Let’s Talk About Nostalgia

It’s getting harder and harder to remember what day of the week it is. I keep thinking it’s the weekend on a day on which I don’t have work, which I suppose means that I need to find more ways to stay busy, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Part of me still wants lots of time to sit around and do nothing. Yes, I have largely put that shitty experience in Queens behind me, but that doesn’t mean I’m over it completely, nor does it mean that I’m ready to start working full-time so that I can start pinching pennies and find my own place. This would be easier if I had somebody to share all of this with, but I’m alone most of the time, and that’s how it’s been for most of my life. So for the time being, I will focus on getting more reading, writing, exercising, and TV and movie viewing done than hard labor. I’m not ready for more labor, although I might be fairly soon.

Something occurred to me the other day: When I move back to New York, how will I work out the logistics? Looking for an apartment from the other side of the country might prove difficult. I could always find a place to stay for a little while while I look, but there are only so many friends in that area who would be willing to let me crash on their couch (there should be at least a couple, I think) and staying in a hostel gets expensive if you do it for more than a couple days. Then there’s the problem of job-hunting. If I’m lucky, I might be able to have one lined up before I move out there, but if not, I’m going to need at least a couple thousand saved up to cover my expenses until I get established (in addition to what I’ll need to cover moving and housing costs, of course). That is a fairly substantial sum of money. And I’m not sure if I’ll be able to have all that saved up by the winter. If I liked the place I were staying at currently, maybe I wouldn’t have to worry as much about expenses. But I don’t like my current situation. I grow less and less enamored of it by the day.

I went by my old college town yesterday to see The Wind Rises. It was a pretty good movie, maybe not Miyazaki’s best, but not his worst, either. (Ponyo was cute, but it barely even had a conflict, let alone a story.) Miyazaki generally seems less interested in giving each story a villain and a linear storyline than most American filmmakers. Film people used to debate whether Pixar or Ghibli was the better animation studio, and while I think comparisons between artists are always something of an apples-and-oranges thing, I’m definitely leaning towards Ghibli. Pixar hasn’t made a great film since, I don’t know, actually, and these days, they seem way more interested in churning out sequels and prequels to stuff that didn’t even need it to begin with than producing good original work. (And yes, I am excited for The Incredibles 2, but I actually found Toy Story 3 a bit rote. My eyes kind of glazed over during the action scenes, as if there was little in them that I hadn’t seen a million times before. Miyazaki likes his villains to be reasonable people who are just misunderstood. Pixar makes them evil right to the core. The truth is somewhere in between.) On a side note, I wasn’t too big on Porco Rosso when I first saw it, but looking back, I think it might be growing on me.

I didn’t start reading Discworld until I was older. Funny stuff.

I stopped by a used bookstore and picked up a bunch of Piers Antony’s Xanth books. I read a lot of shitty fantasy when I was a kid. Piers Anthony was just before my time. (Redwall was good, but repetitive. The ghost of Martin the Warrior was always menacing the villains in their dreams and materializing to help the heroes out of a tight spot. The Dragonlance books featured some reasonably well-developed characters and strong world-building. I’m just not sure if I’d want to revisit them now. And Terry Brooks basically just ripped off LoTR, then, once he’d done that, he started ripping himself off. A lot. That will give you a taste of what I was into in those days.) The Xanth series, from what I’ve heard, is absolutely godawful—poorly written, juvenile, and incredibly misogynistic. So why did I decide to start reading it even though its time as cheap escapism for preteens in the mid-80s is long gone? I have no idea. I read the first two chapters of A Spell for Chameleon, and let me tell you, they sucked pretty hard. So naturally, I’m going to keep reading. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I don’t have a lot of good shit to get into.

I don’t know why a lot of the shit that I liked as a kid appealed to me. I’m sure I’m not the only kid who read the first Harry Potter book when they were about the same age as Harry and kinda sorta wished Hagrid would burst through the door and hand them an acceptance letter to Hogwarts or went around opening closets in hopes of finding the gateway to Narnia. When you read that shit, you get into a “grass is greener” mentality, and part of the reason I like LoTR so much is that it digs into the gritty reality of life in Middle Earth. Yeah, the Shire seems rather pleasant, but that grueling slog to Mount Doom hardly makes the whole thing seem like a paradise. Readers shouldn’t want to crawl through the page and experience life in the world of the novel; they should see the ways that life on the other side mirrors their own, and hopefully use that to reimagine their own situation. At least, that’s the idea.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make lunch.

 

Progress

I’ve never made friends very quickly. Wait, let me back up. Let’s talk about movies.

