middle class American suburban white twenty-something writer, I really couldn't ask for much more than that.
Here's five things I've learned and kept as a way of living:
"My biggest fear is that we'll just stop being rad all the time." - Jeff, considering the future of us as adults
"We're getting to that age where threesomes are more weird than cool." - James, explaining how he gauges aging
I observed these three quotes this week, and they made me consider aging. And I suppose my birthday did too. I turned 27 today, and I find that birthdays make me all...reflectiony.
This happens every year, just as I think it should. Birthdays, to me, are a time where you evaluate how things are going. Sure, people do this on New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, but birthdays are this weird day where you're praised for not dying or killing yourself (Hey, you still exist! Woo!), so it's a pretty generous day.
I mean, at its core, birthdays are a day when everyone takes time to acknowledge that they really like having you around. Just as Valentine's Day is for showing your love, birthdays are for showing your appreciation and, well, all the other good vibe emotions too. You didn't do anything special to warrant all the good attention. You just lived your life according to you and everyone thinks you're doing a swell, bang-up job.
So, I try to take this day and do a life evaluation of sorts, just because who knows when I'll be subtly and indirectly told that I'm doing a swell, bang-up job?
And what's my verdict?
I'm happy.
I'm wildly fucking happy.
And it's been a long time since I wasn't.
Sure, there's always more you can ask for (more riches, more babes, more sweater vests, a solid gold jacuzzi, etc), but I'm extraordinarily happy. In the last year, I moved into a wonderful house with wonderful people and scored somewhat of a dream job (also with wonderful people).
And, in the last year, I finished writing, editing and rewriting my 600-page novel, wrote a kids book and am currently 90% done with a feature-length screenplay. I continued writing poems and started sending them out again. I also submitted an essay/poetry/story/rant collection to about 75 literary agents. I went to Mexico, Big Sur and Joshua Tree a few times. I also saw the magnificent giant that is New York City for the first time and had one of the greatest experiences of my life off the Oregon Coast at some seaside mansion.
What I'm saying is, hey, I'm doing alright.
And I feel like this every year.
Since summer of 2009, I feel as though I've really got a solid grasp on adult happiness. So, naturally, this whole long whatever to come below will be self-indulgent and better suited for a diary. I mean, how much do I really have to muse on if I know I'm happy? Well, it's my birthday and I'm gonna muse some shit anyway. I can tell you now that it's going to be partial-educated-thoughtful-man and semi-dopey-gleeful-idiot.
I know how I sound. I once told a friend, "I sound like a cross between a grad student and Fry from Futurama." I know I don't blend it all that well sometimes. Catch me during the day and I could act like this is my first time ever trying to handle anything, but find me at night and I'd like to discuss the merits of humanity. I run a strange course.
The point is to be self-aware. A few things I do that are weird:
- I'm touchy-feely. Literally, not emotionally. I touch people's shoulders and faces as part of jokes, and that's a pretty serious invasion of space. And I do it to both dudes and dudettes. I go for a lot of high-fives, hugs and back rubs. I didn't use to do this. I swear I haven't always been this creepy. I honestly think it started happening after Bret explained that touch was one of the five love languages. It's not even mine. Words is my love language. But I started doing it for whatever reason and haven't stopped.
- I tell the same stories over and over. It was a lot easier to be track of things when I was younger. I had experienced less. But now I just ramble. It's like a disease. But, then again, being a writer has a few qualities of disease.
10 Good Trips I've Taken:
- Europe, 2003
- Australia, 2005
- Arizona, 2005
- Northern California, 2005
- Tennessee, 2006
- Boston, 2007
- Europe/Africa, 2008
- Canada, 2008
- Oregon Coast, 2011
- New York City, 2011
And you need to be able to name an incredible moment from each of those trips:
- I was 18 years old, just starting out for the world, and I watched the sun set over Paris while on a boat ride down the Seine River, and, suddenly, the city of lights came to life. Also, my hand was up a girl's shirt moments before, if I recall correctly. But I watched the whole city glow in an instant, and it was the evening of summer solstice, so we all knew we had a long night of music ahead.
- After wanting to visit Sydney my whole life, my grandmother and I took in an opera at the Sydney Opera House, drank red wine and listened to the city cheer for nothing in particular. We took the long way home and the skyline was apparent from every angle. You could hear ships in the harbor and the laughter of drunkards. We were dressed up and the city overwhelmed me. It was so very much more than I had hoped for, and I hoped for a whole goddamn lot.
- Rex and I got to Arizona sometime around midnight and was handed two beers from the two women we were crashing with, and then we went swimming. It was the middle of June, it was hot as hell, and then the great sky cracked and poured. We swam around in the pouring rain with lightning and thunder rolling the world above us while we drank. The four of us stayed up until we simply couldn't stay awake any longer.
- Maybe the most I've ever reflected on myself, I spent two weeks with my family camping throughout Northern California. I don't know what the hell was happening then, but I thought I was seeing visions into the future and coming to terms with mortality. I remember Mendocino looking like a place I had in my dreams and I started trying to write my first novel. I was 20, and I had never felt so much like I was in some lucid dream. In particular, I remember playing a card game in a tent with my family one night. It was the only night I've ever seen my dad drunk. He had too much red wine to drink and I saw him as a friend of sorts instead of a father figure. We laughed for hours playing card games while the frogs croaked in the river behind us.
- After leaving Bonaroo early to take our adventure on the road, Grant and I barreled through Kentucky and Illinois sometime around 2 a.m. It was nothing but high trees on both sides and the sky was awash with stars. Due to some idiotic notion on my part, we headed onto another highway, very much out of our way in search of the fabled Eddysville. But what we found was a creepy church, a rainstorm and the empty plains bathed in harrowing moonlight where the town was supposed to be. Naturally, we got the fuck out of Dodge as quick as our rented car could take us. It was the most spooked I'd ever been.
- In what could easily be considered one of the the wildest 24 hours I've ever had, Ryan and I took a bus from the big city of Boston to the small town of Northampton. We were couch-surfing, so we stayed with a girl we hadn't met. The town was tiny and surrounded by deep woods and rivers. The girls all attended a barbecue without us and, for some reason, the girl was kind enough to just let us stay at her house unattended. We got drunk on her balcony, met the neighbor girl, went to the local Feist show and then ended up at a bar called World War II, where we proceeded to successfully pose as wayward weirdos born and raised in Boston, making friends with everyone in the bar. The story gets crazier from there, but not so much on my end. I was recently in love, so I went to sleep. But I lost Ryan to the night and a girl with a backpack. Ryan ended up sleeping on the balcony after getting lost in the woods looking for an abandoned asylum with a girl. We got on the bus and both started cackling.
