davemcgee.com

2008 In a Nutshell

2009-01-04T18:57:00.001-05:00

(format h/t Larke)

In 2008 I wrote a letter to Al Gore (like right away. 12:07am 1/1/08); wrote a pageant for AdNaus; wrote a one-man play on commission; wrote the end of Instant Breakfast; and didn’t write nearly as much as I should have.

I acted in a play where I danced with a shadow; met a girl on the subway and then on craigslist; registered people to vote; filed a lot of fucking papers; went to amazing concerts; read a lot of good books; had a play produced in the New York International Fringe Festival; learned some Czech and forgot it again; reread and reviewed my childhood ephemera; recorded ridiculous museum tours on podcast; left New York and moved to Prague; mourned the fuck out of David Foster Wallace; voted for the winning Presidential candidate for the first time (batting .333 now); and continued in the most wonderful relationship I’ve ever ever had. Ever. Like ever.

I fell in love with lychees, Olafur Eliasson, several people I didn’t intend to, the Brooklyn Bridge, and a very small section of Brooklyn right there along the Bridge where it’s possible to sit on rocks along the water and dream about the end of the world.

I was thankful to be in Chicago; begrudgingly admiring of Los Angeles; inspired by Washington DC; rained on in Dublin; wowed by Prague; and heartbroken by the continued existence of New York without me.

I made friends, had amazing times with friends, and tried to keep up friendships from thousands of miles away. I finally explored the area around Columbia University, finally rode public transportation in California, and finally decided what to write next.

Oh and I watched The Room. A lot. Like really, a lot.

Still: pretty good year.

I have to go now, 2008. Bye.

Communisted

2008-09-26T03:43:00.004-04:00

We got an apartment. It's the most beautiful place I'm ever going to live. It's palatial, is what it is. We have a foyer.

In order to secure the apartment, we had to enter into an Italo-Cesko-Serbo-American alliance. We were running our own model UN meeting at the contract signing. Our building's owner -- Italian through and through -- would say something, it would be translated into Czech by his lawyer, and our Serbian broker would then translate it into English for us, and we'd send a response back through the circle. We John Hancock'd the contract. Everything was good to go.

Unfortunately, the owner was not quite so trustworthy of our sneaky-looking faces; in order to make the contract take effect, Stephanie and I would have to provide a copy of our police reports to prove that we are not internationally-wanted criminals. Look at us. The faces of killers right here. But even after meeting us, he still wanted proof that we weren't drug-runners or thieves or... or... wanted for mail fraud.

This ended up being an epic quest that took us from post office to post office. Since we're busy from like sunrise to midnight, the only time we had available to go was pre-sunrise. We've been getting up ridonk early every day. It's been "fun."

This morning, we finally FINALLY found the correct place. This is more complicated than it might initially seem. Prague hasn't yet discovered the fad of visibly labeled streets, so we were walking around map in hand, turning around in slow confused circles. We had to cross a major street in order to get there; a sign told us that the nearest crosswalks were 200m in either direction. So we picked one and walked. About this time, the sun came up. 400m later we found the crossing, crossed, then walked the fuck back up the street. We passed the building (BECAUSE IT'S NOT LABELED) but then eventually found it.

We had been told to arrive super-early because the lines are always long; that it's a cauldron of inefficiency; that we were basically in for a Moscow circa 88 breadline. We walked in, picked up a form, and were seen immediately. Immediately. The place was empty. I guess it's POSSIBLE that ten minutes after we left, half the population of the city showed up, but when we got there there was just... nobody. Ghost town, yo.

We took the police report form. We wrote down our names. Our birthdates. Our places of birth. Our parents' names. Tension was thick. Our securing the residence depended on our police records being totally clean. Did we have unpaid British parking tickets? Had Stephanie ever done a turn in the Gulag and not mentioned it? Sweat beaded on my forehead. Suspicious glances cast back and forth.

We handed the forms and our passports over to the nice old ladies behind the glass. They looked at our forms that we had filled out in front of them, looked at our passport pictures, stamped the form, and asked for 50kc.

That was it. It took like seven seconds. They didn't type ANYTHING into their computers. They checked to see if the names we wrote down matched the names on the passports we gave them. They charged us three bucks apiece and sent us on our way.

When we got back outside, it turned out that there was a crosswalk twelve feet away from the building, and not 400m away. So we crossed.

And then went to Starbucks to show these commies how we roll in the US of A.

Find Me In Da Club

2008-09-07T06:14:00.001-04:00

Did I go out? I went out. Put on my hat and left my home. Pub crawl? What? Yes but.

Got to Bohemia Bagel. Like stepping off the streets of Prague into a cafe on Avenue B and 10th Street. LIFE like in the old days with Stipek tending bar. With computers and coffee and signs telling Americans to vote. 300 crowns and a wristband and all the beer you can drink until 10pm. But standing there when somebody else (somebody else? what is with the Czech Republic?) that I know from home runs up and says she thought she saw me on the street and now here I am. And now there she is. Shaved her head. Looks awesome. Really just amazing. I'm HUGE in Europe.

So TEFL in Prague and NYU in Prague. I'm the landbridge between the two and as we move around the corner we wristbanded many to be handed something in a shot glass and DON'T STOP BELIEVING blasting on the whatsit. Boogie like I never done boogied before. Keeping one eye on my hat as it makes its way head to head across the crowded floor. Hope I get it back. SHIT hope I don't get headlice. Whatever for the moment just DON'T STOP BELIEVING. Everybody smokes and smokes and smokes and smokes and I am going to smell rancid. Ah, well. Cost/benefit.

On and on an on to the next one. This club is all blue. And so is whatever the thing is the bartender hands me in the glass. But it's delicious too. YAY FOR BLUE DELICIOUS. And so more dancing and shaking and then it is 11:15 and I have no no no effing idea how to get home after the train stops running. Short of taking a cab. Which no. So I say I'm going to leave and then I am talkedguilted into staying and I relent and then when nobody is looking I leave anyway.

The moonlight hits the cobblestone streets. The ancient buildings to either side of me. The path turns ahead of me, and I just follow it as it curves.

Waterfalls!

2008-07-13T01:31:00.003-04:00

More photos of my Waterfalls Expotition: here!

On Why I May Actually Vote for Ralph Fucking Nader

2008-07-12T13:46:00.002-04:00

Here is the Oath of Office that is sworn upon becoming President of the United States:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Here is the text of the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

I have been a fervent supporter of Barack Obama. I have campaigned for him. I have donated money to him. But I was wrong about him.

George W. Bush has repeatedly and brazenly broken the law. He has knowingly defied the Fourth Amendment over and over and over again. And Barack Obama just cast a vote saying "Hey, you know what? No big deal."

No. No no. No no no. Fuck that.

The Oath of Office says basically just one thing: "I will uphold the Constitution." Obama thinks it's OK for the President to defy the Constitution. Therefore, Obama is unqualified for the office of the Presidency. That is the entire fucking job.

This is the thing. This is the deal breaker for me.

Look: of course he's still "better" than John McCain (who ~~cast an identical vote~~ cast no vote, but said he also would have voted for it, by the way); but this is like saying an elephant would make a better second baseman than a rhinoceros. They are both fundamentally unqualified. They both believe that the single job requirement is moot.

And I may have to look elsewhere on the ballot this year.

Table 16

2008-06-30T16:28:00.001-04:00

This is the other one, that I didn't even submit.

Cheery!

Prompt 8: A husband and wife are meeting in a restaurant to finalize the terms of their impending divorce. Write the scene from the point of view of a busboy snorting cocaine in the restroom.

These two fucks come in here about an hour or two ago and sit over at table 16 which is like where I have the worst fucking luck with everything it’s cursed or something has been forever. I’m free and clear so far’s I can tell what with the two fucks order just coffee which means my job is cake just step in when they’re gone two cups two saucers single wipedown bing bing bing. Finally for once like in ever have some fucking decent table 16 luck I’m thinking except they’ve sat there for like a full 40 minutes and I guess haven’t so much as had sip one of the coffee because of the I guess importance of their conversation which includes fucking papers and signatures and which looks like six motherfucking different types of bad news since they’re both so serious and fucking intense except then one of them then must like take a sip of the cold sick coffee and it’s fucking cold and and this is just as I’m walking by so the one of these fucks says ‘can we get a couple a fresh cups’ and like nudges them toward me so what am I supposed to do except say ‘yessir’ but my throat is fucking dry so I don’t say nothing I just pick up the cups and then like immediately drop one. Table motherfucking 16, right? Which means I get an earful from Bill about it like it’s my fucking fault I’m feeling a little bit shaky today it’s like I’ve been looking at these two fucks staring intently and whispering and shit in like hushed voices and it’s starting to freak me out and the radio is playing fucking I wish that I had Jessie’s girl and I’m fucked up. I dropped a cup. And I’m sitting there, kneeling, scrubbing the ugly mulch fucking carpet like the shit isn’t covered with stains and footprints and shit and these two fucks are just talking and pausing and saying ‘visitation’ and shit and ‘separate residences’ and fucking ‘mutual property’ and shit and I figure what’s going on. And I just want to stand up and throw my fucking rag down on the carpet and go listen, OK, listen. Let me tell you what, OK, just burn it. Whatever the two of you fucks’ve got, just burn it. All. You don’t want it. You won’t. For the rest of your lives you’ll see this shit and it will like all you’ll think about is the fucking fights and the bullshit and the how the other one’ve you fucked it up good. But I don’t say shit I just scrub. And then Bill says ‘hurry’ like I’m not fucking scrubbing. And then the one fuck leaves and I tell Bill I gotta piss and he gives me this fucking look and I can tell the other one is right outside the door waiting for me to be done because I can hear her crying but she just has to wait her turn cause I’m gonna do one more I gotta do something to get these shakes to stop. And I know she’s in no fucking hurry. She’s got nothing to go home to.

Quietly Leaning Against

2008-06-30T16:18:00.003-04:00

Almost two years ago exactly, McSweeney's Internet Tendency had a contest of sorts after they printed 13 Writing Prompts. I submitted one. It did not, of course, win. But I just realized I had never put it up. So! Behold my brilliance!

Prompt 5.
A wasp called the tarantula hawk reproduces by paralyzing tarantulas and laying its eggs into their bodies. When the larvae hatch, they devour the still living spider from the inside out. Isn't that fucked up? Write a short story about how fucked up that is.

*****

Go with me here. You're sitting at home. Say it's a Thursday night. You're curled up with a book and a pint of your favorite beverage. The book is a good one, and you've never read it before. The beverage is delicious. Even if it's water, it's the best water you've tasted. It's the perfect balance of hydrogen, oxygen, and the other shit that's in there. It's that post-dinner pre-darkness time of day. You have a very nice lamp, which is illuminating your text. Illuminating like casting light on it, not like drawing intense designs in the margins. It's late summer, maybe just about to be autumn. You can hear the kids playing baseball in the park. They're just tossing the ball around. Outside of the U.S.A., they're kicking a slightly larger ball around, having wholesome fun. If it's wine, or a cocktail, you probably shouldn't have a whole pint, although whatever makes you happy. Urbanites scratch the kids and add in people walking by on the street below, voices modulated and happy-sounding. Rural folk make it crickets and frogs and a lonesome car on the distant highway. So. You've just passed the halfway point, and the book's starting to get very good. Do you like music while you're reading? There can be some music. At just that perfect volume between annoyingly-too-quiet and slightly-distracting. There's somebody in the room with you, if you want, also enjoying a book. Or knitting, or something. Or you can be alone. Whatever. You're comfortable, is the point. You're comfortable in your favorite spot, wearing your favorite clothes, in socks that are thick enough to keep your feet nice and toasty but soft enough that they feel like bunny slippers. You go to turn the next page. Only you can't. The page has ended mid-sentence, and you wish to turn the page to finish the line, but you can't move your arm. You're sitting there, staring at the last few words on page 184, and you can't move your hand to turn the page. Which is weird. So you're going to put the book down and massage your shoulder or elbow, and make a quizzical expression and wonder, perhaps aloud, what's going on. Except you can't put the book down, and you can't massage your arm, and you can't use the telephone. You are unable to move. Completely. Can't wiggle your fingers. Can't adjust your position. You can't even take your eyes from those last few words on the page: "quietly leaning against" "quietly leaning against" "quietly leaning against." This is ridiculous, right? You're in perfect health. You were moving only a moment ago, when you put your drink down on the table. You can't move, can't swallow, and what's more pressing is you can't blink. Your eyes are open quietly leaning against and you can't even blink or close your eyes quietly leaning against for just a second to get your bearings and figure out what's going on. You are unable to call for help. And now you realize that you cannot breathe. And then, for the first time, you feel it. You feel the first nibble somewhere deep within you. In your stomach. Or your chest. Just the tiniest nibble. A sharp, sudden pain. And then sharper and more intense. And then sharper and beyond anything you've ever known. You fucking hurt. Something is deeply, deeply wrong inside of you. You want nothing more than to clutch your stomach and scream in agony, because something is biting you. Something that you cannot see is eating you from the inside. Your parched throat and drying eyes are nothing to you now because your chest is a cavity filled with teeth, malevolent teeth, quietly leaning against which are devouring your lungs your heart your quietly leaning against core. Your very center. This is not cancer, this is not your body against itself. Something is inside of you, and it is biting you. You can feel it in your neck. In your genitals. Nothing could possibly be worse than this. You would pray, but to whom? What kind of sick fuck god would let you be consumed from the inside, bite by bite? What kind of sick fuck would want you to be eaten alive like this? Sitting in your home on a Thursday night with a book and a drink just trying to relax. And now you're here, unable to move, paralyzed, being consumed. quietly leaning against. And now you picture the creature inside of you. The teeth inside of you. And you picture your own childhood. Birthed alive and held and nurtured and fed and played with and supported and loved in light and in comfort. Not like these teeth. These teeth that were born in you and in the instant of birth began to dig their way out of you. As a test of survival. The first moments of this precious fucking life not spent being held by mother in a warm, soft room coming face to face with existence. The first moments of life spent devouring. Taking the life of another being. This, unluckily for you, is you. For this new creature to survive, you must be devoured whole. Tough fucking luck, huh? If it makes it out of your chest, out of your brain, out of the tough skin around your ankle, it will get to live, and you will not. You will be left a husk. Deflated flesh. quietly leaning against. Oh fucking well, right? Here you are with pain so horrifyingly so abjectly terrible that you now find yourself cheering on the teeth. Come on, teeth. That's right motherfucker. If this is your lot in this miserable life then good fucking luck and please hurry. Please now. Hurry. You have given up because from this pain there is no turning back. Your liver and kidneys are being eaten bite by bite. Just please hurry now. quietly leaning against.

So. Is this what life is.

You'd be into that?

2008-06-07T13:17:00.001-04:00

Hillary probably didn't mean this the way it sounds:

If we can blast fifty women into space, one day we will launch a woman into the White House.

Un Memoriam Mega-Post 2

2008-05-27T22:35:00.002-04:00

The Last Unicorn

The Great Mouse Detective

The Indian in the Cupboard

and

The Return of the Indian

Also! The new podcast! The second volume of AuD(i)ocent takes you on a tour of the Merchant's House Museum. Love it. Love it.

One Day

2008-05-15T12:16:00.002-04:00

Carrie handed me her new Moleskine last night and said "Write something in here" and then this is what I wrote.

One day the world will
And one day you shall
And one day I too will
And one day together we
And another day the sun
And later that day the rest of
And sometime beyond our
The whole of the universe
And then who knows what
will
And who can say what
shall
But it's true it's true
it's true
So let's dance as much as

The Un-Memoriam Mega-Post

2008-03-25T10:57:00.002-04:00

I've been writing about things!

The Magician's Nephew!

Un Memoriam is a new column in which I’m going to be reviewing my nostalgia. Which is to say, I’m going to be taking things I’m nostalgic for (or “for which I’m nostalgic” if you’re one of THOSE people), writing about why I remember liking them, and reviewing them now that I’m old and wise. This will mostly be YA novels and movies (to be more specific, probably mostly YA fantasy novels and, uh, Disney movies), but something else might sneak in here occasionally, too (food, or activities, or board games, or what have you). I plan to keep this column up until one of three things happens:

1) I run out of stuff.
2) I get too sad and prefer to live a life of intense ignorance.
3) Umm… profit? I guess there were only two reasons.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe!

Before JK Rowling flew in on her broomstick and obliterated all comers, there was a time when CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was the go-to young adult fantasy novel. Everyone I knew loved it. Or maybe everyone I loved knew it. Whichever, it was one of my favorite books when I was a lad. There’s a decent chance that it was one of your favorite books too, right? I’ll acknowledge that it may have just been ubiquitous around me because I grew up in a very conservative, very Christian San Diego suburb… but no, I’m pretty sure it had reached critical mass elsewhere as well. Everybody loves lions, everybody loves witches, and my goodness gracious who doesn’t love a wardrobe? Universal appeal!

The Horse and His Boy!

It’s great. Seriously. It’s great. So yes, I’m flabbergasted. The characters are compelling and complicated and fleshed out, the quest they’re on is exciting and beautifully written, and the authorial voice seems far less ‘dictated into a tape recorder’ rather than ‘you know, actually written out’. I read without cringing at every page turn. I actually laughed at some of the jokes. I cared about the characters, and thought they made good decisions. For the most part, it’s wonderful.

Prince Fucking Caspian!

Oh, man. OOOOOH MAN. Nothing happens in Prince Caspian. “Prince Caspian” is barely in Prince Caspian, which seems like an odd choice, but whatever. And it’s not like I remembered it being awesome. All that I remembered about this volume before picking it back up again was that at one point, a boy and an old man were standing on a rooftop, looking at stars. About halfway through reading, I realized that what I was remembering was the cover art.

More to come. Soon and soon.

Cost/Benefit Analysis

2008-03-25T10:55:00.002-04:00

Winter: Cold, but I can breathe.
Spring: Warm, but I can't breathe.

I'm not sure which is better. I'd try to break it down and figure it out but I HAVE TO BLOW MY NOSE AGAIN.

Should Have Done This Earlier

2008-02-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

Come one. Come all. Come giggle. Tomorrow. With us.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Perv.

Ad Nauseam Lyceum

PRESENTS

Sex, Lies and February... a pageant?
a play-reading what teaches us the true meaning of February.

by Thanksgiving! A! Pageant! playwright David McGee
"directed" by Deena Selenow

featuring
Preston Martin, Slaney Chadwick Ross, Mark Lindberg, Elon Rutberg, Karina Richardson
&
introducing Laura "Moss" O'Brien as Ma Groundhog

THIS Caturday, February 16 @ 7pm
159 West 119th Street @ Adam Clayton Powell Blvd.
There will be beer. There will be laughs. There will be groundhogs.

- - -

THEN join us NEXT week at
- - -

Ad Nauseam Lyceum

PRESENTS

BIG WHITE INSTITUTIONALIZED BOX!

a collaborative installation project

Saturday, February 23 & Sunday, February 24
12 - 8 PM

Reception Saturday February 23 from 5 - 8 PM

chashama on 119th
159 West 119th Street @ Adam Clayton Powell Blvd.

Ad Nauseam Lyceum is proud to present BIG WHITE INSTITUTIONALIZED BOX! a collaborative installation project at chashama on 119th on Saturday, February 23 and Sunday, February 24, 2008.

Ad Nauseam Lyceum has been granted a chashama residency for the month of February at a defunct storefront on 119th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. Instead of curating a traditional group show as we have done in the past, Ad Nauseam Lyceum will use this unique opportunity to explore new territory as an organization and to utilize the distinct talents and interests of our community of artists. BIG WHITE INSTITUTIONALIZED BOX! is a collaborative art installation created by Brent Birnbaum, Matthew Broach, Celso and the Endless Love Crew, Ryan Frank, Scott Goodman, David Herman, Peter Lester, David Ort, Joan Pamboukes, Tara Parsons, Jake Scharbach, Deena Selenow, Rory Sheridan, Adam Parker Smith and Kyle Walters.

Ad Nauseam Lyceum will present a large scale collaborative installation that reflects the distinct connections and conflicts between various artistic mediums, styles, and processes in which artists are working today. By engaging with the space in alternative and experimental ways, Ad Nauseam Lyceum and its collaborators aim to explore and expose how different types of work can relate to each other through the context of the exhibition display. With some artists working independently and others in collaboration, this ambitious project will present work in a setting that resembles the sanctuary of the artist's studio and outside the confines of a commercial gallery. Created through the communal efforts of over fifteen artists, BIG WHITE INSTITUTIONALIZED BOX! will be an alternative to the traditional group exhibition and exist as an experimentation in curatorial practice.

Ad Nauseam Lyceum is an artist run organization committed to showcasing multi-disciplinary work by emerging artists in New York . The group aims to give young artists an opportunity to collaborate, present work, and have a creative dialogue outside the traditional art market. Founded in 2006 by Ryan Frank, Deena Selenow, and Rory Sheridan , the group has hosted previous events at Ephemeroptera Art Space, chashama, 717 Studio, and EXPLOSIVO! and has collectively shown the work of over 50 visual and performing artists. Dedicated to blurring the lines between various artistic genres, Ad Nauseam Lyceum is a platform for a new generation of artists working in performance, visual art, and digital media.

chashama is a non-profit New York City arts organization with a nine-year history of supporting artists of all genres and experience levels by offering them access to space and major support resources. chashama provides opportunities for artists by transforming vacant real estate into multi-arts complexes and animating them with innovative and challenging art. Through low and no-cost admissions, chashama provides more opportunities for audiences as well as artists.

BIG WHITE INSTITUTIONALIZED BOX! will be open for a final presentation on February 23rd and 24th from 12-8pm,
with an opening reception on Saturday, February 23rd from 5-8pm.

--
Ad Nauseam Lyceum
adnauseamlyceum@gmail.com
www.adnaus.com

Obama-Morris-Jumel!

2008-02-03T20:03:00.000-05:00

Two down, twenty to go!

Stephanie and I set out this morning for a day of Obama canvassing, and historic house visiting. Which is just about the best day I can imagine. We walked around Haarlem (real New Amsterdamers use two A's!) handing out fliers and hanging up signs in business windows (with permission) and at bus stops (without permission). We wore Big Ol' Blue Stickers, we wore buttons on our hats, and lo, did we encourage the masses to go out on Tuesday and vote for our candidate of choice. Our neighborhood, which had been strangely empty of political signs of any sort, is now covered in Obama material. Apparently, some people make their voting decisions based on, like, printed material they see hung around their homes? That's... strange. But, OK, I'll go with it. Does it work on the Internet too? Just in case:

So go vote, damnit.

After we performed our civic duty or whatever, we headed up to the Morris-Jumel Mansion, which is in Washington Heights. British Colonel Roger Morris caused the house to be built in 1765 as a summer home, and at the time owned a parcel of land that extended from river to river across Manhattan. That's not so possible anymore, but luckily the house still exists, on a nice little piece of land that still has a fairly nice view. It just has a fairly nice view of an entirely developed island, instead of the wilderness that Morris must have looked over.