I saw Veronica Mars last week. Good movie. It might not hold much appeal for the non-Marshmallows of the world, but speaking as a fan of the show, I really just needed it to not suck. And it didn’t suck. So, good. If it makes a profit (which it might, considering its rabid fanbase and low budget), perhaps we might get a sequel (or a miniseries)? I’m still not tired of Veronica. As far as I’m concerned, the world of Neptune has secrets left to reveal. I also saw The Grand Budapest Hotel, which was a Wes Anderson-y good time as only Wes Anderson can Wes Anderson. (Not mocking him, just saying: The man lives in his own little world.) This week, I’m thinking I might have to go out of my way to find a theater that’s playing The Wind Rises. I’ve been a diehard Miyazaki fan ever since I developed even a passing interest in film, and I’m lucky to live in an area that has plenty of artsy theaters playing the less-commercial films of the day. It is Miyazaki’s swan song, after all. I feel I must pay my respects.

Okay, now that we’ve talked about movies, let’s talk about the screaming voices in my head. They’re persistent, you see. Every time I prove them wrong about something, they scream about something else instead. Even though they have shown themselves to be wrong about basically everything so far, they insist that this time, I should totally be worried. This, by the way, is why I do not use mind-altering substances. I really don’t want to find out what happens when the voices are amplified by chemical means. I knew one guy who fell off a balcony and died after having a paranoid reaction to some weed he tried at a party. Cases like that are the exception rather than the rule, but still.

I think the problem with anxieties is that you get caught in the trap of thinking that the instant you stop worrying about it, it will happen. Logically, worrying about something has no effect on whether or not it will happen, but that doesn’t mean that attitude can’t affect outcome. To put it another way: I don’t believe that positive thinking holds the cure for cancer, and all of the evidence that I have seen on the topic backs me up on that. But I do think that negative thinking can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you’re convinced that you’ll blow a job interview, the odds that you’ll blow it increase. Because what you’re really scared of is uncertainty, so if you make a negative outcome a certainty, you’ve solved the problem, haven’t you? It’s what happened with my last roommate. He couldn’t bring himself to trust me, but rather than admitting that to himself, he made so many unreasonable demands that my only choice was to get out of there while I still could. He probably just took that as evidence that the whole world is against him. Have I mentioned that he is a dangerous psychopath who should be avoided at all costs?

I find that my tastes grow more obscure as time goes by. This is a good thing. Why watch American Hustle? I know some people who thought it was entertaining, but seriously, why? There are obscure English B-movies from the 50s and 60s that are more memorable. Believe me, I can name a couple. I still see a lot of movies, but the part of me that needs to see every prestige picture dies a little bit more with each passing year. I like animation. I’m excited for Song of the Sea, the upcoming feature film from one of the directors of The Secret of Kells. (Tangentially, I’m glad the Oscars added the Best Animated Feature category, if for no other reason than that it made Hiyao Miyazaki an Oscar winner.) 12 Years a Slave might be the most deserving Best Picture winner since No Country for Old Men. There are those who will call it a “safe” choice due to the seriousness of its subject matter, but there is nothing safe about the film itself. It is every bit as raw and uncompromising in its depiction of a dark chapter in human history as Schindler’s List (perhaps even more so, given that film’s occasional lapses into sentimentality), but more importantly, it is a deeply humanistic film. Slaves may not have led easy or particularly happy lives, but they still found meaning. There is hope in that.

I’ve been reading more of the Bible lately. It’s slow going. There are long and boring passages about people begetting people and plenty of passages that directly contradict each other. Anyone who thinks that this is the inerrant and literal word of God has a lot of explaining to do. What I like about being a nonbeliever is that I don’t have to do any of that. If I come across a passage that doesn’t sit right with me, I shrug and move on. The Old Testament contains all sorts of archaic and unreasonable strictures, but even the New Testament condones slavery at one point. (Jesus forbids divorce, but is silent on owning people. Go figure.) Don’t get me wrong, I think there are profound moral truths in that book. I just think that having to cherry pick the parts that work for you while still explaining how you can believe that Jesus is returning someday takes more energy than it’s worth. For me, it’s just a series of guidelines, written by committee. Make of it what you will.

I have a long way to go before I reach the Promised Land. I don’t know how I’ll get there, but I’m getting a little bit closer as to why.

People Who Should Just Disappear

5. Sarah Palin

She used to terrify me. Back in 2008, we were all scared shitless at the thought of this woman being allowed anywhere near the White House. These days, she’s just annoying. I know that she has a reality show (or did, anyway), still gets work as a talking head over at FOX, and apparently, “writes” books. But seriously, who cares? She has no talent aside from standing in the spotlight and looking pretty, contributes nothing aside from regurgitating talking points that, more often than not, have nothing to do with what she was asked about, and in general is the political equivalent of a former reality show star desperately clinging to their fifteen minutes. But I don’t want her to just fade into obscurity. I want her to never have existed. Let’s face it: if she were immediately wiped out of time and space (and all of our memories of her along with it), what would we miss? I can’t think of anything. Sure, there are still some funny jokes to be told about her, but I’d happily swap those for the knowledge that a woman who didn’t know that Africa was a continent and didn’t read any newspapers was nearly a heartbeat away from the presidency. If you ever took her seriously, you’re more retarded than her child. Yeah, I said it.