- After months apart with my girlfriend at the time studying in Spain, my friends all chipped in some hundreds of dollars and sent me to Europe. I was beat down from the flight over, but she gave me a tour of Madrid around midnight. And everything seemed so old and dazzling. I had missed her and it was hard to grasp just what was happening. We walked for hours. The lights were beautiful, the cobblestones glowed in lamplight and it was a glorious spring. It was one of the best walks of my life.
- After stumbling out of a bar beneath our hostel, Ryan, Jeff, Chase, myself and the locals all caught up with each other. Drunk as hell on the streets of Vancouver after a few hours of slamming pints into each other, I decided we needed to move on. I had a lady back home, but I wanted to see what kind of wingman magic I could unravel. So, I started introducing myself to everyone, chatting up ladies and finding their interests, so I could bring them to my jolly friends. Once we were settled up, I rounded a dozen or so people and lead a growing army of drinkers. As we marched up the street, I talked up more people and had them join. We all ended up in a bar with a live ska band. We drank, danced and laughed until we ended up on the other side of town.
- I was on drugs and there was dancy indie pop music. It may have been the greatest night of my life. There were glowing plastic necklaces and bracelets on everyone. About a dozen of us, all people I adore, were staying at a seaside mansion. At some point, we danced around the kitchen island in a line screaming a Beatles song. Everyone was stoked on everything. There was food everywhere. I smoked enough cigarettes to last me a season. We stayed up until 4 or 5 a.m. And, all the while, we left the windows open so we could hear the ocean softly crash into the earth.
- I've wanted to see New York City my whole life, but, for whatever reason, I put it off. Maybe I was afraid how to feel once I did see it. Then James and I decided to go for it. I remember smoking a cigarette on the fire escape of Kristin's apartment. James was showering, I think, and Kristin was getting us our bedding for the living room. But I sat there and listened to the sounds of the city and thought, yep, this is what I was hoping for, big buildings with insomniacs that want to swallow as much culture as they can under a heavy moon.
But, when you're not traveling, be sure of things that can and will make you happy.
Random things I know are true about what I like:
Random things I know are true about what I like:
- Favorite Song: "Tenderly" by Chet Baker
- Favorite Live Show: Against Me! at Chain Reaction, 2004
- Favorite Restaurant Meals: White Pizza at Cassano's, Fake Cashew Chicken at Wheel of Life, Crispy Rolls at Loving Hut
- Favorite Homecooked Meals: croque mousier, rolled pizza, taco salad
- Best Thing I've Ever Watched: Baseball by Ken Burns
Thinking about any of those things legitimately brings a smile to my face. There are people, places, music, movies, meals and whatever that I know for sure will make me happy, which I suppose isn't that difficult. I'm a happy dude, and I have been for years. But I cite my summer in Seattle three years ago as a real turning point because who/how I was in May wasn't who I was in August. And it was surely for the best.
Before I moved to Seattle, I was living in what felt like the ashy cinders of an era. My house was growing stale, my relationship was growing stale, my career was growing stale. I was unemployed, about to move back in with my parents and in the process of breaking up. I was also in terrible fucking shape. I was just eating Del Taco, candy and vermicelli bowls. I wasn't doing a goddamn thing to better myself, and it was pretty obvious. I had a gut, a beard and a sense of oblivion.
Thumbs up, me.
So, in Seattle, I reclaimed some weird second youth and spent the most enchanting summer since I was 15 done up as a 24-year-old in desperate need of a life makeover. I had nothing to do and nowhere to be for months. And neither did Chris, though he was establishing a life there and trying to find work. During the day, we'd go swimming or wandering around our new city. At night, we'd either go to a party or stay in to work on our screenplay, drunk on bloody marys and red wine.
I lost the beard, the gut and the terrible habits. I came home more about salads, sandwiches and a healthier outlook. In Seattle, I was removed from all that was familiar to me for the summer. And it wasn't even a whole summer. It was just less than two months of serious reinvention and one I haven't gone back on. I was a spiteful mess before Seattle, and, since then, I've been kind of the same shrugging stoked dude for the most part.
Naturally, I've had some eras throughout the/my ages:
- 1-3: Nonsensical Idiot
- 4-13: Spastic Jokester
- 14-17: Teenage Romantic
- 18-21: Social Philosopher
- 22-24: Reckless Cavalier
- 25-Present: Happy-Go-Lucky Dude
However, I consider junior high to be my actual low point, as I assume it to be the same for half of the American population. That was a semi-miserable two years of wondering if the world would chew me up or have the decency to just swallow me whole. But it was a tremendously exciting and fun time too. I wasn't really bullied. I was teased every once in a while by the shithead skater kids whose parents didn't love them. I know this because I went to elementary school with a few of them and their parents only loved cigarettes and television. Their teasing was so minimal, but, at that age, everyone has something to prove and you're unsure in your own skin.
Still, junior high held some radically great memories. I use the phrase "low point" very, very loosely, I suppose. I've been exceptionally blessed in my life, and this lucky realization came to me during an eighth grade slump. Something happened and I was in trouble with my parents. I think it was for grades, but I was probably already anxious because of some frantic crush or sexual feeling I couldn't explain.
Anyway, my father, rather tensely, told me that I was grounded and couldn't go out and have fun for a month.
In my barely-teenage lunacy, I scoffed and replied, "Yeah, if I haven't killed myself by then."
My father wisely took no sympathy upon me. He was pissed. He gritted his teeth and told me that what I said was appalling and shouldn't be tossed around so lightly, that it showed no respect to all that I had and to those who really did have something to be sad about. Then, still through gritted teeth, told me, "You don't get to use the computer."
To which, with tears forming (I was an emotional teenager, alright?), I complained about the unfairness of such a punishment and how he should be concerned about me and my problems. But, going to bed that evening (early, of course), I realized, "Wait a minute. I was ready to end my life, but not give up computer privileges? What the hell is that bullshit?" I later thanked my father. He had called my bluff. Anger is not always the proper way to react to your child's talk of suicide. However, my father could read me well, and he knew I was being melodramatic. It's a tough, tough call, I imagine. But it was one that my father made well.
