NYC Part II.....In which I will continue my story with some more of the story.....
A party on LI…
So there I was....first time on Long Island; first time anywhere for quite some time. The three of us: Lou, Jamie and I were arrived, and as with all post-drive arrivals the "things" must be unpacked and crammed wherever it is they go. As I was a guest, my things didn't "go" anywhere, so I stood for a moment while my bursting duffel bag threatened the right side of my body with degenerative tissue damage. In perfect-host time, Jamie showed me to the computer room where I'd be sleeping, prompting me to leave my jean-packed treasure-chest on the floor beside a sofa/bed, which, at first looked ill-fated and feeble, like something you'd find in an art major's dorm, or an old couple's sun porch, but it was a place to plop after what I was certain would be long jam-packed days, leaving gratitude to punch out the dent left by this fleeting, unwanted scruple . I was now settled, and excitement at the prospect of fun with my friends had returned!
This night I accompanied Lou and Jamie to a familiar, commonplace, and very American event; a sprightly tradition perfected by our elders - consistently revitalized by youth. I'm speaking, of course, of the yard party. Kevin and Alley, two native Long Islanders I'd had the pleasure of meeting once or twice back home, were hosting a house warming party that had friends, and friends of friends modeling plastic red cups on every inch of the property BUT the house. Oh the red cups! Like ‘mini monuments of liberal inebriation’ invisibly engraved with their own doctrine: “Anywhere you find us there will be beer. There will be beer games. There will be music shepherded by a ‘getting drunk if not yet drunk’ patron drinking beer. And depending on just how mixed the company, perhaps a fist-fight, or at the very least a shoving match accompanied by idle threats and expletives bellowed by born ruffians….drinking beer.” I love how the red cups upgrade status throughout a party; beginning at incipient and finishing the night as nothing short of ubiquitous! They’re EVERYWHERE!
For Lou and Jamie the party began as parties do. The frequent familiars let loose with hugs and handshakes…high-fives and “how ya’ been’s?” I did my best to appear anything but the awkward friend who will remain awkward until he’s been formally introduced. I was left to my own devices in this manner…and as I hadn’t been spoken to by anyone, I had not the power of my own voice to address these momentary strangers, so I threw on my casual cloak and tried to emanate a sense of “pay me no mind….I was invited” with body language, which is impossible to do with body language, so looking back I imagine I looked, well…awkward. After several introductions it was universally acknowledged by all attendees that I was a guest to their fair city, and after a wonderfully scrimp amount of “What’s your name again?” I was soon addressed by my given name and treated as the first-time regular of the group.
It’s worth mentioning that Kevin and Alley are one of the coolest, most care-free couples this side of the Atlantic. Alley is a deceptively quiet, coquettish girl who maintains a sort of chaotic control over her company as she mingles and maneuvers all through the night. She exudes a sexy librarian vibe that I’m fairly certain she’s completely unaware of, which only serves to make it more apparent to everyone else. Kevin is, as Lou puts it, “a bull dog”; a decidedly happy, ‘handsome devil’ of a ‘mannish boy’ so full of mirth and madness he seems reliably volatile and perpetually poised to rouse rambunctious revelry. Another familiar friend at the party was one of Jamie’s best friends, Bettina. I’ve met her on numerous occasions and from our very first meeting to this she’s never ceased to be delightful. Bettina is, as I understand it, a German speaking, and oft-inspiring artist in graphic design. Now, not for nothing, but a lot of times you’ll meet an artist and lightly sprinkle your small-talkish compliments about their work on their papier-mâché ears just to move the conversation away from the art itself. This is simply not the case with Bettina. I’m not gonna launch head-long into a celebratory rundown of her work, but I have seen it, and she’s “got the chops”.
To effectively illustrate the rest of the company I’ll have you remember that cool people attract cool people…which should provide some insight into how easy it must have been for Lou to become an integral link in the circle of friends. Another couple attending was Tom and Deirdre. I’d met them upstate as well, and my memories of that first meeting are of a card game called “turrets”….I will not explain. Just ask someone. Tom was the “grill master” and Deirdre played the quickly tipsy girl napping in a flimsy folding chair. They are, among other things, another remarkably serendipitous couple. Another character I remember is Kevin’s brother Scott, suitably known as “Scotty”. Scotty’s one of these guys you hope to engage in a tête-à-tête or at least a group conversation in which your attention is expected. He’s filled to the brim if not overflowing with stories anywhere from years past to earlier that day. He’s never without a beer and cigarette and the ambidextrous multitask of speaking, drinking and dragging is just as, if not more impressive than knife juggling. His tale-telling and vice indulging are so precisely interwoven, one without the others would quell the alarmingly entertaining peril of his delivery. At times he’d give you a gang of sentences – take a drag – wash it down – take another drag – continue the story – and flail his limbs for emphasis. By the end of the story the cup is empty, the cigarette has lost its inches and been dashed to the ground as Scotty collects his well-deserved laughs and smirks. I’m sitting in astonishment and relief at the fact that I hadn’t been soaked in ale and set on fire.
The party continued in this fashion and the sun’s setting introduced what I remember as phase two of the party. I’ve separated the evening into two parts because the moon introduced me to the lunatic in everyone still in attendance. Whether these remarkable shifts in character were elicited by lunar rays or alcohol I’ll leave you to imagine……
I’m going to first describe the whims of a few select madmen. While I’ve forgotten the names of two of these men, (I was moderately high at this point) I do know that one of them was Scotty and the other was Bettina’s guy Dave. I would give you a nice descript of Dave but we didn’t converse all that much. I can tell you that if he’s with Bettina he must be cool, and he was the only person at the party who managed to retain my name and match it to my face after one brief and fleeting introduction. So…Scotty, Dave and two others decided to show me what can only be the invention of drunk, community college Phys-Ed majors. It was called “beer dodge-ball”. Now forgive me if this game has been around since the dawn of the frat house and I hadn’t crawled out from under my rock for its creation, but it was hilarious, and I must ramble on about it for a just a few moments. Four cans of beer (that’s right ~ no red cups required) – four people – two ping-pong balls – and a table….and the game is on. Each player sets a full can of beer at their respective corners of the table. Two players make up a team and place themselves at parallel corners on each short side of the table. One team has both ping-pong balls and they toss them at the opposing team’s beer cans. When the ball hits the can it almost always dances away in an awkward direction, leaving the thrower to drink his beer while the chaser scampers (in due time, drunkenly) in search of the ball; first team to finish both beers….wins. None of the four participants were drunk at this point, “buzzing” perhaps, so their aim was impressive. I’d say 7 out of 10 throws from either team hit the opposing team’s cans. About three games into this, the physical effects of gradual drunkenness began to appear; namely loss of balance. To watch these four madly scrambling through the yard (which has a big tree at its center) looking for capriciously zigzagging ping-pong balls was absurdly funny. To think of this game played in dorm rooms and fraternity houses all across the country….even funnier. Can you hear the lamps breaking and windows shattering? I can. Ut……”Theta Beta Hot Potata” just lost some front room glass; oh, and it was such a pretty lattice……
Anyhow, along with the drunken slurs and haphazard staggers alcohol invokes, there’s also liberation from shame. This is what commonly prompts even the most bashful among a given party to ‘cut a rug’. While males do possess a more hardened constitution and can effectively resist the bump ‘n chop beats of a hip-hop ditty, the girls are slaves to the song and find themselves conquered completely by an iron longing to ‘shake their groove-things’ and yell “woohooo!” My absolute favorite thing about this is how you can measure the drunkenness of the dancers by what they’re able to dance to. There were several occasions during this impromptu ‘Soul Train” audition when a perfectly ‘stand still and just listen’ song would come on….”Don’t Stop Believing” for example, and the girls would not only continue dancing, but they would make startlingly snappy shifts in speed and motion. You know that thing girls do when they’re dancing where they separate their legs and bend their knees so that their bottoms nearly graze the floor? Okay, now that I’ve got you remembering the numerous times you’ve seen them do this, try and hear “Another Brick in the Wall” and sync it up. I’m tellin’ ya…..girls make it work ;) Among these gals was Alley. I’m not entirely certain what she was drinking, or how much she threw back, but she put on a performance my memory has refused to shed to this day. It was when Etta James’ voice came thundering out from the speakers singing about her love coming along ‘at last’ that Alley did a ‘just reserved enough’ stripper style hustle. It was a remarkably well-meshed combination of 50’s Chicago dance and ‘Elizabeth Berkley isn’t Jessie Spano anymore’ dance. What brought the situation to pitch-perfect hilarity was the moment Alley’s three minute show caught Kevin’s eye. I’m not sure how many of you bothering to read this have seen Body Heat; but remember the scene where William Hurt is circling Kathleen Turner and eventually forces his way into the house so he can “take her”? Kevin’s steady stare and slow lurch toward Alley had an acute resonance of that scene. I do however, consider it a damn shame that Kevin’s notice was captured with only thirty seconds of the song remaining….by the time he made it to his girl she was just about rapping it up. Too bad, I guess.