During the autumn of 1776, the house was George Washington's home and headquarters. Oh. So Washington Heights is not just a clever name, then. Later, the house was captured by the English, who taxed the HELL out of its tea. After the colonies won the war (spoiler!) and George Washington was President, he brought members of his family and cabinet back to the house for a sight-seeing trip. Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton all dined together in the, er, dining room. We felt appropriately awed, I think.
Later, the house was purchased by Stephen and Eliza Jumel. When he died, she married Aaron Burr, who shot up the dining room in retroactive Hamiltonian spite. Not really. Well, maybe. They didn't specifically say he didn't do it I guess. Anyway, this was his (Burr's) bedroom.

Now that I've made your browser work to look at this post, I might as well keep it up, right? Here's me on the stairwell doing my best to look regal:

Here's Stephanie looking toward the place where the herb garden once was:

Here's the octagonal room, which was apparently an architectural marvel at the time:

A mirror, featuring the reflection of Eliza's bedroom:

And, finally, the end of another wonderful expotition.

Oh, hell.

2008-01-02T22:49:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Chuck Klosterman (this one) and my old nemesis has returned: I'm not writing like me I'm writing like the writer I just finished reading. I was all set to get to work on my next thing for readingground and I started writing Untitled Klosterman Essay 42 instead of Untitled Dave McGee Essay 6, Or Whatever Number I'm At But It's Low.

I fucking hate that. Gah.

This is why I stopped reading fiction for a while back there in Aught Five, because I am such a mental-flow-junkie that I just steal unabashedly. Or in this case, totally abashedly. I am fully, 100% abashed. Not sure what to do here, because apparently non-fiction is now verboten as well. Backs of cereal boxes and nothing else, forever?

Hmm. OK.

Step 1: Read David Mitchell. Can't copy him because he's a chameleon. Brilliant.
Step 2: ?
Step 3: This joke is probably overused.

Jack Hitt, Redux

2007-12-13T09:52:00.000-05:00

More Jack Hitt! More! More!

This week, This American Life is rerunning the (this?) episode "The Middle of Nowhere" which includes Jack Hitt's fantastic piece on Nauru, as well as a really fun non-Hitt segment on battles with the phone company's billing department.

This has been one of my favorite episodes since I first heard it, but at the time of first listen, I did not know who Jack Hitt was. Coming back 'round to it this time, I was delighted to, in the words of the old saying "put two" and "two together."

The episode will be available for free download until 12/14/07, after which STREAMING!

In other news:

Today: Snow this morning will become a mix of wintry precipitation for the afternoon. Some rain may mix in late. Temps nearly steady in the mid 30s. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Snow accumulating 2 to 4 inches.
Tonight: Rain and sleet this evening ending with continued cloudy conditions overnight. Snow mixing in. Low 31F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precip 70%.

Good grief, sometimes I miss California.

Beverage Note(s)

2007-12-06T22:42:00.001-05:00

Tall Soy Peppermint Mocha at Starbucks Part 1: Absolutely delicious.
Tall Soy Peppermint Mocha at Starbucks Part 2: Still not worth $4.50.

Expotition

2007-11-30T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Cloisters Museum in Manhattan is one of my favorite places in New York, which places it high in the running for one of my favorite places in the world. Stephanie and I make it a point to go at least a couple of times a year, although we prefer it best in autumn. Wandering up (the long way!) through Fort Tryon Park to approach it from the South, seeing it first in the distance and then seeing it loom glorious, large, right up close... it feels like a pilgrimage writ small. If you'll pardon the not particularly awesome simile. There's a grandness there, is what I'm trying to say.

Last Saturday, we headed out for our Annual Autumnal Visit, with the gorgeous walk and the crunching leaves underfoot and just the most beautiful crisp day. The sky was blue, the trees were many-hued, and we had packed lunch because we are poor. The walk was--as expected--lovely, but when we got in the front door EEP! Crowded. Far too crowded. Crowded crowded crowded.

I... am not a fan of crowds. We backed slowly out the door. We basically have the museum memorized, at this point-- it's not as if we're missing out on the art. Had it been our first trip, we certainly would have braved it. But as I find stillness part of its appeal (it's *Cloisters* please recall), an alternate suggestion was proffered: what if we were to just... walk North? Already being near the upper tip of Manhattan, it wouldn't be that long of a walk to just head up there and see it. Exploring new neighborhoods is one of my most favorite things to do, and we had a beautiful day, and good walking shoes, and basically no reason not to go.

Alors: we went.

After clearing the northern edge of the park, we just struck out northerly on Broadway. We joked about the stores. We thought about stopping for a 1pm beer (Woo!). We looked into a very small branch of the New York Public Library. And then, across the street, we saw what appeared to be an 18th Century Dutch Farmhouse.

Guess the hell what? IT WAS AN 18th CENTURY DUTCH FARMHOUSE. Still there. Remaining from the time that upper New York was forests and farmland. Yes, we had found the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum which was completely empty of other people (except for the lovely Emily who did her graduate work in Museum Studies and who is the keeper of the Farmhouse Museum. She is super-cool and we want to be her friends). We had traded the crowded to capacity museum for one in which we were literally the only guests.

So yes. $1 entrance fee, and we had ourselves the run of the house. Each of the rooms is marked with an excellent description of of its contents (and how they are different now than they were then). It's very well curated, except for an oddly out-of-place exhibit that contained an "explanation" of what it means to be Dutch. I thought that either needed to be expanded or scrapped... but other than that the place was very cool. Outside the house proper there are plaques (plastic plaques. plasques?) explaining the history of the house, showing the placement of the old well, explaining what a Hessian Hut is, commenting on the renovation of the grounds in the early 20th Century. There's a way that places like that have of giving me--just for a moment--an idea or a fleeting feeling of how things used to be that is thrilling. Just thrilling.

It is, in a word, fantastically freaking cool. Three words. In three words, I meant.

And the best thing of all is that there are 21 more homes kept as museums by the Historic House Trust of New York City. Meaning that I have my next few free weekend days planned out.

If you're heading up to the Cloisters anyway (you should, really) spare an hour to check it out. You'll get to stand in a house that's been kept there since Washington was chillin'. A real honest to goodness bit of intact U.S. History. Good. Stuff.

So: we made it up to the top of Manhattan, crossed the river to the Bronx, and attempted to take the subway back downtown. The station was closed.

We walked. Which was the better choice anyway.

I'm also a client.

2007-11-20T00:11:00.000-05:00

There is no longer any way to hide it, to deny it, or to pretend it isn't happening.

It's happening. It's happening right now, and you know it. You've been ignoring it for too long, not saying anything, tiptoeing around the issue. This is inexcusable. We can't afford that any longer. It's time to face the facts:

I am going bald.

And I believe I speak for everyone here when I say: fuck.

If you'll allow me to get introspective and all self-image focused and all... well... "bloggy" for a second (you are, after all, at my blog, and should have been expecting it) this realization has put me through the emotional ringer. I've been in a funk for the better part of the week (not the good kind, where the bass riff is all groovy). Stephanie noticed before I did, and asked me earlier this week if anything was wrong. "Yes," I didn't say, "That's why I've been all moody and binge-eating like I just found out that starting on Wednesday there won't be any more food ever." Instead I said "Of course not, I'm fine!" and then I started in on my fifth or sixth helping of dinner and sort of stared at the floor for an hour. "Just fine!"

Oh, and I also have vitiligo. Which means that eventually, I may turn into, basically, a naked mole rat. Pigmentless, hairless, I shall have no choice but to burrow deep, deep underground where I shall not be mocked by the harsh light of the sun or the sound of woman screaming "Dear God, what is that thing?"

Many men, of course, go bald. This is true. Great men, from Patrick Stewart to Mikhail Gorbachev to Bruce Willis lose their hair and still find ways to explore strange new worlds, bring down communism, or pretend to have hair (respectively). There's probably a market for an Everybody Poops-type book for men called A Lot of Men Go Bald And It Doesn't Mean You're Ugly It Just Means You're Special In A Hairless Way actually, you know what? Scratch the book idea.

So, yes. I'm troubled by the fact that I'm losing my hair. I'm also troubled by the fact that I'm SO DAMN TROUBLED by the fact that I'm losing my hair. I would not have thought that I was so vain. It's unfortunate that my self-image--a non-vain person with hair--would suddenly be so wrong (on two counts!). I wish that I were not distressed about this, but it turns out that I am. Which really bothers me.

I can, of course, justify it by saying that I'm not concerned about my appearance, I'm just concerned about getting older. In much the same way that my brother (that hairy bastard) said "Oh... I'm sorry" several years ago when I told him I was getting glasses. "Why?" I asked, honestly bewildered. "I just remember what it was like when I started feeling that I was getting old," he responded with a sigh. I didn't feel it then. I definitely feel it now. There was at least a good chance that I would go bald in my life. I just didn't think it would happen at 25 years of age. Look at him. Look at him there with his long flowing locks.
Unfortunately, I don't think there are a lot of good options, here. As Dave Barry once wrote,

Should balding white men shave their heads, the way many African-American men, such as Michael Jordan, do?

A. No. It's not fair, but the simple truth is that balding African-American men look cool when they shave their heads, whereas balding white men look like giant thumbs.

Was true then, is true now. I don't really want to rock the Picard, I would never ever ever do a comb-over or that spider's nest thing that some old guys do, and I'm really interested in not looking like I'm pretending it's not happening. In fact, I promised myself that if I were ever going bald, I would cut my hair really short, which seems to be the only reasonable answer. Well that day is upon us. I must keep my promise to myself, methinks. My clippers and I have an appointment tonight.

I know that there are hair-regrowth remedies that have met with some measure of success. Last week, on the recommendation of a fellow balding 20-something, I picked up some Rogaine Foam, which I rather think has increased the speed of my hair loss.

I don't like that this is happening, I don't like my emotional reaction to it, and, yes, I don't like thinking about getting older.

This sucks, you know?

Only thing left to do is to compensate by growing a Civil War Mustache. That'll woo the ladies.

Sigh.

Thanksgiving! A! Pageant!

2007-11-13T15:29:00.001-05:00

Said pageant features Slaney Chadwick Ross, Briana Mowrey, Preston Martin, Albert Hwang, Derrick Karg, Pearce Larson and intoducing Elon Rutberg as Squanto.

Look, either you're paying $10 for a hilarious show and you get to drink for free, or you're paying $10 for an hour of drinking and you get a hilarious show free. Either one of those is worth $10 but--and here's where it gets really clever--you're going to get both of them.

So come to Greenpoint on Saturday. Trust me, I don't like Brooklyn any more than you do (and possibly substantially less than you do), but it's going to be worth it.

Mouth 3, Dave 0

2007-10-24T12:30:00.001-04:00

Two canker sores this week, and now I have a major tongue cramp. Tongue cramp? Who the hell gets a tongue cramp?

Me. And ouch.

Act V

2007-10-19T15:45:00.000-04:00

Well, I just spent the last 30 minutes or so sobbing, while attempting to, you know, do my job. Maybe the rule to take away from this is: don't listen to This American Life while at work.

This week's episode -- which I've heard before and which still got this reaction out of me -- is called Act V.

We devote this entire episode to one story: over the course of six months, reporter and TAL contributor Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act—Act V—of Hamlet. Shakespeare may seem like an odd match for a group of hardened criminals, but Jack found that they understand the Bard on a level that most of us might not. It's a play about murder and its consequences, performed by murderers living out the consequences.

Get them handkerchiefs ready.

The journalist/reporter/narrator of the story is Jack Hitt. I'm turning out to be quite a fan of his. After reading his essay "Mighty White of You" in Harpers Magazine (you can read it online if you're a subscriber (which is worth it) or if you, um, email me and ask nicely) I purchased his book Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim's Route Into Spain.

Get some Jack Hitt in your life, people. You'll be glad you did.

Chess'd! Review

2007-10-18T16:34:00.000-04:00

For archiving purposes, I'm putting up the www.nytheatre.com review of my play "Chess'd!" that I produced this summer for the breedingground Spring Fever Festival '07.

For what it's worth, I think this review is fair and, ultimately, correct in its criticism. It's nice to read a review of something that I wrote and think, "Oh, the reviewer totally got it: its faults, and its SHEER EFFING GENIUS."

I'm fairly certain that, barring a cosmic event, I'll never ever produce a play ever again. I like acting. I really like directing. I love writing. Producing? Egads. Count me out.

Now I'm going to go find out if anybody has pictures of this show anywhere.

nytheatre.com review
Daniel Kelley · May 19, 2007

Chess'd! is a comic romp through the absurd and hilarious world of a ninja and a man in a white tuxedo playing a game of epic, life-sized chess. The players, both eager for victory, quickly disregard all the rules of the game in favor of doing everything in their power to destroy the other. It is only then, as the ninja and the man in the white tuxedo spin out of control, that a mysterious man with a Southern accent appears from nowhere, with a team of incompetent medics that changes everything.

Chess'd! succeeds most as a straight-up comedy. The clever, at times ingenious comic writing, combined with dead-on performances, direction, and design help make Chess'd! hilarious from start to finish. It succeeds less as an allegory for the abuse of power. A lack of clarity as to what each character represents, and how the world around them works, leaves the symbolism of the play unclear.

As a comedy, however, the play is without reproach. David McGee's writing is crisp, specific and clever. The individual gags are carefully constructed and expertly executed, whether it's "The Man's" increasingly lengthy and involved calls to Jesus Christ, the double-dialogue between the Ninja and White Tuxedo as they sheepishly attempt to explain their carnage, or (perhaps the funniest moment in the play) when the irate "Man" gets the wrong kind of coffee.

Deena Selenow's direction provides an excellent frame for the talented ensemble. Owen O'Malley is solid, and at times endearing, as White Tuxedo. Pearce Larson as The Man and Joby Earle as Ninja do a skillful job of fully committing to the language and style of the piece. Though Larson enters later on, his performance commands the second half and delivers the single funniest moment in the entire play. Joshua William Gelb's set and Denise Maroney's costume design manage the epic scope of the piece with simple yet imaginative choices that work well, and accentuate the fun theatricality of the piece.

But where the fun is supposed to give way to symbolism, confusion prevails. While Ninja and White Tuxedo do everything in their power to destroy each other, I remained unclear as to how their actions affect the world around them. While I enjoyed their battling and laughed my way through it, it didn't feel resonant with the current state of affairs in the world. It felt as though the play was being funny for the sake of being funny, which was something I thought it did very well, and I was wiling to accept it at that.

However, the sense of how this play relates to the real world, and what exactly the play is trying to say, becomes more important as the play progresses. McGee (to his credit) seems intent on making the play something more than the absurd comedy we are initially presented with. However, McGee's world beyond the absurd is somewhat muddled, and the symbolism indecisive. I was uncertain what role the medics have in the world of the play, and what they were meant to represent. I was uncertain why the Ninja and White Tuxedo were so different from them and why they had to escape them. The epilogue, given by "Other Medic", attempts to clarify what has come before, and to give it some weight. The writing is strong, but the conclusion's somber tone is jarring considering what has occurred previously; it feels tacked on. However, the very last line returns the play to its absurd core, and causes the audience to burst out laughing once again.

Invincible Cities

2007-10-12T12:40:00.000-04:00

I found out about Camilo José Vergara’s photography here, at the New York Times' "City Room" blog. And now, verily, I am a fan. Vergara is chronicling "urban change" in three communities: Richmond, California; Camden, New Jersey; and Harlem. Where I live. Yesterday's post featured the exterior of my building in 1987. Not much has changes since then (landmarked status, baby!) but there are now trees in the avenue's median. And the cars parked outside are newer. Slightly. Those metal fences you see in this shot are new, though. They are much better than rotting chain link. There are now very bright security lights and security cameras now, as well as 24 hour 2-guard patrol. Which is nice. All of that is nice. I'm not complaining.

But something else comes with those kinds of changes. Something... maybe not so nice.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about Vergara's project is that he has taken photographs of the same buildings or storefronts over a period of years to chronicle how neighborhoods change over time. For instance, the website features over 20 pictures of 65 E. 125th Street, taken between 1977 and 2007, which illustrate its metamorphosis over the past 30 years from an empty but charming storefront into a bright & shiny Sleepy's Matress Store. It's been a chip shop, a bodega, and much else along the way.

Yes, it's gentrification. Or civic beautification. Or something. It's definitely... complicated. It's nice to have services around home, yes. But... but...

Look. A few blocks from where I live, the corner of 145th Street and Frederick Douglass Blvd. has undergone an unbelievable change. It's almost incredible. Gentrification, you have been photographed. Here's the corner in 1998.
Here is the same corner--no shit--today.
We've got a Starbucks now, people. I'm sure another one will open right across from it soon.

Haarlem!

2007-10-11T15:25:00.000-04:00

Hey look! I live here!

2006-10-07T10:31:00.000-04:00

The Play -- "The Taming of the Shrew: The Induction: Parts 1 and 2, by William Shakespeare and David J. McGee (Respectively), With a New Induction by David J. McGee (Respectfully)"

The Title -- Is very silly

When -- Monday, October 9th at 7pm and Sunday, October 15th at 1pm

Shouldn't you have alerted me earlier than this? -- Yes.

Where -- Hudson Guild Theater, Located in the John Lovejoy Elliot Center, 441 West 26th Street btwn 9th & 10th Avenues

How much does this cost?-- "Pay what you can." We both know what that means.

What's the play about? Is it funny? Does it suck? -- It's picking up the ball that Shakespeare dropped. The producer called it "An absurd riff on Shakespeare, New York theater, and the nature of reality," although that's Raimondo. So, you know. Does it suck? I don't think so. Come prove me otherwise.

I'm in a play, though, and can't be there -- You're dark on Monday, and you know it.

But it's Columbus Day. -- Suck it up, now.

Who is in it? -- Owen O'Malley, Joshua William Gelb, Stephanie Douglass, Dylan Dawson, Elon Rutberg, Joby Earle, Blackey Fontaine, and Heather Caruso.

I know some of those people! -- So come support them!

How do I get tickets? -- E-mail specevents@dreamscapetheatre.org

Can we hang out sometime? -- That would be cool.

Anything else? -- I would sure love to see you. Especially you. You know who you are. So be there. Please. :)

2006-09-25T19:12:00.000-04:00

Today, I finished listening to an audio recording of Michael Frayn's novel Headlong, and began listening to Haruki Murakami's novel Kafka on the Shore. These are both authors that I adore-- Frayn for his brilliance writing plays (Copenhagen, Noises Off), Murakami for his always thrilling fiction (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle). I greatly enjoyed Headlong, and listened in rapt attention for over four hours to Kafka on the Shore.

Any audio-book recommendations? Particularly good recordings, or just particularly great books? Good rule of thumb here is the longer the better, because my job is very boring which gives me ample time to listen.

Also: is there any reason why I shouldn't listen to (rather than actually read) Ulysses? Discuss.

2006-09-23T10:37:00.000-04:00

Here's some syntactical oddness: when discussing actors' work, my preposition changes depending on the medium. For instance, I would say that Terry O'Quinn was in The Rocketeer, but that he is on Lost. Does this have to do with the fact that we say that programs are on television, where we tend to day that they're in movie theatres? How did this distinction develop anyway? We also say on radio. At least I do. Is this just me? No, it can't be. Is this worth my first blog post in six months?

2006-04-27T22:24:00.000-04:00

I'm amused. I wrote this in early 2005, and rediscovered it today. Ha.

How To Make An American Solo Show

It’s in your best interest to begin your solo show interestingly. That way the audience is interested in what you have to say. Probably what you have to say isn’t very interesting, but that’s why you’re doing a solo show and not writing a book. If it were interesting, you could write a book about it and sell it in stores across the world, translated into 80 languages, and become a millionaire instead of jumping around on a pogo stick in a black room on the lower east side with 6 of your closest friends in attendance because they knew you’d be mad at them if they didn’t show up. For instance, people are interested in the possibility of making a million dollars. There are tons of books about how to make a million dollars, and you see very few solo shows about making a million dollars. Vice versa on why you see so few New York Times Bestsellers called “My Mommy Was Very Mean to Me or Come Watch Me Fuck a Goat.”

So consider naming your solo show something like “How to Make a Million Dollars.” That way, tourists from New Jersey might come to your show expecting to learn how to make a million dollars and will be extra grossed out when it turns out that you’re fucking a goat while an audio tape of your parents having sex blasts out of the tinny speakers you borrowed from your friend, and you will have proven to them that art transcends class and culture and will have proven your superiority over them, those fucking Republican commercial sell outs!

Also, musicals based on 80s pop culture are very in right now, so if you call your solo show something like “Thundercats: The Musical!” your house is guaranteed to be filled with stoned NYU students, who will be so entranced by how your fucking a goat calls to mind their own desire to publicly fuck a goat that they won’t even notice you didn’t actually do a musical based on that amazing property Thundercats, a musical which when it is finally produced will be an instant box-office success, and of which I have a spec-script in my bag even at this moment to talk to interested producers. Let’s talk. Call me.

Beginning Your Show

It’s best to start out with a song, because that immediately ropes your audience into listening to what you have to say. Remember that what you have to say probably isn’t interesting at all—your whole goal is to make people forget that so that when they tell you they loved your show at the end of it they’re not just pretending, you’ve actually managed to convince them that they liked it.

Lights, please.

Oh, also always start in the dark. It’s very mysterious. Audiences love mystery.

Choosing a song is difficult, because you don’t want it to be too obvious, but you also want it to be just right. A good way to find a song is to watch television a lot, and see what millionaire ad-executives are using to convince people to buy products. For instance, here’s how I might start my solo show using a Queen song I saw featured in a recent C2 advertisement. C2—half the cals, half the carbs. I’m willing to accept endorsements. Let’s talk.

(sings “I Want to Break Free”)
I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You’re so self satisfied I don’t need you
I’ve got to break free
God knows
God knows I want to break free

This will establish that the theme of your solo show is “breaking free.” If you feel that singing the song removes it too much from its original context, consider having the original version playing while you enter, or while the lights come up. If you don’t have any speakers, I can loan you some of my mine, but they’re pretty tinny. Here we go:

(plays “I Want to Break Free”)

While the song is playing and establishing your theme, you should do something beautiful and meaningful. Lighting effects are a very good resource, here. For instance, lighting yourself with something that doesn’t usually provide light in a room will astound your audience. I recommend fire more than anything else because not only does it provide a dramatic light source, you’re also introducing the possibility that if the audience doesn’t like your show you might set them on fire.

What if your theme isn’t breaking free? What if you don’t know what your theme is? Let’s try it with a more generic, less specific song that might be about anything you want.

(sings “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”)
They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
Ooooh! (pitch pipe)
Ooooh!
Still I smiled and replied (you should probably learn the lyrics)
Smoke gets in your eyes

But remember that even this may not be opaque enough. It’s a good bet that the theme of your solo show is not “what happens when smoke gets in your eyes.” It’s a good bet that you’re instead trying to make the audience think about what happens when the concept of smoke getting in your eyes isn’t enough to change your life, or how your mommy was mean to me. I mean you, how your mommy was mean to you. So consider using the template of the song that you want them to think about it, but switching some important element of it around so that the audience starts considering how they relate to the idea of song. What I’m saying is, pick the song you want and then play it in German.

(play “In Den Augen Rauch”)

Then you do your entrance and you fire effects and whatnot. By this point, the audience is so fucking entranced by your German music and your lighting effects that you could pull out a goat and start humping right away. But I recommend playing your cards right, and using this opportunity to talk about something that’s meaningful to you, but not as meaningful as taking the virginity of that poor goat.