And, I swear, since that day in eighth grade, I've tried to appreciate life and recognize the wonderful as wonderful and the terrible as passing. It's a goofy moment to deem a real turning point in one's life, but that's the last time I ever recall really feeling like life was dragging its bones. It was the first time I realized that I honestly had no desire to leave life until I was forced to, whether by bear, shark or poisoning.
So, to recap, I realized that life was worth living at 13, but it wasn't until I was 24 that I figured out how easy it is to find comfortable long-lasting happiness. I was happy as hell in my late-teens and early twenties, but there were sharp moments of angst in those too. Everything was a lot more confusing then. I was happy, but baffled, I guess.
So, to recap, I realized that life was worth living at 13, but it wasn't until I was 24 that I figured out how easy it is to find comfortable long-lasting happiness. I was happy as hell in my late-teens and early twenties, but there were sharp moments of angst in those too. Everything was a lot more confusing then. I was happy, but baffled, I guess.
But, again, I feel I must stress how particularly lucky I've been in my existence. I mean, I've been spectacularly, incredibly, amazingly lucky and blessed in almost every realm of life.
My parents have supported everything I've ever done (from turning our house into a restaurant in first grade to getting a print journalism degree in an era when everyone decided that newspapers should be used as kindling). My sister and brother are two of my best friends (and, yes, that cliche made my stomach turn too). I've had friend after friend blow me away by their intelligence, creativity, humor and excitement for adventure. And I've had woman after woman tolerate my slapstick way of loving and flat-out floor me with their ability to appreciate, give, surprise and explore.
As I write this, I realize how disgustingly happy I've been almost my whole life. At some point, all of my family, friends and ladyfolk have realized that I'm not just making small talk when I say, "Holy shit, what a beautiful day," or go on and on about how much I'm enjoying just sitting around a backyard drinking. Life as a middle-class American is fucking rad, especially if you consider the only other option, that tremendous black hole known as death.
My mother lost her brother when he was in his thirties. She had just turned forty. My uncle was a family man and an entrepreneur. He died of a heart attack in his sleep. My mom and her siblings were and are close. But, still, she once told me (after a tiff with a sibling), "You never want to go to bed angry with your family. They might not be there tomorrow."
I knew what she was saying, even as a dopey, spastic sixth grader who couldn't stop talking. It became a whisper in my heart that I always try to live by, though I haven't always done so. I've lucked out so far. Nobody I've been pissed at has died on me yet. Sometimes, people piss me off. But I think about what my mother says every time I get upset and I usually apologize or see that the situation settles (as, I'll be honest, I don't always feel it necessary to apologize). There were three straight years of my sister and I getting into intense arguments over board games on Christmas Day. It was always my father, my brother and her versus my mother and me, and, apparently, we don't take charades lightly.
But I always made sure we made up by December 26th.
And, to be fair, it usually wasn't me being the hero. By the end of Christmas Day, when neither of us had changed out of our pajamas, with nacho cheese and sour candy sugar dotting our robes, we'd both kind of nod or shrug or blink or wince, and somehow that meant that we were done with our bullshit.
My sister, my brother and I were both raised my parents that advocated joy and tolerance. In fact, my father's famous quote was that, one day, the three of us would be "strong, healthy, confident adults." He said those four words in that order all the time. I guess that's what I've always been shooting for, even as a kid.
I think the first time I caught myself rolling my head in the quiet moments of adult life was when I was 17. I finally had a license, so the world was now available to me. And I decide to spend a summer afternoon at the Orange Circle, eating Felix's rice and beans while drinking a hot chocolate. I was smoking a cigarette and doing a crossword puzzle. I had nothing on the agenda and no interest in doing anything else. The world came to me and unfolded itself.
What was the big secret?
Just do what makes you happy.
Now, that's an overreaching simplification of what it means to be happy. You need to make a living and go to events you don't want to. Do what makes you happy, but acknowledge that it won't be all the time.
But people don't know what to do with their free time, and they don't seem to appreciate it for what it is. They appreciate it for what it isn't.
"It's my day off, so the big plus is that I don't have to work," they may think.
No.
It should be, "It's my day off, so the big plus is that I get to go buy used books and go swimming."
I had a long talk with Jason and Grant the other night. We discussed the act of creating and how much we value it, only to be baffled by those who don't. Some people just want to go home from a mediocre job and watch television. They have no interest in writing, painting or jamming.
At any age, even without creation hobbies, I feel like a person should have at least one activity that they can depend on for themselves. It shouldn't include anyone. For me, it's writing. But, take that way, I could still come up with things I like doing and bring about an absurd amount of happiness. When I was 17, it was smoking a cigarette and doing a crossword puzzle. When I was 20, it was going on a bike ride. Now, it's reading a book on my back porch. Sometimes, it's enough to just eat crispy rolls in bed with the window open.
It really doesn't take much to make me happy these days. I'm usually in a pretty good mood. And, if I'm not, just a song can turn me around for the better. Its not an act either. Even by myself, I remain generally stoked. Though my mother would ask it as, "So that stokes you?"
But, despite my jolly nature, I've notice a gargantuan shift in how deep my happiness goes. When I was, say, 20, all it took was a bike ride to put me at maximum happiness. But, back then, my scale was only 1-10. My scale now is 1-100. It's harder to reach the maximum happiness, but I can honestly say that the happiness runs deeper. Maybe a bike ride only puts me at a 70 now. Well, it's not the highest possible, but it's certainly a lot more than 10. When I'm happy now, I feel it in my bones. When I was 20, happiness was only skin-deep.
My happiness in the future is up for grabs, and I couldn't even begin to guess what it is. However, I will say that this past year was the first time that I could actually see myself married with kids in the near future. Also, when I say "near future," I just mean that I don't think I have to go through some insane transformation anymore. When I consider marriage and kids now, I no longer think, "Holy fuck, I need to get my shit together before that ever happens." I think I could make a good husband and father as this dude I am now.
I understand adulthood now. I get it. I value saving money and feel accomplished paying bills. It legitimately excites me to have good credit. I understand the difference between Del Taco and Mr. Stox, just as I understand why sometimes blue jeans aren't appropriate attire. I know what shitty beer and good beer both are, and I know when to drink them. You don't have to stop eating fast food, wearing blue jeans and drinking cheap beer. I just think you should know the difference.
