So Newsweek has an article up about the impact of social-networking sites and blogs and whatever additional Web 2.0 buzzwords their editors thought they could safely cram in there.
Depending on what generational cut-off points you use (my parents were definitely Boomers, and I was born in '79, but in the summer, which led to being one of the oldest in my class...plus thanks to multiple major changes and a love of Athens in general I spent from Fall of '98 until Spring 2003 in college) I either fit into this group or not, I figure I'd share my own take on blogs and whatnot with the random # of folks reading this (even you, Google image search person looking at my "sexy" Halloween contest pics from years ago!)
My own pet pop psychology theory on this: many people are so open online because at this point, after COINTELPRO, Operation Mockingbird, The Patriot Act, and who knows what level of call listening and email reading that's been going on for decades, coupled with a push for transparency in general (see everything from the Obama campaign releasing his Congressional earmark requests to the WIRED magazine cover story from a few months back) people just figured "well, if they want to know, why don't I just tell them."
For example, if I say here "I'm like most Americans, I don't have perfect credit--in fact I'm roughly $8,000 in debt...and I'm not exactly jumping for joy about this fact," I have a least the illusion of control. I'm telling this to the world, as opposed to someone or some government-run automated PC network digging through my credit report.
The darker potential angle to this, and one Jean Baudrillard would have a field day with: they view the whole Web 2.0 experience as their fifteen minutes of fame, or worse. They're doing good impressions of themselves, or who they want people to think they are. Quoth one tyke: "The whole MySpace thing is a good warm-up for when I'm really famous." But guess what? Odds are, being used for a quote in a Newsweek article is probably as famous as he gets. How does that get dealt with years from now?
More and more kids are being raised to think they're great (and worse, some are bringing parents along to post-college job interviews) and here's all these internet tools that let them think "give me one brilliant blog post, or one video 'hit' on YouTube, and I can get a development deal too" (and idiot studio execs giving a deal to the "Leave Britney alone" kid aren't helping a damn thing.) Meanwhile, Boomers get older, but damn do they not want to retire. The article in the Decemeber (or possibly Novemember) Atlantic Monthly called "No Country For Young Men" painted a rather depressing picture of what the Nationwide Boomer aging, coupled with the relatively lower birthrate for us 30- and 20-somethings it ain't fun (but it does explain John McCain's oddly high likability rankings.)
So for me, what's the point of blogging and throwing out the occasional picture or stupid quip on Facebook? Well, for one thing, I'm an only child and a Leo...so yeah, I'm a bit of an attention whore. Plus, putting things like "I'm going to celebrate the holiday in the traditional fashion: getting drunk and trying to bang Lindsay Lohan" in my Facebook status is just good fun (note: this is only true provided you don't go out and try to have sex with Lindsay Lohan, as if you're aren't actually in LA, odds are you're going to have a case of mistaken identity, or worse, a nasty surprise the next morning.)
Facebook I look at primarily as a better way to stay in touch with people than juggling a ton of emails, or talking constantly on the phone. (Note: I've never been a big phone conversation person. Talking in person is best, but if we can't, I'd prefer to write. Also, my voicemails are legendarily bad/awkward.) MySpace...is sort of like Facebook, but mainly I use to find out when bands I like have new albums coming out or a tour coming close to me.
And as for the blogging...well it's cheaper than therapy. Particularly given that for most of this blog's existence, I didn't have health insurance.
And, oddly enough, I find it easier to say some things here, to an unknown audience, than I would telling it to someone in person. Even when things were going great with The Girl and I was being Mr. Open Communication, I didn't mention "oh by the way, the reason I got you a One Month Anniversary gift? It's because I don't celebrate a lot of anniversaries. I've never even made it to the 6 month mark before." I figured then that it was the type of thing that'd scare her off. (Given the relatively low number of dates since I first mentioned my whole "Bad Boyfriend Material" status, I may have been right about volunteering such info.)
I try to not use names at all here, and avoid talking about where I work, or even some of my old jobs (though you can now guess how much some of them paid me) or about family or friend-related stuff.
In short: this is part of me, but it's not me. It's a place where I rant about politics, attempt to talk myself through my various dating blunders, and list actresses with whom I would like to engage in mind-blowingly good sexual congress. It's a place where I talk college football, bitch about traffic, and fondly reminisce about The OC.
But it's not me.
It's more like therapy. But cheaper.
That's my take anyway: what does your blog mean to you?
Showing posts with label Intellectual Wankery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intellectual Wankery. Show all posts
Monday, March 24, 2008
Friday, September 21, 2007
Answering the "Why Don't You Have a Girlfriend?" Question
Hey, if you haven't already heard, this weekend concludes (or this Saturday, depending on where you demarcate your weekends) National Unmarried and Single Americans Week. Oddly enough, National Talk Like A Pirate Day fell on Wednesday of this week. I'm not claiming there's a coincidence, but...
(If you feel that women love tiny dogs, and they love pirates, I give you your must-have dating accessory.)
And beyond that funny little picture, I rambled on for 1,500 words. Hey, it's cheaper than therapy. And apparently reading in bed is sexy. But too many people keep clicking on the penguin picture and not sticking around, so it's hasty edit time.
(If you feel that women love tiny dogs, and they love pirates, I give you your must-have dating accessory.)
And beyond that funny little picture, I rambled on for 1,500 words. Hey, it's cheaper than therapy. And apparently reading in bed is sexy. But too many people keep clicking on the penguin picture and not sticking around, so it's hasty edit time.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Plots Available To A Good Home
As I've mentioned before, the novel I'm working furiously to finish right now isn't my first attempt. Or even my second.
Now, not all of those would-be novels are consigned to either my junk-heap or content to rest in the ghost of my dead hard drive (RIP 2000-2004). Two of these incomplete would-be tomes are waiting their turns, or waiting for me to complete some intense research. A third might see the light of day as a screenplay (which given its history is fitting.)
Flashback to the summer of '98. While I was probably one of the few people in my graduating high school class to not have Comedy Central, and therefore, miss out on South Park's debut, I had found myself absorbed in a show called Buffy The Vampire Slayer (not from the beginning, but close). Faced with my first summer in years where I didn't have a summer reading list packed mostly to the gills with stuffy old books I had no interest reading, I figured "what the hell, I'll write a Buffy script and see if they run it." Obviously I had no idea how TV writing, or professional creative writing worked, but hey, wikipedia wasn't around, and people didn't even really use Google. My hook was that it was going to be a special "Spring Break" episode of Buffy, where they go down to Florida, or somewhere near a large body of water, and they encounter some Lovecraftian cultists bent on raising one of the Old Ones, and of course, Buffy and the Scoobies would thwart this nefarious plot. Then, a bit later (ah the days of dial-up, pre 56K Internet) I found on the semi-official site, The Bronze, that they did not accept outside script submissions. Not being a big fanfiction person (what's the point if you don't actually see it?) I decided to expand and adapt it to more normal teenagers. And then late in my first semester at UGA, I joined a band, and the story was forgotten.
With ScriptFrenzy (a similar, but not as strenuous, contest to National Novel Writing Month--a 20,000 script in the month of June) starting soon, I'm thinking about going back to it.
Some of the others...not so much. So here's two plots of abandoned novels I have no major use for, but you might:
1. Working title(s): Full Circle, Just a Bunch Of Stuff That Happened. A genetically modified government super-solider escapes, turns evil (don't they always?) and takes over the mafia, with the eventual goal of world domination. But the original thrust of the novel was going to be on how this mafia-CIA/FBI/etc. conflict messes with the sort-of-but-I-didn't-pull-it-off-54,000-words-in-related lives of over a dozen characters. I was trying for the bastard offspring of Stephen King's The Stand, and Altman's Short Cuts more or less, and it was my first attempt at a novel. So I can't say I lacked novelistic ambitions...
2. No working title: A postmodern collegiate bildungsroman. Over educated, smartass son of an Amherst prof is a freshman at UGA. His "failsafe" prom date shows up on the bus his first week of class...only she's had major plastic surgery and is now both smart and, to our narrator, groin-grabbingly hot. The movie script he wrote as a joke for his dad has been picked up in Hollywood and now he's rich. His agent though, is an embodiment of the Native American Trickster god, Coyote. And it was supposed to be a variation on the genie story where he gets everything he thinks he wants, but also somehow trapped inside a script he wrote...and I couldn't figure a way to reconcile the two threads easily...plus the protagonist was shallow and greedy enough that one person that read an early draft of chapter one compared him to the reprehensible narrator of Martin Amis's Money...and I didn't want to write 300 pages in that voice. But maybe you do...or can think of a better comeuppance for him.
Now, not all of those would-be novels are consigned to either my junk-heap or content to rest in the ghost of my dead hard drive (RIP 2000-2004). Two of these incomplete would-be tomes are waiting their turns, or waiting for me to complete some intense research. A third might see the light of day as a screenplay (which given its history is fitting.)
Flashback to the summer of '98. While I was probably one of the few people in my graduating high school class to not have Comedy Central, and therefore, miss out on South Park's debut, I had found myself absorbed in a show called Buffy The Vampire Slayer (not from the beginning, but close). Faced with my first summer in years where I didn't have a summer reading list packed mostly to the gills with stuffy old books I had no interest reading, I figured "what the hell, I'll write a Buffy script and see if they run it." Obviously I had no idea how TV writing, or professional creative writing worked, but hey, wikipedia wasn't around, and people didn't even really use Google. My hook was that it was going to be a special "Spring Break" episode of Buffy, where they go down to Florida, or somewhere near a large body of water, and they encounter some Lovecraftian cultists bent on raising one of the Old Ones, and of course, Buffy and the Scoobies would thwart this nefarious plot. Then, a bit later (ah the days of dial-up, pre 56K Internet) I found on the semi-official site, The Bronze, that they did not accept outside script submissions. Not being a big fanfiction person (what's the point if you don't actually see it?) I decided to expand and adapt it to more normal teenagers. And then late in my first semester at UGA, I joined a band, and the story was forgotten.
With ScriptFrenzy (a similar, but not as strenuous, contest to National Novel Writing Month--a 20,000 script in the month of June) starting soon, I'm thinking about going back to it.
Some of the others...not so much. So here's two plots of abandoned novels I have no major use for, but you might:
1. Working title(s): Full Circle, Just a Bunch Of Stuff That Happened. A genetically modified government super-solider escapes, turns evil (don't they always?) and takes over the mafia, with the eventual goal of world domination. But the original thrust of the novel was going to be on how this mafia-CIA/FBI/etc. conflict messes with the sort-of-but-I-didn't-pull-it-off-54,000-words-in-related lives of over a dozen characters. I was trying for the bastard offspring of Stephen King's The Stand, and Altman's Short Cuts more or less, and it was my first attempt at a novel. So I can't say I lacked novelistic ambitions...