Eventually the drunks and sobers, dancers and standers about came together for the end of the night rants and rambles. This is where cognizance and dazedness sway to and fro on the colloquial tilt-a-whirl. Where they can be, goodbyes and call me tomorrows were slipped in, and the crowd began to thin. Eventually Lou and Jamie remembered the blissfulness of sleep after buckets of drink and curtains of smoke and suggested we mosey our way back home. I remember seeing a fleeting snapshot of my own room when I heard the word “home”, but I remembered I was a good distance away from there and prepared myself to fall asleep on a couch in a room not ten feet from Jamie’s parents. If you remember from my previous entry, I wasn’t particularly “siked” to meet Jamie’s dad, and my utterly unfounded fear of him had manifested completely cartoon inspired images of that first encounter. Would he break my hand in the shake and interrogate my very presence?! Would he tie me to a chair with a fire house and force me to become a Republican?! Welcome to my disheveled mind.
Next entry….in which I meet Jamie’s father – have a mighty fine breakfast sandwich – await the intrusion of a fella named “Kitty” and a dame they call “Molly” - and visit New York City for the first time in this life of mine….coming soon.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
New York City: Part 1
New York City
Part I
Any human being not bed-ridden or imprisoned is...by sheer force of life, a fairly peripatetic creature. We wander about....some of us trapped in a Chuck Berry tune with "no particular place to go".....others taking trips and zeroing in on GPS blips. I'm no exception. I'm hardly a traveler, but I'm mobile. I zig-zag. My wanderings aren't quite as varied as I'd like, but I'm on the move and it's a sustaining circumstance. The one splendid and prevailing facet of any expedition is the fascinating and impressive unforeseen. Whom shall I meet on the road? What will I find over there?
I recently returned from a delightful little trip to New York City. I happen to be friends with a soon to be remarkable teacher and a rockstar(jealous?). Lou and Jamie, my benefactors, one day found themselves in a collectively munificent mood and decided to free me from the oft-inhabited grotto of my bedroom and invited me to accompany them on one of their frequent trips to Jamie's aboriginal residence on Long Island. I of course accepted and was soon packed into Jamie's truck zooming down the thruway toward bright nights in the city lights! Oh boy!
My clothes and toiletries were rattling beside me in a duffel bag donated to me by Lou. Why didn't I have my own bags? I did! I had a suitcase on wheels, man! The thing is....when you're driving two hours in one direction to stay someplace for two nights, a suitcase is rather superfluous and silly. Upon this revelation I transferred by belongings to Lou's red-white- & blue duffel bag....changing my traveling appearance from a business man to an Olympian. I initially packed my things into a suitcase at my mother's urging. It's a funny thing, living home at the age of 25....because you can't be 25 to your mother. When I was cramming jeans into my old book-bag from college my mother saw me at the age of twelve...not entirely certain of 'how to exist' and offered her maternal assistance. I, momma's boy that I absolutely am, took her advice after a quick and futile argument that I "knew what I was doing".
So there I was, grilled cheese and tomato sandwich in my lap, ipod at the ready, demolishing miles at the pace of a homesick twenty-something Long Island princess who misses her family. I made the most of my cramped backseat slot and pulled out all the contortionist stops by folding my body into a one-dimensional wallet-sized photo of myself. I couldn't do jumping-jacks back there, cumbersome as it was... but I could tap my feet and nod my head to the driving pummel of Ringo Star's "Helter Skelter" smash. Donned in a headphone crown and impressed with my own maneuverability I disappeared into a melodious ocean of music and drifted into a rhythmic dream for the greater part of the journey. For awhile it seemed I would realize that rarest of rare circumstances....a comfortable road trip with not even the slightest bother....but a spider would maintain fate's reputation and make way for an editor's note in the narrative. I'll explain in just a moment.
Before we proceed, there's a unique detail that I feel this portion of my story should explain. In order to maintain whatever charm I'm able to conjure up for this tale you should definitely be acquainted with the .1% of Lou's body missing at the time. Lou takes the trip to Long Island at least twice a month on weekends. The last time he made the trek he was robbed of a most valued appendage. The sliding steel & glass door of an Amtrak train pulled a 'smash & grab' job on Lou's left hand and made off with the nail of his middle finger in a gruesome and visceral fashion not at all provoked or deserved by my poor friend. To illustrate the more specific details of this accident would have me writing a blog of a different, and slightly bloodier genre...so I'll just say that Lou's left hand may as well have been severed completely for all the good it did him. Keeping his arm quasi-akimbo with his finger guardedly hovering in front of his chest, Lou was a walking, talking glass antique marked, "handle with care".
So, back on the thruway....Jamie speed-racing, Lou abiding, I suddenly sensed a front-seat fuss. The intrusion on my peaceful state obliged me to open my eyes and interpret the disturbance. What I didn't do was relinquish my headphones. I'm looking at Lou mid-freak-out, imploring Jamie to aid him in what seemed an acute state of agitation and genuine fear; all while listening to the super-cool chorus of "Black Tongue" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. For those of you unfamiliar with this garage gem, the chorus is Karen O's devastating declaration, "Boy you're just a stupid bitch and girl you're just a no good dick!" This accompanied by the faded drone of at least 75mph I thus witnessed Lou's provoked reaction to a spider crawling up his leg, and Jamie choosing to ignore his supplications by focusing on driving between the white dashes and keeping her attention tuned in to avoiding almost certain death. Thirty seconds into the mayhem Lou's incapacity was broken by a resolve to win the duel on his own. The spider did manage to make a few freakish advances but Lou refused to be taken out and won the battle with the ferocity of a wounded animal by using his right hand instead of his left; hilarious to witness - impressive I avow! I'm still not entirely certain how Lou defeated the abrupt foe...suffice it to say the timing of Lou's victory and sudden calm must have been destined to occur at that precise moment because my song faded to its close, and the seven second silence between tracks was a fitting companion to the battle's end. Why can't my dreams be so captivating?!