And, no, adulthood is not a defeat. I don't know who's filling my friends' heads with bullshit, but a family doesn't kill the big stuff. Yes, over the years, we can most likely expect to stop falling asleep drunk in the same room together. Yes, at some point, we won't find much interest in sleeping past ten a.m. Yes, we'll have more obligations and obstacles. But that doesn't mean weekend getaways and afternoon barbecues have to stop forever. Don't we all want our kids to be raised together? Don't we all want our spouses to be friends with each other? Don't we all plan on having the coolest social network back-to-school night's ever seen?
Everything will get more difficult soon, but everything will also get much more rewarding. We'll start serving real purpose. Granted, I say this as someone who's not in a serious committed relationship and admit that the second word of the phrase "pregnancy scare" strikes up more feelings in me than the first. But family life seems good: Sunday brunches, school projects, dinner parties, etc. It all seems warm and enchanting.
However, I'm also the same guy who puked on his bedroom floor this year and has wandered his house naked in a drunken stupor on two occasions in the last six months. Yes, that's right: this year and two occasions.
I'd say that's about it. Life is good, and it isn't always that way. Right now, it is though. I have no big fears for the future and no huge regrets of the past. I like where I've been, I like where I am and I like where I'm going. And, as a middle class American suburban white twenty-something writer, I really couldn't ask for much more than that.
Here's five things I've learned and kept as a way of living:
- Remember that nothing is eternal.
- If it's good, you better appreciate the hell out of it before it's gone.
- If it's bad, don't worry, seeing as how it'll all be over soon.
- Make time for what keeps you sane.
- The fall semester of my last year in college, I was working 60 hours a week, going to school full-time and doing my uninformed best at keeping a long-distance relationship together. For three months, I really only saw Rex and it was because he was willing to play basketball with me at midnight in a park with the lights off.
- These days, I make sure to spend at least one afternoon or even writing. It's not much, but, holy shit, it keeps me sane.
- Stay in reasonable shape.
- You have to take care of yourself. It's unfair for women to demand their men look like Ryan Reynolds if they don't look like Mila Kunis, just as its unfair for men to demand their women look like Olivia Wilde if they don't look like Justin Timberlake. Just because you're in a relationship doesn't mean you get to grow fat with a beard. Trust me, I've been there. It was unfair to everyone involved.
- A lack of exercise will doom your brain tremendously. Stay physically fit, and you'll be more mentally and emotionally fit, suggesting that you'll ultimately be nicer to people, which brings me to my next point.
- Just be nice to people.
- Two religious women were making the rounds one afternoon, and I answered the door with Jason. They asked if I was interested in hearing about the word of God. I answer, "I'm going to respectfully pass, but I wish you two the best of luck today." The next day, Jason told me that he had never thought of answering religious people that way. It always felt like they were invading his space. I told him, "I figure they have the best intentions. I mean, they're spending their afternoon trying to keep me and my neighbors from the depths of Hell. The least I could do is be nice to them."
- I was hanging out with Chase once. We were either in a car or at a restaurant. A homeless man asked for some money to help his family. Without thinking, Chase gave the guy a few bucks. I thoughtlessly made a joke along the lines of, "And off he goes to procure some booze." Chase smiled and said to me, "Who knows? I mean, what the hell was I going to do with that money? Just buy cigarettes or booze myself anyway. That guy's going to help his family or buy some booze. Either way, he's begging for it, which means he probably needs it more than I do." Since that day, I always try give at least something if I have it on me.
- People working retail and other customer-engaging jobs have it hard. Why? Because they interact with everyday people and their everyday problems. Ask them how they're doing and be friendly. They won't always be nice back, but, hey, you tried. Also, hey, people working retail and other customer-engaging jobs, be nice to your customers. They're just everyday people with everyday problems. I was a waiter for five years. I know it's not that hard to be nice to your customers, even when you're busy and they aren't wildly friendly. Just be nice.
- Make life cinematic.
- Cool big gestures and thoughtful little presents aren't just for movies and television shows. People can do these things. This isn't even, like, hey, go base-jumping or start bar fights. I just mean that there are chances for you, your family and your friends to do really magnificent things for each other. I'm not going to go into detail about my life's cinematic moments, but I can recall them, from building a full restaurant in my backyard with friends as a college student in love to crashing a wedding in Mexico. There are just chances for you to think of life as a movie and really not settle for this lesser bullshit.
- One of my favorite television cute moments was my last birthday when my mom asked what I wanted. I told her I always wanted a dragon, but I'd settle for books and clothes. True to my mom's eternal thoughtful form, I unwrapped a present to find, low and behold, a stuffed dragon.
In every era of my life, I've thought, I wish this could last. I don't know why the coming years would be any different. Sure, I'll always want to revisit the days of my garage, Shirley's house, Julia's house, Wall's house, the Mira Mesa House, The Madison, Entrepreneur Magazine, The Daily Titan, WebVisible, Seattle and so on, but where would be the happiness? What good is the joke if you've already heard the punchline? Change isn't bad. I haven't hit a birthday where I've been disappointed in myself, my family, my friends and where we are as a collective. I like aging. I like the change of scenery. I like new opportunities to be happy. I like watching people close to me grow and develop. I like that people are getting married and having kids now, just as I liked those same people getting drunk and passing out face-down in the floor. People in my life have always been gracious, generous and goofy. As Batman would say, PEOPLE ARE GOOD. And how hard is it to be happy in a part of the world where a milkshake and and a beach is within bike-riding distance?
Sometimes, bro, life is so rad, man.
Friday, October 7, 2011
My Manliness: An Essay
"Where do you have to go for your errands?" Grant asked me, as I put shirts away in my closet last week.
"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "Or, shit, I definitely have to replace my shower nozzle. So...probably, what, Bed, Bath & Beyond?"
"No, dude, you need to go to Home Depot," he laughed.
"Hmmm. I think I was just looking for a reason to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond."
"You should be looking for a reason to go to Home Depot!"
"Oh my god, have you ever been to Bed, Bath & Beyond?"
This is my existence as a man. It's one long misunderstanding of what manly men are supposed to do. Or I imagine that's not entirely accurate. I guess a lot of the time it's me understanding what manly men do and then very purposefully ignoring it. Oh, what, I'm supposed to eat red meat, tell you all about the UCLA/USC rivalry AND know what's wrong with my car? I've got romantic comedies to watch, people!