Talking About Things That Are Important To You

Remember what we’ve been over: what you have to say isn’t interesting. Your job is to trick people into thinking that it might be. Again, music is important here. This time you want to frame your ideas with appropriate “soundscape.”

For instance, if you want to talk about how disturbing it is that humans have 46 chromosomes while the common household fern had about 1200, you need appropriate music. Are you angry about it? Worried? Unsure? Are you just considering the beauty of the world and the strangeness of everything, like so many plastic bags blowing around in the wind?

If you’re angry about it I recommend choosing some angry music. For instance:

(play “Down With The Sickness”)

I’m angry. I’m angry because my mommy was mean to me and I’m angry because the fern in my house has more chromosomes than me! I’m mad and you can tell because of my background music!

But if you’re not so angry about your chromosomal deficiencies, I recommend choosing something operatic. See, opera is “high art” so when people hear it, they automatically think that something brilliant is going on, and that if they don’t get it they’re stupid and uncultured. Choosing opera as background music is a surefire way to get everybody who went to liberal arts school convinced that your solo show is worthwhile. For instance:

(play “Flower Duet”)

I’ve been thinking a lot about mules. You know, the reason that mules are sterile is that they have an odd number of chromosomes. They have 63 chromosomes, one more than a donkey and one fewer than a horse. And I was thinking that maybe I have an odd number of chromosomes, and I just don’t know it. Probably not, but maybe it’s true and the doctors missed it. And I was wondering does a mule know it has an odd number of chromosomes and does it feel deficient? Or does it feel special?

And then I was thinking about how a horse has 64 chromosomes and I started thinking, wow… does that mean a horse is twice the animal a human is? But then I found out that a human doesn’t have 26 chromosomes like I thought they actually have 46. And not only that, but 26 times 2 isn’t 64 at all but instead 52, so I was wrong on all counts, but anyway does that mean that a horse is 1.39 the animal that a human is? And I thought, yeah… yeah it does. But then I was talking to my fern the other day and I said “Fern, how many chromosomes do you have?” and my fern said “Circa 1200” and I said “Fern, I think the word ‘circa’ only applies to time, and what do you mean 1200?” and by the time I realized that there were more important questions I probably could have asked my fern it died from exhaustion at the effort exerted in answering my question and, in truth, that I would never know.

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.bold.gif
Doing Something Totally Weird

After you’ve talked about something that’s meaningful to you while playing opera music, the audience is putty in your hands. Take this opportunity to do something that’s really meaningful in your own life, but provide no clues as to what it might actually mean to anyone else. You’ve built up some amount of credit by this time, what with the fire effects and the German music. Spend that credit now. Here’s an example:

(play “Hey, Big Spender”)

Q; Hello Gerald.
G: Hello Quincy.
Q: It sure is tiring isn’t it?
G: What’s that?
Q Oh nothing. I just mean holding up this Grecian urn. (if you’d rather not specify that the urn you’re holding up is Grecian in order to make it more universal, just go ahead and call it an urn.)
G Is that what we’re doing? Are we holding up a Grecian Urn?
Q Nobody understands!
G I thought that we were posing for a photograph?
Q For thousands of years? A thousand year photograph?
G Perhaps it is a long exposure photograph?
Q No exposure is this long! We’re holding up a Grecian urn and if we let go the urn will crumble
G I’m suddenly exhausted at the thought of all this responsibility on my shoulders
Q Let’s let go Gerald! Let’s suddenly let go!
G The urn might crumble!
Q Let it crumble!
G By God you’re right! Let it crumble!

And that will just about do it. Now you have to get the audience interested again.

Getting The Audience Interested Again

Do something that involves the audience and isn’t just about serving your own ends. Include them, but not actually. Audience participation is so 2004.

2006-04-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

Oh, yeah.

I read three books during March. I forgot one. Which, despite the fact that I forgot that I read it, I actually rather enjoyed.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami

My first Murakami; 'twill not be my last. I enjoyed this book muchly, though there was this slight concern-- there are a lot of really clever wordplay puns.

Except the book was written in Japanese.

So...

I don't really know what to make of that. There are creatures called INKlings, with the capitals, and they're sort of... look, there's also a group called the Semantecs... I don't get it. Are they puns in Japanese? Are portions of the book written in English? It actually weirded me out because it worked too well. I have been told that while this book is good, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is life altering. It shall be read, for this Murakami can write himself a book.

I feel better now. Two seemed too few to have read. I changed that sentence just to get the two/too/to trifecta. Twofecta?

2006-04-05T21:08:00.000-04:00

Did I only finish two books in March?

Well... I guess that I spent much of my possible reading time listening to A Storm of Swords on audiobook. I also spent much of my possible reading time looking for things to do that weren't reading, how badly did I hate one of these books. Guess which one. I'll give you a hint: it's

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
I thought that the first 50 pages of this book were brilliant, and called Jenn to thank her for recommending it. Here's a transcript of the conversation.

"Hello?"
"Jenn? It's Dave. Oh. My. Jesus. Wuthering Heights is the funniest book of all time. Seriously, this is transcendentally funny. I'm holding my sides. Wow."
"Umm... Dave? It's not supposed to be funny."
"..."
"..."
"You are shitting me. She's serious?"
"She's serious."
"..."
"..."
"Ouch."

Wow, I hate this book. I'm not even going into it. I am simultaneously proud of and disgusted by myself for finishing it. Yooch.

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World, by Matthew Stewart
This book was fairly rad. I knew nothing about Spinoza, and now I think Spinoza's super cool. It would probably be a good idea to read a book about Spinoza *not* written by somebody who clearly loves him, but maybe everybody who studies him loves him? Nah, probably not.

Anyway, I was thinking all deeply and whatnot whilst reading this book. I have long claimed that 'twould be impossible to believe in an omniscient God and also believe in free will (the problem being that if God knows what I'm going to do before I do it, then it's not truly my choice; and if God doesn't know what I'm going to do, then he's not omniscient. I'm also confident that there are many, *many* smarter people that have covered this topic, only I went to theatre school and claim this point as if I just thought of it). However, this book made me realize-- thanks, Spinoza!-- that it's also not really logically possible to believe that the aforementioned omniscient God himself has free will, for the same reason. If he knows what he's going to do, it's not ever his choice. He's powerless to change it &c. The obvious rejoinder is "God works in mysterious ways." The obvious re-rejoinder is "That is a total cop-out." The obvious post-joinder (?), then, is "Yeah, well your mom is a total cop-out." And the debate proceeds from there.

So. I enjoyed reading this book. I also enjoy Mom jokes.

I am now in the middle of Thoreau's "Walden." Which I have never read, and which we will get to in April's entry. This should be a big month. David Mitchell has a new novel coming out in six days. I am on the edge of my seat.

2006-03-09T18:51:00.000-05:00

There was something very fitting about listening to the new Pearl Jam song while walking past the John Lennon memorial this morning.

I realized that it's March 9th, and I hadn't yet done my February reading journal post. Horrors! This list will also look, I think, a little... light. Both in actual number of books read and in the whole 'reading classics' department. But I have an excuse (of course): 1/4 of February was spent on vacation in California, and I needed 'airplane reading.' And Emily Bronte does NOT qualify as 'airplane reading.' Whatever. On to the list.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (completed from January)
Truly beautiful. Must be heartbreakingly lovely in Spanish.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Umm, this was one of the five best English novels of 2005? Were there only six novels published or something? I did not enjoy this book.

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
OK... so... I loved this book. Don't tell anyone. Please. I loved it. I really, really wanted Elizabeth and Darcy to end up together. Don't tell.

Rats Saw God, by Rob Thomas (not the singer from Matchbox 20)
I purchased this 'young adult novel' by the creator of Veronica Mars because that show RULES and one of the episodes was named after this novel. Damn, I wish I had known about this book when I was in junior high. It would have been one of my favorites. It's still pretty good. It's just written for 14 year olds.

Pipsqueak, by Brian M. Wiprud
This 'crazy, funny mystery' was not particularly crazy, funny, or mysterious. Not that good. Damn, we need to get Maple published.

Bones of the Moon, by Jonathan Carroll
I've now read three Carroll novels, and they're all pretty good, except that... well, he's very adept at thinking up cool situations in a Gaiman-theme, and then writing compelling characters, but then his books sort of just end. Like he's put all his thought into tone/world/theme and didn't really figure out a complete story. Good books to read in between Gaiman novels, I guess. He's far more prolific, so there's a lot to read.

I also reread Book 1 and Book 2 of The Sandman series, and listened to A Clash of Kings on Audiobook. And then, despite Elizabeth's urging, I started Wuthering Heights... but we'll get into that at the end of March update.

2006-02-25T16:41:00.000-05:00

I am hearing tell that I should be able to post here again.

Thanks Josh.

2005-11-29T21:04:00.000-05:00

It is late autumn and the weather is unpredictable. Three days ago I wore a coat, scarf and gloves, and bundled I walked for hours through Manhattan and discovered every single dead end in the city. When finally I spoke I had difficulty forming vowels with my frozen face. I rubbed my cheeks. I arrived at The Cloisters. They are always always playing Hildegard in the gift shop there which makes it the absolute best gift shop in the whole world. The art there is heartbreaking and beautiful and awesome and sad. From the balcony on the west side you can look across the Hudson River to the cliffs that make up what just has to be the most beautiful portion of New Jersey. Sunlight sparkles off the water. This all used to be forest land, you know.

The weather, unexpectedly, becomes warmer. It might not be unexpected to meteorologists, but I always forget to check and they're always wrong when I remember. I wear too many layers and have to lug a useless scarf and gloves around. On the subway my coat is suffocating but it's too much trouble to take it off, and then the train stops for five minutes for what appears to be no reason in the heart of rush hour and the train keeps filling and filling and filling until is Tokyofull. I get out two stops early and walk from there in the morning air that is not cold but crisp. I like the thought of air being crisp. I should always get out two stops early, it gives me to time to calm down before I get where I'm going. I have a great desire to eat gingerbread. Cocoa always tastes better than I remember it tasting which is weird because I remember it being fantastic and it still manages to exceed expectations. Right now, even as I type, I am listening to Hildegard which makes this the absolute best post ever. No contest.

The weather's about to shift. I wish I could say that "I feel it in my bones," but it's actually just an educated guess based on the fact that it, yes, tends to get colder at the end of the year. November is leaving us, and December is fast approaching. I will bundle. It will begin to snow. It will be very beautiful and the world will be quiet and I will stand in the middle of a snowbound street looking up into the glimmering sky and I will stick out my tongue and taste a snowflake, but before I do so I will look around to make sure that nobody is watching me. I will be annoyed at having to get undressed every time I walk into a building. My glasses will fog up uncontrollably. Gingerbread never tastes quite as good as I remember it tasting. The snow will freeze and get mucky. December will give way to January and February and then it will feel like I haven't seen a leaf or grass in like forever. Daylight will come and go in a matter of hours and it will be so obnoxiously cold and I'll forget that the snow makes everything quieter and calmer and more peaceful. And Central Park will be full of trees that seem like they'll never come back to life. But maybe, just maybe, just maybe.

Here are three winter poems that I like, in case you were in the mood. Thanks to Anonymous, Robert Frost and, uh, Kelly R. Bennett.

2005-11-06T17:47:00.000-05:00

An interesting expedition of sorts: I decided to see what I was up to in the first few weeks of November in years past, by looking at the archives of my online ramblings.

Here is what I found:

2001

It's been a really long time since my last post. Sorry about that... life has been unfathomably busy.

Enjoyed the World Series. The best I've ever seen... and the Yankees lost, which makes it even better.

Basketball season has started, and I'm most happy about that. My Lakers are still undefeated, my Clippers are struggling (but they'll pull it together). I'm going to see them play each other on Tuesday, the 20th. Woopie!

Regarding the last post that I wrote- [my roommate] Aaron would like me to alert you that he was going to make the same joke that [Black] did, but [Black] cut him off. Aaron would like me to give him credit. I'm not going to, but at least I'll voice his request. Aaron also objected to the "not very sports savvy" comment. I humbly apologize for this mistake. I meant to classify him as "entirely sports illiterate."

Trotsky closed... it was quite successful, but I'm still pleased that it's over. I am now focusing my attention on "Faust," a full-length play that I am stage-managing.

I am also looking forward to being home... ten day vacation for me back in SoCal. I can't wait for Friday.

Video-game stuff- a better review to follow, but Grand Theft Auto III (PS2) is INCREDIBLE. Tony Hawk 3 is out, Metal Gear Solid 2 comes out this month, NBA 2K2 is coming out soon... I'm a happy little gamer.

2002
I attended the opera last evening (well, you know, the first half. but we'll get to that) because it's important to be a worldly, cultured person.

I did, however, find it necessary to leave at halftime, or whatever they're calling it these days, because boredom became not so much a side-effect as a full-on tumor gnawing at my psyche. While a man standing at the edge of the stage and repeatedly yelling "FIGARO!!!!!" (this actually happened. the opera was "The Barber of Some Shit or Other" I think it may have been in Italy, because I think they were yelling in Italian) may pass for entertainment for, you know, cultured people, I decided I'd rather not experience any more. So I left, having lost only $25 and several hours of my life, but did escape with most of my sanity intact.

I think next time I'll opt for experimental theatre where, at least when they're yelling Figaro, there's a chance of somebody flying or eating Rice Krispies or something. [Note: More on this in a post to come-- I've found some opera I can get down with]

2003
I am on the Hungerford Footbridge. Is it the Hungerford? I know it’s not the Millennium Bridge. The Millennium Bridge is that one over there that looks like somebody dropped a fucking hunk of scrap metal over the Thames. I don’t know what the hell they were thinking. Anyway

restart

OK, so it is Guy Fawkes Day. I am walking over the Thames on some Bridge

shit some bridge

I am walking on this bridge over the Thames. It may or it may not be the Hungerford Footbridge. It is Guy Fawkes Day. There are fireworks in the distance

holy shit

In the distance there are fireworks. And off to my left

no, asshole

Off to my RIGHT is Parliament. It glows like the fireworks

fucking asshole that’s really good “it glows like the fireworks”

OK, so I am on the bridge. Parliament is lit up, but this night it is put to shame by the fireworks in the distance. Maybe. I don’t really know, cause they are mostly hidden behind buildings but I know they are there. I hear them. I can see some of them. I want to smell them. Well, sort of. I don’t really want to smell them. The British Airways London Eye

stupid fucking name like anyone really calls it that

The London Eye is across the river on my right. It glows white and blue. It turns slowly.

Half an hour of hell if I were to get in there. Nothing like locking myself in a box for thirty minutes. Yeah, that’s fun.

I am walking on this bridge and in my head

OK... there is this song going through my head

OK OK there is

OK

Ghost ghost I know you live within me feel as you fly in thunderclouds above the city into one that I love with all that was left within me ‘til you tore in two now wings and rings and there’s so many waiting here for you

It doesn’t read like it sounds. Sort of. You can’t really understand you sort of have to hear it.

OK, pretend you’re hearing it. OK now

OK, that song is in my head. And I am on the bridge. We think it is the Hungerford Footbridge. It is Guy Fawkes Day. He tried to blow up Parliament which is off to my RIGHT. And there are fireworks. They are in the distance, but I know they are there even though they are hidden. And the river. Oh, the river sparkles. Reflects all of this other stuff. The river, in the daytime brown-ass-ugly, all this is reflected as beautiful as Monet would have done it. And the (British Airways) London Eye glows beautiful blue and white. And this song is still in my head. And I start to sing it to myself. And suddenly we cut to...

INT. COMPUTER LAB – NIGHT
Dave sits at the computer slamming his head against the keyboard.

too dramatic OK

INT. COMPUTER LAB - NIGHT
Dave sits at the keyboard... I don’t know... smacking himself in the face and yelling “STUPID STUPID STUPID”

yeah, that’s good crazy people at keyboards are exciting

OK, different tack. well, actually same tack. OK, well, anyway we cut to

EXT. HUNGERFORD FOOTBRIDGE – NIGHT
And nothing happens. Really.

Like it is time to be done it is like disjointed like in my head like it is reading like it’s reading a like

I’m fucking saying LIKE like I’m my ex-girlfriend, what the fuck is that about.

OK, it’s in my head it’s disjointed but it’s hopping all over the place it’s like

fuck LIKE

OK, it is AS IF I’m inside some Faulkner monologue, Benjy from Sound & Fury, I am Benjy I am Sounding I am FURIOUS and I can’t keep time straight and it’s so

I mean, I’ve been trying to write another update I really have been trying

but it’s difficult to read

well, shit

I mean, it’s difficult to both read AND write 600 unfinished sentences. But unfortunately, that’s all that’s in my head right now.

600 unfinished sentences.

Well, that one ended. But that one’s really a sentence fragment.

Technically.

I called Briana and we sang Tori on the phone together because somehow we missed it

This is somehow oppressive.

This is like being yelled at constantly.

I don’t mean this update, I mean this city. Well, this update might be like being yelled at constantly I don’t know.

Anyway

I need New York unique New York I know I need unique New York.

Not quite the same ring in the first as in the second person, really. Oh, I miss speech exercises.

Wait. I miss fucking SPEECH EXERCISES. How bad is this getting?

It’s not that I don’t like it... It’s just that I don’t....

I watched Finding Nemo to remind me of the night that I was with Lauren and Jessica and we laughed manically and we ran into Bri and Gerritt and Brad on the way back and they were on there way

no, wrong their

they were on THEIR way there. like that. they were on their way, I mean, to see Nemo and it was a good night. We had drunk wine, I forgot to mention that. Actually, I’m fairly convinced that Jess brought wine into the theatre.

awesome.

It’s all these nights of this summer in that apartment

that apartment that, shit, almost burned down did you guys hear about that what happened was

well anyway

these nights. and these places. in this apartment. and these people. and something in the Life Café and my birthday and people were there and some balloon tied around my wrist and calling my brother on Wil’s phone and my brother telling Wil he would gladly pay for the minutes I used on his phone

and that moment of connection to the world when Wil told me that wow

and then something about walking through New York and then something about Owen saying he spent all night at Marla’s and I said “I know, Owen, I was there” and he said “Seriously?” and I said “Yeah, we talked for like an hour and a half”

or well

not “Orwell” I mean “or (space) well”

like that apartment. and ps2. and people being over. dylan and his girlfriend. that bastard house-mate we had Matt and how I wanted to kill him. and Scraps making fun of him. and watching Homestar on my computer. and Deena scared their bed was going to collapse.

and something else about something, I don’t know it’s all a little hazier than I want it to be

it’s all a little hazier than I mean it to be

it’s just

well, it’s just...

it’s not long now, he said, looking at his watch

2004
I sat right here, five years ago this month. The chairs in here have changed. Actually, all the decor has gradually shifted toward some sort of faux-art-deco. The street outside has new, bigger, brighter stores. Coffee costs more than it did then. Just a little bit more. But more.

I sat in this exact spot practicing my monologue from Picasso at the Lapin Agile, hours before my audition for NYU. I arrived way too early, just wanting to be in the same neighborhood as this place that had become my dream. I ran the words over and over in my head, making sure I knew them perfectly. And at one point amidst the nervousness, the fear, the tension, and the giddiness all rolled into one uber-emotion, I looked up at the world around me and knew with all certainty: I'm going to live here. Soon.

It was so clear that I didn't question it. I just knew it was true.

A girl-- almost certainly a freshman student-- just stopped me on the sidewalk outside and asked me which way uptown was. And I remembered when I wasn't so sure, either. I remembered when I walked halfway across town in the wrong direction, and I remembered the first time someone asked me for directions and I knew how to tell them. I remembered how I used to need a subway map, and how I never went above 14th St. unless it was absolutely necessary.

It's five years later and I'm back here again. The certainty of that epiphany I experienced replaced with uncertainty about nearly everything. I think that my outward calm belies a deeper turmoil that I never quite allow myself to get at. Five years and $200,000 later and I'm done with school and clueless. Terrified. Unmotivated. Likely unemployable. I have a piece of paper that I worked for so hard, proving that I spent that much time and money to study drama. And I have a special gold tassel proving that I did it better than some other people. And looming over the inner turgid rapids within, the future of our world hangs in the balance tomorrow, and I am trembling with anticipation.

I sit right here, now, contemplating new applications to yet another tour of duty in school. There are good reasons why I should return to the classroom and learn more. But I really shouldn't kid myself about the biggest reason: I'm terrified of doing anything else.

I sat here the first time filled with certainty and joy at the knowledge of what was to come. Less than a month before I had gone on a tour of colleges with my father, visiting this one first, and thinking that we should just cancel the rest of the trip. Less than a year later and less than two blocks from here I watched my mother and father, both crying, get into a taxi and leave me here for good.

Five years and so much has changed. My worry is what worries me most. My dad pretended like he was calling the leaves blowing around in Washington Square Park, and we laughed together, and I knew. I pointed uptown for her and smiled to myself as she thanked me.

The outright joy I felt is dimming, replaced with a certain longing for what was and a certain trepidation of what is to come. I never expected to grow up. It's caught me a little by surprise, is all.

(written Monday, Nov. 1st)

2005
Hello, there. I'm here.

2005-11-04T12:39:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I enjoy writing poetry. There, I said it.

I used to imagine myself a poet... misunderstood, lonely, brilliant. Ah, the life of a suburban white fifteen year old male. I would write really, really bad poetry. Thank goodness I can't remember specifically (I'm sure I have copies sitting around someplace that I can find and burn), but I can get the general sense:

I awoke in an empty room
A whitewashed room
A room with many doors
And every single door I opened
Revelealed another whitewashed room

Some crap like that. It was many, many steps down from the first poem I ever wrote, which was in second grade, which was entitled "Spooky Room."

Spooky, spooky, spooky.
My room is a spooky room.
Ghosts dwell there. Goblins too.
Spooky, spooky, spooky.

Pretty good grasp of poetic devices for a seven-year-old, right? Damn! Give that kid a book deal.

Anyway, in recent years I attempt to write some sonnets. With varying degrees of success. This week, I decided that I wanted to try another form. That way, the poetry might still abjectly blow, but at least I'm practicing new (well, old) ways in which to structure it. I decided to try my hand at a villanelle.

It was hard. With such an incredibly rigid structure, it's hard to believe that even talented poets can make full use of it. I mean obviously they can.

This is a first try; I would ask you to be gentle. I would also ask myself why in hell I chose "earth" and "mirth" as my main rhyming words, since nothing in the damned language rhymes with them. Silly me. My assessment is that it ain't so bad for a scribble on a subway ride home, but then again I used to like that whitewashed room crap too.

Anyway:

My precious words mean nothing to this Earth
However I might shout, and shake, and rage.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?

Mere longing to imbue these lines with worth
Empowers not the frail and tiny page.
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth.

Though suff'ring long of mighty words a dearth,
The world seems to insist that I engage.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?

I've sought in vain to give my voice a berth
On paper, or upon a meager stage.
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth.

Our struggles to escape the ancient girth
Of uselessness can rattle not this cage.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?

Searching from the moment of my birth,
The truth and the solution found in age:
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?