2. No working title: A postmodern collegiate bildungsroman. Over educated, smartass son of an Amherst prof is a freshman at UGA. His "failsafe" prom date shows up on the bus his first week of class...only she's had major plastic surgery and is now both smart and, to our narrator, groin-grabbingly hot. The movie script he wrote as a joke for his dad has been picked up in Hollywood and now he's rich. His agent though, is an embodiment of the Native American Trickster god, Coyote. And it was supposed to be a variation on the genie story where he gets everything he thinks he wants, but also somehow trapped inside a script he wrote...and I couldn't figure a way to reconcile the two threads easily...plus the protagonist was shallow and greedy enough that one person that read an early draft of chapter one compared him to the reprehensible narrator of Martin Amis's Money...and I didn't want to write 300 pages in that voice. But maybe you do...or can think of a better comeuppance for him.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Friday Happy Hour: Quick Shots
*This picture is just begging for immature captions--have at it.
*Almost finished with that new story. I'm having issues with the ending--mainly I can see the story ending in two different ways, and I kind of like both. Any thoughts on a "Special Edition DVD" short story format where you get both endings?
*The job search continues, slowly...and I'm not discouraged. Taking the first job offer that came my way--more than once--is part of the reason I'm in this mess now. And as the temp agency continues to put more money in my pocket than my old job did, I still think this new plan of being as picky about employment as I am about who I date will pay off. Sort of ironically, the time searching for a new job, while also working 40 hours, blogging, writing, recording songs and trying to get a new band together doesn't leave me with enough time to consider myself good serious dating material for anyone. So any ladies eyeing me as your potential boyfriend: you should probably look elsewhere right now.
*There are only two new episodes of LOST left this season. I'm going to devote a longer blog to why I love this show (it's the only show I make sure I watch weekly, and I'm a barely reforming TV junkie that watched almost every episode of The OC's horrid third season). If you haven't it watched, it's probably pointless to start with these final episodes, but if you feel sporting, give it a go. And who knew Ben's dad was Napoleon Dynamite's Uncle Rico?
*El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead is the best hip-hop record released in 2007 so far. If you don't have it, go buy it.
*While there are tons of blog posts lamenting the decline of Book Review sections in major newspapers, they are missing the upside: Dan Brown fever has passed, and really talented authors are getting mainstream print media publicity (though to be fair, it's established folks, like Chabon, Pynchon, Cormac McC, and DeLillo getting the pub.
*Jonathan Lethem's newest, You Don't Love Me Yet: not bad, but it felt too light on character and plot to warrant being called a full novel.
*Irvine Welsh reading this saturday. Given that several very very cool and happy things happened in my life following the last reading I attended, I'm hoping history repeats itself (and shh, don't tell the world, but Butch Walker's in town this weekend too...)
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
That's Debatable (II): On Voting, and How We Should Be More Like The French
I was going to backtrack completely and follow-up with a detailed rundown on the Democratic primary debate, but too many blogs have already hit that, so it's time to move on.
Instead I'm going to bring up for discussion two ideas Haley had while watching (one good, one almost frighteningly bad) and tie them into the recent French election.
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first: while I figure she's got the best intentions in wanting to "modernize" the political process, I think dumbing down the level of political debate--especially concerning the man or woman who will be in charge of the country for four years--is a horrible "snap decision."
Yes, more Americans voted in last year's American Idol finals than in the last election: that's not a good thing. But worse, turn the Presidential election into a popularity contest/reality show knock-off and we're asking for the political equivalent of Clay Aiken. And generally, Clay and co. seem like music for people that don't really care about music. It's bland, it's calulatingly the least offensive, broadest appeal. When the country desparetly needs change--major change--bland isn't going to cut it. Plus, my gut tells me that since early polls had too many people saying "well, Romney looked the most Presidential," the 2008 election would result in another GOP President. If soundbytes and style with no substance is enough to get elected, Rudy can sit back and have "9/11" repeating on endless loop from now until he's sworn in. Or, look at John Edwards. He didn't raise his hand at the debate when asked if he believed in the Global War On Terror, and the instant judgement of many: oh no, he's soft on terrorism. Dig deeper than some hand-raising though, and you get a naunced, intelligent answer:
Instead I'm going to bring up for discussion two ideas Haley had while watching (one good, one almost frighteningly bad) and tie them into the recent French election.
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first: while I figure she's got the best intentions in wanting to "modernize" the political process, I think dumbing down the level of political debate--especially concerning the man or woman who will be in charge of the country for four years--is a horrible "snap decision."
Yes, more Americans voted in last year's American Idol finals than in the last election: that's not a good thing. But worse, turn the Presidential election into a popularity contest/reality show knock-off and we're asking for the political equivalent of Clay Aiken. And generally, Clay and co. seem like music for people that don't really care about music. It's bland, it's calulatingly the least offensive, broadest appeal. When the country desparetly needs change--major change--bland isn't going to cut it. Plus, my gut tells me that since early polls had too many people saying "well, Romney looked the most Presidential," the 2008 election would result in another GOP President. If soundbytes and style with no substance is enough to get elected, Rudy can sit back and have "9/11" repeating on endless loop from now until he's sworn in. Or, look at John Edwards. He didn't raise his hand at the debate when asked if he believed in the Global War On Terror, and the instant judgement of many: oh no, he's soft on terrorism. Dig deeper than some hand-raising though, and you get a naunced, intelligent answer:
And I don't know how many of you even noticed this or how many of you
watched the Democratic presidential debate from South Carolina, but I suspect
some of you did. But a question was asked whether you agree with the language -
the Bush language, which is what it is - "Global War on Terror." And I did not.
And I said, I took that position at the debate...
[Applause]
This is a
political frame and political rhetoric. They use it to justify everything they
do. They use that language to justify the war in Iraq. They use it to justify
Guantanamo. They use it to justify torture. They use it to justify illegal
spying on the American people.
[Applause]
It is time for us to quit
kowtowing to these people. We have to say what we really believe. Now, are there
really dangerous people in the world? Of course there are. We need to be smart
and aggressive and intelligent, use intelligence - did I say dangerous people? -
we have to use intelligence to fight them and stop them. Everybody recognizes
that. But the one thing that's been proven beyond any doubt as a result of
what's happened in the last six years is raw power alone will never make you a
leader. You actually have to have the moral authority. (HT: DailyKos)
If we go on snap judgements and soundbytes, Edwards is either "out of touch with the reality of the threat we face" (pick a GOP candidate to make that accusation) or "in denial" or who knows. If anything, as the debate is available as streaming video, and the all candidates have speeches all over YouTube and extensive websites/MySpaces/Facebook groups there really should be no excuse for not educating ourselfs about the choices out there--and in depth. I work 40 hours a week while attempting to land a better job, updating this blog, keeping up with UGA football, Red Sox baseball, reading several blogs/websites daily, and working on my book, so there is likely time for most of us to get at least semi-informed. (What I've learned today: Mike Gravel does seem like a crotchety old dude, but some of his thoughts about getting the US out from under the thumb of the Military-Industrial Complex are spot-on, whereas Ron Paul has way too many statements blaming crime on black men to be a "safe" GOP alternative, his progressive stances on the Internet and ending the war nonwithstanding.)
But Haley's 100% right in that our current voting system could use an overhaul. The problem here becomes: who handles it? Ask some Ohio voters how much they trust Diebold, just get your guard up first. For starters (as in, something we could do in time for 2008) is to spread the word about absentee ballots. I voted twice via absentee ballot (in 2000 and 2002) as there were some pressing issues back in the home county and I was struck by how easy the process was. (And why wasn't I registered in Athens Clarke-County? Well, let's just say that my middle years at UGA were a black hole as far as dating was concerned, and up until let's say November 2002 you couldn't get me out of the state of GA fast enough.) If you anticipate a long day at the office for the primary or the election, sign up for an absentee ballot. If you need another reason, claim you have agoraphobia or even whatever Latinate construct would approximate "seeing too many 'Bush/Cheney' stickers on cars makes me vomit" (Ryan, I'm looking in your direction here...just give me a long Latin phrase, then -osis can be added to it and: instant disease.)
Online voting should be the wave of the future (or even texting of voting)...the issue here is security. American Idol had voter fraud issues last year (I think, I'll Google this later to make sure my mind isn't pulling a Geto Boys song on me) and it has big corporate sponsors. Super SSL-encrypted sites and online voting look, to me at least, as the best option. The other plus we could shoot for? No more Super Tuesdays.
France had over 83% turnout in their election, and coincidentally it was held over the weekend, not on a random weekday. Neal Boortz, in a bit of specious reasoning that I surmise was more about radio ratings than truth, claims democrats will never allow this (because, he claims, no one with a steady, demanding job would ever vote democrat) and that a 24-hour Tuesday is the answer. It's better than what we've got now sure...but how do you staff the polling places for 24 hours? Move it to Saturdays, less folks have to work=more volunteers, more time to vote.
So my quick hopes for 2008 and beyond: we all do our damndest to actually resemble and informed electorate (I don't want to hear "he looked cute," "seemed like a nice guy to have a drink with," or "because she's a woman," as reasons for voting unless there's some solid stuff to go with them). We get off our asses, TiVo HOUSE or whatever must-see Tuesday show is on (yes ladies, even if it's Dr. Addison's new show and Taye Diggs is going to be McHalf Naked) and vote in truly record numbers. And then we work towards Saturday elections and secure online voting options. But, even if we get suckered into a Duncan Hunter/Tommy Thompson presidency (the "Hunter S.lash Thompson" stickers fool a surprisingly high--pun intended--number of younger voters) it's probably better than the crap we have now.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Screaming loudly at the media bandwagon
I didn't want to write about Don Imus. I really didn't.
(For those of you living under a rock, or in a cave, on Mars, with your fingers in your ears, Google "don imus").
The guy (who really has a face for radio) is a dumbass, made a statement that removed all doubt that he was a dumbass, and...all manner of media hell broke loose.
I'd resist the "chumming the water for sharks" metaphor here if weren't so apt. World News Tonight had a feature on it nightly (the Iraq war I don't think got every night coverage, or if it did, not as much). Al Sharpton was involved.
And once the hype got to a certain level, it was a relieft Imus was fired. Because the alternative was that this level of hype for Imus (who I wouldn't have recognized if he walked up to me on Peachtree Street two weeks ago) would be used as a ratings stunt and legitimize dumbass statements.
