The Virtual Cocktail Napkin

Graduation

2011-12-20T21:10:00.000-08:00

I just got the official word today that I have finished my MFA degree with the University of Texas at El Paso. It has been at interesting process, and as with any worthy educational endeavor, it has changed my perspective as well as expanding my knowledge and skills. In many ways, it was similar to my experience in the MA program, in that the quality of the faculty far exceeded the reputation of the program (which ought to say something about the competitive nature of academic jobs in the humanities). Going through the process of writing my thesis, in particular, raised many questions about the effect of the "program" mentality on writing in general and why exactly writers feel the need to be validated in terms of educational credentials as well as publication. (Once you're writing a thesis, it feels too late to really ask such questions seriously; it seems just as easy to finish the degree.) But I am setting aside those questions for now and trying to enjoy the sense of accomplishment in finishing this degree, which is in one sense a "second master's" but in another sense an entirely different kind of degree -- a terminal degree that is perhaps supposed to signify that I am a much better writer than I am. But all writers -- or at least all writers of any worth -- are writers in progress, writers who are constantly working at their art and improving in complex ways. We have often seen the problems faced by famous writers once they accept their greatness; perhaps it is far better, artistically, to accept that one is always learning and striving toward greatness with the acute awareness of the elusiveness of this goal.

Peter Pan and his American cousin, Huck Finn

2011-10-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

This year marks the 100^th anniversary of the publication of Peter and Wendy, the novel by J.M. Barrie based on his earlier stage play (which was not put into text form until after the novel) and the basis of numerous versions of the Peter Pan story to follow. (An annotated version of the novel has been released to mark this anniversary.)

Peter Pan remains the ultimate Victorian-Edwardian fictional tribute to childhood, a story about a boy who won’t grow up and a story that reflects and comments on the very clear demarcation between the innocence and endless optimism of childhood and the serious and rigidly structured state of adulthood. Peter Pan, the mischievous and rebellious boy forever on the cusp of adolescence, embodies the adventurous and imaginative spirit of boyhood.

Yet, in the stage play and musical, the character of Peter Pan is usually played by a girl or woman, and the character of the father and Captain Hook are played by the same actor. Similarly, the Lost Boys and Wendy’s brothers are often played by girls. These kinds of choices, along with the fact that the girl protagonist, Wendy, plays a mother figure, give the story all kinds of strange Freudian undercurrents and a general sense of gender confusion. In the original play and novel (not the Disney film), Wendy and her brothers pay a side price for the act of putting of childhood. Aside from the idealistic yearnings for a childhood that lasts forever, the story in many ways comments on the special confusion of adolescence and the way in which we grow into our sexual identities.

A few years earlier, in the 1880s, Mark Twain released another book about a boyhood hero, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Unlike Peter, Huck Finn is distinctly male, an adolescent, tough boy hardened by living with an alcoholic father and having to survive on his own. He smokes a pipe and fishes with a bamboo fishing pole on the banks of the Mississippi River. Gender confusion do not figure into this realistically rendered story, although there is a humorous scene in which Huck dresses like a girl. Huck and Peter Pan also share a love of adventure and a fondness for the wilderness. But while Peter has difficult relationships with Wendy and women in general, Huck generally feels a fondness toward women and a shy kind of desire to please them.

A more important difference exists between the English Victorian creation of Peter Pan and the very American boy hero of Huckleberry Finn. While Peter Pan refuses to grow up, and while the story in general hangs on to sentimental notions about childhood, Huckleberry Finn sees himself put in a situation where he has to grow up. He has to learn to consider what is valuable to him and to question the mores of the corrupt society around him. He has to learn to accept the consequences of his actions and to do the right thing to help a friend, even if that means he is doing the wrong thing according to the rest of society. Huck Finn must learn that sometimes being an adult isn’t easy and can be pretty confusing, almost as confusing as being an adolescent.

Of course, in spite of Victorian sentiments to the contrary, we know that childhood is not always an easy time and comes with its own confusing moments. Most Victorians also knew this, and indeed they lived in a society in which child labor and poverty had become side effects of the industrial age. Perhaps Victorians sentimentalized childhood as a way of protecting children in a symbolic sense, to reassure themselves that things were not as bad as they appeared.

Mark Twain also sentimentalized childhood to a point, especially in his first boyhood classic, the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But in Huck Finn, Twain became more honest in his assessment of childhood and considered the special pain of adolescence as a time when one wrestles not just with gender identity but with a whole host of other issues central to one’s moral and intellectual identity. With Huck, Twain created the American counterpart to the English romantic heroes beloved by Tom Sawyer. Huck is adventurous, yes, but his adventures are full of real danger and serious consequences, not the stuff of pixie dust and daydreams.

Open Minds Quarterly

2011-09-13T11:02:00.001-07:00

I have just had an essay published in the Summer 2011 issue of this journal, which focuses on stories and poems involving the survival of mental illness. Although the essay cannot be read online, I wanted to give the journal and its fine sponsoring organization a plug, anyway.