Jumping ahead.....I must have slept for at least another half an hour because when I again awoke the New York City skyline was spread and standing in all its splendor on my right. Missing of course were the once familiar pillars....two soaring concrete giants serving as the man-made middle and index fingers of the city's fist....shaking a portentous warning at distant ships, overhead planes, and New Jersey. Jamie managed to point to the area south of the Trade Center grounds where her father's Firehouse stood. It was effortless, though slightly heart-wrenching from that point of view, to imagine firefighters and law enforcement running into that deluge of dust and debris....that torrent of concrete wreckage and perpetual fire. It was maddening to me that my first thought upon seeing the famous city was a clear and prevailing picture of it's forever recent tragedy - the first inclination of my eyes to seek out the vacancy left in its wake. The trip over the bridge I quickly realized I was driving over was solemn and reflective. The gravity of my memory was yanking me into an exhausting, abstract slide show of where I was and how I learned of what had happened on September 11th. I remembered...grudgingly...and was fortunately pinched back into my vacation by the familair drawl of solid road replacing the light hum of the Long Island overpass. It's a remarkable feeling to witness the absence of the towers. You fix your gaze on the spot, drenched in momentary despair, in search of some fleeting rationality to silence the trying question, "How could this possibly have happened?"
You'll be happy to read that this is the one and only sullen moment of the trip. It's lively and amusing from this point forward.
It was mere minutes before the three of us were swallowed whole by Long Island "superbia". I've only ever seen homeowner's insurance commercials indicative of this kind of utopian society. As a 'for instance'...I was immersed in a sort of midday cordiality that would be nothing short of extraordinary here. Rooftops were being mended. Gardens were being carefully watered. Parents were sweeping there stone porches of the few blades of grass kicked up by the lawnmower leisurely guided by their children. These aren't terribly uncommon things in upstate New York, but there was a natural calm and seemingly genuine want to be performing these chores....And while they were being done the workers would frequently come to an abrupt stop to wave at jogging passers-by. This was a kaleidoscopic comic strip of Leave It To Beaver! My favorite sight during the introduction to Jamie's neighborhood was a young couple walking hand-in-hand, both wearing 'earbud' headphones, just wandering in the sunshine. No need for conversation. The tunes, the sun and the stroll and they had it made. Just two big-city lovers down with music and each other. It was nice to see.
We pulled up to Jamie's house, and my first inward thought was a picture of how nice the inside would be if the outside was any indication to what lay beyond it's front door. We all got out and jiggled our limbs to make sure they hadn't atrophied, grabbed our bags and scattered belongings, and approached the front stoop. This was actually a terrifying sequence for me. I'm not terribly fond of meeting fathers, not having been raised by one myself grown men tend to frigthen me in a foolishly profound way. Don't try to rationalize this apprehension. It's completely abnormal and unprovoked....but it's there, and I've never been able to do anything about it. The concern over meeting Jamie's father had grown from a nervous feeling to a flagrant phobia from the time she first told me about him, to this moment of walking into his fortress. Of course it was a fortress! The fifteen second walk from the truck to the door had contorted my senses from relief of arrival to that climactic scene from Ghostbusters II. I was Bill Murray walking into the museum and Jamie's dad was Viggo. "Please don't let Sigourney Weaver be unconscious on the floor", I said to myself.......As it happened, I was met by consolation and disappointment; the former brought on by Jamie's dad having been at work, the latter by the extended suspense produced by his absence. We were met instead by Jamie's mother Evelyn, whose warm and welcoming gestures toward me melted away my momentary jitters and induced me to launch full-tilt into complements of the resplendent interior. These weren't feigned appraisals either. It was a beautiful house; without and within, and I was its guest.
End of Part 1
To be concluded next weekend....6/27 ~ 6/28
Hope you come back....
Part I
Any human being not bed-ridden or imprisoned is...by sheer force of life, a fairly peripatetic creature. We wander about....some of us trapped in a Chuck Berry tune with "no particular place to go".....others taking trips and zeroing in on GPS blips. I'm no exception. I'm hardly a traveler, but I'm mobile. I zig-zag. My wanderings aren't quite as varied as I'd like, but I'm on the move and it's a sustaining circumstance. The one splendid and prevailing facet of any expedition is the fascinating and impressive unforeseen. Whom shall I meet on the road? What will I find over there?
I recently returned from a delightful little trip to New York City. I happen to be friends with a soon to be remarkable teacher and a rockstar(jealous?). Lou and Jamie, my benefactors, one day found themselves in a collectively munificent mood and decided to free me from the oft-inhabited grotto of my bedroom and invited me to accompany them on one of their frequent trips to Jamie's aboriginal residence on Long Island. I of course accepted and was soon packed into Jamie's truck zooming down the thruway toward bright nights in the city lights! Oh boy!
My clothes and toiletries were rattling beside me in a duffel bag donated to me by Lou. Why didn't I have my own bags? I did! I had a suitcase on wheels, man! The thing is....when you're driving two hours in one direction to stay someplace for two nights, a suitcase is rather superfluous and silly. Upon this revelation I transferred by belongings to Lou's red-white- & blue duffel bag....changing my traveling appearance from a business man to an Olympian. I initially packed my things into a suitcase at my mother's urging. It's a funny thing, living home at the age of 25....because you can't be 25 to your mother. When I was cramming jeans into my old book-bag from college my mother saw me at the age of twelve...not entirely certain of 'how to exist' and offered her maternal assistance. I, momma's boy that I absolutely am, took her advice after a quick and futile argument that I "knew what I was doing".
So there I was, grilled cheese and tomato sandwich in my lap, ipod at the ready, demolishing miles at the pace of a homesick twenty-something Long Island princess who misses her family. I made the most of my cramped backseat slot and pulled out all the contortionist stops by folding my body into a one-dimensional wallet-sized photo of myself. I couldn't do jumping-jacks back there, cumbersome as it was... but I could tap my feet and nod my head to the driving pummel of Ringo Star's "Helter Skelter" smash. Donned in a headphone crown and impressed with my own maneuverability I disappeared into a melodious ocean of music and drifted into a rhythmic dream for the greater part of the journey. For awhile it seemed I would realize that rarest of rare circumstances....a comfortable road trip with not even the slightest bother....but a spider would maintain fate's reputation and make way for an editor's note in the narrative. I'll explain in just a moment.
Before we proceed, there's a unique detail that I feel this portion of my story should explain. In order to maintain whatever charm I'm able to conjure up for this tale you should definitely be acquainted with the .1% of Lou's body missing at the time. Lou takes the trip to Long Island at least twice a month on weekends. The last time he made the trek he was robbed of a most valued appendage. The sliding steel & glass door of an Amtrak train pulled a 'smash & grab' job on Lou's left hand and made off with the nail of his middle finger in a gruesome and visceral fashion not at all provoked or deserved by my poor friend. To illustrate the more specific details of this accident would have me writing a blog of a different, and slightly bloodier genre...so I'll just say that Lou's left hand may as well have been severed completely for all the good it did him. Keeping his arm quasi-akimbo with his finger guardedly hovering in front of his chest, Lou was a walking, talking glass antique marked, "handle with care".