But it always comes back to my dad telling me and my brother at the dinner table years ago, "I failed you as a father." It was definitely light-hearted, clearly not true and one of the funniest things the man's ever said. But, when it comes to knowing the manly things, my brother and I are somewhat, if not totally, inept. And I'm worse than my brother. We can't build shit, we don't understand cars and we won't follow sports. But at least my brother can barbecue a steak while talking about Game of Thrones or Call of Duty. Hell, he was probably already in the lead when he asked me, "What the hell is Two Weeks Notice?"
Recently, I took a wild turn and joined a fantasy football league. Why? Because my roommate and friends were doing it and I wandered into the basement on Labor Day wearing a bathing suit after partying my ass off on a Sunday evening. They needed an eighth person and they promised me it wouldn't be much work. Well, now, I'm in first place. In fact, I'm undefeated, leading one friend to check the standings once and drunkenly yell, "Jake doesn't even fucking like football!"
It's true. I only watch the sport one or two days out of the year: Super Bowl and New Year's Day (if I'm not in Mexico). Some years ago, I was at a Super Bowl party with an ex-girlfriend. Her friends' boyfriends talked about sports in the '90s and I laid down all of my knowledge about basketball and baseball from the decade, admitting I was a huge fan up until I was a teenager. They were taken aback, as they had heard the rumors that I was some pansy writer vegetarian. One of them asked, "What the hell happened when you became a teenager?" The girl I was with leaned over and answered for me, "He discovered poetry."
That had some weight and truth to it, though it was also because I realized I didn't give a good goddamn fuck about baseball. And then writing and music pushed out my dedication to basketball, though I still follow the playoffs.
I was on the phone with a friend, discussing football players' stats (because I look that shit up now for fantasy reasons), my brother stared at me, grinned and said, "You happy? Talking about sports makes you happy now? So you're into sports now? Just gonna leave your ol' brother behind, eh? Fuck you! I have to start talking about cars now!"
My old roommates were huge Angels fans. Needlessly to say, they stopped inviting me to watch games with them in the living room, because I'd just get drunk on cheap beer and heckle the television. I wasn't rooting for anyone but me then and watching baseball on television is usually tallied up as a loss in my book. Once, they invited my brother over. He said all kinds of solid observations about trades, injuries, RBIs, ERAs and made thoughtful suggestions about what he thought would improve certain players' games. My roommates were impressed. They all told him how much manlier he was than me and that it was cool to have a Kilroy watching sports with them. Then, around the seventh inning stretch, they realized he kept sneaking looks at his phone and took it away from him. After going through his phone's text messages, it became apparent that everything my brother had said in the last hour was actually his friend coaching him. My brother cackled and then made one last observation of the game: "That pitcher's name is really long." They didn't invite him back.
Thus is the Kilroy Brothers' charm: a resonating mockery of most things manly.
The two of us thrive on refusal. If someone tells us to be interested in anything, especially something manly, we automatically become less interested in it. And, not only that, but we also become obnoxiously uninterested in it. This, I believe, has lead to our ability to talk shit better than the average citizen. We actually don't get much flack for not knowing what tools are which, what team won what championship or what makes any car run. But we take serious interest in everything (another Kilroy Brother trait). We want people to tell us about building and mechanical projects. The two of us are sincerely interested in someone telling us why something is interesting to them. We just don't want someone to tell us we should or need like it. Because then it becomes twenty minutes of us making fun of that person until they feel like a dopey fuckard. Nobody in there right mind would put either of us on their list of Top Five People To Have On Your Side In A Physical Fight. However, I think we'd make it to a lot of lists if they fights were verbal.
At some young age, I imagine we were presented with a crossroads: get interested in manly things or get good at talking shit. We very definitely went with the latter. Nobody really hassles us anymore. We love being invited to do manly things, but we'll goddamned if someone's gonna make us do anything. Example: Both of us get invited to go rock-climbing, though neither of us actually rock-climb. Our friends know this. They invite us out to the spots, very nicely ask us if we want to climb and we very politely refuse. Why do we go? Because we love hanging out, camping and drinking. Our interest in sports goes about as far as makeshift games with friends and doing our best to not die of a heart attack.
But, as for general manly interests, I had an imagination that wouldn't tolerate the main interests of manly stereotypes. I built with Legos and my tools were plastic, so I never asked my dad for a real tool belt, since, to me and my wildly delusional brain, I already had one. I never asked my dad to explain an engine to me, because I had bicycles and go-karts. When he tried one time, I was 12 and told him, "This sounds like math."
For the most part, my dad never pushed any interests on me. But he support and/or paid for any interests I discovered, from drums to website software. He never told me who or how to be. His philosophy was, "If I'm a good father, I'll raise a good son who has good interests of his own." However, my dad was a half-breed: half-manly man, half-not-so-manly-man, which is, in all honesty, probably where I truly fall. My dad's the editor of a racing magazine who self-published a poetry book. He can fix things around the house, but he always says he just barely did it. Realizing my meek frame and spazzy outlook on life as a child, my father probably assumed it would've been dangerous for me to do anything with hammer.
I mean, I'm the son of a journalism father and an English major mother. All I did was read. And maybe my brother looked at the television when an old war or cowboy movie was on (they were on at my house all the time) and then looked at me reading some chapter book in bed and made his decision to be the slightly manlier son, and, lately, he seems to only read books about history and environmentalism.
But, still, my brother's manly by family's standards. The influence of cinematic manliness has never really been there for us. My father's brothers want to drink good beer and discuss Irish music, literature and history more than anything else. My mother's only living brother is a reformed backpacker and current artsy carpenter. However, the one who passed away was a football-watching business owner who left this world when I was in elementary school. And then one grandfather taught me how to play the tin whistle and the other took me to see musicals.
I'm a product of my upbringing and my upbringing was whimsical.
Nobody in my family was fixing up a classic car or following hockey. Also, I'm selling my father, uncles and grandfathers short here for a good laugh. Everyone took me camping and fishing, though my interest in fishing died away when I stopped eating meat as a kid...which, come to think of it, probably sent me down this path in the first place. I mean, what, you're gonna explain power tools to a boy who thinks lambs are fucking adorable?