9/11 Poetry

2011-09-07T12:31:00.001-07:00

Recently I was asked to participate in a commemorative ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and I began researching poems in hopes of finding something that we could include in the event. While I did not manage to find an appropriate poem, it was interesting reading through a lot of the poems inspired by that day.

Many of the 9/11-inspired poems, especially the most well-known and well regarded poems like "Photograph from September 11 by Wislawa Szymborska, focus on the memory of bodies falling from the sky, those visual images of men and women in business attire jumping from the burning buildings, in a sense "choosing" certain death over the hell of destruction (although it's a mistake to think of it as a choice at all).

I wrote a short story that also touches on these particular images, so I understand why they're compelling and why they linger in the mind. In a very real way, creative writing, and especially poetry, says what we cannot otherwise say. To paraphrase one expert on the subject, poems exist to explain themselves.

These 9/11 poems meditate on the haunting images of falling bodies, because what else besides poetry can really do these memories justice, even if poetry itself remains inadequate? Only poetry can explain the unexplainable, something so grief-inducing and moving as the sight of those people leaping into oblivion. We can never get used to the images of those falling bodies, so all we can really do is write poems that try to capture that bottomless feeling of seeing these people, the sickening grief and boundless compassion that we felt as we saw the images and realized what we were seeing. We would have done anything, but we can do nothing, and so we turn to art and poetry.

Foreign Films

2011-08-26T08:03:00.001-07:00

I just finished watching a beautifully eerie Russian movie called The Return, and it got me thinking about why I love foreign movies so much. I generally watch these movies by myself, since most people, even if they like the occasional foreign movie, tend to get a little bit restless at the thought of sitting through some unknown film that involves the tedious task of reading subtitles. Of course, one of the reasons I like foreign movies is because I find the subtitles themselves appealing; I have substandard hearing and have a particularly difficult time with voices. Foreign movies are a very practical alternative for someone with my level of hearing loss.

Yet that remains only a small, superficial aspect of my taste for foreign films. I enjoy the practicality of subtitles, but I also enjoy taking in the subtitles as bits of written language. In that sense, foreign films become mixed-media art forms, combining the visual and auditory images with the printed word as it appears on the screen. To love foreign films, you must also love reading and language; reading the closed captions of an English-language film can involve some of this pleasure, but foreign films transcend the clarity of that experience.

Foreign films take film to a different poetic level, in which the viewer (unless he or she is fluent in the language) hears the words only as pure sound, even while he or she also absorbs the visual, active imagery of the film and the separate level of poetry as represented by the subtitles on the screen. Viewing a foreign film becomes a multifaceted, complex experience, akin to hearing a poem read for the first time, and then reading it again and again for meaning. With a foreign film, however, this experience is compressed, so that we heard sound and see image even as more literal meanings unfold in front of us. Film in any language can approximate this experience, but I believe in foreign film it can be seen in its purest sense.

Of course, I also like foreign films for the more commonly expressed reason that foreign films do not shy away from complex and ambiguous endings in the way that American films do, and for the fact that so many foreign film cultures seem more amenable to meandering plots and poetic expressions of human conflict. I like foreign films because they are different, after all; by exploring and probing difference, we can discover those truths that lie beneath all human experience.

GFW (Gym-Floss-Writing)

2010-11-30T17:41:00.000-08:00

I am embarrassed to admit it, but the SO and I recently watched an unhealthy number of episodes of the "reality" show "Jersey Shore" (insert usual excuses for watching reality TV here -- I enjoy laughing at these horrible people, etc.).

Say what you want to about the Jersey Shore crew, but I would like to suggest that the boys' regimen of "GTL" (Gym-Tan-Laundry) borders on genius. Yes, it's simplistic and superficial, and it serves as a testament to the fact that these guys only care about how they look and how much they score. Yet there is something elegant in its simplicity, something Zen-like in its approach to life.
"Gym-Tan-Laundry." That's it. That may not be your formula for a happy life, but it is the formula that works for Pauly D, the Sitch, and that other guy. It is said that Buddhist monks always make their beds, while the rest of us dismiss this practice as a waste of time, since we're "just going to sleep in it again anyway." Yet monks understand that routine serves as a kind of meditation, and living a well-ordered life helps us to keep our thoughts organized and our brains on the right track. I think the Sitch and Pauly D. (let's face it, that other guy doesn't count) understand the beauty of such simplicity.

I have adopted my own regimen of simplicity, which includes "Gym" but otherwise focuses on some other values more in keeping with my own life-stage and priorities. We all need to go to the gym, even if we may not work the Abs in the same way that the Situation does. But tanning is not something I'm interested in, and I am blessed to have laundry mostly taken care of. My other priorities, then, are "flossing" and "writing." Every day that I go to the gym, floss, and write, I feel better about myself and my life. As Susan Sontag said (and I'm paraphrasing), writing is the only thing I do where I don't feel like I'm wasting my time, and the same could be said of the gym. Keeping healthy keeps you going. It's never something you should "have to" make time for. As for flossing -- well, I've resisted it for a long time, but I must say, you get to liking it when you do it, and it was nice to be complimented by the hygienist for the first time in my life. You only get issued one set of adult teeth, so it's best to do what you can to preserve them.