2005-10-25T15:06:00.000-04:00

When people ask me what my day job is, I offer the disparaging reply, "I put paper in a drawer." While snarky, this is also the truth. I take papers and I put them in drawers, and if a properly labelled folder does not exist for a certain piece of paper, I'll go ahead and produce one. Then I can put that piece of paper into its rightful drawer.

I understand the necessity of "paying one's dues" when one is young; the possibility of instantly vaulting into a position of any prestige is negligible. My friends file papers and wait tables, they take drink orders and cut checks. They debug computers for people who are paid more than them. They play guitar at clubs on the weekends, rehearse their devised shows until 1 AM, write in notebooks bits and pieces of great American novels on trains between jobs. Sometimes we meet. We ask what everyone is working on, and these little bits and pieces are summarized and discussed, and we try not to mention these other jobs that pay the bills, because none of us can quite believe that we are move valuable as paper-pushers than as thinkers, artists, and creators.

December 9th is my last day here, and my first day ever being paid to direct, even if I am only the assistant. I will get to sit at a table with an incredibly accomplished, brilliant director and an amazingly vibrant, talented writer. Seated in the room will be a cast of dynamic performers, and together we will create a show that is based upon ancient myth and performed with modern flair. Jokes will be cracked. Coffee consumed. Tempers will flare. A show will open. There will be press there, and champagne, and congratulations, and, yes, I will have to look for a new job.

But I offer an early toast: to our papers, may they never be hidden in drawers.

Six more weeks.

I think I can I think I can I think I can.

2005-10-19T12:18:00.000-04:00

My roommate (identified on the internets by the name "Blackey Fontaine") recently linked to this list of the 100 Best English Language Novels from 1923 to the Present (here's his take on TurboAwesome.com). I thought I would get in on the listing action. I'm not going to do hyperlinks with all of these books because it would take far too much effort.

Read

Atonement (Ian McEwan)
This book is so well written it's actually surprising. I read this over the summer, picking it up *completely* at random from the shelf at the Borders in Arcadia, CA, because we were leaving on vacation and I didn't want to be stuck in the mountains without reading material. Holy Jeez, did I guess right. I do actually have a little problem with this book, but I'm not talking to you about it until after you've read it. And you should. You should read it. Seriously.

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
One of my all-time favorites. Used to be definite top 3, not I've read a hell of a lot more books. Still quite possibly the funniest book I've ever read in my life, and incredibly upsetting as well. Purchased the sequel ("Closing Time") and returned it to the bookstore 20 minutes later without having cracked the front cover. Don't care what Heller thinks happened after the book was over.

The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
Read in one sitting during the middle of the night my sophomore year of high school. It's the perfect (and maybe only) way to really read this book. My guess is that if you're older than 16 when you read this for the first time, it won't have the same effect.

The Corrections (Franzen)
Excellent novel. Not much to say. Was on Oprah's Bookclub but don't let that dissuade you.

The Grapes of Wrath* (Steinbeck)
Another one of my all-time favorites. Especially good because it's the origin of the phrase "getting kicked in the neck," which I've used more times in the past six years than maybe any other phrase. Certain sections of this book gave me the most visceral reactions I've ever had to literature. I swear I could *smell* this book sometimes. And in a good way.

Infinite Jest (D.F. Wallace)
Probably my all-time favorite novel. It's like getting kicked in the head for 1100 pages and laughing about it the whole time.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe* (Lewis)
Enjoyed this book when I was very young, don't think I'd enjoy it as much now since I'd be upset by the transparency of the Christ metaphor, will definitely see the new-jack CGI film because it looks astonishingly beautiful. Also, this is not the best book in the Chronicles of Narnia (The Last Battle, anyone? The Voyage of the Dawn Treader?)

Neuromancer (Gibson)
Wow! Cyberpunk on a Time magazine list! Well done, sirs!

Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut)
Not the best Vonnegut (Mother Night, in my opinion) nor my personal favorite (Cat's Cradle), but still remains one of the most distressing, poignant, laugh-out-loud-then-smack-yourself-for-laughing books ever written. Highest recommendation.

Snow Crash (Stephenson)
Ran into the author in the bookstore while purchasing this book. Was shocked. Enjoyed book very much (very similar to Neuromancer, methinks... the editors of this list know what they like). But this book has no business on this list if Cryptonomicon isn't on here; the latter is a far superior book (which is also in my top 3). For those of you keeping score at home, the top 3 is now Infinite Jest; Cryptonomicon; and The Broom of the System, giving D.F. Wallace two out of the top three. Congratulations.

The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner)
Mmm, top 5 list definitely (is anyone keeping track of what I'm calling top 5? (I am, no worries)). So marvelously well-written that if you're planning on ever writing anything maybe you shouldn't read this book because you'll think you should just get the hell out of the business.

To Kill a Mockingbird* (Lee)
The only book on this list that I also starred in a stage version of. Well, "starred" is a bit much, I guess... but I was in fifth grade and in a college production. Whatever. The kid playing Dill was a total jackball. Actually, come to think of it, I may not have ever actually read the book. Better move on.

The Watchmen (Moore)
Astoundingly good, though hasn't held up as well as it might have since everyone's jacked his shit for the last 20 years. The only graphic novel on the list. I would have also included Gaiman's Sandman (The Kindly Ones, if they need a specific collection).

White Noise (DeLillo)
I *HATED* this book. I can't even go into it sufficiently. I almost stopped reading it 47 times. Jesus H.

Started, never finished

A Clockwork Orange (Burgess)
Written in code. Wasn't into it.

GravityÂ?s Rainbow (Pynchon)
I'm a fan of dense books (see Infinite Jest, above) but this book was like trying to cut a desk with a plastic knife. Tried twice, failed twice, put it to rest.

Lord of the Flies (Golding)
Eh. I'll take "Lost" thank you.

The Lord of the Rings* (Tolkien)
The all-time leader in Dave's "What the hell do people find interesting about this?" bookclub. As my brother once noted "reads like notes from a bad D&D session." Full agreement. Movies kick-ass though. Thanks for editing out Tom Bombadil (for real?).

1984 (Orwell)
No idea why I stopped reading it. Probably should try again.

On the Road (Kerouac)
Eh.

Read something else by author

Death Comes for the Archbishop (Cather)
I read "My Antonia" which I think I remember not enjoying at the time, but which has stuck with me for like eight years. Probably has something to do with the fact that I read it in my sophomore honors English class, taught by Mrs. Marquardt, and I just wanted to jam a spoon into my ear every single day.

MidnightÂ?s Children (Rushdie)
I read "The Satanic Verses" which KICKS ASS. Required reading. Go to.

Money (Martin Amis)
I read "Time's Arrow" and "Night Train." The latter is well-written, but basically forgettable. The former will fuck with your mind so deeply you'll have trouble functioning afterward. No joke. The book takes place backwards (what?) so whenever you put it down, you'll have trouble figuring out if your life is happening in the right order.

The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway)
I like Hemingway. I plan to read more. (for the record, I've read "The Old Man and the Sea.")

Are You There God? ItÂ?s Me, Margaret (Blume)
A Judy Blume sighting? Wow. (who even knows how many of her books I've read)

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Wilder)
Didn't even know he was a novelist; I've read his plays. So have you. He wrote "Our Town."

Seen the Movie
No comments here, since whatever. Also the asterisked ones above I've seen film versions of.

Gone With the Wind (Mitchell)
One Flew Over the CuckooÂ?s Nest (Kesey)
The Lord of the Rings (Tokien)

Seen the Broadway Musical
Ragtime (Doctorow)
The song from this show "The Night That Goldman Spoke at Union Square" fits so perfectly in my range that I feel like it was written for me. In related news, I need to start singing more.

This is maybe my favorite post of all-time.

2005-10-12T10:45:00.000-04:00

It's raining cats & dogs outside, and my socks are wet. This bodes well for a pleasant day, I wager. But first, I wanted to find out why the x (where 'x' is a variable) the phrase "it's raining cats & dogs" went through my head, because I noticed that it doesn't make one darned bit of sense.

A search of the internets (all of them) reveals that nobody has any clue whatsoever. The reasons that are parroted over and over are these:

1) In Norse Mythology, cats represented wind and dogs represented rain.
2) Either the Greek word for waterfall "Catadupa" or the French word for waterfall "Catadoupe" was misheard as "catsanddogs" (huh?)
3) In the streets of ancient towns, floods would wash away dogs and cats and people mistakenly thought they came from the sky.

Let's debunk these in order, shall we?

1) I'm sort of a dork for Norse mythology, and this is the first time I've ever heard or read that cats & dogs represented certain weather patterns. In fact the *only* websites that mention this strange, previously unknown facet of the Norse belief system are those discussing the origins of "raining cats and dogs." Apparently, every single one of these sites steals from the others. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just think it's weird that no primary sources seem to have ever mentioned this fact before.

2) Not that Babelfish is like a beacon of everlasting wisdom, but the Greek word for waterfall is "???????????" which may be "catadoupe" but may also be "katappakins." And the French word for waterfall is "chut d'eau" so the phrase would have probably ended up being "man, it's raining judo out there!"

3) Have you ever seen a cat or a dog? It seems to me far more likely that our big, dumb, lumbering human bodies couldn't get out of the way of a rainfall (exhibits a & b: my socks) than it does that lots of cats sort of amiably allowed water to approach them. Seriously, try giving a cat a bath. Maybe there were loads of dead dogs and cats on the streets of ancient cities (this seems likely) and that floods would float these around, but this is taking like six steps of justification, and it just doesn't sit well with me.

Ah, so the investigation has yielded only unsatisfying and dubious answers. So barring further evidence, the reason we say "it's raining cats and dogs" is because other people said it, and it's just as likely that the first guy ever to say it was drunk, insane, or speaking gibberish. Next time, I recommend: "Yo dude, it's raining katappakins out there!" Maybe it'll catch on. Until then, stay dry.

2005-09-29T18:03:00.000-04:00

I know it's lame to write a post about the weather... but...

The weather for the past three days has just been notably beautiful. The equinox hit earlier this week and wasn't messing around. New York apparently decided that it was autumn and just went for it.

Absolutely lovely.

2005-09-28T12:41:00.000-04:00

Last night, I finished reading Neil Gaiman's new novel Anansi Boys. Quick review: Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors, and this book certainly didn't hurt his standing. It's excellent. The young man can write. (Especially compared to the book that I tried to start reading--The Traveler by a fellow calling himself John Twelve Hawks (yeah right)--which is maybe--just maybe--the single worst 20 pages of a novel I've ever read. My intense, passionate hatred for all things Dan Brown notwithstanding, Mr. Dozen Eagles puts that wannabe to shame. If Brown was hoping to be the most derivative, bland, boring, vapid writer of all time, he's going to have to step up his efforts.

See, the moment Dan Brown even comes into my head I get all off-topic. Deep breath.

I decided, after finishing the last chapter of Anansi Boys, that I would very much like to meet Mr. Gaiman and tell him that he kicks large amounts of behind. I went to his website to see if he was touring, and lo and behold!

He was in New York last Tuesday. And I missed him. Grr.

It turns out that he's going to be doing a signing at the Vroman's on Colorado Blvd. in my ol' stomping grounds of Pasadena, CA. I called my sister-in-law (who is also a huge Gaiman fan) to tell her that she should go say hello. Jenn told me that I was welcome to overnight-mail her something, so that she could ask him to sign it for me.

Which got me thinking.

I have very few signed things. Neal Stephenson signed my copy of Snow Crash. My father got me an autographed Edgerrin James mini football helmet for my birthday this year. Umm... my crazy, psycho, batshit ex-girlfriend gave me a "signed" copy of Oliver Stone's film Platoon on DVD that she quite obviously (in retrospect) did herself with a black magic marker. (Let's just say the markings on the box look nothing like his real signature.) I think that about does it for autographed possessions.

Why do we get things signed? Well, in the case of the football helmet, it's because the value appreciates significantly (stop me if I'm wrong, Josh). Without the signature, it's a little kitschy piece of plastic. With the signature, it's an item collectors are willing to shell out cash for. But for a book... does the value go up? If so, I don't think I care, because I don't want to sell my Gaiman books. They're my books you know?

I got Snow Crash signed, because I waited in line at a book signing table, and the author looked at me expectantly, and I thought that maybe he would have thought it was weird that I stood in line just to say "hello" (probably Neal Stephenson encounters twenty people weirder than me before breakfast everyday). But, in truth, I just wanted to meet him-- to tell him that I really enjoyed his books. The fact that he added his name in pen to a book in which his name appears already on the cover, the spine, the back cover, the title page, the copyright page &c. really doesn't make a difference to me. It's not even a good reminder that I met him; I'd remember just as well whether or not he had scribbled in my book.

So, I'm not planning on reselling any of my Neil Gaiman books. My Sandman comics are all late-editions. My novels are not in particularly good shape. I do have a first edition hardcover of Endless Nights still shrink-wrapped... which I wouldn't mind him scribbling in... but if I weren't there to tell him how happy it makes me to read his books, it would be the same thing as that psycho-ex-hose-beast doing it with a marker. I still wouldn't have had a chance to tell him that I appreciate him.

For me, the author's signature is already on the page, and the additional signing is just something expected of me for having stood in line for so long.

I worry that this could seem like I'm mocking people who do want to have things signed. No no no no no. It makes sense, it's just not something that *I* get down with. For some people, I'm sure, signatures are a tangible reminder of a great experience or a great encounter. Or a way to have a piece that hasn't been mass-produced, but has been written in his own hand (even if it's just his name, illegibly). But all that an autograph in a book proves to me is that someone somewhere met an author. Which is not terribly satisfying.

Thank you sooooo much Jenn for offering to take a book for me to have Mr. Gaiman sign. But I think I'm going to wait until his next tour so that I can shake his hand in person and tell him that he has improved my life with his words.

2005-09-26T22:31:00.000-04:00

My friend Morgan D.S. Murphey is in charge of space requests at my school, and I enjoy filling out false space requests for her amusement. On the most recent one, I claimed that my show was called "On A Lemon Yellow Morning I Awoke to Chocolate Words."

She liked this line very much. So I wrote a poem using that as the first line, so that she could see where it went in my mind. It went something like this:

*****
On a lemon yellow morning I awoke to chocolate words.
Or expected to, but found false dreams had clouded all my thoughts.
The morning wasn't yellow and my words were all for naught.
Blue electric storms above me sliced the sky in thirds.
With a purple-tonguéd whisper, I tried pleading with the sky.
But the day was green and gray by then, and mocked me, by and by.
*****

This has been Random Bits of Poetry with Dave McGee.

2005-09-18T18:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I finished reading Number9Dream by David Mitchell.

Wow wow wow and once again wow.

This novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and is now shortlisted in Dave McGee's most favorite books of all time. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough.

Wow.

This has been Vague but Passionate Book Reviews with Dave McGee

2005-09-16T12:52:00.000-04:00

Amazon.com has a bunch of new features. They list a text's "Statistically Improbably Phrases" (very funny), and have stuff like "Average Syllables per Word" and "Words per Dollar." All of this stuff is tres cool. But the one that I like best is called Concordance.

Concordance finds the 100 most used words in a book (excluding incredibly common words such as "the" and "an") and lists them in alphabetical order, with each individual word's font size denoting how often it's used. Tons of fun, in my opinion. While browsing through some concordances, I came across this one, from Jean-Paul Sartre's "Being and Nothingness." And I'll be damned if that doesn't read like one exceptionally beautiful poem. Just really quite lovely.

So there's your bit of post-modern poetry for the day: an alphabetical list of common words from a philosophy textbook. (Seriously, you should read it. It's beautiful.)

2005-09-12T09:43:00.000-04:00

I've built up somewhat of a reputation for accumulating a lot of loose change. It used to cover every available flat surface in my home or dorm room; small piles of coins were evidence that I had recently been in a room. My sister-in-law once picked up all the loose change in my bedroom in California and it added up to $40, which she used to buy paint supplies to make the room look nicer.

Well, due to tight finances, I decided another change-in (ha!) might be in order. This morning, I loaded all of my coins into a plastic bag, making my backpack quite a bit heavier. I traded them in at a free coin counter at a local bank, guessing that I may have had $12 or even $15 or possibly even $20 in coins.

Umm, way off.

I'm $52 richer.

2005-08-31T11:24:00.000-04:00

Wow. Lots of really, really bad news this morning. Stomach-churningly bad.

Google News

2005-08-18T14:55:00.000-04:00

Occasionally, I'll write down random bits and pieces that pop up into my head. Three words or a sentence here and there. I figure they might come in handy. It might be a paragraph. It might be a poem. It might be nothing much at all, but I find that getting it down helps me to stop thinking about it.

For instance, a few months ago I just had this couplet running through my head nonstop:

"What's happened once, will happen again
Forever and ever and ever amen."

So I wrote it down, and I could then sort of let it go for a few minutes, since it had been driving me up the wall. Anyway, preamble over, here's some stuff I've taken down recently:

Poem:
A $28 bottle of wine is just the thing
Sitting at an outdoor cafe in the
Heart of Tribeca, waiting for the
Fringe Show to start while
My roommate talks on the
Phone to his girlfriend (in Scotland)
Well, my former roommate, I suppose

****

Line that fits into something larger that I can't quite grasp yet:
It is a scream, a primal thing, an atavistic exhalation of such force and terror that it transcends sound and becomes something greater.

****

Couplet:
On a scale of one to ten
I'll withhold judgment yet again

****

Really short story:

He runs into her on the street and isn't it great to see you and they hug to say hello. It's been a long time hasn't it and are you working on anything and how's the apartment are you still in the same place? Well it's nice to see you, maybe we should get a cup of coffee sometime, but I have to go right now I'm on my way to something. Do you still have my number I think I still have yours. By the first step apart, the first date is imagined, a mocha or a hot chocolate at a corner bistro in the Village. Two steps brings the first kiss in the rain, maybe in the center of Washington Square Park, and they are of course both laughing. Half a block and even he, hardly a romantic, is standing in the one bedroom apartment, single kiss home from work, the dinner party, the joy at just being together. A porch swing and a house in the country and the whole scope of a joyful life spent together. So he looks back to see if maybe she's just seen the same thing but she already turned the corner and, well, who am I kidding I probably won't call her anyway.

2005-08-17T15:03:00.000-04:00

I recently received the offer to become the Assistant Director of The Seven at New York Theatre Workshop. The rehearsals begin in mid-December, and the show opens on February 8th, 2006.

This is very happy news.

I was very keen to continue working on this show; I had appeared in two workshops as a performer, and find the material fascinating, humorous, and just all-around fantastic. My only regret about acting in the show was that I always wanted to jump to the other side of the table, where the director and the writer were hashing out the story, staging, cuts, etc. I find that part of the job much more fun than acting, even though I do find that acting is amusing every once in a while. You know, for a bit of a laugh. But what I really wanted to do was... well... assistant direct it.

It's also the first time in *ever* that I won't be going back to the ancestral home for Christmas. This is a bit weird. As it has become something more of a family tradition and WAY LESS of a religious ceremony, I don't mind the date of Christmas being relatively flexible. We can celebrate Christmas on December 29th or on March 18th for all I care. I'm hoping that my family feels the same way. Or, that my family is able to make it out for a New York City Christmas.

Which, if it happens, would be most excellent. I even promised to... go... to... the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree (gulp). O, Brave Soul am I!

2005-07-29T11:05:00.000-04:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, "Reverse Raccoon Syndrome" finally has a name. I actually went to the dermatologist and had my pale-ass skin looked at. Well, that's pale skin, not actually 'pale-ass' you know what I'm saying?

I have Vitiligo. What's Vitiligo? He's the villain from Ghostbusters II.

Vitiligo is also what is commonly known as "Michael Jackson Disease," because Vitiligo helped turn him from this

into this

Luckily there were other contributing factors, like him sawing his nose off a number of times and also going slowly insane. Also, I do have the added benefit that I'm starting off significantly more pale than he was, meaning that I have a lot less distance to cover before I'm bone-ass white.

Will I actually turn into some pale, ghostly monster? There's no way to tell. They don't know what causes Vitiligo. And they don't know how to cure it. The options are these:
1) Some steroid cream that might work. (OK, check.)
2) Some stronger steroid injections, then putting my hands under UV lights three times a week in my doctor's office for years. Possibly effective, possibly not. (Umm... not so much 'check' as 'pass.')
3) Skin grafts (pass)
4) Makeup(pass)
5) Artificial tans. (we'll go with pass)

Oh, and I forgot: the other thing they recommend is to get down on your knees and pray to the sweet Christ above that you don't get huge white splotches all over your face. You know, they say prayer is effective, and from what I've read it's probably about as effective as these steroid creams. I will try them anyway, because having white circles around my eyes means that people ask me why I have white circles around me eyes, and if the possibility exists that I wouldn't have to deal with that anymore, I guess that's worth the trouble.

But, truthfully, I don't actually care that much. It's hardly noticeable when I'm not in the sun all of the time, and even when it is noticeable it's the realm of 'mild inconvenience' not 'precursor to painful death.' I'm hoping it doesn't spread much more, but it's completely out of my control. If it does spread, I'll just tell people that I got hideously burned saving people from a burning boat. Or one-up myself and say that I saved a class of children on the Roosevelt Island Aerial Tramway from being dropped to their death by a flying billionaire dressed in a green Power Rangers suit.

Either way, the improbable may happen: I may get even whiter than I already am.

2005-07-07T12:21:00.000-04:00

The news from London this morning has put a knot in my stomach that feels all too familiar. I've been sitting at my desk, trudging through the menial tasks my job requires of me, with tears streaming down my cheeks.

I've received e-mail from the staff at Tisch London, and all students are safe and accounted for (as are families of all the employees). I've heard from a friend, studying at NYU in London, that all those students are safe and accounted for as well. I have e-mails in to my other friends in the UK--some of whom live in London--and am waiting anxiously to hear back from them.

This feels like March 11th of last year, and like September 11th of 2001.

Everybody was so good to New York when we desperately needed the support. The tributes and vigils were comforting to me, even as I cowered in my dorm room. The messages and goodwill that came pouring in made me feel connected to other people in a world where it suddenly seemed like safety was impossible. It's not that it hadn't occurred to me before September 11th, 2001 that something *bad* could happen to me, but that that particular morning the truth was knocked into sharp focus. No longer blurry at all, and suddenly the everyday began to seem dangerous. When the bombings in Madrid happened last year, it affected me too. I require public transportation to get to work, and if that was a target in Madrid, it can certainly be a target here.

It's very, very hard to see reports coming out of London that look and sound so much like the reports coming out of New York three and a half years ago. I lived for a short time in the center of London, very near where these attacks took place. Where, of course, I relied upon public transportation. As for terrorists, I think they're aptly named: they have me terrified.

I've long been afraid of flying, but it's only gotten worse in recent years. Every single nightmare I've had in the past three and a half years has been airplane related. But I continue to get on airplanes (as I am going to tomorrow, for a trip home to California). I can feel the knot in my stomach growing more intense as I think about my commute home tonight, in rush hour, on a crowded subway line.

When the shootings at the High School in Santee, California happened in March of 2001 (again, I used to live near there), my brother struggled with how to express his sympathies. In one of the most moving statements I've ever read, he ended with

...let us hope for, and work to construct, a world in which eulogies for murdered children never get a chance to become trite.