So, back on the thruway....Jamie speed-racing, Lou abiding, I suddenly sensed a front-seat fuss. The intrusion on my peaceful state obliged me to open my eyes and interpret the disturbance. What I didn't do was relinquish my headphones. I'm looking at Lou mid-freak-out, imploring Jamie to aid him in what seemed an acute state of agitation and genuine fear; all while listening to the super-cool chorus of "Black Tongue" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. For those of you unfamiliar with this garage gem, the chorus is Karen O's devastating declaration, "Boy you're just a stupid bitch and girl you're just a no good dick!" This accompanied by the faded drone of at least 75mph I thus witnessed Lou's provoked reaction to a spider crawling up his leg, and Jamie choosing to ignore his supplications by focusing on driving between the white dashes and keeping her attention tuned in to avoiding almost certain death. Thirty seconds into the mayhem Lou's incapacity was broken by a resolve to win the duel on his own. The spider did manage to make a few freakish advances but Lou refused to be taken out and won the battle with the ferocity of a wounded animal by using his right hand instead of his left; hilarious to witness - impressive I avow! I'm still not entirely certain how Lou defeated the abrupt foe...suffice it to say the timing of Lou's victory and sudden calm must have been destined to occur at that precise moment because my song faded to its close, and the seven second silence between tracks was a fitting companion to the battle's end. Why can't my dreams be so captivating?!
Jumping ahead.....I must have slept for at least another half an hour because when I again awoke the New York City skyline was spread and standing in all its splendor on my right. Missing of course were the once familiar pillars....two soaring concrete giants serving as the man-made middle and index fingers of the city's fist....shaking a portentous warning at distant ships, overhead planes, and New Jersey. Jamie managed to point to the area south of the Trade Center grounds where her father's Firehouse stood. It was effortless, though slightly heart-wrenching from that point of view, to imagine firefighters and law enforcement running into that deluge of dust and debris....that torrent of concrete wreckage and perpetual fire. It was maddening to me that my first thought upon seeing the famous city was a clear and prevailing picture of it's forever recent tragedy - the first inclination of my eyes to seek out the vacancy left in its wake. The trip over the bridge I quickly realized I was driving over was solemn and reflective. The gravity of my memory was yanking me into an exhausting, abstract slide show of where I was and how I learned of what had happened on September 11th. I remembered...grudgingly...and was fortunately pinched back into my vacation by the familair drawl of solid road replacing the light hum of the Long Island overpass. It's a remarkable feeling to witness the absence of the towers. You fix your gaze on the spot, drenched in momentary despair, in search of some fleeting rationality to silence the trying question, "How could this possibly have happened?"
You'll be happy to read that this is the one and only sullen moment of the trip. It's lively and amusing from this point forward.
It was mere minutes before the three of us were swallowed whole by Long Island "superbia". I've only ever seen homeowner's insurance commercials indicative of this kind of utopian society. As a 'for instance'...I was immersed in a sort of midday cordiality that would be nothing short of extraordinary here. Rooftops were being mended. Gardens were being carefully watered. Parents were sweeping there stone porches of the few blades of grass kicked up by the lawnmower leisurely guided by their children. These aren't terribly uncommon things in upstate New York, but there was a natural calm and seemingly genuine want to be performing these chores....And while they were being done the workers would frequently come to an abrupt stop to wave at jogging passers-by. This was a kaleidoscopic comic strip of Leave It To Beaver! My favorite sight during the introduction to Jamie's neighborhood was a young couple walking hand-in-hand, both wearing 'earbud' headphones, just wandering in the sunshine. No need for conversation. The tunes, the sun and the stroll and they had it made. Just two big-city lovers down with music and each other. It was nice to see.
We pulled up to Jamie's house, and my first inward thought was a picture of how nice the inside would be if the outside was any indication to what lay beyond it's front door. We all got out and jiggled our limbs to make sure they hadn't atrophied, grabbed our bags and scattered belongings, and approached the front stoop. This was actually a terrifying sequence for me. I'm not terribly fond of meeting fathers, not having been raised by one myself grown men tend to frigthen me in a foolishly profound way. Don't try to rationalize this apprehension. It's completely abnormal and unprovoked....but it's there, and I've never been able to do anything about it. The concern over meeting Jamie's father had grown from a nervous feeling to a flagrant phobia from the time she first told me about him, to this moment of walking into his fortress. Of course it was a fortress! The fifteen second walk from the truck to the door had contorted my senses from relief of arrival to that climactic scene from Ghostbusters II. I was Bill Murray walking into the museum and Jamie's dad was Viggo. "Please don't let Sigourney Weaver be unconscious on the floor", I said to myself.......As it happened, I was met by consolation and disappointment; the former brought on by Jamie's dad having been at work, the latter by the extended suspense produced by his absence. We were met instead by Jamie's mother Evelyn, whose warm and welcoming gestures toward me melted away my momentary jitters and induced me to launch full-tilt into complements of the resplendent interior. These weren't feigned appraisals either. It was a beautiful house; without and within, and I was its guest.
End of Part 1
To be concluded next weekend....6/27 ~ 6/28
Hope you come back....
Saturday, May 2, 2009
"I think it's alright to feel inhuman now. I think that's alright."
What follows is an apparently exaggerated editorial exploiting and somewhat sensationalizing what church is like for children. It may seem an impertinent editorial, and quite candidly it is - in one or two respects, but let me be perfectly understood....I don’t intend to mock the belief that the dignified, glorified and beatified Jesus Christ was savagely and gratuitously beaten, crucified and subsequently resurrected, bringing about the end of The Devil’s grip over humankind!! Enough people have done that already, and whether they’re right or wrong is a matter I endeavor to dodge with diligence. Instead, I’m spiritedly mocking the compulsory nature of the ceremonious buffoonery we have attached to its memorial. Thinking now of what is to come from what will certainly be considered subversive mockery, it seems my intent is merely to sympathize with the youngsters who are bound and shackled by imminent participation…I guess because I was once one among them. So with a tease on my tongue and some fray in my fingers let me now begin upsetting the order of things. Let it not be forgotten by any reader who chooses to continue that this editorial is a tabloid and a cartoon; however, let the avowal that what follows comes from a measure of truth and memory be kept in mind.
~
As a gift to my disconsertingly devout mother on her 52nd birthday I agreed to accompany her to a Catholic Service on Easter Sunday(I got her a book too.) In consequence of this, I found myself surrounded by sad spectacle, alarming imagery, and formidable finish. As the morning oozed on I came upon one woeful revelation. There were those come through the doors who did not volunteer. I stood, sat, kneeled and mentally prostrated...my eyes darting all the time, from row to row...never failing to find a child...dragged to this dismal tomb by pious palms and feral fingers. There’s no disclaimer as they’re marched through the black-iron-bedecked oak doors beneath an ancient archway. No warnings but for the ominous churned-gut sensation cautioning them at the threshold that they’re entering a place where reverence turns to worship and parenthood turns to surveillance! Hush now, Hansel! Stop fidgeting, Gretel! Be still. Be quiet. Be "good".
I suppose I should continue by confessing that I’m an admirer of the crying baby….the petulant pouty toddler, even, and perhaps most especially when the crying, wailing, weeping and whining come without pause or concern, in an irreverent intervening fashion, at the very center of a parochial gathering. It isn’t hard to spot the adoribly theatrical little “sinners”, all dressed up like Smarties and Cotton Candy for Easter Sunday. They’re marched in, directed by an elderly man masked in a perma-grin he slips on for church when it’s certain there will be children about, to a wooden torture rack known in this Year of Our Lord 2009 as a ‘pew’. The fortunate sons of firefighter fathers manage to elude the traditional sweet n’ sour look most associated with Easter and are dressed instead like 20’s gangsters, no shortage of pinstriped vests and slicked back hair in the lot; an entire gang of John Dillinger copycats. If they weren’t so terribly frightened of their surroundings you could imagine them orchestrating an attempt on the offering basket. The little women aren’t quite so lucky in the garb department. While they may have the sprightly station of “daddy’s little girl” and be favored enough to avoid the precarious clutches of the pew, parking it instead on their father’s lap, they’re gaudily cursed in Sunday’s worst. The garniture is simply abounding; every ribbon flailing about with each turn of the head like a distress signal to other little girls at home tossing the candy-basket grass in search of a chocolate bunny-rabbit. Here they sit, and here they stay until that time when the old man speaking in riddles puts a lid on it, and the choir takes one last stab at utterly devastating any appreciation of music...or, well, sound I guess.