GFW, baby.

Expressions I Hate

2010-08-09T17:03:00.000-07:00

These expressions should be avoided because they're cliches, but they're also particularly annoying just in terms of the kind of worldview they represent:

"Everything happens for a reason."
"God only gives us what we can handle."
"What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger."
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"True love never dies."
OK, now you give me yours ...

The Soloist

2010-07-13T05:43:00.000-07:00

The other night I watched The Soloist, a pretty good movie with Robert Downey, Jr., that I had hoped to go see when it was out in the theaters but never did. It's a movie about a cellist who ends up homeless, but more importantly it's a movie about a relationship, a friendship between two men. The title takes on certain existential hues in that light, since the difficult nature of the relationship raises the question, "Just how alone are we in this life?"

Watching the movie by myself reminded me of when I was a teenager and had rented The Color Purple to watch with a girl. Looking back, it was certainly an odd choice, but this girl was particularly annoyed with me because she said I always watched depressing movies and that probably made me more depressed. I could have launched into a lecture on the complex nature of art, and how what is seen as depressing is often just dark and reflective of man's essential inhumanity to man, because after all, what does a happy story tell you? What does it teach you?

But I think it was more correct to say that I liked (and like) depressing movies because of some version of the malady known as anhedonia that I have inside myself -- basically an inabililty to enjoy oneself when you know others are suffering.

Parts of the movie reminded me of myself in other odd ways, such as the fact that the RDJ character is divorced and doesn't want anybody to rely on him because he'll just end up disappointing them. A pretty sorry excuse when you hear it from somebody else. At the end of the movie, too, after the RDJ character angers the Jamie Fox character (the cellist), he says, "Hey, friends piss each other off sometimes, right?" It's such a simple line with real resonance that says something about the nature of friendship, I think. It seems I've pissed people off in the past and not been able to come back from that, and I think that's unfortunate. Because friends do piss each other off, if they're honest sometimes.

WorldFest International Film Festival

2010-04-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

My screenplay The Moon Illusion was awarded a bronze Remi award for romantic comedy at the 43rd WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. While this isn't an especially impressive ranking, WorldFest is a competitive festival that attracts submissions from all over the globe. There were 50 entries in my category alone, and organizers say only 15% of entries win Remis. At any rate, I'm honored to be recognized and to be a part of this important festival in my small way.

Quicksilver 2.1

2010-03-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

The latest issue of Quicksilver 2.1 is now live. The third issue features writing by Cathy Carr, KJ Hays, and J. David Bell.

Zygote in My Coffee

2010-01-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

A really cool online publication called Zygote in My Coffee just accepted a poem of mine called "Portrait of a Woman I Never Loved." The poem should be in issue #131, due out in March. This magazine has been around a while and they also publish a print edition. The graphics and overall style of Zygote remind me of the old zines from the 80s and 90s, so I'm proud to be a part of that scene. It's especially gratifying that such a hipster-type publication would agree to use a poem from this old man. Please visit the site and check out all the quality writing.

New Jersey Poets

2009-11-16T17:02:00.000-08:00

I recently found out that of poem of mine is going to be published in the Journal of New Jersey Poets. I'm proud to be a part of this worthy and unusual journal, which only publishes poets with some connection to New Jersey. New Jersey, of course, has produced some of the country's finest poets, including the original American everyman, Walt Whitman. As it turns out, I was born in Camden, N.J. (which, coincidentally, was written up in the 1970s as the worst city in America due its thriving drug trade and abject urban poverty) -- hence my eligibility for this journal. It's rewarding and satisfying to experience this connection to Jersey again after so many decades in Texas. Because I was born in New Jersey, I will never be considered a "Texan" by many of the residents here, but, like Whitman, I think I'd rather celebrate the beauty of moving around this great country rather than being identified with a single place and culture.

The Zen of Being Annoyed and Restless

2009-10-05T20:22:00.001-07:00

For the past 30 or 40 years, Eastern philosophy -- in the form of a lightly digested stew of various bits of Buddhism -- has enjoyed a special exalted status in the United States. Most thinking individuals accept Eastern philosophy as an admirable and perhaps more efficient route to inner enlightenment and peace.

Although I'm an admirer and casual student of Eastern philosophies and religion as well, I find some problems with fitting these approaches to the Western mindset. Once, when I was working for the newspaper, I said to a coworker about a certain problem that I was "trying to be Zen about it." She replied with, "Zen doesn't try. It just is."

Fine. Then, just a few days ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about not being entirely satisfied with my life and looking for ways to change it. He said, "the Eastern approach would be to accept and appreciate where you are." Or something to that effect.

I snapped back with, "Yes, but I'm not Eastern. I'm Western."

I wasn't trying to be Western-centric, just point out that perhaps a philosophy from around the world doesn't exactly fit the problems and concerns of a Western citizen. It turns out I may be right. According to some theories by scientists working in geneticis, there is something that can be characterized as "American DNA," because of a certain concentration of gene cells in our country. We are a nation of immigrants, as the saying goes, meaning we are a nation of people with a tendency to take changes and set out for new things. We are restless and bored and always seeking new ways to better our situation. Or at least our ancestors were.