What's left is that it does seem to legitimize blowing things out of all proportion. If the media hadn't picked up on the story, or say, if it was Joe Sixpack on a Kansas AM sportstalk station, odds are the Rutgers team wouldn't have even heard of the comments. Of course if any of them were Imus listeners, my whole theory here's shot to hell, but I kind of doubt it.
Call me cynical, but I agree with Jason Whitlock's column in that Rutgers is using the whole thing for postive PR/recruitment that they wouldn't have had the oppurtunity to do otherwise. Again, not saying they weren't hurt by the comments, and the private meeting with Imus was good policy, a 30-minute speech from the coach seems straight from the marketing and PR deptarment, not the heart to me. Will the extra coverage mean Rutgers gets a girl who was dead set on UConn or UT? Well, probably not. I guess the whole thing is a bit unnerving.
And as for Imus's remark being sexist...well, perhaps I need an updated OED, because I don't see it. At no point was he espousing a superiority of men angle. Racially-charged? Sure. But the gist of the thing seemed to be Imus found the Lady Vols attractive and the Rutgers ladies: not as much so re hott. And if it's sexist to consider some women more attractive than other women I'm afraid I'm guilty of it too. It was a dumbass thing to say, and superficial as all hell...but so are all the comments about football/baseball players' butts made by straight women (well, superficial...those comments only reach dumbass territory if say the comment comes after the nicely-posteriored player screws up royal.)
I don't really doubt Imus does think deep down that women are in some way inferior to men (he just gives off a kind of "things were better in the 50s" vibe to me) and I'm not saying there aren't serious issues in the country worth discussing...but let's do it the right way. Let's not label the superficial as sexist, because that way lies a messy and slippery slope.
And lastly, folks, if you have an idea for a story, no matter how half-baked it is, send it to the national news folks and the AP. And tell them you want to see a variety of stories, not the same issue blown out of proportion and hyped beyond belief (see also: the Anna Nicole nonsense that's still ongoing, Britney Spears's hair and panties updates etc.)
Again, I'm not denying Imus is a world-class douchebucket (Atlanta traffic has resulted in me inventing new invectives to swear at people, "douchebucket" is one), but is the story of his dumbass comment really more newsworthy than say:
1. Troops being told they get an extra 3 months in Iraq?
2. The supposedly impregnable Green Zone housing the Iraqi Parliment getting suicide-bombed?
3. Former Bush crony Paul Wolfowitz giving a brobdingnagian pay raise to his mistress (possibly as a silence payment)?
4. Genocide in Darfur?
5. _______?
(Side note: I also figured, somewhat cynically, that it wouldn't be long before this whole thing made its way to tshirts...And I was right Give it a day before Tshirt Hell has one with Imus's face on it...)
(For those of you living under a rock, or in a cave, on Mars, with your fingers in your ears, Google "don imus").
The guy (who really has a face for radio) is a dumbass, made a statement that removed all doubt that he was a dumbass, and...all manner of media hell broke loose.
I'd resist the "chumming the water for sharks" metaphor here if weren't so apt. World News Tonight had a feature on it nightly (the Iraq war I don't think got every night coverage, or if it did, not as much). Al Sharpton was involved.
And once the hype got to a certain level, it was a relieft Imus was fired. Because the alternative was that this level of hype for Imus (who I wouldn't have recognized if he walked up to me on Peachtree Street two weeks ago) would be used as a ratings stunt and legitimize dumbass statements.
What's left is that it does seem to legitimize blowing things out of all proportion. If the media hadn't picked up on the story, or say, if it was Joe Sixpack on a Kansas AM sportstalk station, odds are the Rutgers team wouldn't have even heard of the comments. Of course if any of them were Imus listeners, my whole theory here's shot to hell, but I kind of doubt it.
Call me cynical, but I agree with Jason Whitlock's column in that Rutgers is using the whole thing for postive PR/recruitment that they wouldn't have had the oppurtunity to do otherwise. Again, not saying they weren't hurt by the comments, and the private meeting with Imus was good policy, a 30-minute speech from the coach seems straight from the marketing and PR deptarment, not the heart to me. Will the extra coverage mean Rutgers gets a girl who was dead set on UConn or UT? Well, probably not. I guess the whole thing is a bit unnerving.
And as for Imus's remark being sexist...well, perhaps I need an updated OED, because I don't see it. At no point was he espousing a superiority of men angle. Racially-charged? Sure. But the gist of the thing seemed to be Imus found the Lady Vols attractive and the Rutgers ladies: not as much so re hott. And if it's sexist to consider some women more attractive than other women I'm afraid I'm guilty of it too. It was a dumbass thing to say, and superficial as all hell...but so are all the comments about football/baseball players' butts made by straight women (well, superficial...those comments only reach dumbass territory if say the comment comes after the nicely-posteriored player screws up royal.)
I don't really doubt Imus does think deep down that women are in some way inferior to men (he just gives off a kind of "things were better in the 50s" vibe to me) and I'm not saying there aren't serious issues in the country worth discussing...but let's do it the right way. Let's not label the superficial as sexist, because that way lies a messy and slippery slope.
And lastly, folks, if you have an idea for a story, no matter how half-baked it is, send it to the national news folks and the AP. And tell them you want to see a variety of stories, not the same issue blown out of proportion and hyped beyond belief (see also: the Anna Nicole nonsense that's still ongoing, Britney Spears's hair and panties updates etc.)
Again, I'm not denying Imus is a world-class douchebucket (Atlanta traffic has resulted in me inventing new invectives to swear at people, "douchebucket" is one), but is the story of his dumbass comment really more newsworthy than say:
1. Troops being told they get an extra 3 months in Iraq?
2. The supposedly impregnable Green Zone housing the Iraqi Parliment getting suicide-bombed?
3. Former Bush crony Paul Wolfowitz giving a brobdingnagian pay raise to his mistress (possibly as a silence payment)?
4. Genocide in Darfur?
5. _______?
(Side note: I also figured, somewhat cynically, that it wouldn't be long before this whole thing made its way to tshirts...And I was right Give it a day before Tshirt Hell has one with Imus's face on it...)
Friday, March 30, 2007
Rich People Die Unhappy
"If this path is so right,This is a post I’ve been putting off for awhile—one because it’s not an easy thing to write about and two because I’d hoped (and pretty much rightly so) that if I waited, there’d be a cheerier outlook on things. But at this point: I’ve got to get it out of my system in the hopes of sleeping easier.
Then why can’t I sleep at night?"
-The Noises 10 "Stuck in the backseat"
(Disclaimer: if talks about depression, a liberal does of general bitching/pity-party-for-one hosting, and pretty-obviously-employed-as-coping-method jokes about depression aren’t your cup of tea, then don’t read past this little period. Oh, and it’s pretty long.)
As alluded to in an earlier post, I’d figured that things weren’t quite working out in Athens like I’d hoped, and that an attempt to grow up and move on with life was in order.
Parts of that plan not quite working out like I’d hoped have allowed the dreaded second thoughts to creep in. Everyone I told the "move to Atlanta, get a real job" plan to has endorsed the idea.
And that alone makes me nervous in a prolix, retroactively self-doubting, "so did everyone think I was fucking up sticking around Athens as long as I did? Or was it just the low-paying, not-writing-enough aspect? Etc." way. So a pretty specific type of nervous is the point.
Add to the nervous the fact that almost all my dwindling circle of friends remaining in Athens are engaged or cohabitating or otherwise no longer single, and sure, almost none of them go downtown on much of a regular basis, and sure last Saturday—it being one of those gloriously sunny and warm days that makes me say "hey, there is an upside to Global Warming"—since no one would join me at the pool I (admittedly after a few shots worth of Patron and several beers) decided to go meet some of my neighbors (ironically enough though the girls playing perhaps the World’s Longest Game of Beer Pong weren’t residents, but you didn’t hear that from me). As Radiohead’s DVD title says: "Meeting People is Easy."
What’s not easy is finding a job in Athens that can pay even in the neighborhood of $30,000 a year with benefits (assuming you’re like me and have no PhDs or law degrees or 5 years or more of computer programming experience—and even then there’s no guarantees and odds are you get paid less than you would at the same job in a city like, say Atlanta.)
And my personal sort-of motto of "less money in Athens but happy" hasn’t really been holding a lot of water for a while, despite my attempts at invoking it even on a date (which was a very happy time indeed. But how much of that was because it allowed me to not think about the job situation, future etc.) That "funk" or worse feeling has shown up several times, dating back at least to last summer, but even that first year I stuck around after graduating in ’03-’04 where Athens didn’t feel right to me.
"And after all this time, you were waiting on the rideTo stop at the place where
they slowly misplaced your life..."-Butch Walker "Joan"
I can’t deny a large portion of it is the money. I’ve tried denying that for years: I’m done. It was and is a factor. Not just in a paying the bills and a shiny iPod for working out, but dating too. Especially dating.
The Girl (note: I'm not using her name here, but she gets big-time proper noun-status anyway) was incredibly low-maintenance—yet another plus in her favor, among many; if I listed all her good qualities it’d crash Blogger’s server and her bad qualities would take a few lines at most—but I wasn’t exactly advertising just how tight money was either. She knew from the first date I wished my job had the benefits (and hours, and non-punchclock regimens) her job had. She knew then I was not exactly jumping for joy with my current financial situation (see the note below about my buddy’s salary supra, that story was mentioned too).
Money wasn’t an issue for her(well, the money I had wasn't an issue; I got the impression she, like most people, would enjoy having more than she was currently making, and while she downplayed her work, she was probably more than enough of a badass at it that she probably did/does deserve a raise). She practically bent over backwards to keep me from paying for dinner all the time. But it was an (mostly unspoken) issue for me—not so much picking up the check at Bissette’s or Mellow Mushroom or wherever—but more importantly any time I’d look more than a few weeks into the future.
She had a great idea that we could both take our laptops downtown, or to the dog park (well, the second one was more of a plan for Spring or one of those non-freezing days in the fall) and write, together (can you blame me for falling ass-over-teakettle-grade smitten?). The catch: I had no laptop, and really no feasible way to buy one. Several weeks (and a literally teeth-chattering fall cold front) later on somehow our conversation turned to ski lifts and how the height made her nervous, I think a television ad was involved, and I pointed out that a two-person lift can be quite romantic, if it’s the right two people (especially if the resort’s set up for night skiing, and there’s a hot tub to "recover" in afterwards.). Then we talked about maybe taking a trip…I was thinking somewhere close—perhaps the classic three-day weekend retreat to someplace where the snow is only slightly more natural than Pamela Anderson-?(Rock? Lee? I don’t really know or care at this point)’s décolletage, like say either one of those resorts in Boone, NC—but yet again, I could throw the idea out there, but I knew I couldn’t actually make it happen. And it eats away at you.