The service begins with a “red light~ green lightish” stand-up, sit-down ritual that seems eerily reminiscent of a military command-response exercise. This becomes instantly amusing because the congregation range anywhere from 2 to 7 ft in height(yes there was an enormous man in the crowd) and appear clad as if cartoon extras from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. This redundant action continues over a 5 to 10 minute period accompanied by an idle soundtrack of precisely implicit songs about JESUS RISING! JESUS RISEN! JESUS COME AGAIN! The little boy to my immediate left is confounded by an exhausting indecision of what he should be most concerned with, the ZOMBIE SONG, or the fact that his parents have become zombies themselves! Everyone in this joint is in attentive "Simon Says" mode; each participant a fine example of diligence and ritual savy. The preacher man says a little somethin’ and the audience says a little somethin’ somethin’ back. I may be the only person who considers what’s happening a performace, so “audience” may be a stretch. The preacher is doing the ecclesiastic version of “You down with O.P.P.!”, and when he removes his mits from the HUMUNGOUS BIBLE on top of the podium, he lifts them chest-level in expectation of a response; sort of like Jesus revealing his nail-punctured palms. Everyone then proceeds to give him the old “Yah, you know me!” And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Everyone snaps out of it, of course, but all at the same time, which manages to rattle me more than the boy, but that’s an instance of apprehension from my own vault of misgivings. I’ll be attempting to have you recognize what this haunting situation is like for very young people, not myself. The children outshine me with their courage and boldness in this environment, so the floor is theirs.
Now if I could just take a moment to address the humungous bible. I'm sure you noticed my liberal use of caps-lock back there. I just find it funny that the bible is so monstrous. I can't help but wonder if it's the ill-concieved notion of some clerical despot who whole-heartedly believes size is relative to importance.....I imagine a gang of angry monks surrounding an old man clad in the very definition of opulence, holding an ancient scroll and saying, "This, my children, is the word of God.....(long dramatic pause).....Now take it to Kinkos and have it bound in the most obnoxiously large leather and have the word "BIBLE" knit in gold across the front!.....Who would dare not follow it's contents?!" I'd wanna find that fella and tell him the story of Fievel or Frodo. I'd say, "Small's in, pal......Ever see an 'ipod shuffle'?"
Now imagine, if you will, a mother and her youngster two rows up and to the right, against the wall. This wall has an explicit painting of Jesus with blood dripping from his thorn-crown adorned forehead, and eyes that scream what any creature on the face of the planet can identify as extreme pain and suffering. The child chances to glance up at this very 'un-Blues-Cluesy' artwork and immediately sets sail into a storm of shrieking and twisting, bawling and breaking away. Now we, good Christains that we may or may not be, indentify this as the mark of a petulant brat too bored to sit still and be quiet, right? We would NEVER let anyone know we think this. We sigh, nod our heads and smile at the mother in selfless empathy, but deep down, deep-deep down, we imagine, if only for a moment, what the child is like from day to day, or what he will be like on the drive home...Don’t we? I think alot of us probably do. Just think, though...an addled, undeveloped mind in a cold, dark, drafty room with wooden benches and candel-crammed corners…..not to mention an alter strewn with chalice and cross, golden chain and shining cutlery……the quintessance of a Van Helsing safe house. To not expect the child-speak shouts of "LET ME OUT!" would be counterintuitive and careless. I could continue my deprecation of church decor for some minutes on, but the ceremony itself is far more interesting and strange. I think it best to head in that direction.
We eventually come to audience participation. This is the portion of the service where parents and other adult-types stand at the podium, while ceramic, crucified Jesus watches them from behind and up above. What they read aloud sounds like drunken Shakespeare and awkwardly bursts out of them like slightly sped-up batting cage machines, instead of flowing from them like, well, sober Shakespeare I suppose. They wrap up this annunciated anti-poetry by saying something to the effect of, “A reading from (instert name).” This is really the only moment in the entire service when the physiognomy of the children matches the physiognomy of everyone else. It’s a sort of puzzled look...perplexed even. Whether this is because the reader doesn't understand the material or because it's antiquated dialect forces the reader to audition for a Broadway production of King Arthur is a question that doesn't deserve any deep inquiry. After 10 or 15 minutes of what I will charitably describe as ghost stories, the priest...who, clad in a snow-white gown seems like a shaven, labotomized Gandalf, clears his throat a dozen or so times and reads what he calls “The Gospel of the Lord”. Everyone, children included, seem to prick up their ears just a bit more when the priest reads, probably because he at least makes it seem like what he’s reading can be allegorically applied to one thing or another in our lives. When he finishes the Gospel……which, I have to say, was a little violent, the choir cuts out the tongue and gouges out the eyes of music with a punchy little number about world renewal and forgiveness. When the bedlam subsides…reborn, brainwashed Gandalf comes back and reads something he’s prepared himself.....an essay jotted the night before or this very morning. His delivery is dry and daunting. The unsteady rhythm of his inane blathering leaves the children in a state of repressive desperation. The parents begin to observe the mutiny of concealed discomfort and covert fidgeting. A baby cries. A toddler lets a huff disguised as a sigh escape into the air-space surveiled and registered by her parent's radar.......ALL HEAVEN IS ABOUT TO BREAK LOOSE! The baby gets the hook from mom and undergoes the showy and conspicuous operation of fleeing the area so as not to interfere with the priest's watchwords and caveats. The toddler is whispered something by dad that I couldn't make out, but the look it drew lead me to believe it was a threat worth heeding; perhaps the vanishing of candy until she learns to behave. It's sort of like telling someone not to be afraid......Man, if only fear worked like that.
The priest’s essay seems to subtely suggest that everything we've done Monday through Saturday is somehow wrong and unworthy of the church. I remember having a very funny, albeit much too brief day dream in which everyone was forced to strip down and get blasted by a firehose previously blessed by the priest. They sanitize the sacrilege right outta ya'! The effect of this prison-treatment would make clean the unclean and, in turn, afford them entry. When the 'priest pitch' has ended, I take a look around and see with an inward feeling of admiration that most of the children have maintained. Like prisoners of war they've abided their plight with the knowledge that they may somehow breath the free air again.
We now come to my stupification. I get that parents feel they're doing their Catholic duty by dragging their kids to church and brainwashing them with religious fantasies....but "holy communion"? COME ON! It's like witnessing Pink Floyd's The Wall! Here kids.....a spoonful of sugar to help the faith go down. And the cadence! My GOD, the cadence! I'm sitting in my oak shuck attempting to stay these malevolent reveries in which the children turn to tiny prisoners marching to a stainless steel panel where stands an intimidating woman in a hair-net droppin' the slop on their trays with a "plop". And why it is that the "breaking of bread" isn't actually a BREAKING OF BREAD is beyond me. The "host wafer" is the result of a geared machine. It's manufactured. That's got "relationship with God" written all over it. When the children march back to their seats they seem solemn and, pardon this please....."uncomfortably numb". I'm so unbelievably tempted to saunter up to each and every youngster in the place and say, "Don't worry....10 to 15 years from now you'll be free to decide whether or not any of this makes a lick'a sense all on your own."