It can be inconvenient to be restless and easily dissatisfied, but it has its advantages as well. The American individualist spirit has fostered some of the most amazing developments in arts and sciences the world has ever seen. Maybe the stereotype of the "ugly American" has some truth to it -- we are loud and too sure of ourselves -- but we also know we'll keep improving ourselves and not be satisfied with whatever life hands us.

Quicksilver 1.2

2009-05-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

The new issue of Quicksilver is now live. The issue includes essays by Wendy Freedman and Michael Berberich, as well as a nice collection of fiction and poetry and some photos by UCHL prof. Leo Chan.

New Joke Book

2009-05-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

The pocket edition of the Titanic Joke Book is now available. This is a streamlined, more attractive and less expensive version of the earlier book. We are going for volume here, as we are still working on making up for the money we paid the original cartoonist. Please buy. Thanks.

Jobs I have had: A List

2009-04-29T11:19:00.000-07:00

In no particular order and for no particular reason:

community college English instructor
adjunct university instructor
newspaper reporter and entertainment writer
newspaper copy editor
newspaper book reviewer
bridge caddy
substitute teacher -- all grades
independent telephone-book delivery man (two days)
courier
landscaping and sprinkler-installation worker
high-school journalism teacher
technical editor
scholarly journal editor
summer camp counselor, bus driver, rock-climbing teacher, and adventure director
newsletter editor
freelance magazine writer
video script writer
Miller's Outpost seasonal employee
public relations writer
unpaid wedding photographer (beginning at age 10, when I took Polaroid photos at my mom's second wedding ... exactly one photo came out).

Quicksilver Literary Magazine

2008-12-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

The first issue of Quicksilver, which I help to edit, is now live. Here’s the link:

http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=55407

Writers as "Experience Junkies"

2008-11-30T16:54:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, a friend of mine characterized writers as "experience junkies." Her point at the time was that writers tend to be self-destructive in pursuing relationships, vices, and other singular interests without giving enough consideration to the consequences of these actions. A writer might start a fist fight or date someone he doesn't particularly like just because these can be interesting ways to pass the time. This is the Jack London and Ernest Hemingway school of writing, and while it may be a cliche, it raises intriguing questions about the need of a writer to see and experience the world in order to be able to write about it.

Although most writers are not "type A" personalities and do not require excessive adrenaline stimulation to be happy, they might follow these self-destructive paths simply for the value of the experience. Writers are not known for being particularly happy, after all, so why shouldn't they at least experience interesting things? The idea is to suffer and take good notes while suffering.

I'm not sure I subscribe to this way of thinking. At any rate, I'm sure I'm not self-destructive in the same way that so many of these famous writers have been. Maybe in some ways I am an "experience junkie," but I'm a junkie who has successfully made the switch to methadone.

Of course, life influences fiction, but fiction also shapes life. As Cary Tennis, one of the more poetically inclined advice columnists, observed: “A novel forces its characters to live through whatever it is. That is the great cruel power of the artist: To force his characters to live through whatever he chooses for them.”

Advice You Can Use

2008-10-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

I don't know what made me think of this, but a few years ago, before Katrina, I was visiting New Orleans with a random group of friends and acquaintances. We were drinking beer before lunch one day when this one girl, whom I had just met that day, advised me to pour my beer into a glass before drinking it. This would, she assured me, help to prevent gas and thus enable me to enjoy my beer without gastrointestinal interruption.

A few months later, I found out this same girl was killed after she smashed her car into a tree off the highway.

I guess what I'm saying is this: Be cautious in life, but be cautious about the right things.

By way of disclaimer: I don't mean to trivialize the death of this young woman, who was a lovely enough girl as I remember. This story just came out of nowhere to bug me today, after several years of hiding in the obscurity of passing memory. Anyway, I think of her in a vague way every time I pour a beer into a glass, which is not something I was in the habit of doing before. Maybe it was pretty good advice after all.

Up at 6 a.m. -- here's a poem

2008-08-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

Light from Other Rooms

The glow of electric light
fills in the house shadow’s
as you wander from room to room
a walking midnight ghost upon
the floor
drifting through carpeted corridors
of our suburban brickhouse manor
I lie upon the mattress stiff and flat
listening for the noise of the electric light
not the click of the switch
the turning of the light-tide
but another sound, the soft wash
of electric-light particle waves
splashing rhythmically upon the beach
of our own mutual undoing
digging watery trenches in the
vanilla sand until the
flick of the switch when you leave the hall
in cloaking darkness a ghostly
puddle in the hallway from where
the light has fallen down, its energy
drained, its illuminated promise vanishing
into the ordinary gray darkness.

On Turning 40

2008-08-19T07:46:00.000-07:00

I turn 40 in January. I'm certainly not as troubled about turning 40 as I was about turning 30, having given up a lot of delusions since then, but I can't say I like it either. Just a few years ago, I was a part of the venerated 18-35 advertising "youth" demographic, the generation everyone wants to cater to or be a part of; in just a few months, I'll be in the legally protected, "over 40" demographic that gets good insurance rates and discounts on root canals. Right now, I'm in the dreaded "in between."