With that in mind, I echo the statements sent to us on that tragic day in 2001: Today we are all Londoners.

Hold fast, London. Our thoughts are with you.

2005-06-30T09:16:00.000-04:00

Goodbye 105th Street.
Hello 149th Street.

It's moving day.

2005-06-21T08:54:00.000-04:00

On nights like this, the city starts to loom:
It's tow'ring structures block the darken'd skies;
My cozy home becomes a lonely room;
The constant noise sounds not like but joy, but sighs;
Yearning eaves where bouncing boughs once stood
Line dirty streets where once were charming lanes;
My hands in pockets pressed, a coat, a hood,
Not lacking warmth but feeling chills the same;
Every block I pass feels longer still,
And every face I spy is turned from me;
The air is close with stench of urban swill
And every word I write seems heresy.
What else to do but laugh? I can't outrun!
Flashbacks to teenage angst are so much fun.

2005-06-20T23:24:00.000-04:00

OK then. I was requested by Alice K. Park (Freshman Class President) to list five of my favorite songs. I think the actual prompt was a little more severe-- it was desired that I would list my five absolute most favoritist songs ever, but for me that's an impossibility. And not just because "favoritist" isn't a word.

So here, in no particular order, are five songs that I really really like a whole lot.

1. Song: Rhapsody in Blue
Who wrote it?: George Gershwin
Who performed it?: A symphony orchestra near you.

What's so great about it?: It's just so... glorious! Christina Lee also had this on her list, and I left a comment saying that it might be the best American song ever written. Then again, I know next to nothing about music theory. I just know that hearing that song thrills me. There's majesty in it.

2. Song: Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone
Who wrote it?: Jeff Mangum
Who performed it?: Neutral Milk Hotel

What's so great about it?: Really two songs in one (as the title implies), Gardenhead does a hell of a lot in a short 3:14. Beginning with a driving beat and powerful guitar chords, and weaving its way into a melodious (nearly heartbreaking) second movement, this is one of the few songs that ever made me audibly exclaim the first time I listened to it. I was alone, in the car, and actually yelled out "YEAH!" at one point. Song lyrics, separated from the song itself, so rarely translate well. But I think the lyrics to this particular song do. For instance, the portion that made me yell was:
"We ride roller-coasters into the ocean
We feel no emotion as we spiral down to the world
And I guess it's worth your time, 'cause there's some lives you live
And some you leave behind.
It gets hard to explain."

The man is a poet, pure and simple and responsible for what I can say without hesitation is my most favoritist album ever (right now), In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

3. Song: Undone - The Sweater Song
Who wrote it?: Rivers Cuomo
Who performed it?: Weezer

What's so great about it?: Exquisite blend of form and content, the guitars on "Undone" are played in a weaving pattern. That way, when the song breaks down and the guitar pattern begins to fall apart, the woven song is coming undone just like the sweater in the song. The song breaks itself down while breaking its subject down. Just. Effing. Brilliant. Plus it simply rocks hard.

4. Song: O Ignis Spiritus Paracliti
Who wrote it?: Hildegard von Bingen
Who performed it?: Sequentia (and a whole lot of nuns over the past millennium)

What's so great about it?: We've been over this.

5. Song: Hand in My Pocket
Who wrote it?: Alanis Morisette
Who performed it?: She did

You're kidding me right?: Nope.
For real?: For real.
What the hell, Dave?: I have argued that this is the defining song of my generation. Some people try to play the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" card, but I think that doesn't... really... work. I think Tori's cover of "Teen Spirit" is closer than Nirvana's original (not to detract from the excellence of that song... it may be anthemic, it's just not defining, as I see things). We don't need to harp on it, but Nirvana's song is sort of making fun of us. "Hand in My Pocket" is a celebration of how contradicted we (I, I guess) feel about almost everything. She lists contradictions, and it ends with an "Oh, well. What the hell are we going to do about it but get on with our lives?" If protest songs defined much of my parents' generation (or if that's what they claim in retrospect, at any rate), I feel like a song that celebrates acceptance of confusion sort of nails it for us. It's a shame it got played to the point where it became cheesy. I don't think it is though. If you haven't listened to it in a while, it might be time for another listen.

So there you have it. A very bizarre mix.

2005-06-16T12:51:00.000-04:00

This morning, on the south side of 103rd st between 3rd Avenue and Lexington Avenue, there were something like 900,000 people asking for petition signers. In honesty, it was closer to ten or twelve. As I walked West toward the subway station, the first two approached me: "Are you a registered Democrat?" I shook my head without saying anything. I *am* a registered Democrat, but I also see that they're getting signatures to run a particular candidate. I don't know the man, I know nothing about him, and I won't be a resident of this district when elections come up. I just didn't want to be bothered.

But then, of course, since they're all there working the subway thoroughfare, and since nobody was stopping, none of the petitioners were busy with clients. So all of them--all ten or twelve of them--asked all passersby "Are you a registered Democrat? Are you a registered Democrat? Take thirty seconds to sign a petition? Are you a registered Democrat?" It appeared (I may have overlooked them) that there were no petitioners on the other side of the street, and I hadn't met any coming up to 103rd. They all seemed to be smushed into that block, on one side of the street. So as I passed the last three people, I said "You should spread out." This guy in a suit said, "Yeah? It's a free country."

It's a free country? What the hell, right?

Now, I knew that I should just keep walking and let the guy be a dick (to give him the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that he'd been harassed all morning and didn't really listen to what I said). I knew I knew I knew that I should just keep walking. But I took off my headphones, turned around, and walked back to him. Here's what happened:

Dave: Did you just say 'it's a free country?' I know it's a free country. I'm trying to help you. You're all standing in a row, and it might be better if you spread out.

Suit: Well that's politics. (he turns away from me)

Dave: Hey, I'm trying to help you, and you're being really snarky with me. (I was able at the time to self-edit. I really wanted to say, "Well, if your candidate is as much of a dick as you are, I hope he dies of malaria." OK, I wasn't really thinking that. But I seriously started to say "real asshole," but was able to engage in an on-the-fly downgrade to "snarky.")

Suit: (cutting me off) You have a good day. You have a good day.

And then he turned away again.

What the hell? Why did he immediately assume that I was trying to badger him? I went door to door in a suburban neighborhood in another state trying to get people to go vote. I'm not against canvassing. But I had my own, individually assigned blocks to cover. If everyone working for the Kerry campaign had gone around to all the same houses, over and over, twelve doorbell rings in a row, not only wouldn't those people have been as likely to vote, they probably would have wished us malaria-related deaths.

Again, I try not to let this stuff affect me. But somehow I'm still thinking about it hours later.

2005-06-13T23:38:00.000-04:00

Currently Reading:

Recently Finished Reading:

Two sentence review of Freakonomics: Very interesting, but WAY too short to justify paying the hardcover price. Head to the library, or wait a year.

2005-06-06T12:25:00.000-04:00

As has been mentioned previously, the six-ish month period following college graduation last May was a bit of a rough time for me. I was attempting to write all sorts of things, and ended up being unhappy with pretty much the lot of it. I had this thing planned out, what I was calling an "Experiment in Long Form Fiction" so that I could avoid saying that I was trying to "write a book," which just sounds hideously self-important to me. I suppose the first step on the road to becoming a successful writer is to stop putting myself down for wanting to be a writer. Writers have to write something, dig? So if I'm too embarrassed to say that I'm working on a book, or working on a screenplay, it's going to be a pretty embarrassing existence.

I've since scrapped the E.L.F.F. because I reread The Broom of the System and realized that I had aped something like %86 of the plot from that book. I had done this without realizing it, though it came as little surprise; in such an artistic funk and in such an impressionable state... there were characterizations and plot points that were simply too close for comfort. However, the basic idea still interests me and I think that I will come back to it at some point. I just need to rework some plotting and some characters and then maybe take another stab at it. After the Maple thing is done (we're very close to a complete first draft), there are a couple of other projects I have in mind (not the least of which is the screenplay version of the Maple thing), and then maybe I'll revisit this.

Anyway, the whole point of this thing is that there's a part of what I wrote during that shitty period that I'm awfully proud of. I really, really like it, and so I'm going to share it with you. I had about three times this amount written, but have thrown all of that out (I kept a copy, it's just not for public viewing *ever*). Friends from high school and regular livejournal readers may notice that one of the characters is named after one of my friends from high school (Hi Christina!), but this should not be taken to imply that the character is at all based on her. It's just that Christina Lee is such a kick-ass name that I knew at some point I'd be using it. So either apologies or congratulations to her, depending on how she feels about it.

Anyway, here's what I was working on:

“It’s literally unbelievable.”
“I know.”
“I want to make it absolutely clear that I don’t mean this in the colloquial sense. I mean that I literally cannot believe it.”
“Seriously, I know.”
“I have been in school for as long as I can remember. My first memories are of school… lunchboxes and recess. Worksheets. Chalkboards. How can this period of life be over?”
“For good.”
“Forever.”
“Forever and ever and ever.”
“How are we to deal with this? How? What options remain for we, the now undeniably adult, conscious, and conscientious citizens of this, our great and powerful nation?”
“Should that be ‘for us’?”
“For us. For we. For you and… I? Me?”
“Sebastian Pierce?”
“Yes, Christina Knockbauer?”
“We deal with this by drinking ourselves into an absolute stupor.”
“That, my dear Christina Knockbauer, will suffice for tonight. But what shall we do when sad autumn rolls ‘round and there is naught in store for us but long, lonely days?”
“Sebastian Pierce, there will be nothing for it but to obtain jobs.”
“Jobs?”
“Legitimate work.”
“You’re speaking of gainful employment?”
“Yes.”
“Trading our time and energy for paychecks?”
“Long backbreaking hours. Retail. Or food services. Yes. Employment.”
“A most terrifying prospect.”
“Dreadful. Horrifying.”
“There will be no more class schedules? No more Spring Breaks?”
“We will have two weeks off out of fifty-two, if we are lucky.”
“Must it be that way?”
“Verily it must.”
“Jobs. Christina Knockbauer, I never thought it would come to this. That will the beginning of it all, won’t it?”
“Dead-end jobs.”
“Sadness. Loneliness. Dreams of the lives we thought we would lead.”
“Wasted talent. Potential unachieved.”
“Annual raises and Christmas bonuses.”
“Should that be ‘boni’?”
“Bonuses.”
“We will become bored with our lives, ourselves, and each other.”
“Hopelessly bored.”
“The highlight of our year will be purchasing his and hers twin barca-loungers.”
“We will have children to try to ease the pain, the loneliness.”
“We will become bored with our children.”
“We will attend countless soccer matches, PTA meetings, school concerts, feigning interest while growing exponentially bitterer at our uninteresting, banal lives.”
“I’m almost certain that should be more ‘more bitter’ and not ‘bitterer’.”
“We will begin to hate one another.”
“I will force you into marriage counseling.”
“You will be annoyed by my reluctance to attend.”
“Counseling will certainly fail.”
”We will get divorced, terribly.”
“We will fight tooth and nail for custody of the children, not because we love them but just to spite one another.”
“Our children will learn to loath us and, once out of the house, will cut off all communication.”
“We will age.”
“We will age quickly.”
“We will grow ugly. Alone and ugly. Retirement at age eighty-one from our useless, empty, worthless jobs, having done nothing at any time to make the world a better place.”
“We will sit in our now ancient barca-loungers, watching reruns of The Price is Right.”
“We will eat unflavored yogurt, purchased with coupons. Our homes will smell of mildew and mothballs.”
“We will attempt to reconnect with our children, to meet our grandchildren.”
“We will fail.”
“We will finally, finally die miserably, alone and broke. We will be found by a neighbor unable to withstand the stench of death emanating from under our cracked, withered, unpainted doors.”
“Our rotting corpses will be cremated.”
“Ashes disposed of without ceremony.”
“And that will be that.”
“Amen.”
“But for now, Sebastian Pierce.”
“Yes, for now Christina Knockbauer?”
“We will wear the robes of our college graduation proudly.”
“Forever.”
“Yes, forever. Wait, forever what?”
“I hereby swear that I will wear these college graduation robes until forced by act of God or Congress to remove them.”
“I shall be your witness.”
“These lovely purple robes shall define me, proof to everyone my whole long, useless life that once I achieved something great.”
“Something expensive.”
”Something great and expensive. These purple robes, this square black hat, this golden tassel will show the world that once my life was new, the road stretching before me glistening with opportunity!”
“These robes will grow dirty. You will outgrow them in the obesity of middle age, and finally shrink too small.”
“I will wear the dirty, tattered remnants then.”
“Promise?”
“Promise!”
“Sebastian Pierce?”
“Yes, Christina Knockbauer?”
“Tell me you love me before we go into this party.”
“I will love you even after we go into this party.”
“You really ought to be ashamed of yourself for that joke.”
“I am.”
“A joke worthy of my father.”
“Thank you?”
“OK, now for real this time.”
“Christina Knockbauer, I love you dearly.”
“Forever?”
“Certainly for now.”
“I suppose that will have to suffice.”
“Now let us go into this party celebrating our great and expensive achievement, celebrating our entrance into the real world, and let us drink cheap, shitty beer until we pass out of all conscious thought.”
“To our final night!”
“To our final night!”
***
I sat on the roof drinking chardonnay out of a translucent plastic cup. Looking out over the park the sky was just beginning to lighten. Finally. The chartreuse cup had my name written on it in black magic marker. The birds were actually chirping in the trees below me, just audible over the sound of the various car alarms in the vicinity. My name was spelled wrong on the cup. I took another sip of shitty wine, grimaced, and then just drained the rest in one large gulp. Another car alarm started down on 6th St. in that constant repeating alarm cycle like a goddamned Casio sampler from hell. The girl at the entrance to the party had spelled my name “Sabastion,” and I had seen no point in correcting her. I saw Chazz six stories below me turn the corner onto Ave. A and unlock the front door. The sky was moving from dark blue to more like middling cyan. Morning was coming.
It had been a long night.
Behind me on the roof, the Christinas were stretched out on a red and white checkered tablecloth or blanket that one of them had purchased as an ironic nod toward your standard Americana folksy picnic image. It reminded me more of chintzy stereotypical Italian restaurants. Christina Knockbauer’s eyes were closed. She had been dozing fitfully since we had come back here after that party—that awful, awful, loud party. I couldn’t tell if she was sleeping now. Her knees were drawn into her chest and her hair fell across her eyes. I smiled in spite of myself. Christina Lee sat leaning against the southern wall of the roof deck, lazily smoking a cigarette and staring up at the maybe one visible star. She exhaled loudly and turned her eyes toward me.
“That was some party was it not?” She spoke slowly and carefully, her head certainly ringing just as mine was.
“We definitely went out with a bang. Too much of a bang. I didn’t believe it was possible to imbibe that much alcohol. I’m shocked, but also not a little amazed. We’re still conscious.”
Christina Knockbauer shouted in her sleep. Christina Lee and I both jumped before we realized what had happened, as C.K. sat up sharply and shook her head, muttering lightly to herself. She began to massage her eyelids.
“There were many, many people at that party Sebastian. There was much music and dancing. Alcohol flowed freely. I myself drank far more than my healthy share… Christina Knockbauer, is everything OK? You scared the shit out of me.”
“Me too.”
C.K. stretched heavily, almost violently. “I’m fine. I just started to fade out here and I really don’t want to fall asleep on the roof.”
“I think it’s a little late for that.”
“I know… I know…”
I reached for my keys instinctively and was shocked to find that I didn’t have a pocket. “You can go down into the apartment if you like. Sleep on the bed.” My pocket was just under my robe. Oh right. I was still wearing my robe.
C. Lee continued: “I think the blood alcohol level of the room was somewhere in the mid-high to really-high region. We’ll go with mid-to-high-high.”
Chazz burst out onto the roof in that breathless way he has that always seems like he’s coming to warn you there’s like a monster or assassin bearing down on him, and I was startled for the second time in as many minutes. I’m pretty sure at this point that Chazz plans out the first thing he’s going to say and wants to make sure attention is entirely on him, but I haven’t yet run that theory by him.
“I love this effin’ city. Dude, it’s like 4:41 AM and I’m carrying an oven fresh pizza up onto my roof. I’m talking like pizza fresh from an actual coal oven.”
“Um… holler? Or something? But Chazz, I’m pretty sure that nobody’s burning coal in any oven around here.”
Christina Knockbauer’s brow furrowed. “Where have you been?”
Chazz paused for a moment and made a show of staring slowly at the pizza box in his hands. “I have no idea.” He reached up and scratched his head, pondering. “It seems my memory has just completely abandoned me.”
“Shutup.”
“Who wants a slice?”
I exhaled heartily and stood. My head had continued down the road from intense spinning and had settled into the just lightly teetering stage. “Nothing like piping hot pie to wash down crappy chardonnay.”
C. Lee scraped a pebble up from the roof and threw it at me. “Next time you pick the wine then, Pierce.”
C.K. smiled, suddenly. “Hey guys, look… the sun’s almost up.” She glanced over at me for a moment, winked, and turned back to the sky, which was still moving gradually upward on the blue scale.
Chazz winked at her. “Yeah, C.K., it has a tendency to do that in the morning.”
“Oh, I just woke up stop being mean to me.”
“Young Charles, I believe I will have a slice of that pie. Charlie. Chuckabulls. Chazz Palminteri.”
“Have one then, Sebby Sebby.”
“What time is your flight, Sebastian?” Christina Knockbauer began to pull her hair into a ponytail and looked at me expectantly. I tossed her a rubber band from around my wrist and she smiled playfully.
“I actually don’t remember… something weird… like 5:04 or something.”
“P.M.?”
“I certainly hope so. Otherwise I’m going to be awfully late.”
C.K. pulled a cigarette out of her purse, struck three matches before the wind allowed her to light it. “Sebastian Pierce, I forgot how long you’re going to be away from us.”
Chazz sat down with his slice and Christina Lee immediately positioned herself to invite cuddling. Chazz chewed away, oblivious. I laughed out loud. “Christina Knockbauer, I have no idea. It won’t be more than a week at most. I might honestly kill myself if I had to stay there any longer.”
“You flying home with your family?” C. Lee had a slight edge in her voice as she watched Chazz eat. She finally grabbed the pizza from his hands, placed it back in the box, moved herself onto his lap, and placed his hand on her head.
“Hey, I was eating that!”
“Shut up and hug me!”
“Sebastian, seriously now. You need to take off that cap and gown. You look like a total dipshit. You’ve looked like a total dipshit all night. You embarrassed yourself at that party in that dipshit outfit.”
“I doubt many people will remember what they themselves were wearing at that party, let alone what Sebastian Pierce was wearing. The chemicals at that party will almost certainly affect long-term memory. And short-term memory. I’m actually having difficulty remembering the purpose of that den of debauchery.”
“Chazz, laundry has become a bit of a sour issue for me. I did that whole I-know-I’m-going-home-soon-so-I’ll-just-wait-and-do-my-laundry-there-oh-shit-I-over-estimated-how-long-my-clean-clothing-would-last-type-thing. I’m chock out of clean clothes. Plus I’m making a public statement.”
“A public statement that you’re a dipshit.”
“You’re not hugging me enough!”
“And no, I’m flying back alone.”
“Oh right right. Your family didn’t make it out here did they?” C. Lee tugged on his arm. Chazz looked at her in frustration.“If I hug you any goddamned tighter I’ll break your ribs. Seriously.”
“No, they didn’t make it.” Christina Knockbauer eyed Chazz and Christina Lee jealously, and gave me a look that was at once both incredibly adorable and physically threatening. I sat on the blanket and let her move into me. I scratched her head gently and she purred at me.
“OK. This is better.”
“You have to put your cigarette out though.”
She moved to extinguish it, but C. Lee snatched it from her fingers and began to inhale. C.K. released her last breath of smoke and I coughed exaggeratedly.
She smirked at me. “Whatever.”
I grabbed a slice out of the box and ate with my left hand, scratching her head with my right.
“You’re lucky. You know that Sebastian? I wished on the morning star that my parents wouldn’t come. I prayed to deities both major and minor. I invoked the Norse pantheon and Zeus. I wrote my congressman. What I would have given for my parents to stay out of this.”
Chazz: “Woot.”
C.K.: “Woot.”
“Seriously, how did you convince them not to come? I really could have done without the added pressure.”
“I know, it was pretty nice. Christina Knockbauer’s family was way more than I could handle as is. Ow! Stop that!
“Don’t make fun of my family!”
“I actually didn’t have to convince them not to come. I’m not sure they were ever going to. My brother’s graduation is also this weekend and I think they wanted to be there, instead.”
“Your parents have two kids in college?” C. Lee paused. “Plus, I didn’t know you had a brother. What else are you hiding from me? Charles Palminteri if you don’t put that pizza down and hug me I will throw you bodily from the roof, and then batoon you about the face and neck with the nearest stick. I am not fucking around.”
“Other than the international espionage, I’m not hiding anything from anyone.”
Chazz: “Boo!”
“Yikes. Sorry. And he’s not in college. He’s graduating from middle school.”
Chazz and C. Lee stared at me. I looked away, at the sky that was getting lighter still. The pause in conversation continued despite how much I wished it would end. The breeze felt heavenly on my face. C.K. grabbed my hand, and stroked it surreptitiously. Finally C. Lee brought blessed relief to the awkward silence.
“I’m sorry, Pierce, I’m not sure I heard you right. Your parents skipped your college graduation so that they could attend your brother’s junior high school graduation?”
“Yeah.”
“Like graduation from eighth grade is what you mean. Into like ninth grade.”
“Eh.”
Chazz took the cigarette from C. Lee and took the last puff before extinguishing it against the wall behind him. “It’s not all that surprising. You haven’t met them.”
“You met them?”
“Briefly.”
“Hey Christina Knockbauer!” I shook her gently. “Are you still with us?”
“I’m just watching the sun rise. I think it’s about to come up. Any minute now.”
“I would think they would have wanted to see their huge investment paid off.”
“I bet his school cost more than mine, Christina Lee.”
“Ah.”
C.K. sat up and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “It’s coming up!”
“That’s an expensive junior high school, Sebastian.”
“Well…”
The first spoke of the sun had indeed crested over the buildings across the park. Chazz and C. Lee turned to watch the brightening sky. There were cheek-to-cheek smiles all around.
C.K. turned my head toward her. “Kiss me.”
I did, but stopped abruptly. “You taste like smoke.”
“You taste like sausage grease. Shut up and kiss me.”
I did, properly this time. I saw Chazz grip C. Lee’s hand. Christina Knockbauer’s hand ran softly down the back of my head. The wind picked up and sent my plastic cup skittering across the rooftop. The sun raised itself a bit higher. I smiled into the kiss. C.K. broke it and leaned into me.
“Hey guys?” I said. Everyone turned and looked at me expectantly. I hesitated. “Nothing. Never mind.”
The sun rose a little higher. I stroked C.K.’s hair. A motorcycle roared down the street and like nine car alarms started at once, their screams heralding the coming of the day.
Morning had arrived.

2005-05-30T00:43:00.000-04:00

Drunk haircut works out!

Yeah, I got inebriated and then gave myself a buzz-cut. According to myself, my roommate Jess, and her sister Lauren, it looks really great.

Wow. Chalk that up to random good luck.