No, because that boy is going to grow up into a man who was legitimately thrilled when he realized he had to buy home decor for his new place. Shit, a few days ago, I had to buy a standing light. Did I go to Home Depot? No. Instead, I went to Lightbulbs, Etc. Is that because I'm not so manly or because I have really dope taste? Well, it didn't matter either way because I certainly don't have very much money and Lightbulbs, Etc. is crazy fucking expensive apparently. So, keeping son of a bitch manly man Grant in mind, I ended up going to Home Depot, which my friends call "Homes Deeps," a la Lord Of The Rings, and scored a really nice lamp for a totally good price. Good job, Home Depot.
Also, that reminds me of the time that Chase took my brother and I to Home Depot when he was going to build my family a new garage door. It was like the cool uncle taking his two sissiest nephews to carry stuff for him. When Chase would say, "Oh, I also need to check out somesortofsomething," my brother would do something like knock on wood and say things like, "Maple, eh? Pretty strong stuff here. You know, you could build a mighty fine shed with this." This line of silliness would lead to me laughing like an idiot and Chase just shaking his head in sympathy. Sometimes, Sarvas would invite the two of us along just to see how the other half views Home Depot. Guess what the answer is? It's like a way less exciting version of Target, where there's no popcorn or pretzals and we can't buy season two of any goddamn TV show.
The friends I see regularly are men who love Home Depot but also maintain lots of half-breed tendencies. The three guys I probably hang out with the most frequently are Grant, Rex and Chase. They all rock-climb, two of them surf, two of them wrestled in high school and they've all been in fights. I don't do any of that. I've rock-climbed a handful of times, but I mostly go with them on trips to hang out in the wilderness. I've surfed a few times, but I almost always prefer reading on the beach. I played junior varsity basketball for one year and then got over it when they put me on varsity. And I've talked my way out of every fight I've ever talked my way into.
However, I've also watched Love Actually, Grey's Anatomy and The Notebook with those dudes. Also, we definitely maybe saw Definitely, Maybe together in theaters on Valentine's Day one year. So...those are the sorts of half-breeds I hang out with. My high school friends, on the other hand, will never understand why I like anything.
I see manhood as the ever-changing existence. It's an entire spectrum. Sure, I've been known to do yoga while watching several episodes of Sex And The City, but I've also gotten drunk as hell on whiskey in the woods of Missouri. I write poetry, but I also swear like a sailor. My brother once had a long discussion about the properties of being a man. We decided that he saw man as the hunter and I saw man as the poet. That's where it stands, I suppose.
And, in all honesty, the spectrum is so wide that I probably do lots of manly shit by default. But it's a lot more interesting (and manly?) to observe the differences than the similarities. From a distance, I can't imagine it'd be obvious that I own both Sleepless In Seattle AND You've Got Mail when I get all hammered-ass drunk on Jameson and threaten to kill everyone while cackling. It's just a strange balance being a man sometimes.
Ah well. Whatever. Grant went with me to Bed, Bath & Beyond last night so I could buy pillows. And guess what? Bed, Bath & Beyond was totally amazing!
"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "Or, shit, I definitely have to replace my shower nozzle. So...probably, what, Bed, Bath & Beyond?"
"No, dude, you need to go to Home Depot," he laughed.
"Hmmm. I think I was just looking for a reason to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond."
"You should be looking for a reason to go to Home Depot!"
"Oh my god, have you ever been to Bed, Bath & Beyond?"
This is my existence as a man. It's one long misunderstanding of what manly men are supposed to do. Or I imagine that's not entirely accurate. I guess a lot of the time it's me understanding what manly men do and then very purposefully ignoring it. Oh, what, I'm supposed to eat red meat, tell you all about the UCLA/USC rivalry AND know what's wrong with my car? I've got romantic comedies to watch, people!
But it always comes back to my dad telling me and my brother at the dinner table years ago, "I failed you as a father." It was definitely light-hearted, clearly not true and one of the funniest things the man's ever said. But, when it comes to knowing the manly things, my brother and I are somewhat, if not totally, inept. And I'm worse than my brother. We can't build shit, we don't understand cars and we won't follow sports. But at least my brother can barbecue a steak while talking about Game of Thrones or Call of Duty. Hell, he was probably already in the lead when he asked me, "What the hell is Two Weeks Notice?"
Recently, I took a wild turn and joined a fantasy football league. Why? Because my roommate and friends were doing it and I wandered into the basement on Labor Day wearing a bathing suit after partying my ass off on a Sunday evening. They needed an eighth person and they promised me it wouldn't be much work. Well, now, I'm in first place. In fact, I'm undefeated, leading one friend to check the standings once and drunkenly yell, "Jake doesn't even fucking like football!"
It's true. I only watch the sport one or two days out of the year: Super Bowl and New Year's Day (if I'm not in Mexico). Some years ago, I was at a Super Bowl party with an ex-girlfriend. Her friends' boyfriends talked about sports in the '90s and I laid down all of my knowledge about basketball and baseball from the decade, admitting I was a huge fan up until I was a teenager. They were taken aback, as they had heard the rumors that I was some pansy writer vegetarian. One of them asked, "What the hell happened when you became a teenager?" The girl I was with leaned over and answered for me, "He discovered poetry."
That had some weight and truth to it, though it was also because I realized I didn't give a good goddamn fuck about baseball. And then writing and music pushed out my dedication to basketball, though I still follow the playoffs.
I was on the phone with a friend, discussing football players' stats (because I look that shit up now for fantasy reasons), my brother stared at me, grinned and said, "You happy? Talking about sports makes you happy now? So you're into sports now? Just gonna leave your ol' brother behind, eh? Fuck you! I have to start talking about cars now!"
My old roommates were huge Angels fans. Needlessly to say, they stopped inviting me to watch games with them in the living room, because I'd just get drunk on cheap beer and heckle the television. I wasn't rooting for anyone but me then and watching baseball on television is usually tallied up as a loss in my book. Once, they invited my brother over. He said all kinds of solid observations about trades, injuries, RBIs, ERAs and made thoughtful suggestions about what he thought would improve certain players' games. My roommates were impressed. They all told him how much manlier he was than me and that it was cool to have a Kilroy watching sports with them. Then, around the seventh inning stretch, they realized he kept sneaking looks at his phone and took it away from him. After going through his phone's text messages, it became apparent that everything my brother had said in the last hour was actually his friend coaching him. My brother cackled and then made one last observation of the game: "That pitcher's name is really long." They didn't invite him back.