Just for kicks, here's a list of writers who died before or just after turning 40: Flannery O'Connor, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sylvia Plath. I guess it's not safe to a be a naturalist of a gothicist.

Why can't a story just be a story?

2008-08-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

The other day in class, I was giving my students an introduction to the Tennessee Williams's play "Streetcar Named Desire." I started talking about how a streetcar is essentially a conveyance that goes in circles, symbolically implying the journey that goes round and round but never gets anywhere. Naturally, I said, this ties in symbolically with the name of the streetcar ("Desire") and how the desire and passion of these people's lives keeps them on this circular journey that goes through "Cemeteries" and ends at "Elysian Fields."

One of my students interrupted and asked, "But how can you say it means all this when he could have just named the streetcar 'Desire' because that was the name of the streetcar in the neighborhood?"

I should be used to questions like this from students, who always want to know why we have to "read so much" into plays, poems, and stories. But I sort of lost my patience, admittedly without losing my smile, and responded, "Because it's never just what it is. Tennessee Williams is a playwright interested in deeper connections. His work, like all literature, is interesting because it works out of these traditions and is rich with metaphor, symbolism, and allusion. Williams isn't writing journalism, after all."

Is that a good enough answer? Maybe not. It is frustrating, when you love literature, to answer these types of questions from people who believe a story should just be enjoyed and quickly forgotten. But good stories, stories with staying power, usually do more than provide simple diversion or voyeuristic thrill.

Tennessee Williams is not known for his subtle symbolism, which is why he's a good choice for young readers just beginning to learn the value of analysis and close reading. If the streetcar isn't supposed to mean something besides just being a streetcar, why does Williams focus on it so much? Why does it keep coming up in the dialogue? ("Haven't you ridden on that streetcar?") Why not just have Blanche arrive in a taxi cab with no name at all?

Fiction and Truth

2008-06-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

Writers are inspired by real life, of course, including people they've known and the tragedies and triumphs they have witnessed. People sometimes accuse fiction writers of relying too heavily on reality, in the mistaken belief that they ought to be inventing everything out of thin air if they want to call their work fiction. But writers don't present "reality" without alteration. They turn things around and mix things up -- so that people who never met in real life are suddenly lovers, and events that took place years apart are suddenly on the same day. Ironically, in distoring and rearranging reality, they hope to achieve truth. Writing is the "reimagining" of reality.

Diary of a Madman

2008-06-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

Ozzy Osbourne titled one of his albums "Diary of Madman," I think. But isn't every diary that of a madman, really? What else but madness would compel someone to record his innermost thoughts and fears, in the hopes that anyone else would care? Isn't writing fiction in essence an act of madness, the inexplicable and hopeless urge to make sense of life, to force the past into a kind of neat pattern that is aesthestically and artistically pleasing? To believe you can impose such order on chaos is a mild madness surely, but to think anyone would care is sheer insanity.

Home Movies

2008-06-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was reading a book about writing fiction, and the author suggested that writers who don't face their fears aren't really accomplishing what they need to as writers. They aren't going all the way, so to speak.

At first, I couldn't think of what it is I fear. I fear so many and so few things at the same time.
Later that night, while attempting to organize some boxes at my house, I recognized one of my fears, packed away safely in that spare room: my fear of the past. For almost 8 years now, I have paid for a small storage room just across the block from my house. It has been filled with miscellaneous bits of camping equipment and boxes of tax records, photos, home movies, and other junk not worth the cost of storage. It occurred to me tonight, as I was going through some of this stuff, that instead of storage, I was really paying for the convenience of not having to look at or otherwise deal with these memories. Just looking at the labels of the video tapes (home movies) filled me with a sense of dread and self-loathing regrets.

As I sorted through these boxes, I came very close to throwing away most of the home movies without watching them, because I figured that would be both painful and unproductive. What is the good of home movies anyway, unless the whole family stays together and they can be enjoyed nostalgically? Inevitably, someone will end up appearing on screen who has either died or disappeared for good.

Something about one of the video compilations caught my eye, though, so I decided to plug it into the VCR and see what I would be throwing away. As I watched the forgotten home movies spin like colorful and distant memories on the TV screen, I realized what the fiction-writing expert meant about facing your fears. Rather than simply feeling depressed or miserable while watching these images, I felt deep stirrings within, coupled with a renewed desire to write. On the TV screen I watched strange pictures of rooms in houses I no longer own, filled with furniture and other belongings that have long since disappeared. There were amazingly beautiful mountain vistas in Alaska, and some stunning images of my sister Wendy at age 20 or so – that film alone is worth saving the video for.

The videos were much higher quality than I expected, but more importantly, the settings and people gave rise to many ideas for writing, unexplored settings and situations that I had been avoiding (and missing out on) by neglecting my past. I must admit I've been in a funk since watching these videos, but I think it's a "good" funk, a sign of being alive and attached to my own life.

PS. For those of you paying attention, my blog on myspace will now duplicate what is posted here.