Not Sarah Palin, obviously. I just think his parents should take their own lives for bringing him into this world.

4. People Who Think Theater Is Just For Theater People

This can extend to people who consider themselves movie buffs but haven’t watched Citizen Kane because they “don’t like old movies” or who play rock music but don’t listen to the Beatles because they “just like indie stuff”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: curiosity is more important than knowledge. I don’t care how much you know about whatever subgenre you have used to classify your tastes. Everyone should be willing to try new things. Many years ago, I went to see Spirited Away with a friend who, as the film began, whispered to me that he didn’t want to see it that much, he just asked me to see it with him because he knew I wanted to see it. He ended up liking it every bit as much as I did and buying the DVD the instant it came out. Saying that you don’t want to see an opera because you’re not an opera person is not an adequate excuse. When I was a kid, I hated it when people would ask me how I knew I didn’t want to do something if I’d never tried it myself. You don’t have to eat shit to know it’s a bad idea. At the same time, I think “Why?” is never as good of a question as, “Why not?” I’ll accept “It doesn’t look like my thing” occasionally. But you have to put at least a little thought into every denial. Otherwise, you’re just a philistine. And if there’s one thing I like about philistines, it’s looking down my nose at them.

3. People Who Tell Me I’m Narrow-Minded

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but a week or two ago, after moving to New York, I was booted out of my apartment basically just for rubbing my roommate the wrong way. It kind of upset me. But that’s not really the point. The point is that in spite of how unbelievably selfish and judgmental my roommate was being, some people have still suggested that maybe I should just forgive her. No, I don’t think I’m going to do that. I mean, sure, I can, but why does she deserve it? I have only three or four criteria in choosing a roommate: 1) pays rent on time, 2) doesn’t make too much noise or a mess, and 3) stays the fuck out of my way. That’s it. My former (cunty) roommate told me that her apartment is a very supportive environment and that I didn’t fit in because I looked like I just wanted a place to stay. Well yes, of course I did. I didn’t know her when I moved in. I didn’t know if she wanted a friend for a roommate or just somebody who would stay out of her way. I can be either of those or anything in between. Never mind that–I already have been both of those and everything in between for my roommates. I’m as open-minded as I possibly can be. It’s time for others to start opening their minds for me. I really don’t ask that much, just my own little corner. But some people will go to extraordinary lengths to deny me that just so that they won’t have to change even the tiniest, most insignificant thing about the way they live their lives. I hope they cease to exist.

2. People Who Just Like to Hear Themselves Talk

No, I do not consider myself one of these people. I don’t like to hear myself talk per se; I just do it a lot because no one ever listens to me, so I might as well. But I don’t feel like talking about that. I’d rather talk about New York. It’s a pretty crazy place that, if nothing else, helps me to better understand Jon Stewart’s humor. Just yesterday, or possibly the day before, three dead bodies were discovered in a car only a couple blocks from where I go to school. That’s pretty intense, and not the sort of thing that happened in my old neighborhood. Here’s a true story about the cops in my hometown: I was walking home one summer evening feeling very dejected when a couple of cops pulled over to ask if I was okay. Does anyone see that happening in New York? Well, maybe if I were black. The people here aren’t exactly friendly, but they are lively. Hopefully, I’ll develop the attitude necessary to fit in amongst them, given time. Right now, I’m almost broke and trying to make time to get down to the gym. I’m starting to sound narcissistic, so I’ll just move on to the next entry.

1. Reality TV Contestants

I think murder is too kind for these people. In all fairness, I’ve only ever seen bits and pieces of reality TV. Maybe I’ll watch RuPaul’s Drag Race someday. Maybe. I’m told it’s actually pretty funny. I just hate the idea of TV that can’t decide whether it’s fiction, fact, or something in between. They all strain so desperately to generate drama between their contestants that I can’t help but be repulsed by the very smell of them. I had a friend who wanted to be on Survivor. I don’t talk to her anymore. Maybe it’s a generalization to demonize everyone who has any sort of affection for the medium. But I honestly don’t think I’m jumping the gun in condemning a genre that I have little firsthand experience with. On principle, it bugs me. Documentary films are fine. There’s plenty of fine educational programming out there. Why do we need a format that tries to compress and distort real life into something that is dramatically palatable? I write about my own life all the time, but I have the benefit of not being a total whore. Yeah, maybe the contestants over on The Glee Project are nice people, but I’ll never know because I fucking hate Glee and refuse to watch anything associated with it. Most of reality TV fandom, as far as I can tell, consists of marveling at what unbelievable douchebags the people on the show are. I say fuck that. I’m not here to make friends.