I can add up the figures and sometimes wonder how I had any bit of a life (and then be amazed that I was able to have an amazing relationship for even two dates, much less a few months.) The numbers in a nutshell: after rent and bills, I was left with $100 (or sometimes less—a lack of health insurance, coupled with far too many stretches where I would eat way too much junk/fast food and not work out wrecked perfect attendance) per week for food, fuel in the car, and…well, maybe it was a good thing I didn’t have many friends that liked going out downtown. It eats away at you.
That went on for a year. November and December prior I was searching for work, and blowing the tiny bit of savings I had accumulated working in the ‘burbs. But unlike some folks who graduated, worked outside of Athens and moved back, I wasn’t really taking that big of a pay cut. I hadn’t worked continuously for long in the ‘burbs, thanks primarily to what I’m pretty sure now (there was never a formal diagnosis or anything—I had no health insurance, but also just enough vanity or pride or whatever to not ask my folks for money to see a psychologist) was a pretty nasty bout with depression that winter (other than the occasional band practice, my mental health was helped the most through the two-hour blocks of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TNT. So basically I can date the length of that depressed period by however long it took TNT to air the last few episodes of Season Four—starting with the episode where Faith killed a man—to right about the time in Season Six that Buffy and Spike’s wild sex brought a building down on them.)
So while "I left Atlanta and more money for Athens" may technically be true, I wasn’t exactly rolling in dough there—and I followed the same job search pattern I employed in Athens in my first post-grad year: take the first job offer you get, even if you can’t imagine staying there long. I’ve got a friend that graduated UGA all of three months later than I did who made $70K last year and at minimum $150,000 since graduating. I don’t want to actually dig out my tax returns, but I’m pretty sure my entire income from graduation in ’03 to my ’06 income added up might not even be $70K. And it can eat away at you.
Because one year is maybe adjustment to post-college life, or my plan to take a year off and the go back to grad school, but after several years of struggling, the cumulative effect on my overall confidence is: not good. But I’ve got lots of friends who will tell me how brilliant I am, or how even in my (well, to me) goofy-looking driver’s license picture I looked smart. Plus also a number of friends telling me on the frequent occasions my current relationships with the fairer sex haven’t gone beyond a date or two that I really should have a girlfriend. So, how much of those comments win out over the reality of being single and poor registers as true, and how much self-doubt based on the small figures on the checks and little to no money for dates takes over? At what point do you begin to feel a scarlet F (for either "failure" or "fuckup" depending for how vulgar I’m feeling) on you at almost all times? When do you admit to yourself that because a girl dates an older guy it’s not because she’s out for his money, but it’s because he’s not drowning in doubts about how he could afford to travel and see her, or the classic insecurity-in-relationship killer "what does she even see in me?" question? And when do you stop and reflect that your dream of coming back to Athens, and what you wanted to do, and what you’ve wound up doing, don’t mesh? Again (well, by know if you’re reading this you can detect the them I’ve been going for at the end of these paragraphs…)
But am I really talking myself into plans of a "real job" in Atlanta, and moving away from the town I’ve called home for seven out of the past eight years?
Or am I simply throwing in the towel because I think someone special had come into my life, and I realize now I screwed up, again, in the same poor communication way that’s screwed up some other promising relationships?
And that maybe the money isn’t a reason why I clamed up at the worst time, but an excuse?
(The quick backstory: when things stopped working well dovetails with my turn from being honest and open with her to lying or avoiding talking about issues because I figured that that was what she wanted. Insecurity strikes again.)
I’m sure it’s actually a bit of both. Sadly, I’m also sure even if The Girl suddenly decided to call me up and give me a second (well, by my unofficial count at least fifteenth) chance, it’d yet again end badly. She may not have the whole world on her finger yet ("yet" being the key word here), she’s got a pretty amazing life going on right now, all the hopes and dreams still in the air, and I’ve got…a band that is on "hiatus" (rock musician euphemism for "broken up"), a temporary job that will likely be followed by another temporary job while I continue to send resumes out, and obviously, a disposition that’s probably just as sunny as the one I had back in November that I think quite literally manifested in a kind of contact depression in her. (Note: I’m let’s say 99.9999% sure I’m not currently depressed, and this rant leans towards the nadir of my daily moods, not how I am daily.)
What do you do when your roots have dissolved and broken down And the soil
that you grew in when you were small Has become nothing more than dirt in some
dirty town
When you list all the qualities that you despise And you realise
You're describing yourself?
-Marillion "This Rake's Progress"
Before the temp job came into play I wound up spending almost a month attempting to send out resumes and find work in Atlanta while spending most of my time in Athens. Mostly I slept too much, then finally did a benefit-of-distance postmotem on the relationship with The Girl and well, sometimes seeing yourself how someone else sees you, holding that mirror up to your face, isn’t a good thing.
I could feel the symptoms of depression building again—not "the funk" but the real, ominous, Ideation-rejected-but-still-frightening thing, something like what I felt a few years ago—and something had to give. So I went to Plan B (the temp jobs until something better is found) and started hitting the gym daily, cutting almost all fast food out of the diet. Plan A1+, for the record, involved a large lottery-winning financial windfall, endowing UGA with a true MFA program for creative writing (could DFW be talked into moving to Athens from Pomona in California?), somehow purchasing the old DialAmerica building and deeding it to the folks at Nuci’s Space (I picture a bigger venue for fundraiser shows, more space for practice, and maybe even a small parking deck on the current lot’s footprint, that could raise brobdingnagian amounts of money for the place on gamedays alone), outfitting the band (or a band that I’d play guitar in) with pro gear, and spending even more time writing (which, I will note I’ve been trying my damnedest to be diligent about now, because if I take a "I’ll finish the book when I have more time" attitude, it won’t get finished.)
But several million-to-one-shot-odds fantasies aside, here’s the basic conclusion of a good bit of painful self-reflection:
Insecurity, especially financial insecurity, can make me a really terrible person. I clam up and avoid telling anything remotely approximating the truth to those close to me—especially anyone I’m dating. If I feel I’m "losing" her, I can try stringing together long strands of pent-up things I should’ve told her before (and not all at once) mixed with what I think she wants to hear in a pathetic attempt to get her to stay. I fall into that terrible mistake of picturing relationships as "having" and "winning over," terms of conquest and possession and all that horrid shit, instead of equal, even though I know deep down it’s the equality I want. I manipulate and censor aspects of the relationship when things turn sour to make myself look better and her worse. And if someone figures out I’m doing it, even confessing it later can be a strain on her trusting me. It’s a nasty cycle and I don’t like the guy causing it. And I don’t want to be that guy again. Ever.
He feels like shit constantly, makes those he claims to love feel like shit, and he’s the little fucker that wants to pull me back into depression.
What I want is to feel like the guy The Girl thought I was to begin with—a funny, happy, confident guy. And while my romantic side doesn’t want to admit it (but screw him, the manipulative asshole side of me can talk my romantic side into too much problematic shit) it’s going to take money to kill off the insecurity. Or at least hopefully wound it—perhaps main it in the leg or something so that I can clearly hear it coming and sweep its maimed leg and throw it away.
If I’m being honest with myself Athens isn’t 100% ruled out then, but it’s an almost lottery-winning longshot. Atlanta’s the first choice, and I’m hoping something good is in the pipeline (and I’m not totally grasping at straws here, there are multiple reasons for hope in the pipeline. Even if that’s a lousy mixed metaphor.) If that fails too? Well, several years back I had started looking into what it might take to get a work visa to Australia...
Monday, March 05, 2007
On Second Chances (part one)
There’s a great line in David Mamet’s 2000 comedy State and Main that goes: "the only second chance you get in life is the chance to make the same mistake twice," and it’s a pretty clever one. For my money the film’s best line is Walt Price (William H. Macy)’s line that "it’s not a lie, it’s a gift for fiction," but I can’t get that to fit the subject at hand. And that subject is second chances, in life and in fiction. (And please, do give me a second chance after this semi-awkward intro.)
Career and random life second chance moments are out there, but the second chance situations I’ve been thinking about the most lately are relationship second chances. And to avoid any semantic quibbling later, let me just say that for the duration of this article, when I say "second chance" I’m not meaning it in a literal "there was the initial, first chance, and now there’s this, the second chance," but rather the colloquial use of the phrase. It’s not so much a gift for fiction as it is covering my ass…and feel free to make the joke that I used entirely too many words to cover so tiny an ass.
The protagonist in the novel I’m writing is having second chances coming at him from all sides: does he want to try again with his college girlfriend, even though he previously thought he’d moved on and remains somewhat convinced she certainly moved on? Does he give a second chance to a girl he meets early in the novel but decided against dating on the sole basis that she has a name that is homophonically identical to his college ex's? What makes us want to try again? Or, to flip things around, what makes us want to give someone another shot?
In film and TV the romantic comedy and Drama genres are chock-full of second chances. In The Graduate Ben starts off being 100% opposed to dating Elaine (the main reason being the whole having boffed her mom, but let’s not underestimate the emasculating effect having your parents and their friends setting you up can achieve), and then thinks better of it. After having been a world-class cad (I figure "cad" is the period-appropriate word for taking a girl to a strip club for your first date in the 60s…I might be wrong) Ben then shoots for a second chance to win Elaine over…and he does. Things go along swimmingly until Mrs. Robinson attempts one of the dreaded Six Ultimate Cockblocks(it's #3: "the mom of the girl you're dating tells her daughter she's getting mommy's sloppy seconds.") Elaine goes back to Berkeley, and Ben tries again. And here’s the question that didn’t come up in my Film Studies class when we talked about The Graduate: Elaine’s dating Carl, and, while the guy’s clearly not the smoothest re: interpersonal relations ("he said he thought ‘we’d make a good team’" is hands-down one of the lamest proposals out there) she doesn’t seem to dislike him, so what convinces her to give this guy, who remember she thinks raped her mom, another shot? (And yes, they don’t make romantic comedies like they used to…) Oh sure, when Elaine visits Ben at Norman Fell’s House For Random Guys (Plus Richard Dreyfuss) Ben explains his side and Elaine believes him…but what made her show up in the first place? Why the second chance? (I’m going to probably go with a repetitive asking of this question throughout, but my theory is that at least part of Elaine knew her mom was likely full of it, because a woman like Mrs. Robinson’s probably strayed from the marital bed before.)