Gone Hollywood

2008-04-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

I have finished with the latest version of my screenplay, titled The Moon Illusion. I say the "latest version," because when it comes to screenplays, additional revision is always possible. The story concerns a NASA psychologist who falls for the woman he hires to take care of his troubled daughter. Naturally, it's set in the Clear Lake area, and although it is primarily a romantic comedy, it has some darker elements related to the main character dealing with the death of his wife.

I have no big illusions about selling the screenplay, although I intend to give it my best shot. I would be happy if an independent company took interest, and I am resigned to the possibility that any production company will maim my script beyond recognition. That's just the way it goes sometimes. I would just love to see my characters on screen.

This is the longest fictional piece I've written, since I mostly focus on short fiction, and it was an amazing experience to live with the characters for so long. I finally understand what many writers mean when they talk about characters coming to life and taking the story in new directions. I would not go so far as to pretend the writer is not in control, but it is a very mysterious process and an almost mystical event when your characters seem to "take over" and the story ends up going in directions you hadn't planned.

I've also started marketing my short horror-comedy script, titled "Electric Chainsaw Slaughterhouse," even though I had planned to make that one on my own. I decided I was juggling too many writing projects and graduate studies to really focus on making a decent short video film, and I know enough about the process to know it's a lot of work with not much payoff. I'd be glad to let someone else make it, though, using my script.

For now, more coffee and on with new writing projects.

What I've Learned

2008-03-26T14:12:00.001-07:00

I assigned this as an exercise in my creative writing class. It's based on the Esquire Magazine feature. My colleague got a published poem out of this exercise.

Here's my list:

1. The less money you make, the more likely it is you'll have to spend a lot of time justifying your salary.
2. Smoke all you want; just don't pretend it's not bad for you.
3. I am not ashamed to drink light beer. Most beer snobs remind me of Dungeons and Dragons players anyway.
4. Anybody who complains that people are only interested in looks should not be too interested in looks.
5. Almost everybody feels inadequate in some way.
6. Computers don't make writing easier; they make rewriting easier.
7. Watching the local TV news never helped anyone.
8. Beer and ice cream go well together.
9. The serial comma is a wonderful thing.
10. People are generally unsympathetic to the pain of divorced men. When a woman gets divorced, people ask her, "What did he do?" When a men gets divorced, people ask him, "What did you do?"
11. Every man should own a convertible at least once.
12. You can cause a lot of misery by trying not to hurt people.
13. Most of what we really learn we learn on our own. The best teachers don't pour knowledge into our heads; they help us to see that learning is possible and how best to learn.
14. There is no work like getting behind a shovel and digging.
15. Everybody is manipulative is some way. Some are just better at it than others.
16. The only real unconditional love is a parent's love for child.
17. A lot of people don't listen so much as wait for an opportunity to talk.
18. Young people think they know more than anyone else. And they're right.
19. I don't like people and peole don't like me, so it work out OK -- except when I need a ride to the airport.
20. We won't find answers by exploring space. The answers are already here.

In My Dreams

2008-01-23T21:36:00.000-08:00

Many of us boast special powers in our dreams. We can fly, or run fast, or swim underwater for long periods. We may have the ability to fight, to see into the future, or to play the guitar without having learned how.

I have a special power in my dreams. In my dreams I am communicative. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. I can bare my soul without fear of embarassment or humiliation. I can express emotion without fear of rejection. I can love without fear of loss.

Many writers have suggested a connection between dreaming and writing. Dreams are a form of subconsious storytelling, and they may also inspire writers with ideas or interesting dialogue. For me, the connection runs even more deeply. Dreaming is writing because it gives voice to my thoughts and allows me to be who I really want to be. I look forward to dreaming just as I look forward to those times when I am truly lost in my writing. It is a kind of semi-conscious awareness in which thoughts are permitted to flow freely and without interpretation or editing. Maybe dreaming is a kind of rough draft for life. We try things out, and then when we're awake, we begin the tedious process of revision.

Why Writing Matters

2008-01-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when I was younger, people at parties would ask me, "Why are you so quiet?" Usually they would ask this ask this in a very loud voice, as if quietness somehow disturbed or annoyed them. There must be something wrong with you, their query seemed to suggest, if you were not as loud as they were.

Of course, I watned to respond, "Why are you so loud?" And I still believe that it's wiser, to paraphrase Mark Twain, to be suspected to be a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. People who talk very little often, when they do talk, have something worthwhile to say.

I'm not suggesting I'm all that wise. What I do know is that writing in particular has given me a voice, given me the opportunity to speak out and be heard in the noisy crowd of the ongoing party we call the human race. As the youngest in my family for many years, I was often given the opportunity to speak up much. I turned inward and became known for being "imaginative" and "able to entertain myself." Back then, I focused my imagination on created towns of little wooden people and Matchbox cars. Now, or at least when I'm "in the zone," I find that outlet in writing.

The voice is real, especially if one chooses to seek publication, which is probably not as hard as it's made out to be. Many people write, but how many actually take the chance of sending material out to be read and rejected? Taking that chance just might get you somewhere, and you also might learn something. Whereas I made have had a hard time being heard in my own family, and later in my own house, I was able to be heard (or read) by thousands when I published my first piece in the newspaper.