Thus is the Kilroy Brothers' charm: a resonating mockery of most things manly.
The two of us thrive on refusal. If someone tells us to be interested in anything, especially something manly, we automatically become less interested in it. And, not only that, but we also become obnoxiously uninterested in it. This, I believe, has lead to our ability to talk shit better than the average citizen. We actually don't get much flack for not knowing what tools are which, what team won what championship or what makes any car run. But we take serious interest in everything (another Kilroy Brother trait). We want people to tell us about building and mechanical projects. The two of us are sincerely interested in someone telling us why something is interesting to them. We just don't want someone to tell us we should or need like it. Because then it becomes twenty minutes of us making fun of that person until they feel like a dopey fuckard. Nobody in there right mind would put either of us on their list of Top Five People To Have On Your Side In A Physical Fight. However, I think we'd make it to a lot of lists if they fights were verbal.
At some young age, I imagine we were presented with a crossroads: get interested in manly things or get good at talking shit. We very definitely went with the latter. Nobody really hassles us anymore. We love being invited to do manly things, but we'll goddamned if someone's gonna make us do anything. Example: Both of us get invited to go rock-climbing, though neither of us actually rock-climb. Our friends know this. They invite us out to the spots, very nicely ask us if we want to climb and we very politely refuse. Why do we go? Because we love hanging out, camping and drinking. Our interest in sports goes about as far as makeshift games with friends and doing our best to not die of a heart attack.
But, as for general manly interests, I had an imagination that wouldn't tolerate the main interests of manly stereotypes. I built with Legos and my tools were plastic, so I never asked my dad for a real tool belt, since, to me and my wildly delusional brain, I already had one. I never asked my dad to explain an engine to me, because I had bicycles and go-karts. When he tried one time, I was 12 and told him, "This sounds like math."
For the most part, my dad never pushed any interests on me. But he support and/or paid for any interests I discovered, from drums to website software. He never told me who or how to be. His philosophy was, "If I'm a good father, I'll raise a good son who has good interests of his own." However, my dad was a half-breed: half-manly man, half-not-so-manly-man, which is, in all honesty, probably where I truly fall. My dad's the editor of a racing magazine who self-published a poetry book. He can fix things around the house, but he always says he just barely did it. Realizing my meek frame and spazzy outlook on life as a child, my father probably assumed it would've been dangerous for me to do anything with hammer.
I mean, I'm the son of a journalism father and an English major mother. All I did was read. And maybe my brother looked at the television when an old war or cowboy movie was on (they were on at my house all the time) and then looked at me reading some chapter book in bed and made his decision to be the slightly manlier son, and, lately, he seems to only read books about history and environmentalism.
But, still, my brother's manly by family's standards. The influence of cinematic manliness has never really been there for us. My father's brothers want to drink good beer and discuss Irish music, literature and history more than anything else. My mother's only living brother is a reformed backpacker and current artsy carpenter. However, the one who passed away was a football-watching business owner who left this world when I was in elementary school. And then one grandfather taught me how to play the tin whistle and the other took me to see musicals.
I'm a product of my upbringing and my upbringing was whimsical.
Nobody in my family was fixing up a classic car or following hockey. Also, I'm selling my father, uncles and grandfathers short here for a good laugh. Everyone took me camping and fishing, though my interest in fishing died away when I stopped eating meat as a kid...which, come to think of it, probably sent me down this path in the first place. I mean, what, you're gonna explain power tools to a boy who thinks lambs are fucking adorable?
No, because that boy is going to grow up into a man who was legitimately thrilled when he realized he had to buy home decor for his new place. Shit, a few days ago, I had to buy a standing light. Did I go to Home Depot? No. Instead, I went to Lightbulbs, Etc. Is that because I'm not so manly or because I have really dope taste? Well, it didn't matter either way because I certainly don't have very much money and Lightbulbs, Etc. is crazy fucking expensive apparently. So, keeping son of a bitch manly man Grant in mind, I ended up going to Home Depot, which my friends call "Homes Deeps," a la Lord Of The Rings, and scored a really nice lamp for a totally good price. Good job, Home Depot.
Also, that reminds me of the time that Chase took my brother and I to Home Depot when he was going to build my family a new garage door. It was like the cool uncle taking his two sissiest nephews to carry stuff for him. When Chase would say, "Oh, I also need to check out somesortofsomething," my brother would do something like knock on wood and say things like, "Maple, eh? Pretty strong stuff here. You know, you could build a mighty fine shed with this." This line of silliness would lead to me laughing like an idiot and Chase just shaking his head in sympathy. Sometimes, Sarvas would invite the two of us along just to see how the other half views Home Depot. Guess what the answer is? It's like a way less exciting version of Target, where there's no popcorn or pretzals and we can't buy season two of any goddamn TV show.
The friends I see regularly are men who love Home Depot but also maintain lots of half-breed tendencies. The three guys I probably hang out with the most frequently are Grant, Rex and Chase. They all rock-climb, two of them surf, two of them wrestled in high school and they've all been in fights. I don't do any of that. I've rock-climbed a handful of times, but I mostly go with them on trips to hang out in the wilderness. I've surfed a few times, but I almost always prefer reading on the beach. I played junior varsity basketball for one year and then got over it when they put me on varsity. And I've talked my way out of every fight I've ever talked my way into.
However, I've also watched Love Actually, Grey's Anatomy and The Notebook with those dudes. Also, we definitely maybe saw Definitely, Maybe together in theaters on Valentine's Day one year. So...those are the sorts of half-breeds I hang out with. My high school friends, on the other hand, will never understand why I like anything.
I see manhood as the ever-changing existence. It's an entire spectrum. Sure, I've been known to do yoga while watching several episodes of Sex And The City, but I've also gotten drunk as hell on whiskey in the woods of Missouri. I write poetry, but I also swear like a sailor. My brother once had a long discussion about the properties of being a man. We decided that he saw man as the hunter and I saw man as the poet. That's where it stands, I suppose.
And, in all honesty, the spectrum is so wide that I probably do lots of manly shit by default. But it's a lot more interesting (and manly?) to observe the differences than the similarities. From a distance, I can't imagine it'd be obvious that I own both Sleepless In Seattle AND You've Got Mail when I get all hammered-ass drunk on Jameson and threaten to kill everyone while cackling. It's just a strange balance being a man sometimes.