Or look at the television relationship of the late 90s: Ross and Rachel (me, I’ll focus mostly on looking at Rachel circa roughly ’94-95…and then briefly curse Adam Duritz for dating Jennifer Anniston at her peak of physical "ohmydamn"-ness). The show’s writers made a Bach fugue out of the second chances in this relationship. First you have the initial theme: Rachel is Ross’s great unrequited love. She was (rather inexplicably, if you think how most popular girls treat fat girls in cliquey high schools) friends with his younger sister, he fell for her, she didn’t notice him, but he still would’ve gone as her back-up date to prom. Flashforward to the post-college years: Rachel bails on what she realizes would have been a loveless marriage, moves in with Ross’s sister, and the first months of his second chance to tell Rachel how he feels showing the world what emo was before emo became popular and the guys in Panic! At the Disco still thought girls had cooties. Ross missed his shot, Rachel started dating a swarthy European guy, and Ross left for China…but one of his emo moments is accidentally revealed by Chandler and Rachel falls for him. In counterpoint, now Ross has the girlfriend and it’s Rachel who has to pine away in secret…until she leaves a drunken message, and then Ross shows up at the coffee show and America collectively goes "Awww." (Yes, I’m doing this from memory…I know, I know…I really need a job again.) Then Rachel gets a real job, and there’s a picnic basket and stress and they go "on a break" in which Ross bangs a copy shop girl (who for all the hype about how hot she was turned out to be kind of "meh" to me at least.) Cheating, or on a break? Didn’t matter.
Relationship over. But it wasn’t. Rachel would go on to convince Ben Stiller’s wife-to-be to shave her head bald in an attempt to get Ross back, and then write an 18-page letter ("front and back") Ross would have to agree to. Ross eventually finished reading the letter, balked, and they split again. Ross got engaged, Rachel had doubts, talked poor Dr. House’s ear off on the plane to England and ruined Ross’s second marriage before it really started (and in her defense it needed to stop). With help from Relationship Relapse’s best buddy alcohol, they got married in Vegas. A while later they’d relapse for one night only and it resulted in Rachel having Ross’s second child. When the series ended, they agreed to give it another shot, and audiences figured this one might last. All told it was a spectacular number of chances given from Ross to Rachel and Rachel to Ross, again and again. But why? How many times can you hear "we were on a break" shouted at you before you say "screw it, we’re done. For good."
(Cynical, non-romantic note: ok, the short answer for why Ross gets so man second chances with Rachel and say, Joey gets the one-and-done treatment is market research said people wanted Ross and Rachel to eventually end up together, and advertising dollars--especially when the principal cast made seven figures per episode--and not true love rules all when it comes to TV relationships. But, the romantic side chimes in, we still have to believe the motivation for the second chance, or the whole thing tanks.)
Or let’s look at a more contemporary variation on that theme (or two): Seth Cohen and Summer Roberts. You've got the nerdy, emo-loving, Michael Chabon reading (not something that should totally result in social ostricastion--though one paperback version of Wonderboys does apparently look, from a distance, like He's Not That Into You--I just wanted to point it out because it's rare for PEN/Faulkner winners to be lauded on mainstream television and I'm a writing nerd like that) has had a brobdingnagian crush on local hottie Summer Roberts since grade school. Forget second chances, she hasn't even given him a first chance. Until "Chino" shows up, Seth crashes a "rager" and slowly but surely, Summer starts thinking "maybe he's not that bad." Seth then repeatedly screws up (1st by attempting to date Anna and Summer, then by attempting to sail to Tahiti, and on and on it goes...see the wiki episode guide for more) and yet they keep getting back together. Summer believes she's moved on with Zach--he's got Seth's comic book love and smarts, but he's a water polo player and Dad likes him--but finds that similarities on paper don't add up in person.
My theory on this is that the reason behind wanting a second chance and granting one is far closer to being a "gut feeling" or "hunch" or any related word or phrase that you can't easily articulate. Maybe it's self-defense (because sometimes your friends will say "what? Why are you going down that road again?" and you don't have a drawn out line of defense.)
Maybe it's something else...and sometimes...it's not worth it (more on that later this week.)
Monday, February 26, 2007
Who Sets The Standards?
Disclaimer: If discussions on pedagogy, poetry, and lexical matters (plus tangents on music and film) bore you to absolute tears, move along, there’s nothing to see here.
That said…
I. A Smarter Person Might Say This More Eloquently, or Better…Or Not
Anyhoo, a lot of the points made are pretty dead-on based on my experience (trust me, I was an English major, and quickly learned there were certain folks that I simply didn’t want to be trapped by.) There’s a definite “hey, look at me” aspect at work here.
I will warn readers that while the points about dress are probably accurate, folks with obscure band t-shirts are more likely (at least in my experience) Indie Music Snobs first and foremost, and their PBWU nature is secondary to their twin impulses to only like bands 4 other people (outside of Pitchfork) have ever heard of and pointing out that your’s, or anyone else's taste in popular music is horrible and wrong (which can of course include non-mainstream bands). But then if you want a handy abbreviation, you’re stuck with "IMS" and that sounds awfully close to both the IMF and the INS and nothing can kill a snarky conversation about those people who kept telling you how “sure you think there’s catchy music on that new Fall Out Boy album, but these escaped mental patients that formed a musical collective called Generic Animal Versus Other Generic Animal Versus Random Noun—and they play on instruments made out of items found in aisle five in a Glendale supermarket—they make the real catchy music” well, if suddenly the people you were talking too thought those deranged music fans dealt with inflation and the ever-changing status of the yen (I assume that’s what the IMF does—someone elucidate me further if I’m wrong here) or handle immigration issues too, you can see how confusing it would be.
(Now, cue smarmy music, and flash one of those “The more you know…” graphics.)
That said…
I. A Smarter Person Might Say This More Eloquently, or Better…Or Not
Anyhoo, a lot of the points made are pretty dead-on based on my experience (trust me, I was an English major, and quickly learned there were certain folks that I simply didn’t want to be trapped by.) There’s a definite “hey, look at me” aspect at work here.
I will warn readers that while the points about dress are probably accurate, folks with obscure band t-shirts are more likely (at least in my experience) Indie Music Snobs first and foremost, and their PBWU nature is secondary to their twin impulses to only like bands 4 other people (outside of Pitchfork) have ever heard of and pointing out that your’s, or anyone else's taste in popular music is horrible and wrong (which can of course include non-mainstream bands). But then if you want a handy abbreviation, you’re stuck with "IMS" and that sounds awfully close to both the IMF and the INS and nothing can kill a snarky conversation about those people who kept telling you how “sure you think there’s catchy music on that new Fall Out Boy album, but these escaped mental patients that formed a musical collective called Generic Animal Versus Other Generic Animal Versus Random Noun—and they play on instruments made out of items found in aisle five in a Glendale supermarket—they make the real catchy music” well, if suddenly the people you were talking too thought those deranged music fans dealt with inflation and the ever-changing status of the yen (I assume that’s what the IMF does—someone elucidate me further if I’m wrong here) or handle immigration issues too, you can see how confusing it would be.
Perhaps I get the music speeches because I’m a guy and she gets the big-words and obscure book and random (and often horrible) band references, and general “look at me, I’m smart and unique, just like the other guys who work on my ‘zine”-ness all at once because they don’t actually want to sleep with me.
But I also have some questions (in a general sense, not a “what do you mean here?” sense): what or who defines “unfamiliar” multi-syllabic words? And, more importantly, what—or who—defines “average intelligence?”
But is it?
I haven’t read the Cantos (I only know that at some points in it he blames the ills of the world on usury and the money-lenders, and either supports or admits and admiration for that happy dictator, Benito Mussolini), so I can’t actually comment on the obscurity contained therein. I have read The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot’s dense, allusive, epic poem that features at the very least bits of German and Sanskrit, and was dedicated to Ezra Pound.
But who’s the arbiter of obscurity and difficulty here? And don’t say Jonathan Franzen…
My theory sort-of-after-the-fact-at-the-time (and bear in mind, again, this was at close to 5am) was this: there have been studies (which I invite you to look up, for now, until I find the links I want on Google, or go by the library), showing that education-wise, the
What does this have to do with Pound and Eliot and “obscure and difficult” works? Maybe to the readers of that period their allusions weren’t as obtuse (odds at least are that more people—percentage-wise—were familiar with The Golden Bough than most collegians settling down to read about April being the cruelest month.) And I’m sure James Joyce got the references….
Who decides?
And if I declared a woman to be “brimming with pulchritude” I’d be met with stares, maybe a slap (it’s not a pretty-sounding word to my ears at least), a raised eyebrow or two, or branded with scarlet PBWU letters. But I’m betting if I had access to the etymology of the word, or least the UGA library password that’d let me pull up the online OED, I’d find that it did enjoy regular use many years ago. How did our ears come to find “beautiful” a more fetching adjective? (Aside from the fact that “pretty” and “beautiful” and “damn girl, you look fucking amazing” just sound better…well, two out of the three anyway.)
Who decides?
Which leads to my sort-of thesis: pretentiousness, like difficulty and obscurity, are highly relative terms. The guy attempting to look like Mensa material while hitting on girls at a college bar is out of place and has no clue what he’s doing, but might be considered boring and not-as-well-read as the thinks if he tried James Joyce-related lines at an MLA conference.
And now a quick detour back to the original link in question. Regarding PBWUs, my theory, and I think it was what she may have been at in the original post as well, and more eloquently (or at least succinctly) than I’m going to get at here, is that it’s not necessarily the words said, the size of the words said (must resist easy “it’s not the size of the words that matter” joke…), or the books mentioned, but the motivation behind them that truly defines the PBWU. In the obvious cases I picture a PBWU carrying on like Joey in that episode of Friends where he uses Word’s thesaurus option and everything he said wound up sounding unpalatable and brobdingnagianly prearranged. (Note: like everything excluding “and” after the word “sounding” in that last sentence.) They put on this big intellectual fireworks display, but it’s out of a fear that they don’t really have anything else interesting to say and/or, that any perceived “non-intelligent” discussion is somehow “beneath them”—and of course they have to consider it beneath them because if they don’t, it puts them in the general population, and the thought that they might be “normal” frightens the hell out of them. Or, the other obvious answer: the girl they’re talking to and trying like hell to impress or win over is so “brimming with pulchritude” they’re scared shitless and trying anything they think might work. (So like I said, I agree with her.) And it’s motivation—ascribed anyway—to writers being obscure at the root of Ryan’s point about Pound. A kind of authorial PBWUism; a “you must respect me and my work because I allude to an ancient Sanskrit ritual and make puns in 8 different languages!”