2005-05-19T12:27:00.000-04:00

"Nato on alert to provide help in Darfur."

What the hell took so long?

2005-05-18T23:20:00.000-04:00

What Dave McGee Has Been Up To

Part 1: 2004 in Brief

Post-graduation freak-out is, sadly, a reality. Young'uns beware. I graduated 52 weeks ago. I got wasted at a boat party. In a blind panic a few weeks later I moved, though it would have been much smarter for me to stay where I was living until I calmed down a little bit. Nonetheless, an apartment in Spanish Harlem. I appear in a professional workshop at New York Theatre Workshop by a total fluke. I go home to CA in a daze, I direct a play, I alienate my entire family whilst in the heat of a double-dose of crazy-- post-grad freak-out and pre-play-opening freak out at once. The entire month is, honestly, sort of hazy. I seriously can't remember much of it. I come back to New York. I avoid the East Village because it reminds me of school and I get depressed. I avoid life. I sleep a lot. I don't work, I leech off of my absurdly patient and generous mother, doing nothing for anyone. I watch a lot of football. When it's not Sunday morning, I wallow in depression. I attempt to write and I fail miserably. I try to work on performance (COW) stuff and every week I throw everything away that I did the previous week. Winter, inevitably, descends. I go back to CA for Christmas festivities. I feel like the up-swing may be beginning. I have a wonderful time at my family home. For the first time, I remember that I need to walk when I'm out of the city or I'll go crazy. I smoke a clove cigarette on the patio at the Starbucks on the corner of Las Tunas and Rosemead, drinking a pumpkin spice latte and reading Dave Eggers.

I am definitely on the up-swing.

Part 2: 2005, Where Dave Approaches Normality

Section 1: Employment

I am gainfully employed. I work at The Open Society Institute as what they call a "records clerk" and I call a "file monkey." In my small way, I help my employer distribute his questionably-legally but certainly morally sketchily begotten gains in a bizarre act of modern Robin Hood-ism: the rich stealing from the poor to give to the poor. (does that last sentence win the award for most adverbs ever? good grief) The job is mindless, which allows me to keep earphones in all day. I listen to books on tape, and try not to think about the fact that my employer crippled nations in order to become a billionaire. Hey, at least he's giving large amounts of that money away to people who are using it to accomplish real good in the world, and he's spending vast amounts of that money to help other countries achieve true democracy... justifying a little? Yeah, yeah, I know. Anyway, I listen to books on tape. Right now I am listening to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance: An Inquiry Into Values. As crappy jobs go, this one goes pretty well. It pays the bills, I get free lunch every day, I get out of work at 3:30 pm, I get to walk to work along Central Park, I get to keep my mind going wondering if working for one of the people primarily responsible for globalization makes me complicit in it, and how I feel about that, and wondering if I would feel any better working for any given insurance company or anything... (you know? he's giving the money away, I can't be mad at that right?) Whatever whatever whatever; sometimes I feel like a total and complete sell-out. I just keep reminding myself that Bob-Mike worked for McDonald's for crying out loud. And he's a good person. In summation, I have health insurance. How do you like them apples?

Art

I'm directing, acting (way more than I thought I ever would), and sitting patiently by the phone praying for a call from New York Theatre Workshop about the full production of that show I was in.

Random New York Moment

Walking home, I began to admire the fantastic architecture of a certain building. While wondering how I'd never noticed it before, I suddenly realized that it was Carnegie Hall. Duh.

Romance

There's this girl, but it's an impossibly complicated situation, so that has almost certainly been relegated to the realm of the historical "if-only's." This does not depress me as such, but simply is. There will be other girls (unless I turn out to be, as the last post suggests, into dudes). But I am not one for the casual "I'm just bored" relationship, and by the time I realize that I'd like to date a girl we've invariably passed her "just friends" point of no return. But I think I am getting a little bit (just a little bit) better at this. We'll see. Also, I'm in no hurry whatsoever.

Health

Having eaten nothing but crap for, say, the last five years, I finally decided to get off my chunk-ass and do something about it. I have begun to treat myself better. No fad diet, just making sure I know what I'm ingesting. In the three weeks that I've been keeping track, I've lost fifteen pounds. The fact that I'm still grossly overweight would normally, at this point, cause me to give up in an "always have been/always will be" defeatist squalor, but my mind is set. I'm-a get healthy again.

Random New York Moment 2

I fell asleep on the bus going home from a party last week, and woke up by chance or instinct two blocks before my stop. That could have ended really badly. I'm going to try to never do that again.

Housing

My lease is up at the end of June. I am bouncing like Zummi on a bender. Stay tuned for housing updates as events warrant.

Life's Work

For a number of months now, my friend and I have been co-writing a very funny... story. The working title is "Professor J. Everett Maple and the cipher of the Last Elk." Nearly 200 pages in, we're approaching legitimate novel length (and we're only about 2/3 done). If there's any justice in the world, we'll get this mofo published and I'll pay off my student loans in one lump sum. Advance audiences love it, but of course these are our friends who are bound to be of similar mind when it comes to what's funny. Here's to hoping we find an editor who agrees too. But first, we need to finish it. Updates to follow as well.

Anything Else

This was written by hand at the Starbucks on the corner of 15th Street and 9th Avenue between 6:00 and 6:41 pm.

Huzzah!

2005-05-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

This story will demonstrate a relatively large cultural gap that separates me (and my immediate family) from the majority of the people in Temple City, California (which, if pressed, I would call my "home town")

It begins about three weeks ago, when I was cast in a musical called "Run, Teddy, Run!" This is a new musical, written by recent graduates of the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Department, about the failed presidential aspirations of Ted Kennedy. It was just a reading (i.e. not fully staged) at my old school.

I called my mother to tell her that I had the role (she had been in New York for my audition) and I caught her in the teachers' lounge at her school (I'm feeling particularly link-happy today). The conversation went like this:

Dave: Hey, mom! I got that part! I'm playing Ted Kennedy in a musical about Ted Kennedy!
Mom: (announcing to teachers' lounge) David's playing Ted Kennedy in a musical about Ted Kennedy!
Dave: (mock embarrassment) Mom! Don't tell them that or they'll think I'm gay!
Mom: (announcing to teachers' lounge) David says not to tell you or you'll think he's gay!
Dave: Oh, forget it. (mock realization) They all know I'm gay already.
Mom: (laughing) David says you all know he's gay.

Time lapse.

Today, the vice principal approached my mom to let her know that there was some worry among the teachers, that they wanted to be able to commiserate with my mother about her homo son... but the way she announced it so cavalierly... they didn't know how to approach her about it.

The vice principal (who is actually really good friends with my mother) said to the teachers that they had probably been mistaken; that she'd been to my mother's home, that she's seen pictures of me with my (ex-)girlfriend. The teachers said: no, she announced it to everyone in the teachers' lounge. How could they approach her about it?

My mother called me today, laughing, to tell me this story. Then she said "I don't know how to fix this without making it seem like I think there's something to fix." I said, "Let's take this all the way. I'll send you a picture of me with one of my male friends for your desk at work. Hell, let's get you a t-shirt that says "Proud Mother of a Gay Son."

As the Temple City rumor mill runs rampant, my mother told me that this rumor could already by all around Temple City.

To which I said, quite honestly: if anybody out there cares enough to make it an issue, I'm really not all that interested in their opinion as it is.

Stay gay. Stay proud. Good grief.

2005-05-12T12:28:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I'm getting my theatre on. Holler back at me.

I am acting in this play and I am directing a reading of this one.

The first is a new farce written in iambic pentameter, about a woman who convinces the world she's giving birth to bunnies. I play a villager; the personified manifestation of the abstract concept "Good Sense"; and a coffee cup. It's a hell of a lot of fun.

The second is a new play about a couple's relationship deteriorating over something going on in a back room that one of the two is unable to enter. The play isn't "finished" yet, but my fingers are crossed. Excellent cast, good early drafts, definitely check-it-out material.

Coming soon, by popular demand, a post about what I'm actually doing in life, as opposed to which of my useful accessories have broken down prompting purchase of replacements.

2005-05-02T08:55:00.000-04:00

My backpack died on Friday.

It had been getting old and rather frail, and near the end some of the edges started to fray. On my way to rehearsal on that fateful afternoon, it finally popped a strap, and I made a detour to K-Mart to purchase myself a new one.

Stuff is just stuff, but sometimes possessions take on new levels of meaning. When I was just a lad, I literally cried when I had to give up a toothbrush I particularly liked. I haven't returned to that level of misery, but I still find myself wearing shoes far past their prime because they begin to seem like a natural extension of myself.

I'm not saying I had an emotional breakdown over losing my backpack. But it had been with me for years, and traveled with me on many continents. For the peripatetic New Yorker, the backpack is both constant companion and trusted servant. We have no cars with trunks, and no quick jaunt home between stops. Like snails, we carry our lives with us on our backs. And my friend had served me well.

And so it was with a little hint of sadness marked by memory that I shoved the inert, floppy, empty bag into a trashcan and walked away from it without a glance backwards.

Here's to my new backpack, my new friend. May he serve me well.

2005-04-28T08:55:00.000-04:00

Living most of my life in the desert that is Southern California, I was unprepared for the world-changing events of spring. Even now that I've lived in a place with seasons for five years now, the shift is still very jarring.

In a good way.

Emerging from the subway at Central Park South and 5th Avenue (blah blah blah) at the south-east corner of the Park, I am daily blown away by the beauty. All those trees appeared dead two weeks ago, and not long before that the pond was a block of ice. Now it's something alive and dynamic and beautiful.

I dislike winter. Sure, there are things to appreciate about it, but I find that most of them are clever and comfortable ways to avoid feeling its effects (e.g. the nice fire/hot chocolate set-up). With spring, moving through the world without a jacket on I feel so happy.

Until I take my first breath and the hay fever sets in like crazy.

Ah, well.

2005-01-22T23:42:00.000-05:00

I set out for the Metropolitan Museum of art with a plan in my head and a spring in my step. Gorgeous, springtime weather. Notebook in bag, bag on back. Some bouncy tunes to keep the pace (Apples in Stereo or Lyrics Born, something with a driving beat and solid production). A pen in my pocket, almost dripping ink in anticipation. The knowledge that some sentences sound lascivious, even if you didn't mean for them to be at all. A mental image, clear as the motherfuckin' sky above me: it goes me, the roof of the Met, a seat on a bench, a coffee next to me, aforementioned pen against aforementioned notebook scratching with ferocity, some thoughtful music to spur me forward (Bach or Hildegard von Bingen, something with, uh, cellos. Or chanting.), and departing some hours later with a piece of writing so beautiful and brilliant as to change lives, and bring smiles to sour faces.

It would start like this, my amazing piece of writing:

Setting: Roof Garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Time: Early Afternoon (I would have been more specific)
Weather: Clear as a motherfuckin' crystal
Reason for equating clarity with Oedipal urges: unknown, but possibly meaningful
Mood: Instilled with a spirit of positive energy that feels very much like joy
Side Effects: Suspicion at a) such nice weather this late in the year and b)this sudden, intense feeling of solid good.
The surroundings: Here, I launch into a stunning examination of the city around me. The park stretching away toward the towers on the West Side. The museum and what it means to me. Analysis of sudden optimism. Description of almost certainly bitter coffee and the cool wind on my exposed hand. Beautiful, elegant turns of phrase. Verbs and nouns positively scintillating. A personal note to look up the spelling of scintillating. Everything succulent, sweet, and aggravatingly alliterative (but in an alluring way). Language so clear, it's like you were balls deep in Jocasta. A tiny portrait of a city and of me in relation to it, how each completes the other and how each is truly more than its whole. This shit would spiral with brilliant wizardry of craft and language and at its climax would break down the very rules it had just established! Suddenly free-form! Then suddenly structured! The lines begin to evoke more than describe. They run into one another and disperse, like so many... things that run into another and then disperse. Suddenly meter... then better meter! Suddenly rhyme! This shit is in rhyme now! The language was too much for the form, see, it had to burst through, charge through, break down and rebuild from nothing until it achieved something new and great! Oh, and then it ended like this:

I cast myself about me
And I realize I'm home
And I smile because intended prose
Turned into a poem or something, I meant this ending is pretty weak, but it wouldn't have been if I had written it in the roof garden of the Met, with the coffee and the wind and the music and the view and all this beauty!

So I decided to grab lunch first, because who can write on an empty stomach? I wanted food to go, because I wanted to sit in the park to, you know, start preparing my senses for the lyrical onslaught I was about to transfer to the page. But every place I stopped in front of, every promising establishment that caught my eye, failed to hold my attention for more than a second. Failed to provide within me that sudden spark of inspiration. My initial desire to obtain a simple meal was replaced by a flood of doubt. Surely, I thought, the moment that I finally caved to the purchase of lesser food, I would suddenly turn and see The Perfect Place! The place with a meal that was literally perfect. Alas, it would have been too late! I would have already chosen a meal, a poorly selected sack of what could loosely be called "goods." And I would stare longingly at something tantalizing separated from me by a sheet of glass and a decision made in haste. The thought of returning tomorrow to secure this second, perfect meal was impossible! Perhaps this place, like Brigadoon, open only one day in every hundred years to serve their manna to an unsuspecting hunter, and tomorrow the restaurant and everything it promised would return to mist, never to be seen in this lifetime.

I wandered several blocks past the museum, searching in vain for this mythical meal. I finally conceded. If I did not select a meal soon, I wouldn't have the time I needed to craft my poetic masterpiece. It also dawned on me that even if I did manage to find something so perfect, it's not like I would necessarily be able to afford it. After all, I was on Madison Avenue, in the eighties. I settled on an imperfect place, and I selected an imperfect and almost painfully pretentious sandwich that featured on its packaging a description of the method of tomato preparation, and no less than three adjectives to describe the cheese. This sandwich I could afford... barely. I stepped forward to the counter, and discovered that I had literally left my wallet in my other pants.

I apologized, blushed, and headed home. Headed home with every intention of returning. I retrieved my money and started to leave again, but by then the day was just a little bit more dull, the wind just a little bit colder. The clarity of my spirit now significantly less incestuous. The walk before me long, and the television singing its tantalizing siren's song. The possibility of having food delivered to me shockingly attractive. I settled into the easy chair, and I reached for the phone with one hand and the remote control with the other.

Right then and there, that imagined masterpiece-- like so many before it-- died, providing whole new levels of meaning to the term cardiac arrest.

2005-01-18T13:05:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004 was going to be the day that I helped change the world. The possibility of that change flooded my thoughts and adrenaline my heart at the knowledge of what goodness the day would bring. I was unable to sleep. Rolling fitfully in my bed, my eyes wide open, my thoughts so clear and infused with optimism.

How do you sleep the night before you change the world?

I gave up on sleep in the middle of the night. I read news articles on the internet. I tried to watch SportsCenter, but found that I could not focus on the scores. I returned to my computer and read more news articles. I showered, I dressed, and I arrived at my polling place 45 minutes before it opened, because I could think of no place else to go.

I felt change.

They say to “write what you know.” They seem to be on to something. So from now on, I am going to write what I know, beginning with this brief list:

I know the quadratic equation.
I know the words to all the theme songs from the Disney Afternoon.
I know by heart the delivery phone number for Yummy House.
I know how to connect anyone to Kevin Bacon in no more than six steps.
I know how to program the clock on the VCR.
I know verses by Shakespeare, Thoreau, and Dr. Dre.
I know what subtext is.
I know the entire cast lists of Saved by the Bell and every incarnation of Star Trek. Except “Enterprise.”
I know how to bullshit a five paragraph essay the morning that it’s due and
I know how to get an A on it.
I know that this information will be of no more help to me in my life, ever.
I know every phone number that I learned before 2001, but none since because
I know how to use the phone book on my cellular.
I know the New Testament like the back of my hand and I know why it’s wrong like the back of my other hand.
I know that my disease with religion rests somewhere between reasonable and overly harsh.
I know how to tie a tie in about three tries.
I know how to cook pasta on a stove.
I know the difference between “your” and “you’re.”
I know how to use an apostrophe and
I know you hate it when I tell you that you misused it, but
I also know for sure that you’re going to have to deal with it until you learn.

I know that this life is far, far too short and
I know that that is both unfair and wonderful.

I know what the world looks like from the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, and 38,000 feet.
I know that a surefire sign of youth is being either too optimistic or too cynical, and I can feel myself vacillating between the two extremes with very little regard for the middle ground.
I know what hope feels like.
I know what it felt like to cast my vote on that cold, dark morning and
I know the joy I felt because I was going to do more than just vote. The shame I would feel at the end of the day for not doing enough. I loaded into a rental car packed with people. I listened to NPR and discussed how much we would win by. How tomorrow the world would forgive us. How these four fast friends and I would take Philadelphia by storm. How we would change the world, together.

We waved signs and sent shouts skyward, responding to car horns of acclamation and jeers from the opposition. I walked miles through a city I did not know, ringing doorbells and begging people to claim their constitutional right to make their voice heard. A man in a business suit saw our signs and spit on us, and we did not know how to react. An old woman smiled at us, and saluted us, and told us that she could not wait for us all to get drafted so that we could go to Iraq and die. My stomach reacted violently to a sleepless night, ten cups of coffee, and no food at all. I struggled through the pain, following winding suburban streets to knock on the doors of strangers. I told myself that there was no possible way the Republicans were as disorganized as my party was, with our mish-mash lists and uncertain leaders. I felt pride at doing my part for change. I felt cocky for supposing to go to a neighboring state to tell them what to do. I felt elation at victory achieved in Pennsylvania. Then I felt sickness as I finally collapsed into bed, unable to even comprehend what had happened.

So I want to write what I know. But I also want to write hope, and right now I fear that the two are incompatible. I want to write that knowledge is power, and I want to write that I live in a world of compassion, and in a country of wisdom and goodness. I want to write that a few young, scrappy people can affect social change and I don’t want to be made to feel childish for believing that.

I want to sing, and I want to dance, and I want to say that this is worth it, and that his matters. I want to learn and love, and I want to come to the end of my meager allotment of days knowing that I have lived.

I want to stand in a high, open place and scream how wonderful it all is, how wonderful and strange.

I want to know joy.

I want to write these things, but these are things I hope and want. These are not things that I know. What I know feels too useless and cheap, too old and too weak. Too hopeless. Too cynical. Like Fox Mulder’s poster, I want to believe. I want to write boldly and speak loudly.

I want to know these things I hope. More than I can say.

So forget it. Forget the maxim and the teaching and the common wisdom. I am going to write what I do not know. I am going to write what I hope unwaveringly. Because knowledge springs from hope, and if that’s not true then it ought to be.

So sing and dance and shout from a high, open place. Don’t let one day or four years or eight years decide the way you’ll see the world. Sing loudly. Dance boldly. Shout with all you possess. Our ignorance will become our strength, and our words will change this world.

And if you say to me that this is the naiveté of youth, then I say “Fuck you, and fuck getting older, because I believe in a world of hope!”

Or, at the very least, I believe in a world where I can hope for hope.

I think that’s what I’ll be writing from now on.

2005-01-10T22:56:00.000-05:00

I wrote the following in... I guess March of 2004. It's been about a year since I wrote it, and I have absolutely no recollection of writing it.

But I am now intrigued.

Attempting to engage those around you in discourse is often an exercise in futility. Certainly you see this is the case. I’m not even talking about discoursing in regard to theatre and art, I’m talking about getting anybody to talk to you about basically anything. I’m confident this does not just happen to me. Generally, people don’t want to talk about stuff. Whether this is because of my stunning prowess as a rhetorician has yet to be proven conclusively, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
One reason people have given me for not engaging in discussions on serious themes is that they don’t “want to argue.” This seems ridiculous to me; if we’re not here to argue, what the hell are we doing here? Passive acceptance isn’t worth the breath it takes to sustain life long enough to nod in dumb agreement. I’m here to argue.
And that’s not even the point. So, I don’t mind arguing—that’s something to keep in mind. But I believe there can be heated discussion without argument. I believe the two are disparate, and that they’re dissimilar enough that I figure people shouldn’t confuse them. I don’t know what separates them, I just know that they’re separate. I don’t feel offended when people disagree with me, I feel offended when I make a point on a challenging issue and nobody demands that I back myself up with facts, or nobody disagrees. That’s what’s really offensive. It’s not demeaning to be challenged, it’s respectful.
All that aside:
Another reason I believe people tend not to discuss things—and this might be particularly with me—is that they’re afraid of sounding uninformed or less… I don’t know, prepared for an argument. I tend to state things with a lot of… gusto. I tend to state things loudly and broadly and it scares people into thinking that I’m not a poorly-informed hack. Little do they know. All jokes aside, vocabulary tends to worry the prospective counterpoints away, and I am at least skilled at appearing to have one. A vocabulary.
Also, I apparently have the tendency to… state things in such a way that cuts off counterargument. I mean, except for my brother, who is able to systematically immolate nearly any argument I can bring up on any subject. But yes… I state things dramatically and solidly, and again that frightens people off.
If you’re worrying that this is off the topic of why I’m choosing to do theatre as a career, put those worries aside and know that, while I don’t have a clear plan, I do remember where I’m trying to get back to, thesis-wise.
What those who choose to discuss things with me will quickly notice is that I am your typical extravert—sometimes I don’t know what I mean until I hear what I say. So I might bombastically state a point and then back away from it suddenly and without warning. I just want to talk about things because not only does it help me learn how to talk about things, it helps me figure out what I think about those things in the first place.
There may be more reasons people choose not to discuss openly in public. But fear of being wrong, fear of seeming inadequately prepared, fear of offending a friend… perhaps one to throw into this list is just plain ignorant and pleased to stay that way, though I hope that isn’t the case with anyone I’d try to engage in discussion outside of classes in CAS.
OK so then point one: theatre gives me the opportunity to discuss themes and ideas without making anybody seem responsible for defending a side, or convincing me or anything. Theatre gives me an opportunity to pick a play with weighty elements, and spend months in a room with a talented and brilliant group of people in physical discussion with one another and with the themes. Rock on, you know?
Point two: after all that time engaging in discussion with a brilliant cast about just what the hell we’re doing with a play, I get to engage the audience in discussion. Sorta. This is a tricky one, in that I get to present a fully fleshed-out argument to an audience if I so desire. I can do one side; I can do the other. I can also present both sides of the argument with neither one winning so well. I get to personally decide the argument I’m presenting to a whole crowd of people who have paid for the experience of hearing my argument presented to them.
Sweet!
Then, similarly, people tend to be able to hear arguments better when they’re presented by the above oft-mentioned PRETEND PEOPLE. Why this is I have NO CLUE, it seems singularly bizarre to me that people would be willing to pay money and spend good time sitting in rows watching fake people talk about issues rather than engage in issue discussion themselves.
For many, theatre is seen as entertainment rather than discussion. These people should watch television.
“So,” you say, “this is very elitist of you. Theatre is for those who wish to engage in discussion, and those who desire entertainment should watch Everybody Loves Raymond?”
Well… yeah, OK. Maybe that is what I mean.
I don’t know! I don’t know?
I want an audience that wants to engage.
That wants to argue.
That is willing to stand up afterward and blatantly disagree.
That stands up and blatantly disagrees during a performance.
I want an audience that is not complacent.
That does not complacently agree.
That does not want solely to be entertained.
I am not interesting in maintaining order. I don’t mean that I want to physically attack anyone, but I want to create a theatre of aggression. A theatre of argument. A theatre...