On another note, this video is a hilarious parody of reality TV. It’s part of a longer series, which you should totally watch if you have any taste whatsoever.

Also, I don’t know why, but this video makes me want to have an orgy.

Voice of a Generation

I started watching Mad Men not too long ago. Shortly after that, I began watching Breaking Bad. Those two shows have nothing in common except that they share a network and are possibly the two most critically acclaimed dramas on television. Whether someone is more of a Breaking Bad person or a Mad Men person says a lot about their tastes. Do you like rich, deliberately-paced period pieces or fast-paced, compulsively watchable crime dramas? I’m more of a Mad Men person myself. To me, it’s a textbook example of great drama that does not feature likeable characters. They run the gamut from conflicted (Sal) to downright horrible (Roger Sterling.) But Breaking Bad bugs me. It’s not a bad show by any stretch. Bryan Cranston is phenomenal, and Jesse Pinkman just might be one of my favorite characters on TV. But I don’t like Walter White, and I get the impression I’m supposed to. I understand why he does what he does, and yeah, he’s more sympathetic than most drug dealers I’ve seen in fiction, but he’s still not a nice person. And I don’t think he’s trying to be.

Call me a moralizing asshole if you like, but I really don’t think I’d make the same decisions if I were in Walter White’s shoes. I just might be the kind of person who would rather die and leave his family with nothing than compromise his principles. Does that make me better than Walter White? Not necessarily, but there’s an undertone in Breaking Bad that glorifies its protagonist, seeing him as a tragic hero rather than a selfish-but-brilliant man who used his personal issues as an excuse to run roughshod over laws and human decency. I don’t approve of that. Of course, I don’t approve of what Don Draper does either, cheating on his wife simply because he can get away with it, but I don’t think I’m expected to. Mad Men is a non-judgmental show; Breaking Bad goes out of its way to avoid judging anyone.

Speaking of judgment, is anyone else tired of hearing Radiohead referred to as “the Beatles of our generation”? The Beatles weren’t a once-in-a-generation band, they were a once-in-a-century band. There is no band of this era that is comparable to them. It has nothing to do with taste. The Beatles aren’t my favorite band of all time, or even of their generation. I’d rather listen to The Who. But they spoke to people on a level that has not been equaled by any rock band before or since. That’s a fact. Radiohead does not match that. Nirvana didn’t either. And I really, really like Nirvana. This is not to say that Radiohead is not a great band. In Rainbows is easily one of my favorite albums of the last ten or fifteen years. If I had to pick a favorite of this generation, I’d probably go with Sigur Rós. What can I say? I like the ethereal stuff. So stop putting Radiohead up on a pedestal, everyone. They make speak for a lot of you, but they don’t speak for me.

It fascinates me how dependent so many artists’ popularity is on the time in which they rose. My father has often wondered aloud what would happen to Mozart if he were born today. A genius like him would stand out in any setting, but would he still write classical music? What about rock? Two of my favorite examples of this are Sam Kinison and Bill Hicks. Sam Kinison, roughly speaking, is the metal of standup comedy, screaming and yelling his way into the hearts of 80s audiences just like Metallica and Judas Priest. Bill Hicks was more confrontational, digging deep into the faults of late 80s/early 90s society and channeling it into one long, misanthropic screed. In that way, he’s like the grunge of his medium.

I want to make it clear that I’m not talking about who’s “better”. It’s absurd to pretend that one artist can be objectively “better” than another. You like what you like. All I’m trying to do is ask why people like what they like. Let me use just one more example. Every time a Studio Ghibli or Pixar movie comes out, critics argue over which animation studio is better. This does nothing but waste everyone’s time. Pixar movies are, well, more American than anything by Miyazaki. Miyazaki’s movies are more spiritual, having fewer pop culture references and less crude humor. One difference I have noticed is that in Miyazaki’s movies, the villains usually turn out to be decent people underneath it all. This has yet to happen in a Pixar film. In everything that I have seen by them, the villain is an irredeemable louse, willing to sell out their own mother if it means getting ahead. On one hand, this gives the audience more reason to hate them. On the other hand, it makes their characterization feel a bit one-dimensional. I’m not even going to tell you which animator I prefer. Why don’t you figure that out for yourself?

One of my favorite movies of all time is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Aside from featuring a tearjerker of an ending, a tightly-plotted nail-biter of a script, and a deliciously scenery-chewing villain, it features something unusual: a good performance from William Shatner. Apparently, the director forced him to retake every shot until he became bored with it, the result being that Shatner stopped hamming it up in his usual highly entertaining fashion and began to, well, act. If you haven’t seen the movie, you really should. It’s quite remarkable. What I like most about it is that for all of its brilliance, it’s still just a Star Trek movie, accessible to non-fans, but manna for Trekkies. It may not be for all tastes, but it’s just right for mine.