So let’s agree to agree that people who are intellectual show-offs intend to be intellectual show-offs. But let’s not forget that questioning just who sets the bar of “average” might be a valid question to tackle.
II. More Musings With Nary A Hint At Definite Conclusions
The above musings on what leads to these definitions dovetailed nicely with an article in this week’s TIME magazine on Harvard’s proposed Core Curriculum changes. The article’s author, Jeremy Caplan, starts with a great line: “the easiest way to start an academic brawl is to ask what an educated person should know.” (Note: it’s also fun, if you’re given to vivid flights of fantasy and/or daydreaming to actually imagine an academic brawl. But then again, I find the idea of tweed jacket-wearing-profs throwing suede-covered ‘bos hilarious.)
While it’s at least two years from implementation, the new core curriculum would require eight primary subject areas for all undergrads. The addition of Empirical Reasoning (math, logic and statistics), is the member of the Octrivium (I’ll explain in a minute) causing the most trouble.
Part of the trouble comes in the language used in the committee report justifying the changes, particularly the part about Harvard grads needing to “decided…how to manage their personal finances.” Hold on off on the assumed Harvard-grads-must-all-be-rich argument (that’s a topic for a different day) and assume your considering plunking down a monetary amount in the low six figures for your undergrad, that is considered one of the world’s best universities. Shouldn’t empirical reasoning being a given? (And I can’t wait for the inevitable response from Yale about this. Well actually I can, and Harvard has the Lampoon and if the roles were reversed their rips on Yale would be funnier than what the Yallies will do, but UGA based a lot of their campus buildings on Yale so I feel an odd affinity and have cheered for Yale against Harvard on the rare occasions when it shows up on ESPN 2 at some random hour of the morning.)
And also there’s a good bit of “what happened to pure learning” hand-wringing because history is no longer required. The change’s supporters say “the new approach emphasizes the kind of active learning that gets students thinking and applying knowledge,” and then follows with some lame analogy about the Boston Marathon and basically espousing a whole “you should learn by doing” theory. The TIME article then tosses out the unsurprising (at least to me) statistic that “students remember just 20% of the content of class lectures a week later.”
Other than mostly obvious things I knew before taking the class (such as: whales=mammals and mollusks=kind of slimly but a tasty treat to some French people and Francophiles) I remember next to nothing from my marine biology class, so we can score one point for the Harvard folks. But, I did have a lab that met once a week and I remember foul sea and fish odors and experiments and “learning by doing” in the class as well (don’t press me for specifics.) And why didn’t any of that stick with me beyond the class? Because, as an English major, it didn’t relate to what I was studying (if I’d been assigned Moby Dick perhaps things would have worked out differently.) And I think the point here is that colleges can set a variety of core curriculum requirements, but the bulk of retention is going to be around whatever subject the students end up majoring in.
But then we’ve got to tread lightly here: if student choice in majors determines focus, despite certain core requirements, Universities are opening to a fight between educational traditionalists and hardcore free market capitalist types that would say that departments and majors like History and English should bear the brunt of funding cuts because, as students don’t feel they can get rich with say, and English degree and pursue a business degree instead (and I’m not yet able to argue with them about the whole “you can’t get rich with an English degree” point), well their product just isn’t attractive to today’s college student.
So let’s backtrack to that somewhat PBWU-label-risking word from above: Octrivium. It’s not a hardcore metal band name (that I’m aware of, though it could be). But it is a play on the two modes of “classical education”: the Trivium (which is also a band name) and the Quadrivium. The Trivium was the “college prep” high school curriculum of its day (don’t you love Wikipedia? I do) and focused on three subjects: Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic. Like
Could Harvard (and other schools), plus our current high school system, benefit from some sort of return to the Trivium/Quadrivium base for learning? Or is our current system, with massive disparity between the top high schools and the lowest, and colleges that require “core classes” that are suffered through and hastily forgotten by most students either fine as it is, or in need of some third option?
“Core knowledge”: what should it be? It looks like Harvard’s made their choice.
And yes, there is always the option of independent learning outside of what’s required. Again, who sets the bar, and where should the bar be set?
III. Could Education Reform Put Leno Out of His Favorite Bit, Or Are Those Actors Pretending To Be Dumb?
And I wish I could say that after 2,000+ words of questions I had some answers to them. I don’t. I know I’m not smart enough, haven’t read enough, haven’t experienced enough to make the ginormous judgment call of exactly what every college grad should know, and what every high-schooler should be learning, and just what defines average and obscure. An easy out would be to say that maybe a really pretentious person is someone who does have an answer to those questions. Maybe a uniform standard for a country as populated as ours is asking too much. Plus, I know I would bring biases to the table.
I love cinema (and yes, that means I enjoy some movies that have subtitles, which therefore requires me to use the word “cinema” sometimes instead of “movies”.) It’s quite possible I come across like a know-it-all, or McJackass, or generally pretentious when I talk about movies with someone that doesn’t either share my interest, or, for whatever reason, hasn’t seen that many movies. If I’d planned things better as an undergrad, I would’ve loved a film minor. To me, good movies (and also good TV shows) are comparable to great pieces of literature, and in many cases do things that either can’t be done in prose format, or have not yet been applied to prose. As a writer it’s a secondary treasure trove for ideas and inspiration. I get passionate about good movies…and therein lies the risk of pretentiousness. Also, I oftentimes embody the traditional male stereotype of being unable to get most subtle hints (which can be an issue when talking about or recommending movies). But I do know that they aren’t for everyone, and that my tastes in movies especially might not be for everyone, and I’m fine with that.
The basic point Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind makes isn’t a unique one, and people can find it in many places. I love the supernatural-as-metaphor for the perils of high school in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I also love the characters, and how, even with a large number of different writers—often changing from episode-to-episode—they created unique characters and changed and grew them across both short episodic events and season-long story arcs (and beyond.) What can I say, it can interest me intellectually and emotionally (and if I could turn the show into a person I was physically attracted to, I’d totally ask it out on a date.) But it’s not for everyone.
I don’t get the appeal of massive online RPGs like World of Warcraft (and I was a Nintendo/Sega junkie growing up) much less the programming that goes into making such games work. But I do know there are thousands that love this stuff.
So I guess the issue is an “it’s maybe not quite broke, but I don’t know how to fix it,” than anything else.
But I will say I feel better for having asked the questions.
(Now, cue smarmy music, and flash one of those “The more you know…” graphics.)
Monday, February 19, 2007
In Honour of Presidents' Day
First I have two reasons to be really happy tomorrow. The first, obviously, is that it is Fat Tuesday, aka the night everyone in town goes out on a weeknight and acts nuts (because in theory the Catholics amongst the debauchers can hit up confession the next day...and yes, I know there's more to Lent than that, but work with me here, this is supposed to be a parenthetical aside and that alone and see how off track I am already?) but the second reason is that I shouldn't have to hear that horrible "Crunk remix" of "Hail to the Chief" on the Chevy ads. It's my fault really, I thought they couldn't top the "This is our country" ads for sheer musical annoyance, and yet here we are...
(Ladies, this is the real reason you get dumped right before Valentine's Day...)
And now, some more important stuff (especially among the betting-inclined members of my tiny readership.) It's time for the
REALLY RIDICULOUSLY EARLY 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION HANDICAPPING (BUT NOT QUITE)
It's not quite handicapping because I'm not going through the increasingly brobdingnagian list of potential presidents-to-be in the 2008 election. Instead, I'm going to focus on some of the top candidates for each major party (sorry Libertarians, Greens, Socialists, and Anti-Masonites...we'll get to you later...perhaps at a time I'm less inclined to refer to myself with the "royal we" for no real reason beyond "it sounds kinda cool.")
First up, the "defending champions (at least for the Presidency)" (sic), the Republicans:
Rudy Giuliani - It's possible that even if you've been living under a rock, in a cave, on Mars, with your fingers in your ears for the past few years you've still heard of Rudy. He was arguably the most popular political figure period in 2002, primarily because of his handling of NYC after 9/11. Reeeeeally early polls have him as the favorite in the general election. But not so fast...there's a chance he might not make it through the Republican primaries. Dubya and friends rode to the White House on chariots pulled by the Religious Right, and that sub-group won't take too kindly to a candidate that has pro-choice views that also doesn't share their (and Tim Hardaway's) views on gay people. So all fans of irony should watch with great interest to see how the GOP deals with the fact that their best chance to beat the Democrats not only doesn't toe the party lines on some major social issues, he also (cue *gasp* from the NRA--and someone get the medics ready, Mr. Heston's getting on in years) actually advocates some forms of gun control. Then again, millions of card-carrying Republicans voted for W. in 2004, despite the fact that Shrub was increasing both the size and spending of the Federal government and I had always been under the assumption that those things were just not done by the Grand Ol' Party...
John McCain - He's giving it another go. I'm not going to write too much about McCain. Yes, I did vote for him in the 2000 primary, but Mr. David Foster Wallace has a story about that campaign called "Up, Simba" that does a far better job on McCain than I ever could. In addition to those pre-existing issues, McCain also has to deal with being hamstrung financially by the McCain-Feingold bill (somewhere Alanis Morrisette is playing...), and a really long paper trail that should make for some cringe-inducing negative ads.
Mitt Romney - He's a Republican...from Boston? That can't be right...ok, here we go: Former Gov. of Mass., and Mormon. In theory then, if he could either sway or outflank the liberal Bostonians and Irish Catholics to become Governor he must know a thing or two about politics. On the other hand, he has previously espoused some Pro-choice views (he's since "recanted"), and then there's the issue of how the Evangelical base will feel about a Mormon president (however it's unlikely they'll get angry enough to serenade him with the song from that South Park episode, because...well let's just say the odds that James Dobson watches and enjoys South Park are even greater than the odds that Jessica Alba, Stacy Keibler, and Vida Guerra all read my blog, have fallen in lust with me and come knocking at my door to take me off into a wet and wild foursome... btw, I hate it when people knock at inopportune times and turn out to not be fantasy-cum-reality. And that doesn't mean what you think it means. Really.)
(Forget bouncing quarters off it, she can deflect 50 cent pieces...)
Newt Gingrich - He hasn't actually said he's running, but he did fire up the GOP back in 1994 with the whole Congressional revolution and all. If enough people are sick of the Neo-Cons and their "betrayal" of the party, he could be a favorite. Then we could get reminded of how his dislike of Clinton led to millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on investigating a blowjob once the general election rolled around.