From here to the end I've seen the worst and I'm fit to burst with limitless bewilderment. Before this day, the last time I went to church of my own accord was 10 years prior. I was a fifteen-year-old know it all that didn't quite know - it - all. The fifteen year stretch of being alive had alot of unanswered questions; namely, "Why do I believe in this?" If you can ask yourself that question and give an answer that isn't at all lofty, trite, or well-traveled.....then "May the Lord be with you always!" But if you ask yourself that question, and come to the conclusion that this belief system was introduced to you at a time in your life when challenging a structured religion just wasn't in the cards.....and it just...stuck....you may want to slip on some introspective lenses and rethink the issue. You may be surprised how many rusted chains you can shake off with just the one key.
I myself am in a fixed state of confusion. I've been pushed and shoved. The smithereens of my faith have been slowly collected and suddenly scattered. I hope for illumination. I shy away from too penetrating an inquiry. I tease. I pray. I feel right. I get scared. I have doubts. I have a choice. I'm standing up and staring at the sky shouting, "I DON'T KNOW!!! OKAY!?" I've been given the bible and a church....a book and a building. I hear faith....the indefineable word that's said to be so powerful because it's indefineable. I'm confident and frightened. I feel like.....if I were to die right now, this very moment, and demanded an audience with God....should he exist.....and God asked me for an explanation in reference to my levity and lack of respect, I'd say, "I wasn't sold. If I'm to experience my eternity in a perpetual state of torment because I didn't buy the bit, then I'm not sure you're fit to be God of anything.....let alone ME!"
I wrote this because when I see a child in a church...all fancied up and kept quiet....I remember when I accompanied my mother to church in my youth. I was uncomfortable. I didn't understand. Then, all of a sudden I'm 13 getting confirmed. That doesn't even sound right. "CONFIRMED!" I see the monks and the despot again......"Yes. It's confirmed. He's one of us." It doesn't seem right. I can't help but hear this one song lyric I'm very fond of. It's by Modest Mouse.... a song called "Parting of the Sensory". The lyric reads, "This fits like clothes made out of wasps!"
This editorial was not written or discreetly designed to subvert any traditional family values, no matter how nonsensical or insane I find them. I simply endeavored to illustrate that perhaps Church is as inappropriate a place for children to be as Intro to Calculus……not because these places are dangerous, but because for one, there’s a time when reason and understanding plant their flag in the growing mind, and secondly because……maybe they don’t wanna learn Intro to Calc.
Theme song for this blog: "For Reverend Green" by, Animal Collective
If you got through that.......thanks for reading.
Talk to you soon ;)
~
As a gift to my disconsertingly devout mother on her 52nd birthday I agreed to accompany her to a Catholic Service on Easter Sunday(I got her a book too.) In consequence of this, I found myself surrounded by sad spectacle, alarming imagery, and formidable finish. As the morning oozed on I came upon one woeful revelation. There were those come through the doors who did not volunteer. I stood, sat, kneeled and mentally prostrated...my eyes darting all the time, from row to row...never failing to find a child...dragged to this dismal tomb by pious palms and feral fingers. There’s no disclaimer as they’re marched through the black-iron-bedecked oak doors beneath an ancient archway. No warnings but for the ominous churned-gut sensation cautioning them at the threshold that they’re entering a place where reverence turns to worship and parenthood turns to surveillance! Hush now, Hansel! Stop fidgeting, Gretel! Be still. Be quiet. Be "good".
I suppose I should continue by confessing that I’m an admirer of the crying baby….the petulant pouty toddler, even, and perhaps most especially when the crying, wailing, weeping and whining come without pause or concern, in an irreverent intervening fashion, at the very center of a parochial gathering. It isn’t hard to spot the adoribly theatrical little “sinners”, all dressed up like Smarties and Cotton Candy for Easter Sunday. They’re marched in, directed by an elderly man masked in a perma-grin he slips on for church when it’s certain there will be children about, to a wooden torture rack known in this Year of Our Lord 2009 as a ‘pew’. The fortunate sons of firefighter fathers manage to elude the traditional sweet n’ sour look most associated with Easter and are dressed instead like 20’s gangsters, no shortage of pinstriped vests and slicked back hair in the lot; an entire gang of John Dillinger copycats. If they weren’t so terribly frightened of their surroundings you could imagine them orchestrating an attempt on the offering basket. The little women aren’t quite so lucky in the garb department. While they may have the sprightly station of “daddy’s little girl” and be favored enough to avoid the precarious clutches of the pew, parking it instead on their father’s lap, they’re gaudily cursed in Sunday’s worst. The garniture is simply abounding; every ribbon flailing about with each turn of the head like a distress signal to other little girls at home tossing the candy-basket grass in search of a chocolate bunny-rabbit. Here they sit, and here they stay until that time when the old man speaking in riddles puts a lid on it, and the choir takes one last stab at utterly devastating any appreciation of music...or, well, sound I guess.
The service begins with a “red light~ green lightish” stand-up, sit-down ritual that seems eerily reminiscent of a military command-response exercise. This becomes instantly amusing because the congregation range anywhere from 2 to 7 ft in height(yes there was an enormous man in the crowd) and appear clad as if cartoon extras from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. This redundant action continues over a 5 to 10 minute period accompanied by an idle soundtrack of precisely implicit songs about JESUS RISING! JESUS RISEN! JESUS COME AGAIN! The little boy to my immediate left is confounded by an exhausting indecision of what he should be most concerned with, the ZOMBIE SONG, or the fact that his parents have become zombies themselves! Everyone in this joint is in attentive "Simon Says" mode; each participant a fine example of diligence and ritual savy. The preacher man says a little somethin’ and the audience says a little somethin’ somethin’ back. I may be the only person who considers what’s happening a performace, so “audience” may be a stretch. The preacher is doing the ecclesiastic version of “You down with O.P.P.!”, and when he removes his mits from the HUMUNGOUS BIBLE on top of the podium, he lifts them chest-level in expectation of a response; sort of like Jesus revealing his nail-punctured palms. Everyone then proceeds to give him the old “Yah, you know me!” And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Everyone snaps out of it, of course, but all at the same time, which manages to rattle me more than the boy, but that’s an instance of apprehension from my own vault of misgivings. I’ll be attempting to have you recognize what this haunting situation is like for very young people, not myself. The children outshine me with their courage and boldness in this environment, so the floor is theirs.
Now if I could just take a moment to address the humungous bible. I'm sure you noticed my liberal use of caps-lock back there. I just find it funny that the bible is so monstrous. I can't help but wonder if it's the ill-concieved notion of some clerical despot who whole-heartedly believes size is relative to importance.....I imagine a gang of angry monks surrounding an old man clad in the very definition of opulence, holding an ancient scroll and saying, "This, my children, is the word of God.....(long dramatic pause).....Now take it to Kinkos and have it bound in the most obnoxiously large leather and have the word "BIBLE" knit in gold across the front!.....Who would dare not follow it's contents?!" I'd wanna find that fella and tell him the story of Fievel or Frodo. I'd say, "Small's in, pal......Ever see an 'ipod shuffle'?"