Look, I want theatre to be entertaining. I just think you can have your cake and that you can eat it too but that also your cake can kick fucking ass! Like be a really tasty cake. Theatre does not have to be lecture OR entertainment. There is a middle ground where theatre can be both engaging and entertaining. I want to do this. I do not want to offend an audience, I want to engage them in a communal conversation that sparks thought and discussion.
So, you see, getting to

The Point
Is that theatre, for all its weirdness, can be kind of effective, oddly enough. If done right I think I can achieve these things I am after.

We’ll see I guess.

2004-11-09T13:25:00.000-05:00

I sat right here, five years ago this month. The chairs in here have changed. Actually, all the decor has gradually shifted toward some sort of faux-art-deco. The street outside has new, bigger, brighter stores. Coffee costs more than it did then. Just a little bit more. But more.

I sat in this exact spot practicing my monologue from Picasso at the Lapin Agile, hours before my audition for NYU. I arrived way too early, just wanting to be in the same neighborhood as this place that had become my dream. I ran the words over and over in my head, making sure I knew them perfectly. And at one point amidst the nervousness, the fear, the tension, and the giddiness all rolled into one uber-emotion, I looked up at the world around me and knew with all certainty: I'm going to live here. Soon.

It was so clear that I didn't question it. I just knew it was true.

A girl-- almost certainly a freshman student-- just stopped me on the sidewalk outside and asked me which way uptown was. And I remembered when I wasn't so sure, either. I remembered when I walked halfway across town in the wrong direction, and I remembered the first time someone asked me for directions and I knew how to tell them. I remembered how I used to need a subway map, and how I never went above 14th St. unless it was absolutely necessary.

It's five years later and I'm back here again. The certainty of that epiphany I experienced replaced with uncertainty about nearly everything. I think that my outward calm belies a deeper turmoil that I never quite allow myself to get at. Five years and $200,000 later and I'm done with school and clueless. Terrified. Unmotivated. Likely unemployable. I have a piece of paper that I worked for so hard, proving that I spent that much time and money to study drama. And I have a special gold tassel proving that I did it better than some other people. And looming over the inner turgid rapids within, the future of our world hangs in the balance tomorrow, and I am trembling with anticipation.

I sit right here, now, contemplating new applications to yet another tour of duty in school. There are good reasons why I should return to the classroom and learn more. But I really shouldn't kid myself about the biggest reason: I'm terrified of doing anything else.

I sat here the first time filled with certainty and joy at the knowledge of what was to come. Less than a month before I had gone on a tour of colleges with my father, visiting this one first, and thinking that we should just cancel the rest of the trip. Less than a year later and less than two blocks from here I watched my mother and father, both crying, get into a taxi and leave me here for good.

Five years and so much has changed. My worry is what worries me most. My dad pretended like he was calling the leaves blowing around in Washington Square Park, and we laughed together, and I knew. I pointed uptown for her and smiled to myself as she thanked me.

The outright joy I felt is dimming, replaced with a certain longing for what was and a certain trepidation of what is to come. I never expected to grow up. It's caught me a little by surprise, is all.

(written Monday, Nov. 1st)

2004-11-02T06:25:00.000-05:00

I voted. First in line.

GO VOTE!

2004-11-02T05:07:00.001-05:00

I haven't been able to sleep all night. I'm so nervous about what this election day will bring. I'm wondering when sleep will happen, because I know I'm going to be up all night again watching the returns.

I'm going to Philadelphia today to help get the vote out. I figure if we can get even a few more people to get out and vote we may sway the election. If Florida 2000 taught us anything, it should be that one person's vote does count, provided s/he lives in certain states and gets the chad all the way out.

All cynicism aside, I haven't felt so much like praying in years.

2004-11-02T05:07:00.000-05:00

2004-11-02T01:06:00.000-05:00

VOTE.

2004-10-20T03:20:00.000-04:00

I haven't played the new Tony Hawk Underground 2 video-game, and I'm not sure that I'm going to. I've enjoyed the Tony Hawk franchise for years. I've found the games to be elegant, challenging, and just absolutely crazy fun. The games have become larger, longer, and more immersive while maintaining the fun aspect that often seems to disappear as franchises move on. These games are also notable in that I can actually play them with my brother, and at his request which is a big deal as he tends to stay away from electronic gaming.

So why am I not playing this game?

There was a moment in Tony Hawk 3 where a man was trapped in his car, which was teetering on the edge of a precipice. He was screaming for help. One of the missions in the level was something like "Help the guy in the car." But as we found out, you weren't supposed to rescue him, you were supposed to plant the hood of his car and knock him to his death. This made me feel extremely uncomfortable, and I actually knew it was coming from Josh's warnings.

The new THUG: 2 game looks to be all about causing mayhem. Obviously, the acronym they've chosen to go with is "thug." The commercials for the game talk about it as a world destruction tour. Tony himself is seen in the commercial slashing a car's tires.

I think it's actually pretty sad that they're taking the franchise this route. The punk, property-destruction element of skateboarding is not appealing to me. At all. It's the skill, and beauty, and ingenuity of the skaters that amazes me, as well as the camaraderie that exists around the sport. As my brother and I have discussed, even professional skaters that are competing as a living seem to be genuinely more interested in seeing the sport furthered than in winning themselves. The previous games mirrored the elegance of the sport with elegant control. There were missions and some of them were silly, but "tagging" used to mean turning a park bench flashing neon-blue not spray painting slogans on private property.

Tony Hawk has his own foundation which helps build skate-parks in low-income communities. This reduces vandalism, provides community, and gives skaters a legitimate, legal place to practice their activity without being hassled by the po'. I think it's then weird to market a product that seems to glorify the very trends that make skaters and skateboarding seem so rogue. Anyway, maybe send your $50 to the foundation, and take another crack at Tony Hawk 4. You probably haven't finished every challenge with every character yet. Just try not to kill anyone.

2004-10-11T02:33:00.000-04:00

I believe that the money I spent this year to purchase DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket may be the best investment I've ever made. Sundays have never been the same.

2004-10-06T04:26:00.000-04:00

I've been mostly silent over here for a while, with good reason. TurboAwesome.com is starting to shape up, and I've been posting over there a lot, in the past few days writing about internet short-hand seeping into grownup language, John Woo's new He-Man film, and defending myself against anonymous internet gangsters who have haunted me on this infernal machine since day one, still without a clue about where to find the spacebar.

I do not believe that TurboAwesome will forever pull me from making this site... all... all that it could be! (fill in your own derisive comment about the potential of this site)

2004-09-29T04:07:00.001-04:00

It rained heavily today... or it rained today, heavily. Rain fell today in large quantities. It rained a lot today.

Update on weird usage of quotation marks! I saw two signs on the gate of a playground on 43rd St. One of them was incorrect in the way that, though so common, still drives me slightly mad:

There is no "smoking" in playground

OK, we're used to that, even if it still doesn't make any sense. The other was almost unfathomably bizarre:

"Please Keep"
"Gate"
Closed

What? What could they possibly have been getting at. Why is "gate" in its own set of quotation marks? If they're using quotation marks for emphasis, why isn't "Closed" the only word in quotes as it's the defining word of the sentence? What the hell's going on here?

I also don't recall discussing Chicken Shack on this site, so now's a perfect time. I think the restaurant is called Chicken Shack, because on its banner it has

"The World Famous" Chicken Shack

Is it world famous? Do they want us to believe that it is? Has someone been quoted as saying that Chicken Shack was "the world famous" and if so, why isn't a source cited? What's the actual name of the restaurant on their ownership documents? Does it include the quotation marks?

In my eighth grade yearbook, the editor-in-chief's quote was this: Friends come and go, but friendships are forever.

That doesn't relate to the rest of the stuff I've discussed, but it also doesn't make any "sense."

2004-09-29T04:07:00.000-04:00

There is no "smoking" in playground

OK, we're used to that, even if it still doesn't make any sense. The other was almost unfathomably bizzare:

"Please Keep"
"Gate"
Closed

"The World Famous" Chicken Shack

2004-09-16T02:11:00.000-04:00

The song is "O Fire of the Paraclete." But in Latin, so "O Ignis Spiritus Paracliti." The story of the first time I heard this song is a well-documented one. It even made it into a performance piece one time. The story, I mean. Though, come to think of it, the song was part of the piece too.

It is a story of a too-long bus ride and an inability to sleep in moving vehicles. It is a story of an accidental happening upon an almost-frequency, of the haunting voice that passed my ear and hit me someplace deeper, and of my hand upraised in the darkness--not in a celebration of religious spirituality--but in a searching grasp for something beautiful and true.

I got to the theatre on opening night of Forensic and the Navigators very early. I sat in the middle of the stage floor. No lights were on. "O Fire of the Paraclete" surrounded me, an aural blanket that seemed to flow from the speakers above and envelop me. I played it so loudly that it knocked from my mind every ounce of doubt and knot of stress. I sat in that theatre sightless but sure with the music as comfort and guide. In ninety minutes or two hours the same room would be in utter chaos--chaos I had organized--covered in breakfast cereal and filled with shouting rage. But for a moment it was calm, and for a moment it was perfect.

I have sung in cathedrals older than I can imagine. I have touched the stones of walls older than my mind can comfortably process. I have blended my voice with others and known for a moment at least a part of the whole. This music nine centuries old that nonetheless feels like a letter addressed just to me.

Here in Central Park today the song is the same. The bench I've chosen is dedicated

Every Second of Every Minute
August 8th 1997 -

The second part of the equation is left blank, waiting for an ending date.

Every second of every minute.

Rising above me, the buildings of this city with height to outmatch any cathedral I've seen. But between those buildings and this place that I sit are flowers, and this lake, the arc of a bridge sweatered in ivy, and birds skimming low across the glimmering surface.

I don't know the words they're singing. I think I prefer it that way. For me it is just the voices as one, stretching upward like my hand in that darkened bus. The voices calming my spirit like they did in that empty theatre. The voices altering the world in front of me just slightly. I am not sitting on a bench in a man-made park surrounded by this heaving metropolis.

For now it is a cathedral. This bench a pew. This pond and these trees an altar. These towering buildings stained glass above me.

O Fire of the Paraclete.

The song and this place are offering me something, I gradually learn. As the solo becomes a choir and the voices blend and pitch and yaw and soar the trees suggest the movement of a windy day. I am offered something here, so I reach my hand out expectantly to grasp it and for just a second I know that I have it. But I pull my hand back empty. And I have to wonder now if it was anything at all.

2004-09-11T03:16:00.000-04:00

Random images of cranberry sauce and an updated book section. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

It's like 3:17 AM. I'm sitting at Scraps's apartment watching Die Hard: With A Vengeance and considering going to the deli to purchase some tasty potations.

I love New York.

Zac has indeed joined the Turbo Awesome crew, which is maybe awesome, but since I don't really know quite yet what the hell we're going to do with it, it's a little early to get excited. Scraps's initial goal was to have a site that promotes discussion. He's continuing to tinker with format in order to provide a more interesting, content-oriented feeling. He's also playing that stupid superhero game like goddamn 24/7 so who knows what's up.

But that "Equal parts turbo and awesome" at the bottom of the blog is me. All me.

***

This afternoon, I saw an undercover drug-bust that was thrillingly well-executed. After a relatively obvious drug hand-off had just taken place on 43rd St., a crowd of regular-looking guys surrounded the dealer. I thought they were friends, or screwing around or something, because all the guys were laughing.

Then up he went against a van. Out came the cuffs. Out came six bages on strings around necks.

There was no way to tell these guys were cops. The subterfuge was perfect. One of them had on a Randy Moss Jersey. Two of them looked like they were on their way home from work. They just looked like regular guys you might pass on the street. I know that's the whole point of undercover, but I've only seen it in movies when the dashingly handsome detective sticks out like a sore thumb. These guys were awesome.

More police drove by in an umarked white van that looked for all the world like just two guys making deliveries. Looking through the black mesh in the van, you could see the back was filled with police officers. Computers, phones, the works it seems.

Absolutely awesome. If you're into that sort of thing.

2004-09-01T06:44:00.000-04:00

This isn't an especially interesting post. Fair warning.

Let's begin with extra-special good news. For all the non-believers that didn't believe it when I said it, let it be known that Family Guy is officially coming back on the air, and even has its own fully functional website. Huzzah.

Also, I think pretty much everybody who reads this lives in the NYC or LA areas (I count one confirmed Chicago and also I think one suspected North Carolina reader) so this shouldn't be too much of a journey for any of you (Elisheba excluded): Go watch the film Reconstruction when it opens near you. It's a Danish film that I was lucky enough to see at the London Film Festival and I'm pretty certain that it kicks ass. It's always possible that I'm wrong.

Finally, not that anybody gives anything approaching the ass of a rat, but once again Blogger and I are having relationship issues re: archives, so if you were hoping to read my post from like November '02 where I described a particularly amusing video-game level you're outta luck.

2004-08-31T03:19:00.000-04:00

I am in Chicago.

More to follow.

2004-08-26T13:46:00.000-04:00

I got my diploma yesterday. I guess that means I've really graduated.

2004-08-25T16:49:00.000-04:00

I have five (5 (V)) G-Mail invites. Who wants one?

2004-08-22T04:13:00.000-04:00

Movie Geek has left the building.

For what was supposed to just be a simple workshop production, Movie Geek ended up being the most stressful theatre experience I can remember... I am steadfast in my determination to never again ever direct a play that incorporates such tech-heavy elements. This is why I went to theatre school and not film school. With theatre, you need humans and a place to put them.* Film needs all this electricity and whatnot. And cables. And something the tech guys called "firewire."**

So I will remain steadfast. Steadfast, of course, until I'm offered the chance to direct another show. Or remount this one. Or go to film school.

I do not believe this will be the end for Movie Geek. Dylan is planning on applying to Fringe Festivals next year, and I've encouraged him to apply it to Edinburgh. Mostly because I want to go spend next summer in Scotland. Also, of course, because it will be a good venue for him to get his work seen by an audience that will likely approve. Not that, like, NYC, Minneapolis, and San Francisco would be bad.

*Generally speaking.
** I do actually know what firewire is, and I'd thank the white devil to keep his whiskey to himself.

2004-08-12T07:25:00.000-04:00

Maybe my favorite photograph ever taken. This was snapped by my friend Eric H. Clem on opening night of Forensic and the Navigators. Oddly enough, it exactly sums up the play:

2004-08-08T13:39:00.000-04:00

MOVIE GEEK by Dylan Dawson
Directed by David McGee

Performance dates:
Friday, 8/13 @ 8PM
Sunday, 8/15 @ 2PM
Saturday, 8/21 @ 8PM

Ticket reservation hotline:
310 450 1173

Directions:
Click here

2004-08-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

My friend Scraps actually posted the fact that I updated my website to his news section. With the caption "trust me it's news."

California is still California and I really don't enjoy driving. I find it confining and irritating and much prefer public transportation. I'd much prefer waiting for the 6 train for 20 minutes than sitting on the 405 for 20 minutes tapping the gas and brake alternately.

The play workshop that I'm directing out here is going really well. You can find "information" and tickets to it here. It's called Movie Geek, written and performed by Dylan Dawson, one of the cast members of my recent production of Woyzeck. And it's pretty darned funny. Script workshopping has been going well, and if you're in town (L.A.) I recommend dropping by and seeing it.

I am enjoying my new iPod. It certainly does change one's life.

I've seen pretty much every movie out there, continue to rail against The Village (seriously, don't bother. the acting is very good (way more than it deserves) and it is very, very pretty to look at but: NOTHING SAVES A BAD SCRIPT. NOTHING.*)

I'm changing a lot of the sidebar stuff. Time to move on. I'll make it better later, but for now select editing will do. It's dinner time.

*In my always humble opinion.

2004-07-30T13:24:00.000-04:00

I watched The Village.

Uh... don't.

2004-07-29T12:56:00.000-04:00

I am back in California. Repeat-- I am back in California.

I haven't been updating.

I moved to Spanish Harlem and have decorated my walls with pictures of two trips to Europe and with posters of the shows I've directed.

I completed a workshop of a hip-hop Aeschylus (not Sophocles) play, a workshop in which I got to work with Will Power and Jo Bonney.

I sat at dinner across from Lincoln Center (where I had just been part of a panel at the Directors' Lab) and talked with Jo Bonney about the original production of Stop Kiss, a play I later did a totally illegal production of. I learned more about being a director watching her work than maybe in any other two week period ever, aside from maybe the first two weeks of freshman year directing class.

I realize that I still really, really want to direct theatre. I hope somebody someday might want to pay me for that. In the meantime, I collected two weeks' worth of paychecks as an actor, something that I had written off as a possibility three years ago.

I am re-reading Infinite Jest because it is the best book ever written.

Football season is starting soon. This is why I got DirecTV.

I walked the streets of New York the day I left and fell in love with the city again, the same way I do every single day that I remember to look at where I am and think about what I'm doing. And I walked the street of Pasadena last night and felt like a stranger, felt oddly out of place, the only pedestrian in sight, looking for just a bodega on a corner to purchase maybe a toothbrush and a Coke, the idea of having to get in a car and drive somewhere to purchase these things suddenly frustrating, the annoyance of the crosswalk system here where you must push a button or you cannot walk, tickets for jaywalking I've seen them do it, and the Hallelujah Chorus playing in my headphones as I smile and keep right on walking.

2004-05-29T22:45:00.000-04:00

Statement on lack of updates

I am updating. Hold onto your hats.

I believe the reason I have not been updating with the same frequency as last semester is simple. I felt the need, while I was in London, to bridge the gap... literal and otherwise, I suppose. I felt this semester like I was living my own life-- certainly the reverse of my feelings whilst abroad. My posts this semester weren't even posts so much, but simply sharing what I had been working on in class.

There will be no more class. Ever. Or if not ever, at least not for a while. I have graduated college, and trying to deal with that fact is more surreal than any ten experiences I had in London. School is done.

Announcement of odd, yet cool news

In the strangest of strange news comes the following:

Tuesday, first ever professional audition
Thursday, first ever professional callback
Friday, cast in my first ever professional theatre gig

I have been cast in a 10 day workshop (at New York Theatre Workshop, oddly enough) of Will Power's play The Seven. It is a hip-hop version of The Seven Against Thebes, ye olde Sophocles play.

FAQ:

Q: So, are you the token white guy?
A: I have no idea, having not met the rest of the cast yet. It is not an unreasonable guess, however.

Q: Did they cast you as comedic relief because your rapping sucks so much?
A: Again, not out of the realm of possibility.

Q: Is it true that they asked you to prepare a song to be sung at callbacks, that you prepared and then sang for the panel "Part of That World" from Disney's The Little Mermaid?
A: That is true. Prompting Will Power, at the end, to stand up and say "You are The Man!" (emphasis his)

As much as I mock the cheese-factor of my years in the Brighter Side Singers (for the uninitiated, this was my high school show choir complete with sequined vests and all), I can't overstate some of the benefits gained from same. For instance, in the dance portion of the audition I didn't miss a step. Not one. This has nothing to do with my innate dance prowess, methinks: this has to do entirely with dance reps of like Baby Face over and over until I thought I'd pull my hair out. I would have been hopeless, otherwise-- as hopeless as I was on my very first day of BSS camp.

And in a strange turn of events, whoever would have thunk that writing and performing in all those lame BSS Ninja Rap sequences would have honed the skills necessary for my first professional show? Amazing. Amazing.

And, additionally, as if I needed to mention it, who would have done thunk that after raging against acting for four years of college that I would be acting again less than two weeks after graduation?

As you can plainly see, I am excited about this.

Near-death experience
My backpack got caught between the moving handrail of an escalator and the wall, wedging itself in there and pulling my shoulders back sharply, causing me to have to run backwards up the still moving escalator while trying to free myself. I was reaching for my knife to cut myself free (sounds like an absurd reaction, I know, but I was panicking) but I turned sharply and managed to dislodge it. Scary stuff.

Aborted attempt at voicing my frustration with the tourism at the World Trade Center site

Perhaps another day. Too fed up right now.

Weird, anticlimactic ending to post:

Well...

2004-04-26T01:47:00.000-04:00

Darnit.

For the nth time (where n is a rather large number), the following happened:

1) I wrote a paper for a class the night before it was due.
2) I was embarrassed at how horrible the paper was, believing it to be my worst writing ever, and turned it in ashamedly.
3) The professor absolutely loved the paper. The quote this time was "Your best yet: Well-written and insightful."

So should I stop writing stuff that I like? Am I that far off-base in judging my own writing?

2004-04-07T10:57:00.000-04:00

My show is opening on Friday.

If you're in New York this weekend, come check it out. It's basically my senior thesis... and it's actually not too shabby.

Woyzeck
by Georg Buchner

Directed by David McGee

Friday April 9th-Monday April 12th at 8:00PM
Matinee Sunday April 11th at 2:00PM

Tickets: $5 for students, $10 general
Call Ticketcentral at (212) 279-4200

Apologies for tech week craziness; advance apologies for post-partum depression beginning Monday night.

2004-04-01T16:11:00.000-05:00

I came upon that place, today
Where almost a thousand days ago
I stood and watched the world explode
And the sky come a-tumblin' down.

I walked those cobblestones, today
A thousand mornings since that fateful
-Mark'd in memory-lived in infamy-
Day when the sky came down.

And standing on that corner, today
A thousand mornings hence, I turned
My gaze upon that empty place
And remembered the sky coming down.

I remembered the roar and the scream and the sound
As the sky was torn to the ground.
As the sky came a-tumblin' down.