It's a mysterious thing to be read by hundreds or thousands of people you've never met. It's also an important part of the writing process, in that it completes the circle of communication. True, you can write poems and stories for yourself and find this very rewarding. But writing is meant to be read, and what the reader brings to the equation is equally mysterious. In some ways, the writer never really experiences what he has written, because he is not the true reader. The reader completes the artistic process, and adds his or her own perceptions, biases, and imagination. This is what makes writing so different from, say, filmmaking or visual art. The writer or poet works with words, but he also works with the abstractions and ideas these words represent.

Writing gives voice to those thoughts and ideas. Writing gives voice to the quiet.

Hold the Ice, Please

2007-11-22T07:06:00.000-08:00

Here's an article I wrote for MD magazine. Yes, this is a real newsstand magazine as well as an online site. The semi-satirical magazine celebrates guilt-free imbibing with a style reminiscient of the 1960s cocktail generation. Disclaimer: This site not for those under 21. Please be responsible and careful when partaking.

http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/issues/53/53_hold_the_ice.html

Why People Steal Music

2007-11-02T07:32:00.001-07:00

This is why the music industry is collapsing: While they fail to secure the electronic distribution rights of older music, they try to make up for phantom lost profits by bundling hit songs with duds into "album purchase only" packages. It is no wonder people steal songs. The MBAs who run these music companies are missing the point of electronic music, I think. Nobody is interested in "albums" anymore (I don't think anybody has been since the artistry of the LP was replaced by the plasticky awkwardness of CD packaging.)

The back catalogs of the following artists are not available on iTunes, as revealed by my recent futile searches:

Def Leppard
Bob Seger
AC/DC

I'm sure there's more to come. When an industry fails to cater to the (admittedly pretty bad) tastes of someone like me, someone who is willing to pay for individual songs from the classic rock era, it writes its own death certificate.

Don't even get me started on the new iTunes-Starbucks partnership.

Bad Punctuation All Around Us

2007-10-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

A colleague sent this link to a blog cataloguing instances of a certain pet peeve of mine:

http://www.apostropheabuse.com/

This reminded me of a bad business idea I once had: When I see mistakes like this on signs and menus (apostrophe mistakes seem to be the most common –- and for some reason, the most annoying), I would send the business manager a letter with a correction and explanation. Then I would ask the manager or owner to send me a dollar or two as a token of his immense gratitude. (I guess this would be the editing equivalent of taking photos of tourists with the expectation that they’ll buy the photo afterward. )

As a business idea, it’s horrible, which I suppose is why I’m not in business.

Ask me about my other business ideas sometime. (I don't know who I'm talking to. No one reads my blog.)

On Irony

2007-10-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

There's always the danger in being ironic and/or sarcastic that someone will mistake your intent. So let me take this opportunity to explain that the post below about watching TV on the Internet was written in jest. Thank you.

I was going to write a diatribe about the difference between irony and sarcasm, but I'm trying to be less didactic and more succinct in my posts (both here and in my on-line class, where I'm afraid I've become the virtual equivalent of the geek in the front of the class who always raises his hand and then talks for 15 minutes.

In the Coffee Shop

2007-10-14T14:20:00.001-07:00

So I'm sitting in the coffee shop, trying to get some writing and grading done, and the barrista (like that word, don't you?) is sitting on a stool watching the football game. He's actually cheering at the television. Aren't coffee shops supposed to be quiet places for nerds like me to read and write things like this? Is this a coffee sports bar? Maybe I should have just gone to Hooters.

Pocahontas and John Smith

2007-09-13T07:43:00.000-07:00

My American lit class engaged in an interesting activity today. We watched portions of some film versions of the John Smith-Pocahontas story to supplement the reading of Smith's journal, and then they had some group discussion on the significance of the enduring Pocahontas legend. I have some thoughts of my own.

The most interesting angle to me is that latter versions of the story (not Smith's own version) introduce the idea of a romantic relationship between Smith and Pocahontas. This fanciful, Hollywood spin on the legend in part simply makes for a better story, as it extends and complicates their entanglement, and it makes the story more enjoyable as a romantic encounter across language and cultural barriers. People love a good love story, and sex sells.

Still, it seems to me that it serves a larger, more metaphorical purpose. The idea that Smith's own story of Pocahontas saving him serves colonial ends in suggesting a peaceful coexistence between Natives and English is well established, but why eroticize the story? In oversimplified terms, the love story symbolizes the romance between England and the New World. Just as many English poets and early travel writers speak of the New World continents in terms that suggest the female body, so Pocahontas becomes a living, breathing representation of this female continent, willingly taken by the English male explorer. (In latter-day, postcolonial literature, this relationship would be likened more to rape.) It deepens and complicates the connections between England and the New World, just as John Smith and other early colonialists hoped to extend and deepend England's commitment to settling the New World.

Bring Back Faculty Parking

2007-09-11T07:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had to park about a quarter-mile from my office. I teach afternoons and evenings on Mondays, so by the time I arrived, the campus parking lot was full to the perimeters. Like many community colleges, in some kind of vague notion of the idealization of egalitarian values, we have no designated faculty parking where I work.