Ah well. Whatever. Grant went with me to Bed, Bath & Beyond last night so I could buy pillows. And guess what? Bed, Bath & Beyond was totally amazing!
Monday, October 6, 2008
Whiskey, Cigarettes & Love Letters
Somewhat of an extended version of Goodie Drawers.
I remember a particularly late summer night when I was 21 and out drinking with some female friends. They were talking about their "goodie drawers" and how sometimes the wrong people had seen the contents. I didn't have much to offer, so I just sat there listening and sipping my pint. The girls shared some funny stories about their goodie drawers and the items tucked away inside: vibrators, lube, condoms, sex toys, et cetera.
I chuckled to myself, and one of the girls gave me a sly smile before asking, "Why? What's in your goodie drawer, Jake?"I grinned, thought about my response, and replied, "Whiskey, cigarettes and love letters."
There was a long pause at the table.
It was true. Whiskey, cigarettes and love letters were all I kept in my night stand for a long while. But these three items are also my balance beam, still remaining as the three key components to the best/worst possible night in my opinion.And that may just be what all goodie drawers really are anyway: the fork in the road when you decide to go north or south.
But that sort of traveling wears out a lifetime on the soul, when what we love can kill us and what we hate can have a sleeping spot in our prettiest dreams. I mean, who wasn't been a wayward traveler some nights?
Remember that a condom can lead to fun, but could surely follow with bad morning revelations and photographs of exes can lead to nostalgia but could surely end in bad evening revelations.
Just for the record though, this isn't the same speech that you've heard from forlorn lovers, where they say that their counterpart could make or break them. This isn't the part of the passage where you realize that we're all _________________________ (insert overused metaphor here).
I'm saying that we each have these things that can make for the worst evening we've ever put our eyes and hands through while remaining our favorite possessions. We keep what's dearest in the drawer next to us so that we keep what's closest to us closest. I'm talking about medication that your doctor doesn't know you prescribe yourself.
I spent a summer well when I was 20 (bike-riding during the day and partying at night). But I recall my best evenings to be spent with a Chet Baker record moving slowly while I had a cigarette or two with Jack Daniels on my back porch, looking over handwritten love letters. And I recall my worst evenings being spent the same way. Same ingredients, same recipe, different hunger.
There's poetry in the swift movement of pretty butterflies with prettier chainsaws. I suppose that I consider self-destruction and self-loathing to be cyclical, as I've always wanted to believe that you can do so bad that you've done good. And I find the balance beam walkers of glory and danger to be extraordinary and magnificent.
So, of course, I've always been attracted to the broken writer ego (one day, they'll cry for you beyond an education, Fitzgerald) where you imagine the writer slumped over at his desk and you don't know if it's from exhaustion or drugs, where you feel the writer's agonizing blood in the words, where the writer pens the book on morals on Saturday but sleeps through church on Sunday because of a hangover.
You want their epitaph to read like so: "Here lies that famous writer you were taught so eloquently in school. The only thing he did better than write was drink and here lies the evidence. The words and women didn't kill him. Wild, ain't it?"
It's that balance beam walk that grips us.
You just have to look over what you keep closest to you, know what's capable of making and breaking you, as every kitchen knife can help you cook dinner or can go straight through your chest (Cheers, Elliott Smith).
Now ask yourself: what's in your goodie drawer?
I remember a particularly late summer night when I was 21 and out drinking with some female friends. They were talking about their "goodie drawers" and how sometimes the wrong people had seen the contents. I didn't have much to offer, so I just sat there listening and sipping my pint. The girls shared some funny stories about their goodie drawers and the items tucked away inside: vibrators, lube, condoms, sex toys, et cetera.
I chuckled to myself, and one of the girls gave me a sly smile before asking, "Why? What's in your goodie drawer, Jake?"I grinned, thought about my response, and replied, "Whiskey, cigarettes and love letters."
There was a long pause at the table.
It was true. Whiskey, cigarettes and love letters were all I kept in my night stand for a long while. But these three items are also my balance beam, still remaining as the three key components to the best/worst possible night in my opinion.And that may just be what all goodie drawers really are anyway: the fork in the road when you decide to go north or south.
But that sort of traveling wears out a lifetime on the soul, when what we love can kill us and what we hate can have a sleeping spot in our prettiest dreams. I mean, who wasn't been a wayward traveler some nights?
Remember that a condom can lead to fun, but could surely follow with bad morning revelations and photographs of exes can lead to nostalgia but could surely end in bad evening revelations.
Just for the record though, this isn't the same speech that you've heard from forlorn lovers, where they say that their counterpart could make or break them. This isn't the part of the passage where you realize that we're all _________________________ (insert overused metaphor here).
I'm saying that we each have these things that can make for the worst evening we've ever put our eyes and hands through while remaining our favorite possessions. We keep what's dearest in the drawer next to us so that we keep what's closest to us closest. I'm talking about medication that your doctor doesn't know you prescribe yourself.
I spent a summer well when I was 20 (bike-riding during the day and partying at night). But I recall my best evenings to be spent with a Chet Baker record moving slowly while I had a cigarette or two with Jack Daniels on my back porch, looking over handwritten love letters. And I recall my worst evenings being spent the same way. Same ingredients, same recipe, different hunger.
There's poetry in the swift movement of pretty butterflies with prettier chainsaws. I suppose that I consider self-destruction and self-loathing to be cyclical, as I've always wanted to believe that you can do so bad that you've done good. And I find the balance beam walkers of glory and danger to be extraordinary and magnificent.
So, of course, I've always been attracted to the broken writer ego (one day, they'll cry for you beyond an education, Fitzgerald) where you imagine the writer slumped over at his desk and you don't know if it's from exhaustion or drugs, where you feel the writer's agonizing blood in the words, where the writer pens the book on morals on Saturday but sleeps through church on Sunday because of a hangover.
You want their epitaph to read like so: "Here lies that famous writer you were taught so eloquently in school. The only thing he did better than write was drink and here lies the evidence. The words and women didn't kill him. Wild, ain't it?"
It's that balance beam walk that grips us.
You just have to look over what you keep closest to you, know what's capable of making and breaking you, as every kitchen knife can help you cook dinner or can go straight through your chest (Cheers, Elliott Smith).
Now ask yourself: what's in your goodie drawer?
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