Now imagine, if you will, a mother and her youngster two rows up and to the right, against the wall. This wall has an explicit painting of Jesus with blood dripping from his thorn-crown adorned forehead, and eyes that scream what any creature on the face of the planet can identify as extreme pain and suffering. The child chances to glance up at this very 'un-Blues-Cluesy' artwork and immediately sets sail into a storm of shrieking and twisting, bawling and breaking away. Now we, good Christains that we may or may not be, indentify this as the mark of a petulant brat too bored to sit still and be quiet, right? We would NEVER let anyone know we think this. We sigh, nod our heads and smile at the mother in selfless empathy, but deep down, deep-deep down, we imagine, if only for a moment, what the child is like from day to day, or what he will be like on the drive home...Don’t we? I think alot of us probably do. Just think, though...an addled, undeveloped mind in a cold, dark, drafty room with wooden benches and candel-crammed corners…..not to mention an alter strewn with chalice and cross, golden chain and shining cutlery……the quintessance of a Van Helsing safe house. To not expect the child-speak shouts of "LET ME OUT!" would be counterintuitive and careless. I could continue my deprecation of church decor for some minutes on, but the ceremony itself is far more interesting and strange. I think it best to head in that direction.
We eventually come to audience participation. This is the portion of the service where parents and other adult-types stand at the podium, while ceramic, crucified Jesus watches them from behind and up above. What they read aloud sounds like drunken Shakespeare and awkwardly bursts out of them like slightly sped-up batting cage machines, instead of flowing from them like, well, sober Shakespeare I suppose. They wrap up this annunciated anti-poetry by saying something to the effect of, “A reading from (instert name).” This is really the only moment in the entire service when the physiognomy of the children matches the physiognomy of everyone else. It’s a sort of puzzled look...perplexed even. Whether this is because the reader doesn't understand the material or because it's antiquated dialect forces the reader to audition for a Broadway production of King Arthur is a question that doesn't deserve any deep inquiry. After 10 or 15 minutes of what I will charitably describe as ghost stories, the priest...who, clad in a snow-white gown seems like a shaven, labotomized Gandalf, clears his throat a dozen or so times and reads what he calls “The Gospel of the Lord”. Everyone, children included, seem to prick up their ears just a bit more when the priest reads, probably because he at least makes it seem like what he’s reading can be allegorically applied to one thing or another in our lives. When he finishes the Gospel……which, I have to say, was a little violent, the choir cuts out the tongue and gouges out the eyes of music with a punchy little number about world renewal and forgiveness. When the bedlam subsides…reborn, brainwashed Gandalf comes back and reads something he’s prepared himself.....an essay jotted the night before or this very morning. His delivery is dry and daunting. The unsteady rhythm of his inane blathering leaves the children in a state of repressive desperation. The parents begin to observe the mutiny of concealed discomfort and covert fidgeting. A baby cries. A toddler lets a huff disguised as a sigh escape into the air-space surveiled and registered by her parent's radar.......ALL HEAVEN IS ABOUT TO BREAK LOOSE! The baby gets the hook from mom and undergoes the showy and conspicuous operation of fleeing the area so as not to interfere with the priest's watchwords and caveats. The toddler is whispered something by dad that I couldn't make out, but the look it drew lead me to believe it was a threat worth heeding; perhaps the vanishing of candy until she learns to behave. It's sort of like telling someone not to be afraid......Man, if only fear worked like that.
The priest’s essay seems to subtely suggest that everything we've done Monday through Saturday is somehow wrong and unworthy of the church. I remember having a very funny, albeit much too brief day dream in which everyone was forced to strip down and get blasted by a firehose previously blessed by the priest. They sanitize the sacrilege right outta ya'! The effect of this prison-treatment would make clean the unclean and, in turn, afford them entry. When the 'priest pitch' has ended, I take a look around and see with an inward feeling of admiration that most of the children have maintained. Like prisoners of war they've abided their plight with the knowledge that they may somehow breath the free air again.
We now come to my stupification. I get that parents feel they're doing their Catholic duty by dragging their kids to church and brainwashing them with religious fantasies....but "holy communion"? COME ON! It's like witnessing Pink Floyd's The Wall! Here kids.....a spoonful of sugar to help the faith go down. And the cadence! My GOD, the cadence! I'm sitting in my oak shuck attempting to stay these malevolent reveries in which the children turn to tiny prisoners marching to a stainless steel panel where stands an intimidating woman in a hair-net droppin' the slop on their trays with a "plop". And why it is that the "breaking of bread" isn't actually a BREAKING OF BREAD is beyond me. The "host wafer" is the result of a geared machine. It's manufactured. That's got "relationship with God" written all over it. When the children march back to their seats they seem solemn and, pardon this please....."uncomfortably numb". I'm so unbelievably tempted to saunter up to each and every youngster in the place and say, "Don't worry....10 to 15 years from now you'll be free to decide whether or not any of this makes a lick'a sense all on your own."
From here to the end I've seen the worst and I'm fit to burst with limitless bewilderment. Before this day, the last time I went to church of my own accord was 10 years prior. I was a fifteen-year-old know it all that didn't quite know - it - all. The fifteen year stretch of being alive had alot of unanswered questions; namely, "Why do I believe in this?" If you can ask yourself that question and give an answer that isn't at all lofty, trite, or well-traveled.....then "May the Lord be with you always!" But if you ask yourself that question, and come to the conclusion that this belief system was introduced to you at a time in your life when challenging a structured religion just wasn't in the cards.....and it just...stuck....you may want to slip on some introspective lenses and rethink the issue. You may be surprised how many rusted chains you can shake off with just the one key.
I myself am in a fixed state of confusion. I've been pushed and shoved. The smithereens of my faith have been slowly collected and suddenly scattered. I hope for illumination. I shy away from too penetrating an inquiry. I tease. I pray. I feel right. I get scared. I have doubts. I have a choice. I'm standing up and staring at the sky shouting, "I DON'T KNOW!!! OKAY!?" I've been given the bible and a church....a book and a building. I hear faith....the indefineable word that's said to be so powerful because it's indefineable. I'm confident and frightened. I feel like.....if I were to die right now, this very moment, and demanded an audience with God....should he exist.....and God asked me for an explanation in reference to my levity and lack of respect, I'd say, "I wasn't sold. If I'm to experience my eternity in a perpetual state of torment because I didn't buy the bit, then I'm not sure you're fit to be God of anything.....let alone ME!"
I wrote this because when I see a child in a church...all fancied up and kept quiet....I remember when I accompanied my mother to church in my youth. I was uncomfortable. I didn't understand. Then, all of a sudden I'm 13 getting confirmed. That doesn't even sound right. "CONFIRMED!" I see the monks and the despot again......"Yes. It's confirmed. He's one of us." It doesn't seem right. I can't help but hear this one song lyric I'm very fond of. It's by Modest Mouse.... a song called "Parting of the Sensory". The lyric reads, "This fits like clothes made out of wasps!"
This editorial was not written or discreetly designed to subvert any traditional family values, no matter how nonsensical or insane I find them. I simply endeavored to illustrate that perhaps Church is as inappropriate a place for children to be as Intro to Calculus……not because these places are dangerous, but because for one, there’s a time when reason and understanding plant their flag in the growing mind, and secondly because……maybe they don’t wanna learn Intro to Calc.
Theme song for this blog: "For Reverend Green" by, Animal Collective
If you got through that.......thanks for reading.
Talk to you soon ;)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Chuck
So...Chuck.
The skinny is as follows....
Chuck is not impressive. That's to say it's not impressive in an Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon sort of way; the kind of way that makes you fall madly in love with every character...villains/protags included. It's not an instant classic and doesn't impress upon you the feeling of "down the road" classic either. What it is...All it is...is fun.