"What's wrong with that?," I suppose you're asking. Why shouldn't faculty have to walk like everyone else? They're not special.

I beg to differ for the following reasons. For one thing, faculty members have to tote multiple bags to work every day, including but not limited to laptop computers, books and other reading materials, graded papers and exams, and other teaching props and tools. Many also must carry their lunch, since they don't make enough money or have enough time to eat out every day. Students generally have one knapsack with a couple of books and a notebook. When you work somewhere for 20 years, it's a nice perk to not have to walk the length of two football fields to get to your office from your parking space.

I also dispute the notion that faculty are not worthy of special treatment when it comes to parking. The hierarchal structure that esteems faculty and others is a system that has worked for hundreds of years; it helps to instill respect in younger people as well as a sense of envy. This envy, with any luck, is part of what drives to succeed. Parking is a symbolic benefit, really, but it's symbolic of what you achieve when you put in the hard work and time required to receive an education. If all the benefits are yours to start with, what's the point?

Good parking is also a no-cost and easy-to-facilitate benefit for employees. It's a way of bestowing reward on your employees and faculty members just for being loyal and hard workers. At Google and other young Internet companies, employees receive such perks as free massages, nap time, cook-to-order meals, and in-office gym facilities. Surely a decent parking space is not so much to ask.

Granted, when I was a student at UT in Austin, I got pretty irked seeing all the empty faculty spaces when student parking was for all practical purposes non-existent. But then, I was 18, so what did I know? Not much.

Disclaimer: It occurs to me that people get in trouble for posting about work. I want to state for the record that the above post is not meant to reflect poorly on my employer. This is a general trend with colleges everywhere.

Watching TV on the Internet

2007-09-06T18:44:00.000-07:00

Technology is amazing. Just 10 years ago, if I had wanted to watch television, I would have had to drag myself into the living room, find the remote control, find a place to sit on the couch, turn the TV on, and find something to watch on only 36 channels of cable television. The picture was great, but the sound quality was mediocre at best.

Now, with the advent of the Internet, I can, with the aid of my $1,000 laptop computer and $50 Internet access, enjoy television from the comfort of my $79 Office Depot secretarial chair. True, the picture's a lot smaller and the quality's a bit granier (or as we say in the technology biz, more pixelated) than my old television, and sometimes the video just stops because the connection isn't fast enough. But the main point is that I'm watching TV on the Internet! How cool is that? It's the magic of the World Wide Web. Technology has made all sort of incredible things possible, and watching TV at my desk is just one of them.

Programming has improved substantially as well, at least in terms of quantity. First of all, I don't have to read any news, because now most of the news links or headlines lead to video feeds of news stories from cable TV. I can get the same high-quality, in-depth news coverage on my computer as I used to get on the best television cable channels. I'm no longer limited to network entertainment, and I'm no longer chained to the button-down primetime TV schedule. At any time of day, hell, even in the middle of the night, I can just bring up YouTube and watch thousands upon thousands of low-cost entertainment without all the pretensions of network TV.

The other day, someone also told me that you could listen to the radio on the Internet. Wow. I'm going to have to check that out. That would really save me a lot of time and money!

What is Comedy?

2007-09-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

Comedy is saying that which is not meant to be said, or saying what everybody's thinking but is afraid to say.

Comedy ends happily, but may take tragic turns along the way.

Comedy is about incongruity.

Comedy may bring about laughter from surprise or from fulfilling wicked expectations.

Low-brow comedy is smart in the same way that rock music is smart: it doesn't pretend to be anything beyond what it is.

In general, funny people do not proclaim themselves to be funny. They may know they are funny, in fact they probably do, but they don't say it. Saying it kills the comedy.

Comedy defensive driving is a contradiction in terms, but still not as bad as regular defensive driving.

Comedy is laughing at the absurdity and tragedy of life. It's laughing in order to avoid crying.

On the Memory of Princess Di (a poem)

2007-08-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

On the Memory of Princess Di

my girlfriend and I
had an argument

whose death
had a bigger impact?

Princess Diana

or Mr. Hooper
you know,
the white-whiskered, bespectacled
beloved storekeeper on Sesame Street

Diana helped millions
she said
was loved by
all except him
(and who cares about him?)
embodied
beauty and grace
truly
the People’s Princess

Yeah
I said
but
when
Mr. Hooper died
it made Big Bird cry

and that was one
big fucking canary.

Not a Problem

2007-08-30T10:08:00.001-07:00

I've started this blog as a place to post my writing, including a few published pieces and a lot more of stuff that I don't know what to do with otherwise. This can include essays that are not very marketable, screwy little poems, and, like the millions of other blogs out there, general musings and rants.

Let me start with my standard rant about "not a problem." This has now all but replaced "you're welcome" when the conversation in question includes a waiter. They bring you a bottle of ketchup, you say "thank you," and they say "no problem," or "not a problem."

I realize they don't mean anything bad by this, and in fact are trying to be polite, but why would it be a problem? Isn't this just a subtle way of saying, "Hey, it could have been a problem, but I went out of my way for you. So I agree you should be thanking me."