(Obligatory Monty Python - Newt Visual Gag)
And in the blue corner...the Democratic Candidates:
Hillary Clinton - she's potentially the front-runner (at least in the whole experience of her staff+money being raised=front-runner equation) and has the added bonus of two easy media angles: 1. could she be the first female president and 2. she's the wife of a former president. Complaints and falsified stories about mountain-climbers-inspiring-her-name aside, she is very politically savvy. But...we've already had two decades with either a Bush or a Clinton in the White House, wouldn't a change in last names be nice? Plus to some, Hillary's "savvy" isn't near the league of her husband's. If a lot of potential voters feel everything you say is calculated to manipulate them, how can they trust you enough to vote for you?
Barack Obama - I'll admit I have a bias here. I own one of his books, and I hope he'll get a good shot at the general election. The basic message of "the current system's not working right, we should work together to fix it" overrides any current sort-of-Libertarian, and former Republican-influenced qualms I might have about his call for universal health care. Hollywood seems to like him (and the Dreamworks SKG has deep pockets). He's a great speaker (and surely even Dubya's most ardent supporters won't argue that our current prez is good at public speaking). On the other hand, he's got very little major political experience, and hasn't had to run a competitive campaign. (But then again, after Giuliani dropped out, neither has Hillary...people forget that.) The key for Obama will be spinning lack of experience in Washington as a good thing, and he's got a message that can fit with that strategy. His handling of past drug use was excellent. No cutesy "I didn't inhale" nonsense, just "I did it, it was kind of dumb, I don't do it now," that seemed straight from the formerly drug-loving Baby Boomer/Gen X parenting playbook.
John Edwards - He was the runner-up in the '04 primary and is back for another go-around, but this time he's got the "outsider" persona going, as he's no longer in Congress. He should have the strict anti-war crowd locked up, because unlike Senators Obama and Clinton he can call for troop funding to be cut or other drastic measures without actually having to follow-up on them. Promises you can't make until you're President are a lot easier to "keep". He does seem more polished and better with the media than before, but will the hardline anti-war stance be enough in this primary? Plus, his trial lawyer past can play right into certain Republican/Right Wing stereotypes about liberals.
(Ah politics, where even the Otter schemes...)
So my early guesses? One of the favorites above does make the general election, and the other comes from out of nowhere (after all, who called George Dubya in early 1999?)
(So go on, place your bets)
(Final footnote: I have to share this excerpt from Vida Guerra's Wikipedia entry: "She often appears on Spanish television shows and is well known because of her ample buttocks." Now that's good stuff.)
(Ladies, this is the real reason you get dumped right before Valentine's Day...)
And now, some more important stuff (especially among the betting-inclined members of my tiny readership.) It's time for the
REALLY RIDICULOUSLY EARLY 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION HANDICAPPING (BUT NOT QUITE)
It's not quite handicapping because I'm not going through the increasingly brobdingnagian list of potential presidents-to-be in the 2008 election. Instead, I'm going to focus on some of the top candidates for each major party (sorry Libertarians, Greens, Socialists, and Anti-Masonites...we'll get to you later...perhaps at a time I'm less inclined to refer to myself with the "royal we" for no real reason beyond "it sounds kinda cool.")
First up, the "defending champions (at least for the Presidency)" (sic), the Republicans:
Rudy Giuliani - It's possible that even if you've been living under a rock, in a cave, on Mars, with your fingers in your ears for the past few years you've still heard of Rudy. He was arguably the most popular political figure period in 2002, primarily because of his handling of NYC after 9/11. Reeeeeally early polls have him as the favorite in the general election. But not so fast...there's a chance he might not make it through the Republican primaries. Dubya and friends rode to the White House on chariots pulled by the Religious Right, and that sub-group won't take too kindly to a candidate that has pro-choice views that also doesn't share their (and Tim Hardaway's) views on gay people. So all fans of irony should watch with great interest to see how the GOP deals with the fact that their best chance to beat the Democrats not only doesn't toe the party lines on some major social issues, he also (cue *gasp* from the NRA--and someone get the medics ready, Mr. Heston's getting on in years) actually advocates some forms of gun control. Then again, millions of card-carrying Republicans voted for W. in 2004, despite the fact that Shrub was increasing both the size and spending of the Federal government and I had always been under the assumption that those things were just not done by the Grand Ol' Party...
John McCain - He's giving it another go. I'm not going to write too much about McCain. Yes, I did vote for him in the 2000 primary, but Mr. David Foster Wallace has a story about that campaign called "Up, Simba" that does a far better job on McCain than I ever could. In addition to those pre-existing issues, McCain also has to deal with being hamstrung financially by the McCain-Feingold bill (somewhere Alanis Morrisette is playing...), and a really long paper trail that should make for some cringe-inducing negative ads.
Mitt Romney - He's a Republican...from Boston? That can't be right...ok, here we go: Former Gov. of Mass., and Mormon. In theory then, if he could either sway or outflank the liberal Bostonians and Irish Catholics to become Governor he must know a thing or two about politics. On the other hand, he has previously espoused some Pro-choice views (he's since "recanted"), and then there's the issue of how the Evangelical base will feel about a Mormon president (however it's unlikely they'll get angry enough to serenade him with the song from that South Park episode, because...well let's just say the odds that James Dobson watches and enjoys South Park are even greater than the odds that Jessica Alba, Stacy Keibler, and Vida Guerra all read my blog, have fallen in lust with me and come knocking at my door to take me off into a wet and wild foursome... btw, I hate it when people knock at inopportune times and turn out to not be fantasy-cum-reality. And that doesn't mean what you think it means. Really.)
(Forget bouncing quarters off it, she can deflect 50 cent pieces...)
Newt Gingrich - He hasn't actually said he's running, but he did fire up the GOP back in 1994 with the whole Congressional revolution and all. If enough people are sick of the Neo-Cons and their "betrayal" of the party, he could be a favorite. Then we could get reminded of how his dislike of Clinton led to millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on investigating a blowjob once the general election rolled around.
(Obligatory Monty Python - Newt Visual Gag)
And in the blue corner...the Democratic Candidates:
Hillary Clinton - she's potentially the front-runner (at least in the whole experience of her staff+money being raised=front-runner equation) and has the added bonus of two easy media angles: 1. could she be the first female president and 2. she's the wife of a former president. Complaints and falsified stories about mountain-climbers-inspiring-her-name aside, she is very politically savvy. But...we've already had two decades with either a Bush or a Clinton in the White House, wouldn't a change in last names be nice? Plus to some, Hillary's "savvy" isn't near the league of her husband's. If a lot of potential voters feel everything you say is calculated to manipulate them, how can they trust you enough to vote for you?
Barack Obama - I'll admit I have a bias here. I own one of his books, and I hope he'll get a good shot at the general election. The basic message of "the current system's not working right, we should work together to fix it" overrides any current sort-of-Libertarian, and former Republican-influenced qualms I might have about his call for universal health care. Hollywood seems to like him (and the Dreamworks SKG has deep pockets). He's a great speaker (and surely even Dubya's most ardent supporters won't argue that our current prez is good at public speaking). On the other hand, he's got very little major political experience, and hasn't had to run a competitive campaign. (But then again, after Giuliani dropped out, neither has Hillary...people forget that.) The key for Obama will be spinning lack of experience in Washington as a good thing, and he's got a message that can fit with that strategy. His handling of past drug use was excellent. No cutesy "I didn't inhale" nonsense, just "I did it, it was kind of dumb, I don't do it now," that seemed straight from the formerly drug-loving Baby Boomer/Gen X parenting playbook.
John Edwards - He was the runner-up in the '04 primary and is back for another go-around, but this time he's got the "outsider" persona going, as he's no longer in Congress. He should have the strict anti-war crowd locked up, because unlike Senators Obama and Clinton he can call for troop funding to be cut or other drastic measures without actually having to follow-up on them. Promises you can't make until you're President are a lot easier to "keep". He does seem more polished and better with the media than before, but will the hardline anti-war stance be enough in this primary? Plus, his trial lawyer past can play right into certain Republican/Right Wing stereotypes about liberals.
(Ah politics, where even the Otter schemes...)
So my early guesses? One of the favorites above does make the general election, and the other comes from out of nowhere (after all, who called George Dubya in early 1999?)
(So go on, place your bets)
(Final footnote: I have to share this excerpt from Vida Guerra's Wikipedia entry: "She often appears on Spanish television shows and is well known because of her ample buttocks." Now that's good stuff.)
Sunday, February 18, 2007
These Are My Confessions...
It's Sunday, and even though I'm not Catholic, I figured some confession is good for the soul...etc.
Note: all confessions are related to TV.
(Additional Confession: I've sung Usher songs both at Karaoke, and with a band.)
Confession the First: my television watching schedule can be rather easily influenced by a member of the opposite sex that I'm pretty interested in (and has demonstrated an interest in me).
Now, not every "chick show" I've gone on to enjoy even when watching by myself with no one to fool around with/talk with/make goofy faces with during the commercial breaks has been the result of a potential girlfriend/date. The OC (which ends this week and will get at least one blog post from me) had nothing to do with dating anyone (but, obviously, proved to be useful in conversation) and everything to do with me no longer having classes to study for and a friend who not only had no classes to study for, but at the time had been unemployed introducing it to us (it was the mini-first season finale, where Marissa wanders off in Tijuana and nearly dies).
But the following I did end up watching because of someone else:
Friends
Desparate Housewives
What About Brian
Confession, pt. 2: Noticably absent from the list--Grey's Anatomy. First, technically while I did watch a lot of the start of this current season with someone special, I actually started watching after the 2006 Superbowl, when Christina Ricci had to stick her hand in a guy's bomb-ladden stomach and George's fantasy was used as a shameless way to attrack male viewers disappointed in the lack of an ad equivalent to the Miller Lite Catfight Girls. And it was a cliffhanger, so I tuned into the next episode and...well, then the arc was over and I found I wasn't interested in watching more.
And perhaps the real reason for my bad luck with women isn't that I can push to hard for a relationship to soon (because I've had mind-numbing jobs that leave me with far to much free thought time to uber-obsess about whomever I'm seeing)...nope, it's maybe simpler than that. It's because not only have I not been watching Grey's (I either watch The OC and TiVo Scrubs/30 Rock or vice-versa...and the poor ol' DVR can't handle double recording duty. Neilson Ratings for Thursday nights at nine can confirm I'm quite special, as most of the US watches either Grey's or CSI) but when I noticed some blog posts and Facebook groups cropping up with the gist being "don't let Meredith die", my first thought is: I really don't care.