2004-04-01T16:05:00.000-05:00

Written for Autobiography class:

The Third Time in as Many Weeks That Sofija Jovic Disrupted My Life
Or
How I Learned to Stop Hiding and Love Myself, Maybe
(From notes scribbled on a Woyzeck program draft, March 29th, 2004)

Our class ended early so Sofija asked if I wanted to go somewhere and get a cup of coffee. It was an absolutely beautiful early spring day, the breeze brisk, sweet, cooling. The sun shone not harshly but softly and bright, in the manner of all storybook spring days everywhere. It was just warm enough. The city glowed yellow and bright, and the cloudless sky above could be said to have been sparkling. If there were justice in the world or trees in the city, it was the kind of morning on which birds should have been chirping.
Somewhere; birds were chirping. I am certain of it.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. You decide. Be a man. Take me somewhere against my will.”
***
Sofija has an infectious laugh, and a mischievous grin that belongs on a young boy. A young boy that is up to no good. Her voice is crisp and a lovely almost-baritone, that an American woman just couldn’t pull off with the same gusto. Sofija’s words are shaped by a Serbian accent that sharpens her vowels and makes her consonants all slightly sibilant. It is a voice that has been known to strike terror into the hearts of those that hear it; in times of intensity she tends to sound a little unsettlingly dictatorial; a fact I believe she both knows and exploits. She is the only theatre director I know who can get away with a sharp clap of the hands and an exclaimed “OK! Chop chop! Choppity chop!” to her actors. If I tried that, for instance, I would get laughed at. Her actors fucking chop chop, you know? Her use of invented verbs to intimidate those she is commanding heightens the experience, as I have previously overheard her say variations on “I will genocide you” and “I will Holocaust you,” the first time in my knowledge that either of these two terms have been used in this way. You sort of think you ought to be offended when she speaks like this; but something about the way she smiles once she’s said it somehow makes even the most appalling comments seem harmless.
I think I might kind of be in love with her. OK, not really. I knew she was going to read this and thought I’d throw her off right near the beginning. But she does mystify me in a way that makes me completely rapt in her presence; a fact which I believe she both knows and disgusts. She will do the flirty thing with me, but most of the time she seems to poo-poo any compliments I throw her way, or any near-serious assertions that I think she’s one swell lady. Maybe “school-boy crush” is a better way to describe it. School-boy crush is actually perfect; no school-boy crush would be complete without the girl on the receiving end that just totally doesn’t give a shit that you have a crush on her.
God damn. It’s too bad she’s married.
***
“OK, well let’s go somewhere we can sit outside. It’s such a lovely day. So let’s go to that Starbuck’s, not this one.”
“You aren’t cold?”
“No, but if you are…”
“No, let’s go.”
She bought each of us a hot chocolate and herself a lemon poppy-seed muffin (which she absolutely fucking forced me to have a bite of, which I think is like this whole other story. Suffice it to say that I took a bite just to get her to stop trying to make me take a bite. It was actually a pretty great muffin, and when she said “Oh, I like it very much. It’s very bitter. I like bitter things.” And I said something like “That’s not really a surprise.” And then she said “Yes. I like all sorts of bitter things, like really bitter chocolate. You’re right! It’s not surprising!” and then she laughed in that way that just fucking slays me). I did not protest much when she offered to pay for my drink. Despite being poor at this point, I would have normally made a fuss and demanded to pay for not just my beverage but everything. But, as you may have caught me intimating [;)], Sofija does scare me a little bit and I’m loath to question her in any situation. Also, frankly, I felt she owed me a cup of something warm and soothing after what she had put me through in the weeks previous. Hot damn, what a transition.
It started innocently enough, it seems, with the two of us doing one of our patented flirty-type banter things early in the Monday morn, yea on these three weeks ago. This particular exchange—I don’t remember what it was we were discussion, probably I made a pass at her and she made some incredibly lascivious, dirty, and like quadrupule-entendre’d sort of thing that would make me blush. It’s amusing the disparity in her language. This is a girl that can make incredibly lucid, amazing, philosophical points in English but stopped me cold in a conversation to make me explain what I meant when I called her a “meanie-head.” She actually said, “What is this meanie-head?” Anyway, this most recent bit of banter ended with her saying:
“David. I must find you a girlfriend.” Her vocal pauses tend to sound like periods rather than commas, so her speech has a punctuated and precise pattern.
“Sofija,” I said in a mock-whiny tone, “The ladies-- they don’t love the Dave McGee.”
‘Well,” she said, the beginning of a smile working its way into the corners of her mouth, “That is because not every girl is excited that you hide behind your intellect.”
“…” I said. “…” I added quickly, not at all just sitting there with my mouth gaping like… like…
That is because not every girl is excited that you hide behind your intellect.
What a load of what a bunch of what a stupid thing to
You hide behind your intellect
Of course I don’t I don’t even know what that means I couldn’t possibly
You hide behind your intellect.
Stunned. Shocked. Absolutely blown away. No response. She’s wrong. That’s the response. She’s wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. She must be wrong. I don’t do that I don’t do that she is wrong she is wrong I am not hiding behind my intellect. I am not she is wrong I am not doing that. I do not hide behind my intellect.
I don’t.
Oh fuck.
I do.
“Sofija…”
She laughed, and walked out of the room. I don’t think she knew that she had just destroyed me.
She owed me a fucking hot chocolate, that’s for sure.
***
Short excerpts from our brief foray into the Starbucks:
“But men are so unlucky. You don’t get to have babies…”
The only thing Sofija has ever whined about in my presence is her desire to have a child. A desire which frankly scares the living shit out of me. She actually whines about this; it would be adorable if the thought of any of my friends having children of their own wasn’t so fucking horrifying.
“Uh, you can keep it.”
“You don’t get to have breasts.”
I squeeze my man-breasts at her, I brandish them like weapons.
“I do!”
“Shutup! No you don’t.”
This is one of those times in which Sofija scares me into silence. I simply nod and move on. I know I’m right though. I do have breasts.
***
“But there is something about being a man… you may not have that deep, physical connection… that “I carried this” kind of… that singular maternal instinct. But there is a connection there. It’s primal and it’s just as important… this knowledge that you are the first line of defense. You know? “Nothing will touch this thing.” Not like… not like I’ll attack anything that comes near my child but I’ll fucking kill anything that comes near it.”
“Yeah, you’re right. That’s sexy.”
***
“So I had this great conversation with Melanie. A world-destroying conversation, and we had never met before. Briana told me later how Melanie described it: she said you know how when you speak more than one language and you get really drunk or really tired or really excited and you slip into that other language? It was like that, but with English.”
She looks down at the table for a moment.
“I’m worried to tell you this.”
“Oh, now you have to tell me.”
Let the floodgates fucking open.
“Sofija, I think I know exactly why I’ve built up these defenses.”
“Why?”
“Because I think I’m ugly…”
“What?”
“It’s not just that I feel unattractive, Sofija, I feel… despair when I see the way I look. I figure if I can be clever enough and smart enough then maybe people won’t notice how ugly I am. Or it won’t matter so much.”
“Oh my god.” Her tone is sharp, and I’m worried that she’s actually going to kick my ass. She could too. “Do you honestly think you have nothing to offer physically?”
“Yeah.”
“Well you’re wrong. You do. There is something about the way that you hug that… I don’t see this on the surface. I got this all the first time I hugged you. All this “first-line-of-defense,” you need to show more of that. You need to show that you are sexy like that.”
“I’m not sexy.”
“You’re not understanding me. It’s… I mean… Ugh! There aren’t words for anything.”
“You have to be clear though, Sofija, so I can remember this later.”
“You don’t need to remember it word for word.”
“I’m going to botch this when I try to write about. I’m not going to capture your voice closely enough. I want to be able to write exactly what you said I want to record this conversation.”
“You don’t need to. This is not for you to write about. This is for you.”
“But later when I try to thank you for it, why do you try to minimize the gift you’re giving me? In a minute you’re going to unleash a string of words and phrases that I think are going to fundamentally change my life and then after a few more hours of class, after you’ve held my hand through the whole next class while I cry constantly and the teacher insists on asking over and over if I’m alright when I try to thank you you’re going to say “Oh, come on, it’s not me.” “No!” I’ll say. “I will not let you absolve yourself of the responsibility for this gift you have given are giving will be giving me in a moment. You must take responsibility for this because you changed are changing will change me.” And you will say “I am just giving you something that somebody gave me.” And that will have to do, I guess, because you’re not going to know don’t know didn’t know how much all of this will change me.”
“OK.”
“How do I say what you said to me? I want everyone to know.”
“How does it feel?”
“It feels like a whirlwind.”
“…”

Then Sofija said in no particular order and with me completely botching her voice
whirlwind:
“The difference between you and me is that you don’t believe in any Truth. There’s a difference. You can say “this is true” but you can’t ever say “this is the truth.” You don’t have a sense of Truth. You have to learn to feel this sense of being overwhelmed. You have to learn to feel that there is this time when you cannot breathe and you are completely unable to respond. You have to learn to act, to say “yes” or “no” without thinking just knowing. You have to… your sense of humor, it’s like OK. I get it. But it’s just a distraction. It’s not sexy.”
This next part of the conversation never happened
“You’re not supposed to know this much.”
“Shutup. I’m talking.”
“You didn’t really say that.”
“I know. But concentrate…”
“I can’t. My life is going to change because of this conversation.”
“You don’t know that yet.”

I know it now.

Sofija tore my heart out of my chest and showed it to me. With a flick of the wrist and a turn of a phrase she pierced directly to the center of nearly 22 years of carefully constructed defense mechanisms. Some I didn’t even know I had. I can’t tell you everything she said. I can’t remember it all.
Amalgam of several conversation fragments.
“You have to find someone that is just as scared as you are.”
“What like a John Patrick Shanley play? I’m fucked up so I have to find somebody else fucked up so we can be fucked up together?”
“No. You are not understanding me. This is why I was scared to tell you this. For fear of the Patrick Shanley comment.”
“I’m not meaning to misunderstand… look, when I met Melanie I felt…”
“You don’t need to tell me what you felt. I know what you felt.”
“How do you know what I felt?”
“Because I know you both. You both have these brains, these huge brains and you’re both so vulnerable.”
“How do you know I’m vulnerable?”
“It’s like when you’re in the most intense pain you have to relax. There are people for whom intellect is a… is a… like “I don’t get you.” Well that’s not you. I get you.”
“I don’t want to hide behind my intellect anymore.”
“You don’t need to.”
***
I can’t tell you everything she said. I can only tell you how it made me feel. Defenseless. Wonderful. As if my life were beginning new.
“Everything I could say to you Sofija would sound like hyperbole right now.”
“Like what?”
“I feel like my life will never be the same.”
“That’s never hyperbole. That’s always true.”

I feel. I am allowing myself to feel. I am trying to recognize that. I walked more upright today. I felt freed from my responsibility to the defenses I have built up. I still feel that way. I am excited to live. I want to act out. I want to act without thinking not irresponsibly but just off the cuff for once for once.

I want to ask a girl out on a date. Like for real. I can say just how I feel I can say I have no idea how to ask you out on a date. But I really want to go with you on one.

And maybe that’ll be OK, and maybe that won’t be a simplistic way to respond to this amazing thing that happened to me today. If for a moment I can break down those defenses and know this… know this… know this… and when I told Marleen that I had had my heart torn out and shown and that I felt destroyed she said

Well that also means that you were ready to hear it.

And you know something?

2004-03-18T00:39:00.000-05:00

I received an e-mail today with registration information for next semester.

I experienced a slight moment of shock when I realized that I didn't need that information. Wow. How the fuck am I done with college already?

2004-01-20T23:54:00.000-05:00

Rage.

And register to fucking vote.

2004-01-06T03:49:00.000-05:00

I am sitting here. I am sitting here and I am typing this. I am amazing. I am amazing! I am sitting here and I am typing this and as I am typing this I am amazing!! READ THIS! IT IS AMAZING! These are profound insights. These are my words. I didn't make this words but I put them in this order. I am the greatest chef in the world. The world gave the goods, but look at this I mixed them up just right! You can taste it can't you?

Think of all the amazing things I can do! I can sit here and type this. I can look at things and feel things. I see know and I know that I am amazing. I see a shadow and it spins and I can sense it in the wind on the air it comes blasting in the current. This spinning shadow. Maybe I'm spinning. Did you read those last few sentences? They were fucking great right?

I think I'm amazing. Just like really stunningly cool. Wicked awesome. Radical to the extreme. I would go so far as to say fuckin' tubular because these are the kind of things I can get away with. I'm just that awesome. I'm just that fuckin' tubularly amazin'. I don't even have to write the "g"s a the end of words that require them. Check that amazing shit out.things and I know them and I feel what I want to know. I

I can write and I can do this. I can find words and I can tell you what they mean and I can use them. Isn't that amazing? And won't people read this? And somebody might think it's amazing.

Don't you think so? Don't you? Say somethin' god dammit. Fine, just say something just tell me. Tell me it's good. Tell me it's amazing. Come on, now it's not that hard.

Which is what I'm writing for cause I want somebody to tell me it's amazing. That's what I'm doing. It's self-aggrandizement. It is entirely selfish. I am not amazing. I am a fucking hack. Can't you tell? I am a second rate David Eggers. Did you read that book? Do you see how fucking blatantly I'm ripping him off? My writing is stunning mediocrity. I am far less interesting than I believe. I am begging for compliments. I desire acceptance. I want to be noticed. I pretend that I am in this for the drive and the feeling but I am in this to be noticed.

No. I am not. I am amazing. And if not amazing than I am real at least, which should count for some points I think. And I am really me. I question myself but I am too hard on myself. I am not doing this to be noticed. I am doing this because it is me.

It is narcissistic of me to think that anybody gives a shit.

But people do give a shit. They do give a shit. I am far less interesting than I think, but certainly I am far more interesting than I know.

See, even that makes no fucking sense.

I know but it seems smart. Maybe? Maybe it's amazing.

I just want to be me. I'm not trying to be anything else. I don't begrudge anybody else what they do and what they know and what they feel. I don't begrudge anybody else for being amazing. I don't even want to be amazing. I just want to be me. And it's not fucking fair that David Eggers gets dibs on self-aware self-critical ramblings. I'll take this one to court. I am real and I am me and I am not copying fucking anyone. I'll keep telling myself this. This is me and I am amazing

Again with the narcissism.

I firmly believe that if I am just me that will be amazing.

Well I amaze myself sometimes, at any rate.

Star Trek is on in the background. The original series.

2004-01-02T05:05:00.000-05:00

It's the last one.

Well, for now.

***

I am feeling particularly wiggity-wack right now. If you're not in the mood for stuff like "The smell of cigarettes is pervasive. It surrounds me, it envelops me. Everybody smokes. Everything smokes. I can taste it around me and through me. I read my book while people smoke and laugh and talk and smoke. I reach for the dictionary, but this little dictionary doesn't define "anechoic. "" then I recommend you skip this one, and just go back and read "The Interview" instead. I liked that one.

It's looking, currently, like it might end up being like this the whole way through.

Just warning you.

***
Benson: Dude, I read your e-mails from England.
Dave: Oh yeah?
Benson: Yeah.
Dave: What'd you think?
Benson: I couldn't understand them.
Dave: ...
Benson: Any of them. Sometimes I thought you might be speaking French.
Dave: Rad.*
Benson: Nobody says rad anymore, you loser.*

*(these two lines are make-believe. just so you know)

***
La Mesa, California

I have no idea what's going on. In my mind it is still 1992. I am ten years old, I am at Lemon Avenue Elementary School. I am in La Mesa, California. The riots were just last year. The day they started we pushed our desks to the side and Mrs. Chung sat us all in a circle on the floor, and we talked about the world and I grew that day. The Persian Gulf war is recently over.

The more things / the more they stay etc. etc.

2004 is just too surreal, so I'm ignoring it. It is 1992. I can use the word "rad" freely, without fear of ridicule.

It is 1992! It is 1992! Denial is totally rad!

***
Pasadena, California.

There's this whole home thing. Am I home? Parts of this feel like home. Is it a semantic debate? Is New York home? Does it matter? You know, you know, you know. This sort of thing.

The same sort of thing I've been a-droppin' on you since the beginning. Since England.

Oh, right. England.

***
Jolly Old Whatever

I sat on the floor in the middle of Ariana's room. This is one night. This is every night. This is the middle of the night. The smell of cigarettes is pervasive. It surrounds me, it envelops me. Everybody smokes. Everything smokes. I can taste it around me and through me. I read my book while people smoke and laugh and talk and smoke. I reach for the dictionary, but this little dictionary doesn't define "anechoic." It doesn't have "ephebe" or "lissome" either. It does have "NBC" in it, which makes me wonder where the priorities lie these days.

I complain about sentence structure and improper word use. I challenge people on their syntax. Karen calls me a pedant. I think I should throw the little dictionary at her. But I don't. I just say "Your mom's a pedant" or something equally original.

Cha-click. Snapshot.

It's the National Broadcasting Corporation (formerly Company). In case, you know. Plus, Ari's going to be exceptionally happy that she finally got mentioned in an update. So double-whammy.

***
New York, New York

I don't even know what to say. Which makes for compelling reading. OK, moving on.

***
San Francisco, California

Same thing. But for different reasons.

***
New York, New York

I still don't know what to say. See how fun thinking about stuff too much can be? Let's take it again:

Screw it, let's jump around a bit; get all post-modern and reference some of the other updates.

***
Somewhere Over Greenland

I'm still there in

***
Possibly the Hungerford Footbridge

spirit if not

***
La Mesa, California

in time. Or place. Or uh... anyway.

***
NYNY

The reason I can't talk about it is that I miss it too much for words. The feel of it. The taste of it in body and the feel of it in my pores. The sensory overload. The streets and the sidewalks trees and people and buildings the high rise the apartments the smell surrounding me. The knowledge. The feel. Pervasive. Understanding and questioning. The lifestyle, the people. Everyone I miss. Too cold nights too hot days. Theatre. Any theatre. Doing some theatre for once in my life.

It's too much. I'm comin' back, baby.

***
2004

It is 26 hours into the New Year. I am done writing e-mail updates.

At least until I decide I have something really important to say again, or a clever new trick for ripping off some author.

It felt like it was time for some closure.

Here it is:

***
Wherever

Cha-click.

Goodnight.

2003-12-02T12:31:00.000-05:00

What should Dave read next?

Here are the books that I have read since arriving in London (technically, since leaving Los Angeles):

Ackroyd, Peter - Hawksmoor
Adams, Scott - The Dilbert Principle
Carey, Peter - Jack Maggs
Eggers, Dave - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Eggers, Dave - You Shall Know Our Velocity: Or, Sacrament
Franken, Al - Lies, and the Lying Liars That Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
Heller, Joseph - Catch-22
Moore, Alan - The Watchmen (yes, I'm counting this)
Paxman, Jeremy - The English: A Portrait of a People
Stephenson, Neal - Cryptonomicon
Stephenson, Neal - Quicksilver
Stephenson, Neal - Snow Crash
Sobel, Dava - Longitude
Wallace, David Foster - Infinite Jest
Various - Granta 81: Best of Young British Novelists, 2003

Currently Reading:

Toole, John Kennedy - A Confederacy of Dunces

So, again: What should Dave read next?

2003-11-10T17:19:00.000-05:00

I am on the Hungerford Footbridge. Is it the Hungerford? I know it’s not the Millennium Bridge. The Millennium Bridge is that one over there that looks like somebody dropped a fucking hunk of scrap metal over the Thames. I don’t know what the hell they were thinking. Anyway

restart

OK, so it is Guy Fawkes Day. I am walking over the Thames on some Bridge

shit some bridge

I am walking on this bridge over the Thames. It may or it may not be the Hungerford Footbridge. It is Guy Fawkes Day. There are fireworks in the distance

holy shit

In the distance there are fireworks. And off to my left

no, asshole

Off to my RIGHT is Parliament. It glows like the fireworks

fucking asshole that’s really good “it glows like the fireworks”

OK, so I am on the bridge. Parliament is lit up, but this night it is put to shame by the fireworks in the distance. Maybe. I don’t really know, cause they are mostly hidden behind buildings but I know they are there. I hear them. I can see some of them. I want to smell them. Well, sort of. I don’t really want to smell them. The British Airways London Eye

stupid fucking name like anyone really calls it that

The London Eye is across the river on my right. It glows white and blue. It turns slowly.

Half an hour of hell if I were to get in there. Nothing like locking myself in a box for thirty minutes. Yeah, that’s fun.

I am walking on this bridge and in my head

OK... there is this song going through my head

OK OK there is

OK

Ghost ghost I know you live within me feel as you fly in thunderclouds above the city into one that I love with all that was left within me ‘til you tore in two now wings and rings and there’s so many waiting here for you

It doesn’t read like it sounds. Sort of. You can’t really understand you sort of have to hear it.

OK, pretend you’re hearing it. OK now

OK, that song is in my head. And I am on the bridge. We think it is the Hungerford Footbridge. It is Guy Fawkes Day. He tried to blow up Parliament which is off to my RIGHT. And there are fireworks. They are in the distance, but I know they are there even though they are hidden. And the river. Oh, the river sparkles. Reflects all of this other stuff. The river, in the daytime brown-ass-ugly, all this is reflected as beautiful as Monet would have done it. And the (British Airways) London Eye glows beautiful blue and white. And this song is still in my head. And I start to sing it to myself. And suddenly we cut to...

INT. COMPUTER LAB – NIGHT
Dave sits at the computer slamming his head against the keyboard.

too dramatic OK

INT. COMPUTER LAB - NIGHT
Dave sits at the keyboard... I don’t know... smacking himself in the face and yelling “STUPID STUPID STUPID”

yeah, that’s good crazy people at keyboards are exciting

OK, different tack. well, actually same tack. OK, well, anyway we cut to

EXT. HUNGERFORD FOOTBRIDGE – NIGHT
And nothing happens. Really.

Like it is time to be done it is like disjointed like in my head like it is reading like it’s reading a like

I’m fucking saying LIKE like I’m my ex-girlfriend, what the fuck is that about.

OK, it’s in my head it’s disjointed but it’s hopping all over the place it’s like

fuck LIKE

OK, it is AS IF I’m inside some Faulkner monologue, Benjy from Sound & Fury, I am Benjy I am Sounding I am FURIOUS and I can’t keep time straight and it’s so

I mean, I’ve been trying to write another update I really have been trying

but it’s difficult to read

well, shit

I mean, it’s difficult to both read AND write 600 unfinished sentences. But unfortunately, that’s all that’s in my head right now.

600 unfinished sentences.

Well, that one ended. But that one’s really a sentence fragment.

Technically.

I called Briana and we sang Tori on the phone together because somehow we missed it

This is somehow oppressive.

This is like being yelled at constantly.

I don’t mean this update, I mean this city. Well, this update might be like being yelled at constantly I don’t know.

Anyway

I need New York unique New York I know I need unique New York.

Not quite the same ring in the first as in the second person, really. Oh, I miss speech exercises.

Wait. I miss fucking SPEECH EXERCISES. How bad is this getting?

It’s not that I don’t like it... It’s just that I don’t....

I watched Finding Nemo to remind me of the night that I was with Lauren and Jessica and we laughed manically and we ran into Bri and Gerritt and Brad on the way back and they were on there way

no, wrong their

they were on THEIR way there. like that. they were on their way, I mean, to see Nemo and it was a good night. We had drunk wine, I forgot to mention that. Actually, I’m fairly convinced that Jess brought wine into the theatre.

awesome.

It’s all these nights of this summer in that apartment

that apartment that, shit, almost burned down did you guys hear about that what happened was

well anyway

these nights. and these places. in this apartment. and these people. and something in the Life Café and my birthday and people were there and some balloon tied around my wrist and calling my brother on Wil’s phone and my brother telling Wil he would gladly pay for the minutes I used on his phone

and that moment of connection to the world when Wil told me that wow

and then something about walking through New York and then something about Owen saying he spent all night at Marla’s and I said “I know, Owen, I was there” and he said “Seriously?” and I said “Yeah, we talked for like an hour and a half”

or well

not “Orwell” I mean “or (space) well”

like that apartment. and ps2. and people being over. dylan and his girlfriend. that bastard house-mate we had Matt and how I wanted to kill him. and Scraps making fun of him. and watching Homestar on my computer. and Deena scared their bed was going to collapse.

and something else about something, I don’t know it’s all a little hazier than I want it to be

it’s all a little hazier than I mean it to be

it’s just

well, it’s just...

it’s not long now, he said, looking at his watch

2003-10-28T13:53:00.000-05:00

While California continues to burn, my apartment building in New York catches fire.

The fire started in apartment 3A. I lived in Apartment 3B, where my friends still live. I know the guys whose apartment caught fire. This is weird.