The two principal writers do not have remarkable track records. I don't feel like going back to look up the names but I know one has written for no other show but Chuck, and the other has made, let's just say, a significant contribution to The O.C.; a show that reverberated such maddening echoes of Beverly Hills 9 blah 2 1 blah that your room was soon filled to the point of swelling with the sound of whining rich kids and their incredibly fortunate unfortunate parents. What made The O.C. seem winning was the attempt at wit....Enter Coen. It's sort of like when G.W.B. spoke with the occasional coherent sentence.....It's like, 'Ok so he's not always completely obtuse....but president?....Really?' I could go on an unstoppable sound-off about how dreadful shows like Laguna Beach and The Hills were born because of inspid absurdity like Beverly Hills......but I wanna talk about Chuck so...
What grabbed me about Chuck at the start was how much fun the plot was. Interesting, smart, hilarious guy is sent an e-mail by his enemy from Stanford that, upon being opened, uploads every government secret that the CIA and FBI combined can store in one hard-drive into his head.....and let's face it....that's ALOTTA crap. He's now under constant government protection/surveillance by a laconic juggernaut named "Agent Casey" and the leggyest blond super agent/model ever to holster a weapon named "Agent Walker". Now, with "The Intersect" in his head Chuck Bartowski(how awesome is that name!?) "flashes" on anything and everything that the government chose to include in the device upon its creation. When Chuck flashes he can regurgitate secret identities, locations, passwords, etc.etc. without understanding what he's seeing or saying. Pretty cool, right? I thought so.
Season one did a fine job of making me care about Chuck and friends. I cared about what happened to everyone. And anyone who enjoys any kind of serialized medium, whether it be a movie or television series, knows that if the creators can make you care, then they're doing well. I'm going to deviate now, just for a second, to Beverly Hills and her children......How, ya know, in the world....can ANYONE care about those characters?....How?......(snapping out of frustration.....NOW)
Chuck has other charming qualities...like it's often tasteful selection of music. The likes of Frightened Rabbit and Bon Iver have made frequent appearances in key climactic scenes. I've also always been a fan of a show that isn't scared to reach so desperately for a powerful moment in the midst of hilarity and sophomoric humor. The show does sometimes falter in this area, but I've been pleasantly surprised often enough. One of my favorite moments in the show so far has come in the iffy and recently ended season 2. The CIA believes the "new Intersect" is ready to be tested and Agent Walker, known as Sarah at this point, and Chuck think it's safe to have their first official romantic night together. And Agent Casey is commanded to kill Chuck as he's no longer needed and constitutes a threat to national security, what with all those secrets boppin' around in his head. The show very smoothly juggles three points of view: Chuck and Sarah's shy purposeful glances at each other, Casey spy-marauding through Chuck's house with a gun at the ready, and CIA agents preparing to view the new Intersect. Throughout the scene Frightened Rabbit's "The Twist" is playing. The song has a nice progression and fitting lyrics like, "I need human heat." I won't tell you what happens but....it was awesome and quite frankly moving in a bitter-sweet sort of way.
Season 2 ended last night and the last four of episodes have be so convoluted and rushed that I imagine many fans of the show who seek their weekly injection of wit and smarty-pants screenwriting are on the verge of scramming for good. I can't say I blame them. The writers, it seems, have inherited the Wachowski Brothers curse of not knowing how to close. I hear Axel Rose's immortal question, "Where do we go? Where do we go now?" It feels like they've revealed all the show's major twists just to save Season 2 and give Season 3 a fighting chance on NBC's corporate cutting board. I now hear Sir Ben Kingsley saying, "Keep her back." and Lawrence Fishburn shouting "Bring her out!" in Searching For Bobby Fisher. I just hope it wasn't the queen we saw these past few weeks but some very gaudy pawns.
Chuck and company......I believe in you. Put your heads together and knock me out next fall!
The skinny is as follows....
Chuck is not impressive. That's to say it's not impressive in an Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon sort of way; the kind of way that makes you fall madly in love with every character...villains/protags included. It's not an instant classic and doesn't impress upon you the feeling of "down the road" classic either. What it is...All it is...is fun.
The two principal writers do not have remarkable track records. I don't feel like going back to look up the names but I know one has written for no other show but Chuck, and the other has made, let's just say, a significant contribution to The O.C.; a show that reverberated such maddening echoes of Beverly Hills 9 blah 2 1 blah that your room was soon filled to the point of swelling with the sound of whining rich kids and their incredibly fortunate unfortunate parents. What made The O.C. seem winning was the attempt at wit....Enter Coen. It's sort of like when G.W.B. spoke with the occasional coherent sentence.....It's like, 'Ok so he's not always completely obtuse....but president?....Really?' I could go on an unstoppable sound-off about how dreadful shows like Laguna Beach and The Hills were born because of inspid absurdity like Beverly Hills......but I wanna talk about Chuck so...
What grabbed me about Chuck at the start was how much fun the plot was. Interesting, smart, hilarious guy is sent an e-mail by his enemy from Stanford that, upon being opened, uploads every government secret that the CIA and FBI combined can store in one hard-drive into his head.....and let's face it....that's ALOTTA crap. He's now under constant government protection/surveillance by a laconic juggernaut named "Agent Casey" and the leggyest blond super agent/model ever to holster a weapon named "Agent Walker". Now, with "The Intersect" in his head Chuck Bartowski(how awesome is that name!?) "flashes" on anything and everything that the government chose to include in the device upon its creation. When Chuck flashes he can regurgitate secret identities, locations, passwords, etc.etc. without understanding what he's seeing or saying. Pretty cool, right? I thought so.
Season one did a fine job of making me care about Chuck and friends. I cared about what happened to everyone. And anyone who enjoys any kind of serialized medium, whether it be a movie or television series, knows that if the creators can make you care, then they're doing well. I'm going to deviate now, just for a second, to Beverly Hills and her children......How, ya know, in the world....can ANYONE care about those characters?....How?......(snapping out of frustration.....NOW)
Chuck has other charming qualities...like it's often tasteful selection of music. The likes of Frightened Rabbit and Bon Iver have made frequent appearances in key climactic scenes. I've also always been a fan of a show that isn't scared to reach so desperately for a powerful moment in the midst of hilarity and sophomoric humor. The show does sometimes falter in this area, but I've been pleasantly surprised often enough. One of my favorite moments in the show so far has come in the iffy and recently ended season 2. The CIA believes the "new Intersect" is ready to be tested and Agent Walker, known as Sarah at this point, and Chuck think it's safe to have their first official romantic night together. And Agent Casey is commanded to kill Chuck as he's no longer needed and constitutes a threat to national security, what with all those secrets boppin' around in his head. The show very smoothly juggles three points of view: Chuck and Sarah's shy purposeful glances at each other, Casey spy-marauding through Chuck's house with a gun at the ready, and CIA agents preparing to view the new Intersect. Throughout the scene Frightened Rabbit's "The Twist" is playing. The song has a nice progression and fitting lyrics like, "I need human heat." I won't tell you what happens but....it was awesome and quite frankly moving in a bitter-sweet sort of way.
Season 2 ended last night and the last four of episodes have be so convoluted and rushed that I imagine many fans of the show who seek their weekly injection of wit and smarty-pants screenwriting are on the verge of scramming for good. I can't say I blame them. The writers, it seems, have inherited the Wachowski Brothers curse of not knowing how to close. I hear Axel Rose's immortal question, "Where do we go? Where do we go now?" It feels like they've revealed all the show's major twists just to save Season 2 and give Season 3 a fighting chance on NBC's corporate cutting board. I now hear Sir Ben Kingsley saying, "Keep her back." and Lawrence Fishburn shouting "Bring her out!" in Searching For Bobby Fisher. I just hope it wasn't the queen we saw these past few weeks but some very gaudy pawns.
Chuck and company......I believe in you. Put your heads together and knock me out next fall!
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