Some other blogs have already done a bang-up job exposing the near brobdingnagian levels of suspension of disbelief necessary to watch the show (and contains, somewhat inexplicably, a reference to Dr. Grey and "wet panties" that is 100% non-sexual.) But still think it's the characters that keep me from watching the show without being prodded by exceptionally pretty feminine charms (and at least in the case of the start of the season, she's smarter than me too, so I have to be careful about high-horse based claims, lest I look like even more of a McJackass.) The writing isn't bad...but...it doesn't have the comedic touch of the best moments of the OC or House (though this could be because no one in Grey's cast can touch the likes of Peter Gallagher, Hugh Laurie, or Melinda Clarke) and while it does have multi-episode arcs being developed (I've missed the Dr. Yang-as-Lady-MacBeth arc mostly, but was still watching it when it started, and, like Bobby DeNiro, I hear things...) they aren't as tautly integrated as the arcs on Desparate Houswives (which is really, really good at this) or other similar shows. The bulk of the arcs seem based on who's dating who, and even 30-minute medical comedies (Scrubs) do more arc-wise. But really, it comes back to the characters. Izzy made my top 10 mainly because I'm really picky--yes, even about tv girlfriends--but felt a need to provide a top 10.
It really starts with the title character though, and I don't get her appeal. For straight women her appeal is obvious: a job that is rewarding and provides (mostly) financial stability, plus hot doctors and a vet fighting over you and spouting great compliments and lines of love. But as a straight guy I don't see why they're fighting over her. I can't imagine having one of those great dates where we talk for longer than the run-time of Magnolia with it seeming like barely any time's passed. Sure the McAdjectivating is clever, and it's rare when TV characters admit to watching other TV shows, but I can't shake my gut feeling that she's a bit shallow and uniteresting and since she's the main character (unless they kill her off...some fans are anxiously scanning pre-production lists and imdb for Old School 2 and hoping Ellen Pompeo doesn't think she's better off in film) my interest isn't there in the show either.
(Good dates should do even better than this pretty-kickass movie at making three hours fly by--and with less depressing elements too.)
But after the OC ends this week I think I may give her and her on-call cohabitating buddies another shot. One because I'm a sucker for second chances, and Two because I remember really disliking the characters on What About Brian the first few times I watched it too. Then I tuned back in one night (Florida was on their way to winning a national title game and I couldn't watch it) and I got hooked. Characters, like people, can be flawed but still interesting to watch, and jackasses and whiny punks can gain depths you didn't think were there before. And yes, it is a nice bonus that WAB now boasts potentially the most attractice female cast ever assembled, what with Sarah Lancaster, Stacy Keibler, Krista Allen, Amanda Detmer, Valery Ortiz, and now Tiffani Theissen (aka Kelly Kapowski).
(Kelly Kapowski, the "perfect girl" from Saving Silverman, and the amazing legs of Stacy Keibler=just 3 reasons to tune into ABC Monday night.)
(And yeah, there's one more thing I'll have to get around to really give Grey's an honest second...well third...chance: it's a medical-based show bookended by voice-overs from the main character and the hospital staff sleeps around a good bit. You know, like Scrubs. So I've got to find a way to not compare the two. Tips are appreciated.)
Note: all confessions are related to TV.
(Additional Confession: I've sung Usher songs both at Karaoke, and with a band.)
Confession the First: my television watching schedule can be rather easily influenced by a member of the opposite sex that I'm pretty interested in (and has demonstrated an interest in me).
Now, not every "chick show" I've gone on to enjoy even when watching by myself with no one to fool around with/talk with/make goofy faces with during the commercial breaks has been the result of a potential girlfriend/date. The OC (which ends this week and will get at least one blog post from me) had nothing to do with dating anyone (but, obviously, proved to be useful in conversation) and everything to do with me no longer having classes to study for and a friend who not only had no classes to study for, but at the time had been unemployed introducing it to us (it was the mini-first season finale, where Marissa wanders off in Tijuana and nearly dies).
But the following I did end up watching because of someone else:
Friends
Desparate Housewives
What About Brian
Confession, pt. 2: Noticably absent from the list--Grey's Anatomy. First, technically while I did watch a lot of the start of this current season with someone special, I actually started watching after the 2006 Superbowl, when Christina Ricci had to stick her hand in a guy's bomb-ladden stomach and George's fantasy was used as a shameless way to attrack male viewers disappointed in the lack of an ad equivalent to the Miller Lite Catfight Girls. And it was a cliffhanger, so I tuned into the next episode and...well, then the arc was over and I found I wasn't interested in watching more.
And perhaps the real reason for my bad luck with women isn't that I can push to hard for a relationship to soon (because I've had mind-numbing jobs that leave me with far to much free thought time to uber-obsess about whomever I'm seeing)...nope, it's maybe simpler than that. It's because not only have I not been watching Grey's (I either watch The OC and TiVo Scrubs/30 Rock or vice-versa...and the poor ol' DVR can't handle double recording duty. Neilson Ratings for Thursday nights at nine can confirm I'm quite special, as most of the US watches either Grey's or CSI) but when I noticed some blog posts and Facebook groups cropping up with the gist being "don't let Meredith die", my first thought is: I really don't care.
Some other blogs have already done a bang-up job exposing the near brobdingnagian levels of suspension of disbelief necessary to watch the show (and contains, somewhat inexplicably, a reference to Dr. Grey and "wet panties" that is 100% non-sexual.) But still think it's the characters that keep me from watching the show without being prodded by exceptionally pretty feminine charms (and at least in the case of the start of the season, she's smarter than me too, so I have to be careful about high-horse based claims, lest I look like even more of a McJackass.) The writing isn't bad...but...it doesn't have the comedic touch of the best moments of the OC or House (though this could be because no one in Grey's cast can touch the likes of Peter Gallagher, Hugh Laurie, or Melinda Clarke) and while it does have multi-episode arcs being developed (I've missed the Dr. Yang-as-Lady-MacBeth arc mostly, but was still watching it when it started, and, like Bobby DeNiro, I hear things...) they aren't as tautly integrated as the arcs on Desparate Houswives (which is really, really good at this) or other similar shows. The bulk of the arcs seem based on who's dating who, and even 30-minute medical comedies (Scrubs) do more arc-wise. But really, it comes back to the characters. Izzy made my top 10 mainly because I'm really picky--yes, even about tv girlfriends--but felt a need to provide a top 10.
It really starts with the title character though, and I don't get her appeal. For straight women her appeal is obvious: a job that is rewarding and provides (mostly) financial stability, plus hot doctors and a vet fighting over you and spouting great compliments and lines of love. But as a straight guy I don't see why they're fighting over her. I can't imagine having one of those great dates where we talk for longer than the run-time of Magnolia with it seeming like barely any time's passed. Sure the McAdjectivating is clever, and it's rare when TV characters admit to watching other TV shows, but I can't shake my gut feeling that she's a bit shallow and uniteresting and since she's the main character (unless they kill her off...some fans are anxiously scanning pre-production lists and imdb for Old School 2 and hoping Ellen Pompeo doesn't think she's better off in film) my interest isn't there in the show either.
(Good dates should do even better than this pretty-kickass movie at making three hours fly by--and with less depressing elements too.)
But after the OC ends this week I think I may give her and her on-call cohabitating buddies another shot. One because I'm a sucker for second chances, and Two because I remember really disliking the characters on What About Brian the first few times I watched it too. Then I tuned back in one night (Florida was on their way to winning a national title game and I couldn't watch it) and I got hooked. Characters, like people, can be flawed but still interesting to watch, and jackasses and whiny punks can gain depths you didn't think were there before. And yes, it is a nice bonus that WAB now boasts potentially the most attractice female cast ever assembled, what with Sarah Lancaster, Stacy Keibler, Krista Allen, Amanda Detmer, Valery Ortiz, and now Tiffani Theissen (aka Kelly Kapowski).
(Kelly Kapowski, the "perfect girl" from Saving Silverman, and the amazing legs of Stacy Keibler=just 3 reasons to tune into ABC Monday night.)
(And yeah, there's one more thing I'll have to get around to really give Grey's an honest second...well third...chance: it's a medical-based show bookended by voice-overs from the main character and the hospital staff sleeps around a good bit. You know, like Scrubs. So I've got to find a way to not compare the two. Tips are appreciated.)
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Bad Puns On "Ice" and a Reading List for '07
("Ice to see you...")
Call it "Global Warming," call it "Climate Change," but either way, February rolling around in Georgia for 2007 meant snow and ice. Now for those of you not living in GA, and not from here, or who have never visited--this isn't a normal thing. And we don't handle it too well.
Sure it doesn't look bad, but wet roads+freezing temps have us afraid of the dreaded black ice lurking around the next overpass like Lindsay Lohan's Publicist fears $1 Jager Shot night...or like Isiah Washington fears going to an afterparty for the Tony's...or paparazzi fearing Britney Spears will one day find her underwear draw again (or start wearing more pants).
("I'll only drink 'thiiis much', I promise!")
So now, after UGA cancelled classes, work was called off and I went back to my warm, cozy bed until it was time for lunch...and I nearly busted my ass going outside to "see what it was like" (note: please don't point out how I could easily do that from a nice, still-inside-where-it's-warm-window...remember, I'm a native, and the whole "but you can't always see ice" mentality is still ingrained in me), Ye Olde Cabin Fever is setting in a bit.
(Puddle? Or Black Ice? Sometimes We Georgians just can't tell)
So after seeing posts on Conversational Reading about Books to Read Resolutions, I decided that a month after the new year is not too late to bust out some "to read" list for 2007:
(And I'm going to try and stick these in some sort of order)
1. Special Topics In Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
2. The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama
3. At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O'Brien
4. The Echo Maker - Richard Powers
5. Laura Warholic: or The Sexual Intellectual - Alexander Theroux
6. The Time-Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
7. Something by Pynchon, most likely Gravity's Rainbow, but possibly V, Mason & Dixon or even Against the Day
8. The Recognitions - William Gaddis
9. You Suck - Christopher Moore
10. Oryx & Crake - Margaret Atwood
11. The Ground Beneath Her Feet - Salman Rushdie
12. The Children's Hospital - Chris Adrian
13. The Infinite Book - John Barrow
14. One of John Barth's old tomes; either Giles Goat-Boy or Chimera
15. White Teeth - Zadie Smith
16., 17. and 18. The final three books in Stephen King's Dark Tower series (I started these back in Middle school...time to wrap 'em up)
19. Pale Fire - Nabokov
20. As I Lay Dying or The Sound and the Fury - Faulkner (yeah...I admit it...I have an English degree but have read almost no Faulkner. Berate me now.)
Plus there will be some rereading of old favorites, including my yearly rereading of Infinite Jest.
Throw any suggestions into the comments below:
And now, one last "ice" pun...
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